Inclusion Diversity Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) Professional Development Series

Save the date  March 25 9-10:30am First Session – Business in Brave Spaces

IDEA Business Advancement Series Session Overview

Business in Brave Spaces

Is there something more important at stake than your fear? Brave Spaces are co-created by individuals willing to confront fear, expose vulnerability, and commit to the arduous practice of unlearning biased attitudes and behaviors.  This session will provide participants with the opportunity for critical self-reflection on unconscious/implicit bias and how it impacts decision-making and interactions with others with different social identities and lived experiences.  Participants will review a set of guidelines to support the co-creation of brave spaces in their business. Business in Brave Spaces makes diversity, equity, and inclusion matters discussible in the workplace. Companies have the opportunity to re-imagine successful habits that foster diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The RACE No One is Winning

The tricky thing about RACE is that you can benefit from systemic and institutional racism and not be racist. Talking about race and other diversity remains a challenge for individuals from multiple backgrounds. In addition to race, conversations about religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, class, immigration are just as complex. Individuals need brave spaces for open and honest dialogue to bridge these cultural divides. This session focuses on the construction of race in the United States and its current impact on societal inequities in our social and economic policy and practices.

Running an Anti-Racist Business

What is required to run an anti-racist business?

We realize two vastly different viewpoints can feel “true” simultaneously. This revelation requires individuals to reject simplistic, binary thinking. Business executives will have the opportunity to recognize and investigate how the legacy of inequities in our society impacts decision-making and policy creation. Anti-racism work requires individuals to assess early messages that shape their ways of thinking and behaving. In addition, the session will give participants a practical model to actively dismantle systemic and institutional inequities. This session will invite us to learn about ourselves and others, so we are free to change our minds as we re-imagine and unlearn ideas that no longer serve us.

Inclusive Leadership is Big Business

Is your organization inclusive enough to be diverse? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work require a more advanced/comprehensive leadership level. Traditional leadership expectations are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of a more diverse business landscape where all employees feel a sense of belonging and know they can thrive and succeed. Research studies reveal that “soft skills” are essential to effective leadership. Building inclusive leadership demands that everyone at all company levels take responsibility for inclusive business practices and are held accountable through their job performance and professional development. This session will focus on inclusive leaders’ inward and outward leadership attributes.

Building and Rebuilding Trust

How do you build trust in diversity, equity, and inclusion? Not everyone understands what these three concepts mean and especially doesn’t feel equipped with the necessary mindset or skills to achieve any goals around DEI work. During this session, participants will examine what one company had to do to tackle its unfinished business around trust.

Dialogue is more than mere conversation or discussion. It is a tool to create empathy, shared meaning, deepen understanding, and collaborative learning. Dialogue assumes that two markedly different perspectives may coexist at the same time and, therefore, rejects binary thinking. Business in Brave Spaces requires participants to establish, protect, and maintain a culture of mutual trust.

Click here to register