08 Nov GoodFocus Launches Diversity Workshops
Events over the last few years have pierced the veil of privilege and brought systemic and individual racism in our society to the forefront. There’s a saying, “The best time to plant a tree is decades ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.” In that vein, the second-best time to acknowledge and dismantle systems of discrimination is now.
We recognize it is not easy to initiate a conversation about racism. Sensitivities are enhanced, defenses go up, and emotions flare. Too often the conversation never even happens.
So, how do we bridge the gap between what is and what could be? How do we aid in confronting a painful reality? How do we start to examine society and our institutions from someone else’s perspective and begin the necessary process of transformation?
Introducing Understanding and Addressing Racism in the Workplace: a unique diversity workshop designed for a virtual, in-person, or hybrid workforce. Our goal is to start and nurture a candid conversation about existing racism and ways forward at the individual, team, and institutional levels.
Focus
This workshop focuses on bias and colorism. Why this focus? It’s the genesis of many issues that arise when it comes to discrimination in the workplace. Often, the offenses happen unknowingly as a result of societal and cultural biases that have made their way into our dialogue and actions. Highlighting these allows for a breaking down of ways that we even inadvertently contribute to the problem. It creates or heightens an awareness that forges a new road to better, safer interactions and relationships.
Approach
The workshop is professionally facilitated and uses the power of two effective, proven modalities of engagement: humor and group play. These familiar and innovative methods ensure a safe space for the emergence of insights and emotions to chart a journey of personal and institutional discovery and transformational change.
The event is informed by a keynote presentation and engages participants in a sequence of game activities, facilitated interactions, and small group discussions. Connecting with decorated and accomplished speakers on race relations, institutional standards of conduct, and social justice establishes an impactful and meaningful experience.
Professional New Yorker-style cartoonists will sit in on the workshop and draw on participants’ feedback, insights, and points of friction they hear just below the surface. They then present rough cartoon drafts, made from the conversations happening in real-time. Your team is then invited to discuss and collaborate with each other and with the artists to further develop the cartoons and their messaging.
Together, as you share suggestions for improving the cartoons, this becomes an interactive and creative process for your team, one in which they can reframe their experiences from a new perspective, setting the stage for innovative thinking and breakthrough ideas.
We also collaborate with spoken-word artist, Regie Gibson. Spoken-word performance strengthens our ability to examine and decipher the messages in the workshop. Our performance artist also listens in on conversations, pulling from the discussions, feelings, and desires expressed. There’s also a digital game activity that allows participants to create lyrics inspired by the experience of the workshop. Participation in the artistic process allows people to feel more confident in the information. It opens them up to new ideas and ignites people’s ability to use what is familiar to figure out what is not. The artist will then perform, using the lyrics curated by the participants, in an effort to motivate change moving forward.
The workshop is a joint effort from GoodFocus and GoodGames. For more information about this unique workshop visit the workshop’s website HERE. Or, for questions or inquiries, please reach out to Mark Booker at mark@goodfocus.net.