Holistic Well-being and Inclusion
Thank you for joining us at the i4cp CDO Board meeting last Thursday. It was wonderful to see and talk with you. We hope you appreciated the safe space to talk with your peers about what you’ve been dealing with both personally and professionally. And, thank you to Marianne (and Paul Martin - smile ) for sending the i4cp care package with herbal tea, chocolates, and a kinetic stress ball. I certainly empathize with your feelings about our current times- both exhausting and energizing. With COVID-19 response and calls for social justice and equity on the docket, we are getting pulled in a lot of directions. And, it’s inspiring to hear that the new level of engagement and potential for real and sustained change is providing the hope for a better, safer future. On the personal side, you were not alone with your concerns – whether talking with your children about how best to navigate this new world in which we live; making the effort to be better allies, and/or finding our own balance between our professional personas and personal lives. I learned from you and I’m equally inspired by your coping strategies (exercise, yoga, meditation, blocking contemplative time, confidential peer sharing, etc.). Thank you for all you do!
The i4cp team heard you loud and clear - you want to see action and positive impact on social justice with a pull toward greater focus on intersectionality without losing the focus on black and brown social justice issues. Let’s continue to make it easier for leaders to conduct their own courageous conversations about race. In addition, let’s focus on retaining parents with school-aged children (particularly women) and providing resources to help them this fall.
As for your overall priorities –compared to our 2020 Priority survey published back in December – most of us are still on track, but with a slightly different focus. Developing and building pipelines for inclusive leaders is still a top priority, but with a lens of leader accountability and developing greater cultural competence is critical. I appreciated the acknowledgment that regions outside the U.S. have racial issues they must reconcile. There is also greater focus on social justice and building an anti-racism culture; pushing leaders towards anti-racist learning platforms. We all aligned on the importance of the topics including interviewing and selection for inclusive mindsets (how do you screen?) and helping allies to overcome bystander apathy.
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