Frequently Asked Questions

Resources for Parents and Teachers

How are kids and adults motivated?

In this lively RSA Animate from Dan Pink’s talk, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

How are kids and adults motivated?

In this lively RSA Animate from Dan Pink’s talk, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

How do we talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk?

This is one if my favorite books as a parent and teacher! Originally published in 1980 by Fabre and Mazlish, their tips and techniques apply more than ever. There book is: “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk?”

https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/0380811960

Are there approaches to discipline that are more effective?

This table illustrates the differences of approach to justice between Retributive Justice and Restorative Justice. As you will see, Restorative Justice is community centric and focuses on making the victim whole. Restorative justice is also the way a parent and teacher can stay connected with child throughout the discipline process.

Is there a tool to help me understand my the stage of development with regard to race?

These frameworks have been developed to summarize the stages of racial and ethnic identity development. They are helpful in understanding where you are and envisioning next steps.

https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Compilation_of_Racial_Identity_Models_7_15_11.pdf

How do I practice presence as a parent?

In his engaging Google Talk, Dr. Dan Siegel acknowledges there’s no such thing as perfect parenting, that “we all flub up.” He describes how to truly “see” our children, feel their feelings and how we can reconnect with them when we’re inadvertently made a mistake.

How did the racial divide get started in the United States?
In this video, Matthew Cooke explains how whites and blacks were pitted against one another to create America’s racial caste system.

How do I teach my kids to be anti-racist when I’m still learning myself?

If you’re nervous about talking about race with your kids, these books will give you an easy place to start destigmatizing difference & celebrating racial diversity

Anti-Racism For Kids 101: Starting To Talk About Race

 

What can predominantly white families, communities and organizations do for social justice?

Below is a link outlining 75 things white people can do for social justice. But before we get started, there are seven steps that will help us engage more effectively and compassionately so that our actions are mutually meaningful.

 

We need to:

  1. Slow down, acknowledge our reactions and the feelings of others
  2. Notice our biases and how they may keep us from hearing someone out or giving them the benefit of the doubt
  3. Listen deeply to the person who has been sidelined or silenced (i.e. people of color, women, those with disabilities, children, elders, etc) about how individual actions and cultural systems impact them and their community
  4. Affirm their pain
  5. Practice listening to more people and look for patterns of pain
  6. Be willing to be led and take action steps that actually address people’s pain (and not what we assume is their pain)
  7. Leverage our social opportunity/privilege to create systems, policies and practices that create belonging for everyone

 

https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

What can mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunties, teachers, coaches and friends do to help our girls find their voice?

In my blog, “WoManifesto: The Backstory,” I share my process for learning how women’s voices are routinely shushed and silenced; thus, inadvertently communicating that women are not worth hearing. I also share practical steps adults can take to ensure our kid’s feel valued and heard. 

https://www.empoweringpartners.com/2019/10/womanifesto-the-backstory/

 

Collaboration Skills

How do you have genuine dialogue when two people are coming from very different perspectives?

Authors and speakers Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny move the reader through a sequential development of learning how to create the safe conditions and self-awareness for achieving mutual understanding and creative synergy so that those involved in the discussion feel empowered and emotionally connected to the conclusions. – Their book is Crucial Conversations, Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (2012).

How do you have genuine dialogue when two people are coming from very different perspectives?
Authors and speakers Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny move the reader through a sequential development of learning how to create the safe conditions and self-awareness for achieving mutual understanding and creative synergy so that those involved in the discussion feel empowered and emotionally connected to the conclusions. – Their book is Crucial Conversations, Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (2012).
How do you disarm a conversation that is about to turn ugly?
Consultant and author Joseph Grenny outlines five ways to disarm a conversation that is turning ugly. – https://hbr.org/2016/03/what-to-do-if-a-conversation-is-turning-loud-and-aggressive
How do you disagree with someone more powerful than you, like a boss?
Author and speaker Amy Gallo explains what to do when your boss proposes a new initiative you think won’t work. Or your senior colleague outlines a project timeline you think is unrealistic. What do you say when you disagree with someone who has more power than you do? How do you decide whether it’s worth speaking up? And if you do, what exactly should you say? – https://hbr.org/2016/03/how-to-disagree-with-someone-more-powerful-than-you

 Organizational Development

Considering that we all have our biases and get differed when we’re under stress, how do I help my employees respond professionally in stressful cross-cultural situations?

We all have important things we want to accomplish, but there are so many distractions and stumbling blocks that may get in our way. Here, writer Bina Venkataraman shares a startlingly easy strategy to use to defeat future challenges.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ideas.ted.com/how-a-simple-if-then-ritual-can-help-you-overcome-obstacles-and-achieve-your-goals/amp/

Considering that we all have our biases and get differed when we’re under stress, how do I help my employees respond professionally in stressful cross-cultural situations?

We all have important things we want to accomplish, but there are so many distractions and stumbling blocks that may get in our way. Here, writer Bina Venkataraman shares a startlingly easy strategy to use to defeat future challenges.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ideas.ted.com/how-a-simple-if-then-ritual-can-help-you-overcome-obstacles-and-achieve-your-goals/amp/

What is something our company can do to stop losing employees?

CNN Business reports: A lot of workers were leaving, particularly women and minorities. So the company launched a confidential hotline where employees are paired with case managers to resolve any workplace concerns or struggles, before they quit. Read more about how the Hotline works.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/success/intel-warmline-employee-retention/index.html

What’s it like for a minority when they join a homogenous organization?

Hot-button issues like workplace misogyny and a lack of diversity aren’t often explored by family-friendly Pixar. But it did just that in this nine-minute short. “It’s an example of tribalism, which can be damaging to both individual workers and the companies that employ them ­– when people are in an environment where everyone looks, sounds, acts and thinks the same, it can create an echo chamber and cyclical system that only includes and rewards the same kinds of people over and over.” (BBC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6uuIHpFkuo

Is your firm “managing” diversity or promoting equal opportunity?
Authors Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey examine what has happened to equal opportunity in the private sector since 1964 and where we are today.

https://hbr.org/2013/06/is-your-firm-really-an-equal-o

How do we effectively shift mindset and change behavior in our organization?
Harvard Business Review author, Tony Schwartz offers strategies to address the invisible reasons that people and cultures so often resist change.

https://hbr.org/2018/06/leaders-focus-too-much-on-changing-policies-and-not-enough-on-changing-minds

Does being around people who are different from us make us smarter?
Professor Katherine Phillips, explains in her article how diverse teams help businesses grow and innovate. – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/
How do organizations move toward unity and wholeness?
Pastor and author Brenda Salter McNeil offers a roadmap to guide a church or organization though the journey of reconciliation and transformation. Each chapter lays out a next step in the process, with questions and exercises to engage community members and encourage reflection. – Her book is Roadmap to Reconciliation-Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice (2015).
How does asking women about their core values improve their performance in the workplace?
Author Livia Yap explains how members of underrepresented goups experience more self-doubt when entering a new social situation Helping a person reflect on their value enables them to achieve greater career results. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-15/test-gives-89-boost-to-women-mbas-now-a-bank-will-give-it-too
What is the missing ingredient in most diversity efforts?
Author Pat Wadors explains that most people just want to belong in her article in Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/08/diversity-efforts-fall-short-unless-employees-feel-that-they-belong
What motivates people?
This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&sns=em
How can we break down barriers one lunch at a time?
DINE! is a unique grassroots program that encourages co-workers to share a meal to get to know each other on a deeper level.
How do we show white men that diversity and inclusion efforts need them?

Straight white men think they don’t belong when it comes to diversity and inclusion efforts. In this HBR article, the author illustrates how to reframe this rationale into a strengths-based approach and use their identity as insight.
Article link: https://hbr.org/2019/10/how-to-show-white-men-that-diversity-and-inclusion-efforts-need-them

 

Cultural Intelligence

How do immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy?
How do immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy?
How does whitesplaining hinder cross-cultural relationships?

CNN writer, John Blake explains “whitesplaining” is an affliction that’s triggered when some white people hear a person of color complain about racism. In this article, Stop ‘Whitesplaining’ Racism to Me, Blake tells us what to do instead.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/17/us/whitesplaining-racism-blake-analysis/index.html

Why does race and culture matter in the C-suite?
Reporter Ellen McGirt shares the experience of a black executive in the C-suite and what it took to get there. With the billions of dollars spent on diversity programs in corporate America, there are far too few people of color represented in management. Corporate America may be losing out on this talent pool. Although the story is currently discouraging, the article offers three Diversity Strategies that work, two of which Empowering Partners addresses: develop talent through long-term mentorship and get people talking. – http://fortune.com/black-executives-men-c-suite/
How did the racial divide get started in the United States?
In this video, Matthew Cooke explains how whites and blacks were pitted against one another to create America’s racial caste system. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLgIIjnpZyU&spfreload=10
Is racial bias a real thing?
Professor Jennifer Eberhardt’s, research shows subconscious connections in people’s minds between black faces and crime, and how those links may pervert justice. Law enforcement officers across the country are taking note. – https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=80755
How do I know if I have racial bias?
Take Harvard’s Implicit Bias test to discover your implicit associations about race, gender, sexual orientation, and other topics. – https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
How were race and racism constructed in the United States through law and how did those laws shape our culture?
Talk show host and author, Thom Hartmann, in his 5 minute-video history, shows how white privilege, racism and oppression were constructed in America – https://youtu.be/YFjKQVZLk1g
Why does "equality" feel like oppression for white people?
Blogger explains why when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression for us whites. – https://theboeskool.com/2016/03/05/when-youre-accustomed-to-privilege-equality-feels-like-oppression/
What aren't people of color saying?
In this poem, Poet Norma Johnson offers a cry from her heart to speak on a deeper level to her white friends and to attempt to relay to them that because of race, there is a palpable difference in the way our daily lives play out. And to her friends of darker hues, she offers this gift of voice. – https://youtu.be/3UVIgjuovt8
Why don’t white people relate well to the history of people of color?
Writer Christopher Ingraham explains that, “…most whites are not “socially positioned” to understand this history — simply because they know few people who’ve experienced it. Herein lies part of the problem. – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three-quarters-of-whites-dont-have-any-non-white-friends/
Why are views on race relations and racial inequality between whites and black worlds apart?
The Pew Research Center study explores how the opinions of blacks and whites vary by age, education, gender and party identification in key questions. In this report, they explore how on views of race and inequality, blacks and whites are worlds apart. These findings are from a new national survey of 3,769 U.S. adults, including 1,799 whites and 1,004 blacks, conducted Feb. 29-May 8, 2016. – http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/state-of-race-in-america/
Why is it so hard for white people to talk about race?
Author and white man Robin DeAngelo explains the patterns that make it difficult for white people to understand and talk about race. – http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/
What are the behaviors that keep white people from connecting with people of color?

Jim Elders and Bruce Irons outline 10 behaviors and words white people may use that separates them from dealing with issues of race and building relationships with people of color. https://cpt.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/Undoing%20Oppressions%20-%20Distancing%20Behaviors.pdf

How might I help college-age students, who may or may not be open to conversations about being white, begin to perceive how racism works?
For 40 years Jane Elliott (A Class Divided) has been running an exercise that has ignited controversy around the world. She says it lays bare the hidden truth about racism in white societies. Many disagree, some vehemently. Now she’s bringing her extreme methods and message to modern Britain. She’s about to divide this group. Her aim: Simulate a racist apartheid style regime and discussion. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqv9k3jbtYU
How do I become more aware of my own white culture?
Author Debby Irving tells her often cringe-worthy story of how she journeyed from white oblivion to white awareness. Now a racial justice educator and writer, Debby helps white people transform confusion to curiosity and anxiety into action. – To become more aware, read her book, Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race (2014).
Why does racism keep hurting programs that help the poor?
This article explains how white people become significantly less likely to support welfare programs when told that black people might benefit from them. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17426968/white-racism-welfare-cuts-snap-food-stamps