Session Four
Colliding over politics: Are we so divided?
Collisions over politics — we see them in the U.S. media everyday! In fact, the 2008 presidential election is adding diversity to the arena of political collisions: race, gender and age!
"What is exciting about this year’s presidential campaign is that it is giving us the opportunity to reflect on how race and gender are still deeply embedded in our individual consciences and in the country’s institutions," says Carolyn Lukensmeyer, presenter for this session and co-founder of AmericaSpeaks.
If your political conversations turn into collisions at work — and we know they sometimes do — how do they impact productive relationships and creating inclusive organizational climates? Join us and explore how your conversations are affected by this politically supercharged election year.
We decided to explore political diversity as part of the NW Diversity Learning Series this year because our definition of diversity refers to any mixture of differences, similarities and tensions.
And there’s more to the diversity definition: "Inclusion requires leveraging these mixtures so that we create a welcoming environment where employees feel engaged and inspired to perform their best."
Can we create organizational climates where people with diverse political views feel welcomed and included? Can we talk about political issues in ways that move beyond the typical either/or, us/them, good/bad dichotomies?
The purpose of this session is for participants to have the opportunity to distinguish and communicate effectively about core values that underlie political issues, both on individual and organizational levels. Participants will also explore dialogue as an approach for bridging political differences in the organization.
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