A White Affinity Group Series: "Unlearning Individual Competitiveness & Action Bias In Leadership"

About our Course:

“We’re trained from a very early age not just to be independent, but to be better.”

— Michele Gelfand, Professor of Cross-Cultural Management & Organizational Behavior, Stanford University

“I find that White groups tend to use action as a bandaid to avoid sitting with the pain of what has happened.” – Jim Bear Jacobs, Co-Director for Racial Justice, MN Council of Churches

We’ve all felt them:  the urge to DO something about a situation and the need not to share our methods - from family recipes to successful work strategies. These come from White cultural norms that operate on a subconscious level. We feel them before we think about them. And in leadership positions, there’s also external pressure to act fast and be the best. Yet, neither of these ways of being helps us build a new, antiracist culture. Beyond learning the skills of collaboration and reflection, we must unlearn what holds us back.

In this introductory workshop, for white presenting participants only, we will move our head-learning about Individual competitiveness and action bias into embodied learning so that we can operationalize the things we’ve intellectualized. We will investigate alternate cultural ways of being that are common in Black, Indigenous and racialized cultures. Join us as we expand our cultural understandings, and come away with increased stamina for holding difficult emotions, tools to move us out of our stuckness, and a keener sense of which cultural trait is most beneficial to enact in the moment. Note: the "White Affinity: Letting go of Urgency and Individualism in Leadership" seminar is a companion workshop to this one, not a prerequisite!

About our Facilitator:

Rie Algeo Gilsdorf (she/her/ella) is passionate about seeing and integrating the big picture to restore health, wholeness and equity to systems large and small. With a Master’s degrees in Biology and Modern Dance, Rie organically infuses the perspectives of the body - from the physiology of trauma to the subtlety of gesture -  into all her work. Whether she is breaking down the difficult truths of our common history so they are not overwhelming, providing a Cultural Ways of Being audit to build more inclusive culture, or leading Embodied Equity practice groups, Rie expertly facilitates development of critical consciousness across race, gender, sexuality and ability. She has been a teacher, administrator and designer of arts-integrated, student-centered K-12 schools and Reggio-inspired early childhood programs. Rie is active in the development of systems thinking and sensing tools through the U.School for Transformation, and is a national leader in the use of Social Presencing Theater in antiracism work. See more and contact Rie at www.EmbodyEquity.com

To learn more about our facilitator, Rie Gilsdorf, follow her on Instagram: @embodyequity and visit her website at www.embodyequity.com

To learn more about Racially Conscious Collaboration, follow us on Instagram: @RaciallyConsciousCollaboration and visit our website at www.RaciallyConsciousCollaboration.com to schedule a consultation