There are significant benefits to diversity, and many organisations are making a conscious effort to increase diversity in order to reap the rewards, such as:
With diversity in teams, it is useful for the themes of unconscious bias, prejudice and stereotyping to be raised in order for the team to reap the full benefit.
The general view is that there ought to be a positive impact when raising awareness around these themes – that by enabling our teams to become conscious of their biases allows them to deal with them in new ways and in turn, not only accept, but appreciate differences.
However, raising awareness is often not enough.
The highly sensitive topic of diversity, as we are acutely aware having our roots in the exceptionally diverse and complex society of South Africa, is indeed very powerful if engaged with in the right way, bringing out the best diverse teams in organisations have to offer. However, many previous efforts elsewhere have failed to deliver the desired results, in particular when focusing solely on unconscious bias, generating, for example, counter responses, moral licence or people feeling trapped.
“I believe that simply training people to understand what their biases are is a waste of time. My take is that exposing bias does not make it evaporate. Exposure may help you to gain insight and the assumption is that you will reflect on these insights but it is not guaranteed to change your behaviour.”
Sylvana Storey
Huffington Post – Jan 15 2017
At the Centre for Coaching, we have developed an Integral way of engaging all our instinctual patterns, including unconscious bias, prejudice and stereotyping. Engaging in an Integral way means addressing not only the mind, but also the heart and the body (our actions and behaviours).
As with all our work, our approach is both pragmatic and academically grounded. It enables us to address difficulties and discomfort in a way that participants feel empowered to speak up and co-create a way forward, together. This enables organisations to fully benefit from the diversity in their teams by engaging in a robust, grounded and coherent way with this sensitive and yet exceptionally powerful topic.
Using our integral methodology of how to engage with our instinctual patterns, we work with participants to:
Our Integral approach covers mind, heart and body and we work with you to move towards a sustained shift in behaviour through customised awareness activities and practices.
Each intervention is individually tailored, and we would be delighted to have a conversation to understand your needs and how we might partner with you to address this powerful topic together.
“Bringing your whole self to life. Lasting and meaningful
benefits for individuals and organisations.”
Ask a member of our team