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This month we are delighted to highlight another dynamic LJS
Associate, Shoshanna Cogan. Shoshanna is a phenomenal trainer and facilitator with
a deep skill set and a broad range of national and international facilitation
experience.
Shoshanna met Nanci at an IAF conference where she was immediately
drawn to Nanci's approach. "Nanci's work is very powerful and very
transformative," says Shoshanna, who was struck by how well Nanci's style
aligned with her own passion for building bridges between people to help transform
their lives, their communities, and the world. "I personally fell in love with
how [Nanci] works with people, she's deeply present and is a model for how we
can get and stay there - she helps make it sustainable."
Soon after that initial meeting, Nanci offered Shoshanna the
opportunity to become an Associate with LJS. Since then, Shoshanna has
co-facilitated workshops with Nanci in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, and
most recently at the IAF conference in Barbados. Shoshanna's 25 years of
experience with facilitation and training is a fantastic addition to LJS's
technical capacity and her vibrant dedication to the people she works with is
unmistakable. "I have an enormous amount of passion and a holistic focus for
transferring capability," says Shoshanna, "I support people in transforming
their worlds - both personal and professional."
Shoshanna is committed to giving back and does a significant
amount of pro-bono work with international communities including Indonesia and
Central America. She points to her own experiences with difficult life
situations and being the recipient of social services as the catalysts for her
desire to help the people who are responsible for coordinating those services.
"One of my favorite quotes," say Shoshanna, "is 'Bliss is when your greatest
gift meets the world's greatest need,' that's when we're living our dream -
mixing our spiritual, personal, professional, and
global passion."
With her extremely full travel schedule, Shoshanna turns to nature and
meditating to help fortify her. From hiking in her home state of Vermont to
snorkeling in warm waters, appreciating the natural world "refills my fountain"
says Shoshanna. She also shares Nanci's passion for physical activity and at 51
just completed her third sprint triathlon.
At LJS, we are so glad to continue our collaboration with
Shoshanna and look forward to sharing her skills, energy, and years of
experience with all of you.
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Guiding Principles for
Diversity and Inclusion: Why the "Business Case" Is Limited by Nanci Luna Jiménez
Over the years I have
attended and spoken at countless diversity conferences and events. I've been
gently "coached" to stress the "business case" for diversity-to highlight how
it: impacts the bottom-line, affects recruitment and talent management, shapes team
effectiveness, and influences decision-making at every level of the
organization. Even though it is clear that the "business case" for having
programs, staff, and resources to support organizational diversity and
inclusion efforts can appear strong, it is also true that if the guiding
principle is "improving the bottom line," the implementation and results of
these programs will fundamentally miss the intended mark.
Even though we may not always
recognize them, individuals, organizations and societies have a set of guiding
principles that determine appropriate actions and interactions. These
principles provide a testing ground to determine whether our actions are in alignment
with our values. If your rationale for having a recruitment program is one
of compliance without an internal understanding and valuing of creating a diverse
workforce, you will have a meager or haphazard effort with minimal results or
high turnover. If your underlying value for creating a Chief Diversity Officer
(CDO) position is to increase profitability and the position does not
demonstrate a clear connection to improving the bottom-line or if greater
economic conditions prevent the organization from being profitable regardless
of having the CDO in place, then the position will disappear, lose funding or
be viewed as "nice, extra thing we do even when we can't afford other nice,
extra things." This last attitude leads to resentment within the organization
even as the CDO is ineffective in achieving success.
During this challenging
economic time it is more important than ever to be clear why you as an
individual, leader in your organization, or your organization as a whole is
committed to diversity and inclusion. If this commitment is tied to a
guiding principle of profit, it is likely your commitment will shrink along
with your bottom-line. It's easier to increase a commitment when there are more
resources to spread around. It's when we have fewer resources that our
fundamental values are tested.
For example, as a parent perhaps
you have a guiding principle to provide safety and security for your child. One
way you choose to uphold this principle is by putting your child to bed by a
certain time every night. By providing this structure you communicate
dependability, consistency, and reliability. This one action represents a
variety of implicit values that also communicate unspoken volumes to your child
about who you are as a parent and who your child is to you-and maybe even who
your child is to the world!
What happens if your child
fights going to bed at the same time every night and your guiding principle
gets tested? Will you decide to coerce, bribe, or threaten the child in order
to get him or her to comply with your bedtime goal? Will you invoke your power
as a parent to "force" the child to follow the bedtime rule? Will other
values or guiding principles, perhaps for order, obedience, or regular sleep
for yourself trump the guiding principle for safety and security? It is during
these tests that what's really important to us becomes clearer and it is also
when we have the biggest struggles to stay in integrity with our core values.
By developing self-awareness about
your guiding principles, you can become more flexible in your actions while
staying true to your core values. There are countless ways to communicate
"safety and security" to your child in addition to a regular bedtime. Once you
are clear about the underlying value that motivates a certain behavior, a
million creative solutions can appear, and you can let go of rigidly
implementing just one option.
The same holds true for organizations. If
the guiding principle for your diversity and inclusion program is profitability,
then compromises that negatively impact human beings, relationships, community
and the environment will be made to uphold profitability.
I would ask you to look
closely at not only the limits, but also the inevitable pitfalls, of the
"business case" for diversity. What other sustaining principles could
underlie a diversity and inclusion effort in your organization; principles that
are not vulnerable to market share and bottom-line numbers? What are your
personal guiding principles when it comes to diversity?
In the next series of Nanci's
Listening columns, I'll delve further into guiding principles that I think
promote diversity and inclusion in our personal, professional, and community
endeavors. I look forward to deepening this conversation with all of you via
email, coaching or on our blog. I hope you will join me on
this journey!
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