"I'm in this work to make my life better."

With Alfonso out of town, Trina invites podcast producer Levi Weinhagen to have a conversation. They talk about the expectations for do or don't have for white men when it comes to anti-racism and equity work. Levi shares his experiences leading equity work from the identities of a white, straight, cis-gendered man who is raising a daughter. 

“Don’t trust your instincts, test your instincts.”

With Alfonso on vacation, Trina welcomes friend + colleague Anil Hurkadli. Anil shares his journey of understanding + building a practice of investigating his instincts. They talk about how brains work, the impacts of colonialism on assumptions, and Anil cites influence from the work of Ron Heifetz.

You can read the article Anil wrote for Education Week HERE.

“Everybody’s attempts to do fair has actually made things way fucking worse.”

Trina was summoned to jury duty. Alfonso asks about the jury experience & they dig into the ways race + gender are present & are both talked about and not talked about. Trina shares four prompts to consider from the individual to the organizational. 

“There are people in the United States who have always wanted to do right by us, and they are always overruled.”

Team Dynamics' Storyteller is Alfred Walking Bull + he connects with Trina + Alfonso to talk about being Lakota from South Dakota. Alfred shares his lived experience of family structure which leads to a conversation about the assumptions folks make about what family can mean. The three of them dig into the capacity to both learn + unlearn plus power of saying 'I don't know.'

"Being from a colonized country, you have to learn more about your colonizer than the other way around."

Trina + Alfonso welcome Team Dynamics' Director of Client Experience Andrea Pérez-Maikkula. Andrea talks about being from Puerto Rico, what it's like to grow up in a place colonized by the United States and to now live in one of those states. Alfonso + Trina share ways they learned they had assumptions around their capacity to work across geographically different lived experiences. 

“Repair can start when we stop pretending that everything is okay.”

Trina + Alfonso begin by reflecting on recent conversations + narratives around Critical Race Theory & the Nikole Hannah-Jones led 1619 project. They dig into why telling truth is so often politicized & what ways folks may be protecting + preserving the comfort of white people. The episodes ends with a focus on how to engage with resistance to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiatives at work.

“Who is doing gay right?”

Trina + Alfonso talk about some patterns in workplaces happening to & around LGBTQ employees. They share some do's and don'ts that can be practiced to disrupt unwanted behaviors and impacts. 

“There’s a difference between harming somebody by misgendering them and being uncomfortable about learning how to use pronouns correctly."

Trina + Alfonso welcome two guests to this PRIDE month podcast. Jesus Lucero is a community organizer speaking through experiences as a non-binary, pansexual, first generation, Latinx person. Erin Maye Quade is a queer, Black, mixed-race, suburban, millennial, woman who works as an organizer + Advocacy Director. 

Together, they talk about the complexity of the LGBTQ experience at work and share some hopes for the short and long-term future. 

“Let’s practice not knowing and being comfortable with not knowing.”

This is the kick-off of a series of Pride-themed episodes.

Alfonso welcomes new Team Dynamics Capacity Builders Tisa Mitchell and Sam Blackwell onto the show to talk about the ways in which gayness impacts dominant culture inside the company. 

"Assuming a universal experience across lines of race, gender, etc, feels like forcing."

Trina + Alfonso dig into some ways to get ready for post pandemic work life by assuming less, and digging into self awareness more. They offer tools for tackling questions like:

• What if some folks you work with cannot or will not get the vaccine?
• What’s possible when it comes to where work happens?
• What are the boundaries + edges?