Chaos Management : From the desk of Chaos Management...

The Advanced Experiential Seminar: A Special Learning Event

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:05:29 +0000

Last December I facilitated a two and half days workshop entitled Class, Race, Gender and Other Intersections of Differences and we engaged in a learning form I have named The Advanced Experiential Seminar. The Advanced Experiential Seminar is a combination of academic seminar, where participants engage in serious discussions on a topic and an experiential event, where participants engage in "here and now" activities, reflect on them, generalize and explore how to apply learnings derived from those experiences to real life situations.¹ This form of learning seems particularly suitable for a small group – five participants and one facilitator – of experienced professionals seeking to increase their skills, expand their knowledge, and engage with other experienced colleagues in "pushing" their own theory and practice. The characteristics of the Advanced Experiential Seminar are:

The miniaturization of identities or why don’t we bring all of our selves to work

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

"We need to bring all of ourselves to work" is a phrase frequently tied to diversity and inclusion efforts in organizations. Bringing all of our different selves is supposed to be good for employees and for the organization because the more skills, identities, and knowledge each employee brings the better the interactions and performance. Recent studies support this popular axiom. For example, Ramarajan and Thomas (2010)¹ report that displaying important aspects of one's identity can lead to a sense of congruence between one's internal feelings and their expression resulting in better relations in groups and increase innovation and problem solving. The opposite also seems true: having to prove a particular image (whether highlighting or concealing negative aspects of one's distinct social identity) can be detrimental.

Hispanic Leadership

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:02:49 +0000

Hispanics are a rich source of talent and profitability in formal and informal organizations today, but our contributions are barely recognized and our leadership remains untapped. This regrettable situation is largely a result of the limited understanding that corporations and educational institutions have about leadership and leadership development.

Let's take how leadership is usually conceived in corporate USA. Popular images of leadership are still very traditional in representing leaders as decisive, usually autocratic, smart, tall, and male. Study after study shows that those who do not meet this image, especially women and "minorities," do not climb the ladder, unless they conform to this image as closely as possible. Above all, they must prove that they will be available 24/7 to meet the demands of the corporation no matter what.

Cultural Scripts, cultural repertoires and globalization

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:09:50 +0000

The global free flow of goods, capital, labor, and cultures across national boundaries and throughout the world, means that new, complex and shifting identities are created, which demand new understandings of gender and other work identities. At CGO¹ we recently discussed with Visiting scholar Michal Frenkel, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, how the concepts of cultural repertoires and cultural scripts can help us address the complexity of gender issues and gender identity in today's world. More specifically, our interest was to explore whether cultural repertoires or scripts help us understand the intersections (or simultaneity) of social identities, organizational practices and societal processes of race-ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and nation in an increasingly global world.

Highlights of new work on simultaneity

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:03:03 +0000

Here are some highlights of Evangelina's latest work on the intersections of differences, diversity and inclusion: The Simultaneity of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Nationality.

Using her model of the simultaneity of identities, she presents a perspective on differences to introduce new ways of understanding identity, diversity, inclusion and social power. Dr. Holvino begins by critiquing common models of identity in the practice of diversity from a transnational feminist perspective. She traces the historical development of these identity models: from one-dimensional to intersectional to simultaneous. Secondly, she expands on the simultaneity model of identity analyzing the public figure of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to illustrate its applicability and to articulate skills of working with a simultaneity model. She concludes with a discussion on the potential and challenges the simultaneity model poses to engage with the multiplicity and complexity of identities in today's globalized world. Some of the objectives she addresses when giving seminars on this topic are, for example,

Re-envisioning Education for All

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 01:27:26 +0000

Evangelina Holvino and James Cumming designed and facilitated a large group event August 13-14, 2010 in Santa Barbara, CA entitled “Re-envisioning Education for All: A Summit for the Academic Achievement of Latino Youth.” An article about the meeting Latinos, activists unite for summit can be found here on the Daily Sound.

Inclusive Leadership: Affirming good and just work in organizations

Sun, 16 May 2010 16:21:59 +0000

Situational leadership; servant leadership; stewardship leadership; transformational vs. transactional leadership; tipping point leadership; shared leadership; salsa, soul and spirit leadership; multicultural leadership; feminist and feminine leadership; cross-cultural leadership; team leadership; charismatic leadership; principled leadership; everyday leadership; and so on.

It is hard to keep up with the latest leadership phrase. For example, I was recently asked to participate in a panel on “inclusive leadership.” I had not heard the term and except for my common sense association with “diversity and inclusion,” I did not think there was anything new that could be said about leadership. A quick search on the web confirmed my suspicions.

A tip for better meetings: Meetings are not about you

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:12:31 +0000

So many books, articles, websites, webinars - good, bad and excellent – are written yearly about how to plan and conduct effective meetings that we hesitate to say anything more on the topic. Yet, most professionals daydream during meetings (91%), miss meetings (96%), miss parts of meetings (95%), bring other work to meetings (73%) or doze during meetings (39%).[1] Our experience confirms it: meetings continue to be as bad as they can be. They are boring, don’t accomplish much or very little, they last too long or not long enough, the power points would have been better sent in an e-mail, the wrong people are in the room, they lack good facilitation, don’t have a clear purpose or an agenda, and so on.