Why Asking Someone to Change How They Work May Not Be as Simple as You Think

September 30, 2016September 30, 2016Kathy Jourdain 3 Comments

It happens all the time in work environments. The organization wants or needs to change – the way it works, delivers service, makes its products, is organized. Often this point is missed: change is not just about the mechanics of what is to be changed, it is about the people. People make up and deliver our systems and processes. Most people say they don’t mind change, but they don’t like being changed. Even when it “makes sense”. Because “makes sense” depends on your perspective.

Anais Nin - We don't see things as they are

When we are looking for efficiencies at work, we are often asking someone – or several someones – to change the way they work. To take on new responsibilities or to give up part of your role. It seems to make sense in the grand scheme of things. It is integral to the change working. If we are leading the change or innovation, when we meet resistance we often don’t understand why. What we are asking often seems like a simple request.

conversation-one-on-one The challenge we meet is that many of us identify with our role. It forms part of our identity. We think we are simply asking people to change the way they work when we might actually be challenging the way they see themselves. We might be challenging their very sense of identity. And when we feel our identity is being challenged or threatened, psychological research tells us that we respond as if our very life is being threatened. Instead of being open to change, we dig in our heels and overtly or covertly resist being changed. We become more attached to our role or our identity.

Worldview Intelligence offers personal explorations that help us understand our own worldview, where it comes from, what influences it, what values and beliefs are fundamental to who we are. It illuminates typical responses, ingrained human patterns, of how we respond to challenges, how we filter information in and out, how our sense of identity shapes our responses, how we become entrenched in our point of view when we feel compelled to defend it. When we can bring curiosity to the exploration we become aware of what is important and why and then we can become conscious of the choices we are making. The very exploration opens up the possibility for each of us to expand our own worldview and be more open to possibility.

For those of us who are responsible for leading change or asking our people to change, understanding that simple requests might have deeper implications allows us to think about how we approach another person or whole department, their role, their work and what is needed to bring about the changes that we need or want rather than becoming frustrated or combative which only serves to make us less effective in our leadership.

Worldview Intelligence Expands Your Ability to Deal With the World – Alan Gaudet

September 21, 2016Kathy Jourdain Leave a comment

Alan Gaudet describes his experience with Worldview Intelligence. He notes that it is a resilient, rich framework that offers a depth of analysis that takes you places you wouldn’t get to on your own. It really makes you want to pull out the meaning and it is a validating experience. The framework offers better methods to understand difference. Something meaningful happens between you and someone else when you make connections not otherwise possible.

Worldview Intelligence Causes You to Think Differently

April 25, 2016April 25, 2016Kathy Jourdain 3 Comments

Tracey Jones-Grant was one of the first people to experience the Worldview Intelligence program a couple of years ago in Halifax and it has changed her. “You don’t just walk away from it and go ‘done with that, what’s next?’ It seeps into your skin and blossoms as you learn how to verbalize it.” The impact grows even stronger with the passing of time and application of skills and concepts learned.

Of her experience in the program Tracey said, “You are in that first question, the next thing you know your perspective is changing and it happens in a gentle way. It causes you to think differently, which causes you to act differently.” It doesn’t necessarily happen dramatically overnight. You learn the skills and then you practice.

From the first Worldview Intelligence program – Halifax, NS August 2014

Tracey is a long time diversity trainer and her experience with Worldview Intelligence has caused her to think differently about this work. She has worked for the Halifax Library, the Halifax Regional School Board and is now the Diversity Manager for the Municipal Government in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is bringing a new way of working, meeting and educating to her position thanks to her Worldview and also her Art of Hosting experience. She asks different questions that helps her see where people are at and helps them think about their worldview without needing to ask directly about it. Questions like where are you now? How does that define how you see and experience diversity and inclusion?

I first met Tracey through our mutual friend Carolann Wright-Parks, who is currently leading the Restorative Inquiry for the NS Home for Coloured Children, when Carolann was interested in bringing the Art of Hosting to African Nova Scotian facilitators. Tracey brings an inherent curiosity to her learning process and asks lots of questions in her quest to understand. You can see the wheels in her mind turning as she translates what she is learning into the practicalities of life and work.

In addition to asking lots of good questions, Tracey brought Africentric principles into our Art of Hosting work – principles she lives by. When we introduced the concept of Worldview Intelligence in that AoH training, it caught the attention of many of the participants, including Tracey. I asked her why she decided to attend the first Worldview Program a few months later. She said she was intrigued by the idea, even as she was hesitant. “Nobody asks you what your worldview is. It was an opportunity to see what that means. At the same time, you could be afraid of knowing your own worldview.”

Despite the initial hesitation, Tracey’s experience with the program was very positive and impactful. “I discovered the exploration allows for your own internal view. For me, this is aligned with africentricity. Knowing your own worldview allows you to center yourself. And when you know where you come from, the core of who you are, that prepares you for whatever else you will encounter, including worldviews very different from your own.”

When I asked, what is the lasting impact for her, she took a deep breath and became reflective for a moment. “It is not easy to say – there are no standard words. It’s something you feel. I have a greater belief in myself, more confidence in what I know and I don’t need external validation anymore.” She went on to say, “Anybody who knew me before and sees me now, sees the impact, sees the difference.”

The difference in her makes a difference in her work. She said the biggest difference is in simple things, but things that were not in her conscious awareness before. “I plan work in different ways now.”

Tracey noted that understanding worldviews, where they come from and how they influence communication and relationship means she tunes in differently to what is going on with the people around her. As a result of the program, she offered, “You develop stronger communication and facilitation skills. I have a greater sense of awareness of people, of communities I work for and in – and I’ve been working in community for a long time. I check in around where people are at in their own experience rather than assuming I know. I make suggestions differently now than in the past – in ways that have a greater likelihood of getting through the other person’s filters.”

In the long run, Tracey says that the practices of Worldview Intelligence improve client interactions, inter-office interactions and outcomes in the workplace. In her view, “Business needs to invest in opportunities for staff to understand where they are at. This will make them more open to understanding where others are at and to seeing new ways forward, even on issues that are challenging.”

Tracey also talked about the power of having a mentor to turn to, a support in the system

Tracey Jones-Grant

to keep going so the initial rush of excitement post training doesn’t wither away. She has that in Carolann. It is one of the benefits of going through a training with others in your workplace or your networks of support.

She says, “This kind of investment is not a check mark on the training box. It is an essential business and life skill.” And more so now as we move into increasing fragmentation, isolation and diversity in our communities and at work.

The next Worldview Intelligence program is being offered in Halifax, NS May 30-June 1, 2016 and registration is open.

Be Afraid. But Not For the Reasons You Might Think

March 26, 2016March 26, 2016Kathy Jourdain 6 Comments

Be afraid. Be very afraid. But not for the reasons you might think. We are living in precipitous times. We are in danger of losing our humanity through fear. Fear of what and who we do not know.

I am writing this in the Charles de Gaulle airport as I wait for my flight home to Canada. My partner, Jerry Nagel, and I have been visiting Paris and Rennes in France. Teaching international students at IGR is what brought us here – this year and in the past – for Jerry many years, for me more recently.

Last year we came to France about two months after the Charlie Hebdo attack. We did not see a discernible difference in the city. A year later, four months after the co-ordinated attacks on public places in Paris, we are seeing differences. There are fewer people in the cafés, fewer people walking the streets and more taxis than we could count at every taxi stand we passed. Last year we often had to wait if we were looking for a cab. And, while we were here, the attack in Brussels at the airport and the Metro.

We know some tourists are staying home. We had friends who wanted to come on this trip with us but decided to stay home after the November attacks, understandably, because of a prior experience of being stuck in Mexico after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York back in 2001 when air travel to/from the US was stopped for an unknown and indefinite time. We cannot imagine how much more terrifying it would have been for them to have been here with us in this time. And we know they are not the only ones who are staying home.

Les Deux Magots – a favourite eating and people watching place – not far from the hotel we normally stay at.

We know Parisians are staying home too. A city known for its outdoor culture, its fabulous cafés and its walkability, we have seen fewer Parisians strolling in the streets. The cafés we love to go to are either easy to get in – like Les Deux Magots where we have often had to hover to find a seat in the past – or closed, like Café Conti, a long standing local business.

Eiffel Tower and surrounding Paris neighbourhoods. A very walkable city.

People are staying home – whether in Paris or from abroad – because they are afraid. Afraid of terrorism. Afraid of immigrants and refugees. Afraid of Muslims. Afraid of vague threats that have no substance and lots of rhetoric behind them. Afraid of what they do not know.

This is in direct contrast to the students we were working with in Rennes who came from a dozen or more different countries, among them China, Korea, Vietnam, Ecuador, Congo, Germany, the US, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Columbia and more. The International MBA students have been together since September. The International Exchange students only since January. Jerry and I teach Participatory Leadership practices and Worldview Intelligence. We invite them to meet each other in ways they have not yet done so.

The Worldview exploration offers them a way to see and articulate their own worldview and then to be in conversation with others, to be curious about their worldview. For the students, one of the biggest insights was that across countries and cultures, there were many points of connection. And within countries and cultures there can be vast differences; so much so that you cannot ascribe one worldview to an entire country or culture.

International MBA and Exchange students at IGR University in Rennes, France – exploring worldviews and what gives them strength in a World Cafe.

We brought all the students together in a planned World Café the morning after the Brussels bombing. We asked them, when they look around at all that is happening in the world, what gives them strength? Then we asked them, if they could change one thing in the world, what would it be? And then, given the conversations they’ve been in, given what they have been experiencing and what they know about the world, how do they want to live their lives?

The harvest was inspiring. These students between 20 and 30 years old, want to live a life where they meet their neighbours – near and far, where they learn the stories of other people, where they take care with the assumptions they make about individuals, groups or cultures they do not know, where they continue to travel to expand their worldviews, and make connections in many ways, to better the world and better their own lives.

With the real and perceived threats we are faced with in the world right now, the most dangerous thing we can do is hunker down in fear, isolate ourselves or our thinking in our home bases and imagine all kinds of frightening stories about people we do not know, people who are different than us.

We may be in danger of forgetting our humanity. We forget that people fleeing war torn countries are human beings afraid for their lives and their families, with nowhere to go and no homes for their children to live in right now. They don’t want to be on the move. They have no choice. And they have been dying by the thousands in their attempts to flee that which is untenable. Are there terrorists among them? Maybe. But not likely. Will we condemn whole groups of people to living in no-man’s lands of refugee camps because there may be a terrorist among them? We already know segregating people does not work. The story of the US Japanese internment camps in the second world war is just one example.

And Muslims? We forget about the Crusades and so many other wars and acts of terror carried out in the name of Christian religion. Were/are all Christians the same? No. Why would we brand millions of people based on the actions of a few? Because of unfounded fear.

Think about this for a moment. When we say Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, American, French, German, Indian, African, Australian, Brazilian, Asian, Columbian, Mexican, Canadian (insert some other country/nationality here), what immediately comes to mind? Whatever it is, it is a small slice of the worldview of that country, that religion, that culture. We work with labels because this is what we know but the information labels give us is extremely limited.

The shortest distance between two people is a story. Worldview Intelligence provides a structured approach to surfacing and sharing stories, to expanding our understanding that we are multi-dimensional beings, cultures, countries and religions. We need these explorations now more than ever.

Do not hunker down right now. Do not isolate yourself. Do not be swept away by unsubstantiated rhetoric designed to make you even more fearful. Be wary of your assumptions, especially the ones that take you to fear. Do not brand one country, culture, religion or group with a single news story, a single glimpse into a world you might not know. Be prepared to ask, investigate, explore – even if you are doing it from the relative safety of your own home. For sure, keep your friends and family close and, if you are up to it, travel to as many places as you can to understand it is our diversity that keeps us strong and shows us our humanity. It is only in remembering our humanity and the humanity of others, that we will become safer in the world.

How Open is Your Organization to a Multiplicity of Worldviews?

April 12, 2015Kathy Jourdain 11 Comments

When you look at this image, what do you see? Do you see someone looking straight at you or do you see a profile — or perhaps something else even?

Take a good look. Can you eventually see there is another perspective, another view? Once it comes into your awareness, it is possible to hold both views at the same time or to alternate back and forth between both views.

What about this second image? Do you see the old woman or the young woman? They are both there. If you are only seeing one, let your vision soften and the other may come into view.

You may say these pictures are only optical illusions and bear no relevance to anything other than a bit of fun. From our Worldview work, we would say, these pictures visually represent a dynamic that often comes up in conversation, dialog or debate at work, at home and in other settings. Sources of tension and even conflict arise when an individual or a collective (group, organization, community) sees things in a certain way and are convinced that it is THE way to see the world, the issue or the challenge. So convinced there is only one true view that other perspectives are not welcomed, invited or entertained as possible. Coming from an entrenched point of view, the debate often becomes polarized and personalized by dismissing another person or their point of view, becoming defensive about our own point of view or becoming attached to things needing to be a certain way.

Much of the origin of these dynamics are hidden or unnamed. We think we can make our point by using facts, imagining that facts are immutable – and yet, the fact is there is a young woman in that picture – and, there is an old woman. If you only see one of the facts, you may do everything in your power to try to make someone else see it too. Instead of bringing curiosity to the possibility that there might be two possibly opposing “facts” that are both true, we become entrenched in our point of view. Sometimes we become identified with our point of view – another way that the argument becomes personalized.

A worldview exploration helps ascertain what the source of conflict or tension might be by an exploration of components of worldview – something in how we see or interpret current reality, historical patterns or stories that influence current reality, the way we imagine or interact with the future, all reveal something about the worldview of individuals and organizations that might help us find common ground or points of connectedness to move forward on what matters. Understanding value systems and core commitments, illuminating the practices and methods by which we bring our worldview to life individually and collectively and understanding what informs our knowledge or how we know what we know, again individually or collectively, can also provide entry points to common understanding on issues that matter to us.

What are ways that you invite other points of view, or worldviews, into your conversations? How does your organization deal with alternative and even opposing worldviews when they appear? Do you even know if there are alternative worldviews? If there are voices that remain silent when dominant worldviews are expressed, you might not even be aware there are different perspectives. How do you know if there is a dominant worldview? If there are no alternatives offered to the perspectives that are already in play, that perspective may be a dominant worldview. That might be okay and it might not, especially if it is being expressed unconsciously in the organization. Your workforce could become more progressive, more creative and more engaged when there is room to voice and work with a multiplicity of worldviews at any given time and especially on the issues and questions that are most important to the evolution, sustainability and ongoing livelihood of your organization.