When was the last time you were in a conversation, and heard someone use the word “ALL” to describe the beliefs or behavior of an entire group of humans?
How many articles have filled your screens in the last week that emphasized all the reasons you should mistrust, disregard, or fear an entire group of people?
I’m deeply troubled about the volume of educated, intelligent, caring people that are having these conversations and sharing these articles and this is why…
Leaders, can you relate to this?
Empowerment is one of your core values. It hangs on walls throughout your building.
You’ve hosted meetings, waved your magic empowerment wand and reminded people that they are encouraged to a take greater level of ownership in your business.
However, for the most part your employees aren’t responding.
I’ve been working with a group of pre and early teens and we’ve been talking about perceptions and reality. In our last meeting, I asked if they have ever greeted someone and not been greeted in return. Emphatically – yes!
So I broke them up into small groups and asked them to come up with a list of at least 15 reasons why someone they greeted would not respond.
At first they listed things like this:
It took awhile for them to start coming up with reasons like this:
I spend several hours each week helping my young neighbors improve their English. Last week one of the girls brought a library book that she had chosen for a book report.
She chose the book because it was short – not because of the content. It was a book about an all black baseball team in the 1940’s in America. (A land and a time she can’t relate to.) …So as she read the book I had a lot of explaining to do.
And that opened the door to talk about how racism and perceptions impact individuals and our world.
Below are several REAL examples of opportunities that curious leaders won’t miss:
1. Managers that work in different departments have daily opportunities to serve each other at a high level.
