Inclusion in a Thinking Environment®
Conversations about our differences, in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, national origin, cultural identity, gender identity, assigned sex, neurodivergence, physical and mental abilities are often interpersonal communication spaces that can feel uncomfortable, and potentially fraught with the risk of “getting it wrong”.
Additionally, there is the issue of divergent thinking, and the risk of polarisation. This is an experience that appears to be sharply increasing in today’s world where many people feel a ubiquitous rise in the degree of instability and confusion in their daily circumstances. This, in turn, produces a longing for – and potential attachment to – positions of certainty in thinking and responses to life’s ambiguity.
As leaders, we desperately need to find ways to come together in dialogue around the discomfort of difference in order to find what lies on the other side. This is the rich and satisfying joy that comes from joining together in the face of apparent opposition, by discovering how effective communication around diversity and its attendant issue of equity, can produce the true harmony that is made up of different notes played by different instruments.
In today’s world of an upsurge in volatility, uncertainty, chaos, crisis and ambiguity, people who lead people, whether as team managers, organisational leaders or facilitators, need to be able to experience for themselves, what it feels like to be in a space where these conversations can be had effectively, safely and successfully.
For this reason I am reuniting with my former business partner and fellow Thinking Environment specialist, Trisha Lord, to offer a deep-dive online 6 session Thinking Environment® peer learning experience for diversity, equity and inclusion champions and leaders interested in developing the skill to create safe spaces for conversations about difference, equality and inclusivity.
After years of research and observation Nancy Kline, founder of the Thinking Environment® and author of Time To Think as well as the more recent The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You recognised that people generate their best thinking if the people around them behave in certain ways. In this program, we will share the Thinking Environment behaviours and applicationa gauranteed to generate truly inclusive spaces and experience them for ourselves.
This program is for you if you would like to:
create truly inclusive spoces in your work, community and life.
confidently welcome and encourage difference, including difference of opinion.
share experiences and best practices with fellow diversity and inclusion champions.