EAFH34: Michael Spayd talks Systemic Consciousness and Systemic Racism

Dr. Dave:

So, welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast, Michael. I'm just so excited to have you today for our conversation about The Social Justice Center's impact, especially in the Agile community.

Michael Spayd:

Thank you for having me, Dave.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah, I'm just really glad that you were able to connect. So let's just kick off and begin by you doing a quick elevator pitch about who is Michael Spayd and make sure our audience knows who you are and the good work that you're doing, if there is good work. Just kidding.

Michael Spayd:

I hope so.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah.

Michael Spayd:

Well, I've been in the Agile World about 20 years actually and have done a lot of large-scale transformations and started the Agile Coaching Institute with Lyssa Adkins in 2010. And more recently started a company called The Collective Edge with Lyssa and Michael Hamman and Kat Conner. And the time I've spent in the Agile community has been around bringing disciplines, methodologies, techniques in from other disciplines outside of technical ones or Agile software development like facilitation, professional coaching, organizational change and culture, leadership development, things that are really important that are needed in the Agile community but that the Agile community doesn't necessarily know a whole lot about or is not native to them. And I just finished a book with Michele Madore called Agile Transformation: Using the Integral Agile Transformation Framework To Think And Lead Differently. And that's about a big picture view of how transformations go and when we can expect them to happen and when we can't.

Dr. Dave:

Excellent.

Michael Spayd:

And that's a little about me.

Dr. Dave:

That's wonderful. So let's talk about the emotions that systemic racism bring to the surface for you, and really how do you deal with those feelings? Because those are heavy things for people like myself, but what of for you?

Michael Spayd:

Yeah, sure.

Dr. Dave:

What is that experience and the emotion that comes with that?

Michael Spayd:

Well, so I would say that before this year of 2020, my awareness of systemic racism was fleeting, to be honest. It was in patches or in moments and not sustained more as it is now. As I've been reflecting on just the killings this year, the clear record of police violence and oppression and how that extends into all kinds of other places, has really sobered me about that and made me... There's some guilt for me. I wasn't paying attention to this in a way that I wish I would've before. So there's some regret that way. And there's also just some deep compassion.

I remember going to... I live in Richmond, Virginia right now, and going down Monument Avenue where there's all these Confederate monuments and seeing the Robert E. Lee one, which has been taken over by Black Lives Matter and all these pictures on little stakes of black people that have been killed. And just feeling into that in a much deeper way than I have before. And just seeing the pattern and the picture and just raising my empathy for what that's like. It's sort of horrifying to me. So just trying to increase my awareness of systemic racism, the racism in me.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. So do you sense there are challenges with social justice in the Agile community and where there is little empathy for black, indigenous and people of color lives in this space?

Michael Spayd:

Sure, in the same way that it is in most of our society.