BEHAVE

"Most work places in the United States and its colonies are asking us to be disassociated from our physical and emotional experience. We're just supposed to be brains that create output for the organization at which we work."

Alfonso and Trina go in on what it really means to believe that Identity is always present & culture always matters. They talk about why folks are drawn to keeping diversity, equity, and inclusion work outside of their day-to-day work. And they share examples from their own work and lives of how identity and culture impact our working lives.

Alfonso referenced "How to be an Antiracist" by Imbram X. Kendi

This episode references the Scene on Radio 'Seeing White' podcast series.

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"All the ways we can do gender is so expansive, even within a singular identity."

On this episode, Alfonso and Trina delve into Gender Expression. Alfonso talks about his recent experiences in Province town, Trina shares her current tension around her own gender expression, and they both establish the different between gender identity and gender expression.

This episode also has some clear ways to open up how your organization creates space for folks to be their best selves.

LGBTQ slang: BEAR

"Lot's of different things get to be true at the same time."

Trina and Alfonso share a frame for understanding power and what folks mean when they use the phrase 'power dynamics.' Alfonso shares tips for how teams of folks can think about the role power plays in the workplace. Trina and Alfonso share thinking on how to navigate through power and give useful information on practicing recognition of the power you hold.

On this episode, Alfonso shares what he's learning from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen Youtube channel and Trina shares her learnings from the book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck."

"We can't just pepper in different races, different genders, different identities into a workplace and just expect different results."

Trina asks Alfonso to break down the difference between mixed teams and mono-cultural teams. Alfonso shares his experiences of being the first and only of marginalized identities on teams and how those situations could have gone differently. Alfonso and Trina also unpack the idea that building capacity to actually work across cultural difference isn't easy, doesn't happen quickly, and won't happen without real intentional effort.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Creating-value-with-diverse-teams-in-global-Distefano-Maznevski/d16bbd761783bd46780c5f9fe6ee703eed548023

"If you're feeling holier than thou on more days than not about your colleagues, it might not be a good fit for you."

This episode is all about going from desire to practice.

Trina and Alfonso shares stories of their own individual practice around evolving closer to who they're capable of being. They talk about what's required for individuals to make internal change and what it takes for teams and organizations to change.

"There are some things that have become 'best practices' that really aren't the best for anybody."

On this episode, we're playing with the format and having Alfonso Wenker interview his co-host Trina Olson about hiring. Drawing on her extensive experiences with hiring and firing folks, Trina shares how organizations can be more intentional in their hiring practices from job descriptions, postings, the interview process and everything in between.

Here's a link to the cited study from Harvard Business Review about the current shelf life of skills in the US: https://hbr.org/2012/09/mind-the-skills-gap

Trina and Alfonso talk about the propensity to conflate what it means to be in conflict with being in a fight. They share the some elements from the menu of conflict styles, talk about workplace behaviors and how race and gender identities get layered on into conflict. A & T also share a functioning definition of the word "conflict."

Trina cites the Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) inventory as a tool Team Dynamics pulls from frequently.

https://icsinventory.com/

On this episode, Trina and Alfonso unpack why safe space isn't really a thing and share how they think about holding space for hard conversations. The Team Dynamics approach to creating a container for having hard conversations about race, gender, and class can work is for the dinner table, at work, or out in your community

"The idea that we can separate the hard stuff that's going on in the world around us and just pretend that isn't going on when we're at work, isn't doing us any favors." – Trina

Alfonso and Trina also dig into protocols for holding rooms and they explain the tension and importance of moving from Political Analysis into Personal Practice.

On this episode of BEHAVE, Trina and Alfonso breakdown what they mean when they use the word "Culture" and all the ways folks seem to be using it. They also unpack pervasive patterns of segments of people who are apologizing for taking up space in the workplace.

Plus, Alfonso talks about his current podcast obsession, Switched On Pop!

Referenced in this episode: The Intercultural Communication Institute