Practices for Working Across Differences Workshop
On January 21, 2003, CGO convened a workshop on Mapping Practices for Working Across Differences. We convened twelve change agents and academics for a daylong workshop to:
- Expand on the “principles, skills, and practical actions” that can be used to effectively work across differences in organizations;
- Map practitioners’ and internal change agents’ own principles from their own practices; and
- Codify the practical actions in ways that would be helpful to academics, practitioners, and internal change agents.
We began the day by presenting CGO’s conceptual framework for working across differences as well as some of the major learnings and questions that came out of the June 2002 workshop. During the June 2002 workshop we attempted to develop and refine what we were calling “tools” for working across differences; we used the briefing note as a frame for our work together over the course of one and a half days. At the January 2003 workshop, we moved from talking about “tools” to talking about “practices”. The term “practices” captures what other terms—e.g., skills, practical actions, tools—do not, which is the process of reflecting/thinking and doing.
After reviewing and discussing the proposed framework the group participated in collective “mind mapping” that documented practices and experiences in working across differences at the interpersonal, group, organizational, and societal level. T
his mapping informs the principles and practices that CGO outlined in CGO Insights No. 17: “Working Across Differences: Diversity Practices for Organizational Change.”
Filed under CGO Events
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