Key Components
This journey engages the head and heart of every individual within the organization. This work challenges our long-standing culture of workplaces by acknowledging the role of emotions and identities in how we practice our individual and collective crafts. This holistic approach ensures that the work is not just an intellectual exercise, but one that can be deeply felt in service of liberation, health and well-being.
Commitment to Liberation for All
The transformation of people and teams results from a commitment to creating a culturally conscious and person-centered organization. What that commitment looks like inside each organization is something to explore and co-design. Organizations must clearly define their goals and work consistently towards achieving them, even when faced with challenges. This commitment can be fostered and will evolve.
Group Emotional Intelligence and Collective Efficacy
This component seeks to cultivate trust among group members through shared emotional experiences and collective education. The goal is to build a strong sense of group efficacy, ensuring the team moves forward together in this journey.
Redesigning Organizational Systems
The ultimate goal is that the transformation of people and teams results from a commitment to creating a culturally competent and client/customer-centered organization. Inside this commitment, teams would redesign everything—from policies to practices and structures—through a liberatory lens. The commitment includes ensuring that these redesigned elements are implemented throughout the organization and that the changes lead to meaningful and lasting transformation. This means holding both systems and individuals accountable for developing and practicing core competencies of cultural consciousness and person-centeredness.
Individual Identity Development Work and Social-Emotional Learning
This component focuses on supporting the development of healthy personal and professional identities, emphasizing intersectionality (race, gender, ethnicity, class, etc.). It includes examining one’s level of emotional intelligence and provides support for social-emotional learning.
Individuals must engage in deep personal work to uncover what is at stake for themselves in undertaking this transformation. This involves acknowledging and addressing how personal identities interact within the workplace. It also involves supporting people’s social-emotional learning, which will enhance their ability to participate fully in this journey and aid in their overall well-being (which impacts recruitment and retention).
Liberatory Learning
All of the above is a part of liberatory learning, but is typically overlooked when an organization begins an effort to be more culturally conscious and person-centered. Once the work above has begun in earnest, this component involves deep learning on the US's individual, systemic, and institutional privilege and oppression. Emotional reactions will happen inside this component, but with the skills learned above, there is an opportunity to process reactions and be supported in improving social-emotional functioning.