Last month at The Forum on Workplace Inclusion, our President and Founder, Mary-Frances Winters, released her fourth book, We Can’t Talk about That at Work!: How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics. Given our social and political climate, Mary-Frances’ contribution to the body of literature around equity, inclusion, and ‘difficult conversations,’ couldn’t be timelier. Over the past year, more and more clients have come to us seeking advisement and best practice around how their organizations should be responding to much of what has gone on outside the walls of their organizations.
Whether it’s the #BlackLivesMatter movement and killings of black people by police, Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric that have become more visible and ‘mainstream,’ policy decisions that impact Muslims, members of the LGBTQ community and other groups, or acts of global terrorism that continue to perpetuate fear, leaders are learning that their employees are thinking about these things, and in some ways, it’s impacting how they show up at work. The growing body of research around psychological safety, engagement, and inclusion has shifted the dialogue from whether we should be having these conversations at work to how can we begin to arm ourselves with the competencies to have these conversations at work. Earlier this week, Mary-Frances hosted a virtual book talk that introduced strategies for how leaders can begin to create spaces for bold, inclusive conversations.
In her book, Mary-Frances presents a model that provides a framework for assessing readiness, preparing for, and actively engaging in these conversations. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing a series of posts that will unpack the phases in this process. We’ve also included a downloadable guide that you can use to support you in preparing for these conversations.
A Model for Bold, Inclusive Conversations
As Mary-Frances emphasizes in her book, being effective in engaging in these conversations is a competency—it takes work. But, you have to start somewhere. Stay tuned… Next week, we’ll share more on the role of Self and ‘Other’ Awareness in preparing to engage in Bold, Inclusive Conversations. In the meantime, We Can’t Talk About That At Work! How to talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and other Polarizing Topics can be purchased in paperback and audio book formats at Amazon.
