March 27, 2008
Diversity
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Balance, just as any idea or thing or person, has energy and is energy. As you become more and more attuned to energy, you recognize ideas and things and people more easily, without needing visual clues for proof. You might say that you can see more accurately with your eyes closed.
At a very early age, most people are taught to go after the things that they really want. The willingness to fight is often a primary indication that something is worthwhile. To fight, compete, and achieve are lifted up as important values. Schools, teachers, and parents usually reward those who are “better than” and shame or correct those who are “lesser than.” Managers and Employers usually promote those who provide answers, are aggressive, take risks, and solve problems.
What about you? If you have had such a cultural conditioning, it can come as a real shock to hear that what you need to do is “allow” or “be in the flow” or “let go” or “relax.” These can seem like really soft or surreal ideas if you have been successful by doing things, by charging forward, by taking risks.
In my view, it is not such a paradox. Perhaps that is because I do not advocate replacing outward action with inward reflection; I advocate a balance. I more often speak about relaxation, meditation, and being in the flow because I am most often talking with very intelligent, upbeat, tenacious persons who are very successful in their careers. If I spoke mostly to those who are depressed or lazy, I would be suggesting more active and even aggressive strategies. It is joyous balance that I advocate, a condition that is most often achieved by incorporating a pleasant opposite of what is usually experienced.
Generally, here is how I see the human condition: You come into this world eager and lively, tapped into a deep and profound awareness of your magnificence, knowing who you truly are. Then, you are taught to forget who you are by older people who have forgotten who they are. Then, you act in ways that reflect the established culture, creating false images of who you truly are. Then, you must let go of all those manifestations and forms that you have created and remember again who you truly are.
Being, allowing, letting go, being in the flow, and opening are qualities that help you to remember and provide balance for doing whatever you do. Doers already know how to do; doers need to learn how to be, in order to recognize and integrate their wholeness. If every breath is only an out-breath, there is no in-breath to provide more air to sustain the next breaths.
Balance can be elusive if you try to grab it, to take charge of it. So, too, joy can be elusive if you try to grab it, to take charge of it. Therefore, you must be in a receptive mode. Being in a receptive mode makes you more open to vision and to the power of creating from Spirit. As you allow a higher vibration of energy flow through you, you more easily let go of strongly-held human belief in limitation. This higher vibration of energy is the same as that of the new-born who exude eagerness and trust in life.
At any given moment you might feel as though you are “giving up” the familiarity of doing in order to be, or “giving up” being in order to do. The idea is to find balance over time so that you feel empowered in your actions and empowered in your moments of reflection and silence.
Do you live in the consciousness of joyous balance?
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March 26, 2008
Diversity
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With the introduction of the new Employment and Race directives from the European Union in 2001 it is now important that companies examine their attitudes and policies on gender, race, disability, sexuality, age and religion. Given this context, we believe that an understanding of the legislation and its effect on company policies is important for all employees.
However, here at Impact Factory we tend to do things differently. So when we think about equality and diversity issues we don’t offer a standard ‘off the peg’ equal opportunities training. If that is what you need we are probably the wrong company for you.
Diversity workshops
Certainly in our diversity workshops we cover legislation and each company’s own internal policies, but our focus is on examining people’s perspectives on difference, diversity, change and the attitudes and feelings that are sometimes difficult for people around equal opportunities programmes.
Our experience is that with this type of work people can attend a fairly mechanistic one-day event covering the legislation and company policy and leave with the feeling that the work was “bolt-on” and irrelevant to them. The organisation feels it has done what is required but little really changes back in the workplace.
If people feel unable to engage with the realities of working within a diverse, multi-cultural organisation the training isn’t doing its job properly.
Bigotry happens, whether it’s around race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age, religion or nationality.
Whether people want to admit or not, we are all prejudiced. We all make assumptions about others that reinforce our stereotypes; indeed we look for evidence to support our biases. We’re all guilty of the occasional toss-away line that cuts deep; and we all have intolerant behaviours that are so ingrained we don’t even notice we’re doing them.
Not only that, each of us is the focus of someone else’s prejudices and bigotry, is someone else’s stereotype, is the trigger for someone else’s intolerance.
Can you eliminate prejudice? No you can’t.
Can you get people aware of how their prejudices affect others and help them do something about it? Absolutely.
Acknowledging the real dilemmas
For us it is important to acknowledge that people will face real dilemmas around equal opportunities issues. They need to feel equipped to cope with the human side of problems that arise and to feel able to engage with and challenge their own prejudices and stereotypes around difference. They also need to understand just how that prejudice translates into active discrimination.
What happens to people when they are excluded, harassed, bullied, passed over, ignored, isolated - not because of what they do but because of who they are?
People feel demeaned and disempowered. Their motivation falters and their stress levels increase. Most unfortunate of all, their self-esteem and confidence about who they are diminishes.
What happens to companies when any of that happens to their people?
Productivity goes down while stress-related illnesses go up. Formal complaints and tribunals become commonplace, which is an awful waste of people’s emotional energies and time. And they can cost companies a lot of money to boot.
You’ll never stamp out discrimination entirely, but you can make a very effective dent in its power.
The most successful diversity trainings help people to develop reflective thinking, empathy, understanding, raised awareness, sensitivity, an understanding of consequences and a desire to be fair. Skills that will assist them in extending equality of opportunity. Skills that will also help them when they themselves are the victims of discrimination.
Impact Factory’s starting point during the design stage of an equal opportunities programme is always to ask, what has prompted your organization to think about this type of work now? Is it simply the concern about meeting legislative requirements, or do you believe there are real attitudes and practices within the company that need to change?
Additionally we look at a company’s own values on difference and diversity. Again, if they are there simply to meet requirements, then any number of programmes won’t shift things. However, if it’s a company that values its values then the possibility for change is enormous.
This is the real difference between commitment and lip service.
Culture Clashes
When people operate from their prejudices, they create culture clashes. Cross-cultural issues exist everywhere; they exist in every aspect of our lives.
Here’s our take on it: a culture clash of some sort occurs as soon as two people get together, since no two people, even family members, have the same internal world or the same view of the external world. In the broadest sense, you ‘cross’ cultures with every person you come into contact with, whether they are the ’same’ as you nor not.
In a workplace that celebrates differences, people accommodate, sublimate or ignore these different ‘cultures’ because of common ground, shared goals and like interests. When people concentrate on similarities, the differences are less noticeable, or at any rate, less important. Once we get a certain amount of common ground, we can ‘get along’.
Difficulties usually arise when the differences appear to be all there is, or you experience or imagine the differences as stumbling blocks. Indeed, differences appear like rocks at low tide! Obvious ones are language, ethnic or racial background, religious beliefs, gender, age, education.
In the workplace all these may be the cause of culture clashes, and then you add differences in working practises and communication styles between departments, with clients, with other companies and between senior management and other people in the workforce.
When cultures clash, no matter what the cause, things inevitably evolve into a ‘them’ and ‘us’ environment; and then people go around collecting ‘evidence’ to prove that they are right and the other guys are wrong.
There are many avenues to take that will help cultures ‘get along’ better: identifying and concentrating on improved communication, fostering mutual respect, engendering co-operation and shared visions. Then, all kinds of diverse cultures can work side by side to everyone’s benefit.
Feelings and Behaviours
So you can have laws, directives, company policies and company values and you will still have major problems around diversity unless people’s feelings and behaviours are the focus of any equal ops work you do.
We can tell you right now, it can be a mighty uncomfortable process - asking people to dig down deep and talk about their own prejudices on the one hand, and their experiences of being discriminated against on the other.
This is some of what we do:
We start with some of the simpler, or shall we say, subtler forms of exclusion that most everyone will have experienced at some time in their lives: being outside an ‘in’ group, for instance. Indeed a lot of us have had the humiliating experience of standing with a food tray in a cafeteria trying to figure out where to sit and picking up the vibes from some group that say, “Don’t even think about sitting here.”
Then we ask what it feels like being part of an ‘in’ group and what power (often unconscious, but no less potent) that gives people.
Next is a look at the more overt forms of discrimination such as sexual harassment, racist jokes, job rejections, promotion limitations and so on. We find out whether people have colluded and gone along with giving someone else (or even worse, themselves) a hard time. Or whether they stuck their necks out and had them chopped off?
All of that is our departure point. Only then can we help people develop realistic skills to deal more effectively with diverse workplace relationships. We make it personal and relevant.
What we do know is that if you can get this right, the richness of difference definitely makes work a better place to be.
Jo Ellen and Robin run Impact Factory who provide Equality and Diversity Training, Public Speaking Presentation Skills, Communications Training, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching for Individuals.
March 26, 2008
Diversity
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The U.S. Government has issued 65,000 green cards this year for the purpose of allowing people of foreign birth to live and work in the United States. But what is a green card? How does it work and what is the application process?
A green card is usually issued to people who are normally permanently resident in the United States and who wish to become a US citizen. After five years that person is usually eligible to apply for citizenship and naturalization.
In practice there are two broad ways of getting a green card. These are through employment in the United States and through their immediate family.
The correct term for the former type of green card is the H1B Work Visa. This is issued by the U.S. Government and allows foreign professionals from all over the world the opportunity to live and work in the United States.
As one Fortune 500 company recently told our H1B Research Group, “International job seekers who do not take action now, will miss this narrowing opportunity to work in the US. It is crucial to find an H1B Job within the next few months, to even stand a chance of being counted towards the quota.”
These are common feelings and sentiments from many of the H1B sponsor companies.
Many of the top US sponsor companies who were shut out in the cold, due to this year’s H1B Cap being reached very early, are doing everything in their power to ensure they get their fair share of new H1B visa employees as fast as possible.
People wishing to work in the USA will:
1. Need to find a job within a company who will ’sponsor’ and H1B visa for the employee.
2. Ensure the new employer (known as the sponsor company) then files the H1B application on behalf of the employee.
3. Wait until the visa application is approved by the US Immigration Bureau.
Two special categories involving work are Labor and National Interest. In the case of Labor, an applicant may obtain a green card who shows the ability and willingness to perform a specific job in a specifically assigned region, according to a specific set of skills.
Employer sponsorship may be waived in the case of an applicant who can demonstrate that he or she has professional skills to be of national interest to the United States.
In extraordinary cases, if individuals can demonstrate skills or knowledge that are so specialized that they put them at the top of their field, those individuals can usually be granted a green card without the usual official procedures on the grounds of justified exemption.
A similar arrangement would exist for academics and researchers who are recognised internationally as being at the top of their field.
In the case of applications for a green card because of family connections, it must be through an immediate family relationship. A person may apply for a green card if a child, parent or sibling is already an American Citizen. If the parent of a child (who is a minor) is already an American citizen then the child is automatically eligible for a green card.
Also within the broad category of family relationships falls marriage to an existing American citizen. The American citizen must also reside in the United States and there must be sufficient proof to show that the marriage is legitimate.
However, in the case of the former example, through a sponsor employer, the limit this year is 65,000 applicants. Those who believe they are eligible should seek advice right away.
Gordon Goodfellow is an Internet researcher and technologist who lives and works in London, UK. Graham has several sites on the subject of US citizenship
www.inteltab.com/green-card.htm