Among the many indicators of client satisfaction is a project wrap-up lunch with
those who have retained you for services.
The positive feedback that matches affirming evaluations is even better
when the subject turns to them giving you humorous—and useful—advice about
marriage!
Personally, I am appreciative of the Michigan Works! Muskegon-Oceana’s leadership team
sharing the impact of the Progress Strategies+ Diversity, Inclusion and Equity
Team’s Unity of Purpose: Facilitating Intercultural and Inclusion
Development cultural competency training.
Furthermore, I took great acceptance of some pre-wedding advice!
In
the last blog entry I introduced Michigan Works! Muskegon-Oceana’s mission of
preparing people for meaningful work, wages and careers. They are among the best in such work. Furthermore, they have a brave willingness in transcending diversity and moving towards the complexity of cultural competency to effectively serve each other as colleagues and their clients. Our human community is already diverse and
will continue to grow in that diversity.
What we miss often is how the variety of cultural preferences, dimensions and hidden
norms of diverse people connects or conflicts with the workplace and community.
Michigan Works! Muskegon-Oceana and the 52 staff participants are on a great path to ensure that they
are not missing a thing.
Michigan
Works! Muskegon-Oceana has been journeying with Progress Strategies+ to develop cultural competency awareness,
cultural connection skills, cultural conflict mediation values and scenario
approaches to effectively grow and manage cross-cultural relations with
employees and their job-seeking clients. The Progress Strategies+ Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Team has also benefited from adapting some approaches to their real-time issues.
Impressions
and improvements
I
received a great email from a staff member on the Michigan Works! Muskegon-Oceana
team immediately after one our first Unity
of Purpose: Facilitating Intercultural
and Inclusion Development cultural competency sessions. As Progress Strategies+ is a project
management firm, I was pleased to hear how the staff member was excited about ‘the
tools’ that they were given in Session One to first learn how to accept
cultural differences. When professionals
accept and adapt to cultural difference (norms, etc.), it does not have to mean
agreement— a first and great step to meeting and managing difference,
communication and connection.
Specifically,
the staff member was excited with having a better concept of cultural competency tools to help them navigate the inevitable conflict that comes from authentic engagement with
culturally diverse communities. I agree with them that this removes and replaces the outdated memes of ‘tolerance.’ Here are some other impressions our team
received that we appreciate seeing impact and growth in:
·
Know
thyself: Developing and defining an
individual’s and/or institution’s culture is highly important and a must before
that individual or institution prepares to engage and effectively connect with
culturally diverse groups. The team has
been personally excited that individual staff members stepped into the vulnerability
of learning ‘what they don’t know’ about their own culture or preferences.
They will now be patient in the journey of
how to better connect with others while learning and discovering their own
backgrounds. Finding ways to connect
with others (in different communities, markets, etc.) starts with knowing the
foundations of our individual or institutional culture.
·
Conflict
is inevitable—it should be embraced:
Through our models, scenario role plays and management tools we
provided, staff members appreciated the invitation to embrace cultural
conflict. The intersection of difference
and deep engagement with others of different backgrounds will produce the
learning, growth and mistakes that are often labeled as ‘conflict.’ As long as learning, healing and understanding have taken place it is hard for me to term such occurrences as 'conflict.'
As long as ‘conflict’ comes through
our planned steps of moving from unconscious ignorance to conscious ignorance
(and devoid of intentional harm), any mistakes made such as miscommunicated
words or comments should be met with learning experiences. Therefore, our Change Opportunity Policytm with project
management, cultural competency learning steps and restorative justice elements
provide the foundations for organizations to help the so-called ‘offender’
learn about the cultural communication 'mishap' while journeying in understanding
and perspective-learning with those who may have been slighted.
Like all of us, many staff members
want to benefit from a workplace environment where compliance-oriented
correction is preceded by—or connected to---learning and lessons to overcome the
inevitable mistakes made during the travels from unconscious ignorance and conscious ignorance to unconscious competence. We all make
mistakes. In fact, our team shared our
narratives of what those personal (and young!) cultural mistakes were and the specific strategies of how
we improved.
Other
direct feedback and staff goals shared as sentiments were staff members using our
methods to “learn more and how important it is to incorporate this in the
workplace” or “use this information and tools now to move forward into
adaptation and then integration” based on their individual cultural competency
briefs and progress movement steps. As
the Michigan Works! Muskegon-Oceana team prepares for more authentic cultural
connections with others, it was satisfying to hear staff progress steps based
on the values of “Change Opportunity Policy as a technique being effective in
repairing harm in the workplace.”
We
were also pleased to hear how these dedicated professionals are developing a heightened
understanding of serving clients who are coming to them with different notions
of work, time, communication and adherence to the ‘Hidden Rules’ that are often
overlooked or ostracized. We are not to make judgments of those preferences, rather we should make some adjustments to them. Not only will these dedicated professionals
accept those differences that are under-girded by culture, they will adapt to
them for the benefit of the client, organization, community and job-market---a
job-market that can itself benefit from many of those differences.
One
thing I valued is that the aforementioned lessons and other outcomes were
encompassed in the Progress Strategies+
approach of interactive equipping sessions and scenarios that staff
participated in and followed. There were
some academy-award winning acting performances based the scripts we gave people! Simply put, those sessions were fun and
enjoyable---just like Michigan Works! Muskegon-Oceana is to our team and work.
Eric K. Foster, a social entrepreneur, is Principal of Progress Strategies+, a project management firm working with
corporate and non-profit clients in five areas of Diversity and Inclusion,
Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Policy and Advocacy, Grant Writing and
Project Management, and Community Engagement Strategies for economic and social
impact in communities. In the midst of
other impact movements and measurements to be attentive to in change work,
he is going to devise a satisfaction and outcome indicator on “Fun.” Seriously, fun just needs to be gathered and
measured more everyday!
