The Circle Project

Available now - Free Recording of our recent Teleseminar, "PLAYING WITH BLOCKS"

Patti — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:45:21 -0400

In our recent one-hour free teleseminar, PLAYING WITH BLOCKS: What Keeps Us Out of Intention," we talked about three primary "blocks":

1) False comparisons with Others

2) False expectations of Self

3) False investment in "The Story"

Here's some of the feedback we've received so far:

"Patti and David understand what holds people back, their firsthand stories will sound so familiar to people who doubt themselves and their gifts. More than this, they understand what it takes to get beyond those doubts and do their own true work and make a difference in the world. Their compassion, commitment and true wisdom will give you the tools and the courage to do the same!" -Terri, Rochester NY

"This introductory class was well worth the hour of time I invested. Patti and David clearly love what they do and are excited about offering their learning to others. It is evident that they are real people who will work as guides not gurus." - Linda McLyman, Syracuse NY

"I signed up for the PLAYING WITH BLOCKS tele-seminar in June 09 thinking "let's just hear what they have to say". As a fan of Patti's book, LIFE IS A VERB: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally .. I expected it to be good. ONE HOUR on the phone with these two powerful, filled-with-good-intention "teachers", and I was convinced that I could use a 6-mo commitment to myself & to the Seminar to CLEAR MY BLOCKS - my fears of moving ahead with the life I so want to live. Thank you!" - Anonymous

This call was a brief preview of our upcoming 6-month Telecoaching Class, LIVE YOUR WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE NOW!, which will begin July 7th. Folks from around the world are joining us for that coaching journey toward a more intentional, mindful life - and we'd love to have you join us! Go here to find out more and to register!

If you'd like access to the free recording of the hour-long teleseminar, PLAYING WITH BLOCKS, complete this form and you'll receive it automatically!

Mindful living. Mindful working.

Patti — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:13:47 -0400

The Circle Project announces a unique TeleCoaching Course!

In response to our clients having to reduce travel budgets in these tough economic times, we are so pleased to announce a unique new class that brings The Circle Project to you via the telephone. This is a low-cost way to engage around compelling questions that have a direct impact on your work--and your life.

If you or those on your team could benefit from hands-on coaching from Patti and David, the co-founders of The Circle Project known for their unique, innovative approaches, go here for more information!

We hope you'll join us and open this opportunity to others in your organization. We'd love to explore with you new ways of living and working so you are values- rather than circumstance-driven.

Circle Project co-founders to teach two new courses at Summer Institute

Patti — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:25:37 -0400

We're delighted to announce two new classes that we'll teach during the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC) this July in Portland, Oregon (on the campus of Reed College):

Hip Hop, Manga, Twitter and other new tools for Intercultural Communication Patti is delighted to teach this course with Amer Ahmed from the University of Michigan.
July 15-17, 2009

Diversity in Action: Advanced Experiential Tools for Intercultural Learning
Patti and David will teach this new course, exploring new (radical) ways to teach and learn.
July 20-24, 2009

The Summer Institute provides a unique, residential experience to learn with faculty and peers from around the world. Come, join us!

Reduction Instruction - teaching as a subversive activity

Patti — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:56:07 -0400

[This is an excerpted draft from our forthcoming book, TOAST RULES: 10 Ways to Burn Your Organization (and Yourself)]

At a recent faculty dinner, our tablemates were discussing something they called “Premature Cognitive Conditioning.” “What’s that?” David wondered aloud. One of them gave an example: “if you want to train an elephant, you chain the baby elephant to a tree with an enormous chain. Over time, you reduce the size of the chain and the tree until the elephant, now fully grown, is contained with nothing more than a flimsy rope and a small twig. The elephant has learned at an early age that is impossible to escape, regardless of the reality of the flimsy rope and the twig. It has made a ‘commitment’ to its limitations based on its early life experiences.”

Another tablemate told of an article he’d read about how fish in aquariums are trained by placing large glass partitions between the different species. “After some time,” he proclaimed, “the partitions are removed and the fish are incapable of swimming beyond the point where there once was a partition!” This commitment to limitation isn’t limited to animals—humans invest huge amounts of trust in their own length of flimsy string, those “unwritten rules” by which we live, the ways in which we quash creative questioning and reinforce limitations on others.

REDUCTION INSTRUCTION

In 1969, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote a terrific book entitled Teaching As A Subversive Activity. As relevant today as when first published, it offers some clues about what happens to, “YES,” and about how “yes, but…” came to be cobbled together. Here’s the root challenge they address in the book: “What students do mostly in class is guess what teacher wants them to say.” (pg. 19)

Our current emphasis on standardized tests—and their impact on teaching—reveals how little has changed since Postman and Weingartner first published their assault on outdated teaching methods. Here’s the crisis they outlined:

“…let us remind you, for a moment, of the process that characterizes school environments: what students are restricted to (solely and even vengefully) is the process of memorizing (partially and temporarily) somebody else’s answers to somebody else’s questions. It is staggering to consider the implications of this fact. The most important intellectual ability man has yet developed – the art and science of asking questions – is not taught in school! Moreover, it is not ‘taught’ in the most devastating way possible: by arranging the environment so that significant question asking is not valued.” (Neil Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, pp 24 – 25)

Our current national conversation about the educational system fixates on test scores and ignores the underlying structure that produces them. Content-focused learning will always produce mediocre results as will bottom-line focused businesses. These structures produce elephants held in place by the thinnest of strings because that is what they were designed to do. Chain a child brimming with “YES!” to a desk (sit up straight, don’t talk) and teach her that 1) her natural curiosity is a disruption and has limited value in school, 2) there is a right answer and a wrong answer, and 3) the teacher is the keeper of the distinction.

Over time, the child will reduce the scope and range of her natural curiosity and become a master of mining the teacher for the “right” answer. The goal is to fill in the correct bubble. When she enters adulthood and the workforce she’ll know that something is missing, that she is living too small but won’t really know what that means. Her employer won’t worry about her wandering beyond the limits of her reduced creative capacity because she has made a premature cognitive commitment to the idea that her curiosity is dangerous and the right answer is located elsewhere if she can only find an expert to illuminate it. Yet, simultaneously, her employer will be critical of her because she shows limited self-initiative. A flimsy rope and a small stick, “yes, but…” is prison enough.

Circle Project's Patti Digh to keynote Great Ideas Conference

Patti — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:52:41 -0500

On Monday, February 23rd from 8:00am-9:30am, Circle Project co-founder Patti Digh will keynote the prestigious Great Ideas Conference hosted by ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership in Miami. Focused on her newest book (Life is a Verb) and using story as her main tool, the keynote address will explore six practices for intentional living.

An association leader and ASAE/The Center Board member, Jeff De Cagna, recently re-posted an earlier podcast with Patti and the opening keynote speaker for the conference, Dan Roam. Roam is author of the best-selling business book, The Back of the Napkin, and will speak at the opening of the conference on Saturday afternoon, February 21st.

ASAE and The Center have graciously agreed to offer one-day registrations, so if you're in the Miami area and would enjoy hearing either of us speak, call Anne Blouin at 202-626-ASAE.

David Robinson featured on The Knowledge Omnivore

Patti — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:00:55 -0500

Circle Project co-founder David Robinson was featured this week on The Knowledge Omnivore in an essay recognizing not only his artistic contributions as a painter but also his thinking about diversity issues:

"We are moving too fast to see clearly. We are so inundated with information that we meet complex challenges with simplistic thinking and are astounded when we’ve further complicated the challenge. Surrounded by information, we are uninformed. There is an old Chinese parable; an image of hell in which people sit amidst a fantastic feast, starving because their chopsticks are 3 feet long and they are incapable of getting the food to their mouths.

The need to reduce in order to keep up is a lose/lose strategy. Human beings are no different than any other animal when forced into a survival mode: it’s fight or flight. Careful consideration is not part of the repertoire. Vision is limited. Forget about creating, intentionality or constructive change. Reptilian brain all but guarantees lower order thinking."

To read more of his thoughts, visit The Knowledge Omnivore.

Circle Project featured at national Diversity Summit

Patti — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:16:24 -0500

Circle Project co-founder Patti Digh was recently featured as a keynote speaker for the national Diversity Summit of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE). The Summit was convened to gather association executives and thought leaders for two days of dialogue on diversity and inclusion issues facing nonprofit and association leaders. Digh's remarks focused on addressing diversity issues at a "structure of the land" level, rather than focusing on issues that remain on the surface of the conversation about diversity and inclusion.

Several association executives provided their feedback on Digh’s contribution to the Summit:

“Patti’s presentation did in one hour, what others couldn’t do in days….provide a clear, compelling, and inspiring case for living diversity, not just doing diversity. She is engaging, thoughtful, respectful and provides compelling examples that create empathy and understanding in the audience while creating a desire to act and change. ‘Power’ has been defined as the ability to affect change, after hearing Patti, I have never felt so powerful or energized to really change.” – Gregory Fine

"Patti Digh does not mince words or concepts. She showed us how actions can happen with desire, passion, and commitment." – Joan Eisenstodt

"As usual, Patti brought her unique blend of passionate belief, common sense thinking and good humor to the complex and difficult issues of diversity and inclusion. Patti's invaluable perspectives created new dimensions of depth and meaning in our dialogue. I can say with great confidence that everyone who participated in the ASAE & The Center Diversity Summit was delighted with Patti's contributions to this crucial conversation." – Jeff De Cagna

Patti was also a keynote speaker on diversity at the ASAE Annual Conference in San Diego in August 2008, and will be a keynote speaker at the ASAE Great Ideas Conference in Miami in February 2009.

If you would like a highly regarded diversity speaker for your next event, contact Patti Digh in our Asheville, NC, office at 828-280-5766 or David Robinson in our Seattle, WA, office at 206-853-8289.

PODCAST from Australia features Circle Project co-founder Patti Digh

Patti — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:25:32 -0400

I was delighted to have a conversation recently with Viv McWaters and Geoff Brown, both based in Australia. In their interview with me, you'll hear about my new book, LIFE IS A VERB, but also about the work of The Circle Project and how (and why) we work in the ways we do. I hope you'll enjoy it. I know I'm wishing I had an Australian accent after listening to it...

Go to the Patti Digh Winkipodcast here

Winkipod And Patti Digh

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: 37 days)

Seeing and Believing

Patti — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:01:00 -0400

Recently, the employees of a large multinational corporation voted to go on strike. They estimate that action will cost the company millions of dollars each day of the strike. This morning I had a conversation with a manager representing one of the many diversity teams within the company; she and her team are frustrated because her executives see no point in paying attention to the “soft” stuff like relationship. The team is having a hard time getting traction. She told me, “It’s all about the bottom line. If it doesn’t directly impact the bottom line they don’t want to hear about it.” She asked the question that all companies ask us, “How do I get them to see how important this (relationship) is?”

The short answer is, “You can’t.” For two reasons:

First, there is an old cliché line that everybody knows, it goes something like this, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” It’s a nice line but it’s backwards. To be accurate, the sentiment should be, “I’ll see it because I believe it.” We perceive what we expect to see. One of the foundational beliefs in business (American-style) is that relationship and “the bottom line” live in opposition to each other.

How many times have you heard, “Don’t take it personally, it’s just business”? The underlying assumption is, of course, that relationship costs money. And it does - because relationship takes time, and we've heard many times that “time is money.” Sadly, that’s only half of the accounting--but it’s the half that gets reinforced so the myopic focus on the bottom line blinds business to the costs of lost opportunity and the mangling of their intangible assets. They don’t believe it so they can’t see it. If losses in the millions of dollars a day will not pop open the eyes of business leaders to the concrete dollars and sense of valuing relationship, nothing will.

The second reason is more problematic. Values, morality and ethics live in the “relationship” column. If the bottom line is the sole driver of all decisions, then we are relieved of the responsibility of asking (in a serious way), “what are we doing, why are we doing it, should we be doing it, what is the long range impact of what we are doing, how are we treating each other,….” I’m not insinuating ill intent; in fact, quite the opposite.

Values reveal themselves in actions. Those important questions are being asked, and asked and asked and asked by well-intended individuals within organizations that are in service to something that refuses to consider their humanity as valuable. If, for the larger organism, “it’s all about the bottom line,” then to the individuals inside the organism, there are very few available answers to their questions; none of the answers is really palatable so the only remaining choice is to continually ask the question (thus, the perpetual pursuit of the business case). All of the other options will remain invisible, or at least unbelievable, until there is a shift in values.

-David Robinson

Why Experiential: Beyond the Abstract to the Embodied

Patti — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:06:53 -0400

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. -Franklin P. Jones

My friend, Sam, is an extraordinarily gifted facilitator and coach. He helps corporations have hard conversations. Let’s face it, organizations are no better than individuals at having difficult conversations. They avoid, deny, pretend, and justify just like the rest of us.

Sam was working with a multinational corporation: people in power suits sitting around a larger-than-life, acres-long, mahogany and oak boardroom table employing every avoidance strategy in their arsenal (blackberries and cell phones are fantastic tools for avoidance), maintaining their aura of “professional.” In exasperation, Sam slid ever-so-slowly out of his leather power chair and underneath the table. In the shocked silence that followed, Sam watched all the legs fidget until one curious face looked beneath the table. Sam waved and motioned for that person to join him. Then another face looked. Sam and his new ally waved and motioned and that person slid under the table to be with them. One by one, all of the power suits slid under the table and joined Sam. When they were all “under the table,” Sam said, “now that we’re all together, can we finally begin talking about what’s really going on in this organization?” They had a very difficult and honest conversation and began to address the real issues.

When Sam slid under the table, his work became experiential, he neutralized all the roles being played, removed the status games so that his clients could reach beyond the abstract and reveal what was personal and relevant about their challenges. Most trainings or interventions are designed to raise awareness about an issue; the underlying assumption is that behavior will change when awareness is heightened. It’s a flawed assumption. Think about it, if raising awareness were enough to change behavior then there wouldn’t be a single cigarette smoker on the face of the planet.

Language, talking about issues (and around issues), is inadequate when significant change is needed. We act when we identify, when the required change becomes personal, when the need reaches beyond the abstract and engages the feelings of each individual. The word, “experiential” in experiential learning is not about games or movement or manufactured experiences, it is about connecting to each participant’s personal experiences. Perhaps the most significant reason, the “bottom-line” reason for business is this: abstract knowledge is not accessible in a difficult moment.

Companies feel the need to protect themselves against all the “isms’ that happen in the workplace, all the potential missteps that happen in an “edge” moment and consequently become a crisis. Knowledge and rules are available before or after the fact. Regardless of our belief to the contrary, people are not rational nor are they objective when feeling threatened. Choices only become more available in “hot” situations if, in training, they’ve already had the physical experience of what they actually do when they come to an edge – it is different than what they think they do.

Our belief is that most people want to do the right thing and will choose not to react from an “ism” if they recognize that there is a choice, if they’ve been to an edge before and have learned to react by slowing down, paying attention to their thoughts, and suspending judgments.

-David Robinson

Clearly stupid mistakes

Patti — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:37:34 -0400

-David Robinson

I am surrounded by books. I love books. They are like people; some are merely acquaintances while others become dear friends that I visit often. One of my favorites is Influence by Robert Cialdini. I spent the morning rereading the last chapter because it has been haunting me, sitting in the back of my mind for months. He posits that with the pace of technological change and the explosion of information, we’ve had to adjust the way we make decisions. He believes that although we all want to make carefully considered decisions, “More and more we are forced to resort to another decision-making approach – a shortcut approach in which the decision to comply (or agree or believe or buy) is made on the basis of a single, usually reliable piece of information.” The operative word is “usually.” He continues, “An isolated piece of information, even though it normally counsels us correctly, can lead us to clearly stupid mistakes….”

This is the great paradox; the tiger trap hidden in the jungles of contemporary business and life. We are moving too fast to see clearly. We are so inundated with information that we meet complex challenges with simplistic thinking and are astounded when we’ve further complicated the challenge. Surrounded by information, we are uninformed. There is an old Chinese parable; an image of hell in which people sit amidst a fantastic feast, starving because their chopsticks are 3 feet long and they are incapable of getting the food to their mouths.

Does your organization really need a “business case” for diversity? Do you even recognize the absurdity of making a business case for an espoused value? Would you willingly reduce any of your values into numbers, dollars and cents? For instance, what’s the cost of a family value? If it’s too expensive, should we consider not doing it? What else have you reduced in an effort to keep up? Have you reduced your news source to a single point? Can the moral questions of our time really be reduced to a single phrase or point of view (pro-life, pro-choice)? In a global economy can anything as complex as immigration be reduced to something so simplistic as “illegal or not illegal?”

The signs of reduced thinking are all around us if we choose to pay attention. The trouble is, paying attention takes time.

Mind the incentives

Patti — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:35:17 -0400

-David Robinson

I just watched Michael Moore’s film, Sicko. It’s about health care – or the lack of health care - in the United States. Among the many salient points made in the film, I was reminded that one need only look at the incentive structures of a system to see the actual values (as opposed to the espoused values) of the system. For instance, Moore makes the point that doctors in France are offered incentives according to the number of people they help, where as doctors in the United States are offered incentives according to the amount of money they save insurance companies. Simply put, in France, the money is used in support of the people and in the United States the people are used in support of the money. Values betray themselves in actions. Incentives are nothing more than values in actions.

When I was a graduate student I had the opportunity to assist a great theatre director named Bob Moss. One day at lunch I asked him for the single best bit of advice he could give me if I wanted to be successful in the theatre. His answer was immediate, “Oh, that’s easy,” he said, “if you want to be successful in anything, simply do what you say you can do.” Sage advice.

I think of Bob Moss every time I enter a company and read their value statements. Generally, The Circle Project is hired because there is a gap between the stated value of a company and how it is being expressed (or not) in the actions of the company. When an organization says, “we value team,” but the reward structure is based on individual merit, then there is a gap. When the company says diversity is a core value but evidence of diversity disappears the higher up the ladder you climb, then there is a gap.

Gaps are not always indictments. Sometimes they are incentives. Because they betray what we really value as opposed to what we say we value, gaps present opportunities to either align our actions with our words or to change our words. They provide the opportunity for us to not only do what we say we can do, but more importantly, be what we say we are.

Taking positions

Patti — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:19:18 -0400

-David Robinson

Todd was passing through Seattle on his way to Portland. When he visits, I like to probe his point of view. He’s Canadian, a gifted thinker, and because he concerns himself with the happenings in the world he always has interesting perspectives. Since we are in an election season, I questioned him about what he sees as the hidden challenges we face in the United States. His insight was especially compelling:

“The great challenge facing America” he said, “particularly evident in this election season, is that you take positions too quickly. It’s almost impossible for you to have substantive debate about any issue because you rush to defend your positions before you’ve had the opportunity to consider the worth of the opposing point of view. In fact, listening to the opposition is treated as a sign of weakness, immediately branded as ‘wishy-washy.’”

Listen to the language used in framing the nightly news. We are red states and blue states, pro-life or pro-choice, for guns or against them. Have we lost our middle ground? Are we stuck in a vicious cycle capable only of trying to apply tame solutions to wicked problems, thereby further complicating them? Do we really believe that we can learn anything of substance from our candidates in a debate format that allows only 2 minutes for response and a minute for rebuttal? Do we really want to hear a substantive debate? Would we take the time to listen, eschew our sound-byte mentality?

Do an experiment: listen to the conversations around you, not for substance but for the framing. I’m writing this in a coffee house and I just heard someone say, “Republicans are idiots!” Listen to the story you tell yourself; count the number of times a day you engage in justifying your point of view, how many times a day do you plant a flag in the sand to claim that your view is right? Count the number of times you reduce or negate someone because of their opinion? How many times a day do you reduce your self?

As Todd suggested, we would do well to step back and listen and consider that the other point of view might be as valid as ours. We would do well if we refused to reduce our selves and our issues to the simplistic. What would our places of work and our communities be like if we addressed diversity because we valued it and had no need to justify our values with a business case? What if we let go of the misguided notion that there is a standardized test capable of measuring individual learning? What if we took the time to deal with a global economic challenge like illegal immigration in all of its complexity and believed we were capable of more than building a wall?

Further reading: For an interesting discussion of this idea of reducing to a single point, see Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, and David Berreby's Us and Them.

Stereotypes are spells

Patti — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:40:56 -0400

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” -Douglas Adams

I’d been in the car for a few days, driving non-stop from Louisville, Kentucky, to Stockton, California, with barely a single stop between the two. I had a new job, one of my first out of college. I was going to work with friends in a small theatre and I was eager to get to California. I was eager to start my life as an adult and as an artist.

In school, as an artist, I thought had two choices: New York City or California. I believed that New York, the big city (a place I had never been) would eat me like a small snack, a bit of cheese on a toothpick. California was my choice and held my destiny and I was in a rush to begin. My stop was in Denver to see my family and sleep a long night before the second leg of my epic journey.

I had a big breakfast with my parents and was in my room repacking my bag when my mother came in and sat down on the bed. That was the signal. She never came into my room and sat on the bed unless she had something weighty to say, something of great import to deliver. As a boy, it usually meant that I was in dire trouble. I stopped my packing, sat and readied myself for the news. This was it: she told me that I was in grave danger. She begged me to be wary because, as everyone knew, “Californians have no morals.” I could be led astray “out there” if I was less than vigilant. Assuring her I’d be careful, I put my bag in the car, and drove toward Sodom.

Growing up I also heard that “all cabbies will try and cheat me” and that I should never ride on public buses because, “only dangerous people ride on public buses.” I remember this was confusing because my grandmother took the bus everyday to her job in a candy factory; she was a tiny woman who enjoyed a good laugh; she wasn’t dangerous. Nevertheless, the stereotype, “only dangerous people ride buses,” stuck with me. I grew up actively avoiding public transportation. And taxi cabs. I became a world-class distance walker. When the day came that I had to - unwillingly step onto a public bus, I was terrified. I was in San Francisco and my friends (the moral-less Californians) wanted to take a bus across town. We were late for a dinner date. I pulled out all the stops, my bus avoidance techniques, my manipulations, my pleas for exercise glanced off my companions. They thought I was kidding. So the bus pulled up and I stepped on with all the dangerous people.

The riders who looked bored than dangerous. I found a seat near a door in case I needed to quickly escape. My seatmate was an elderly woman and after a few moments we struck up a conversation and had a nice chat. I confessed my virgin rider status and she reassured me that I would quickly master the art of the bus. I learned that she was on her way home from work. She’d taken the bus every day for over thirty years. I stepped off the bus unscathed and confused. There were no dangerous people on that bus; did I spin the wheel of fortune and manage to get on the only safe bus in San Francisco or was I given bad information about buses?

Of course, one bus ride did not dispel (dis-spell, as in, remove the spell) the fear instilled in me in my youth but after several rides, several personal experiences of bus riding, the evidence no longer supported the “dangerous people” stereotype. I let it go. I mastered the art of the bus.

My experience with buses and Californians taught me an invaluable lesson: If you want to know the truth of a stereotype, you have to step toward it; you have to take a few rides on buses to know for certain if what you heard is true. I began to live wild and hailed a cab!

Language is powerful.

Several years ago I went to a lecture given by Don Miguel Ruiz and he told a story about language. Basically he said that people in the United States misunderstand the word, “spell.” To spell someone is not a kind of weird voodoo or magic act. He said, “Tell a little girl that she is fat and you have spelled her forever.” “Language,” he reiterated, “is very powerful.”

Stereotypes are spells!

I remember the day, stepping out of a cab having just had a very lively conversation with the cabbie, when it occurred to me that no one in my family, none of those that warned me about cabs, had ever actually been in a cab! I grew up in a suburb. My parents, my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles all owned and drove cars. How could they possibly know that “all cabbies try to cheat their passengers?” Their fear was based on nothing in particular. Rumor, perhaps a story, but certainly not experience. They transferred their fear to me and I took it in and carried it with me for years. It shaped my beliefs. It informed my experiences. It limited my choices. I laughed when the spell was broken. So many lost opportunities, so many worn-out shoes!

Standing on the sidewalk, having just paid my honest cabbie, I had the kind of revelation you have, the kind of insight you see once a spell has actually been broken. A chain of very simple truths unfolded before me. They looked something like this:
• At the base of every stereotype is fear.
• Fear is not generated by that which is feared (i.e. buses, cabs, others) but by the one living in fear.
• Stereotypes are not passive, they generates and perpetuate fear; fear generates stereotypes. It’s a vicious circle.
• Fear is always projected outward. To reiterate: its purpose is to create more fear (in others) and foster more stereotypes (about others).
• Finally, stereotypes serve three specific purposes, 1) to mask the fear, 2) to justify the response to the fear, and 3) to elevate the status of the one who is afraid.

To be effective a stereotype requires group agreement. Alliances must be created in order to pass on the spell to as many people as possible, in order to reinforce the stereotype. If I am alone in my belief that bus riders are dangerous, I will eventually have to alter my belief but if the entire clan believes bus riders are renegade outlaws then it must be true! I need never ride a bus, never have a direct experience, I am on board with the clan and the spell will have me see danger at every bus stop.

Last year I sat next to a very well dressed man on a flight from the east to the west coast. Over our long flight he told me he was the father of two young children and lived in an affluent neighborhood outside of Seattle. He showed me pictures of his family. He had worked hard and done well in his career and he was proud to share his story. During our conversation he mentioned that he never let his children play outside in the backyard of his home without constant supervision. I probed his reasons for such vigilance and he told me that, “ the world is not safe. In fact,” he said, “it is filled with bad people, kidnappers.” I was surprised by the vehemence in his answer so I asked if he’d ever known anyone whose child had been kidnapped? “No,” he replied. I asked if he’d ever experienced anything bad on his street or within his local community. “No, not directly,” he admitted, “I live in a very safe place.” he assured me. I asked if he trusted his neighbors, perhaps there was a shady character living on his street. “No!” he laughed, “I am blessed with great neighbors. I know them all.”

“But, where does this belief in bad people and kidnappers come from?”

“It’s everywhere!” he insisted. “It’s on the news every night!”

Yes. Stereotypes need alliances. Group agreement, like language, is a very powerful thing. As Don Miguel would say, “tell all the people they are surrounded by bad people and kidnappers….”

“What if the news is wrong?” I asked. “What if the world was actually getting safer? What if there are good people all around you?”

“I’d need to see proof!” he insisted.

I didn’t say it but I thought, “what if the proof you seek is all around you but because you are under a spell you just can’t see it?”

What I said was, “What would it take for you to seek proof?” He swatted my question away, laughing. He was spelled for life.

Cabbies are cheats. Dangerous people ride buses. Californians are free of morals. There are bad people and kidnappers everywhere.

-David Robinson, Co-founder, The Circle Project

Circle Project featured at Summer Institute

Patti — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:43:29 -0400

A unique learning environment is created each summer when the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication takes place in Portland, Oregon, on the campus of Reed College.

Circle Project co-founders Patti Digh and David Robinson will once again this July offer their week-long course on experiential learning as part of the Institute. Scheduled for July 14-18, this workshop got rave reviews last year. Come, join us for a week of active, embodied learning!

With her colleague Kichiro Hayashi from Tokyo, Patti will also teach a week-long course called "Hiding in Plain Sight: Surfacing Cultural Meanings Through Narrative and Story" from July 21-25 during the Institute. Join us to learn about the power of story.

Co-Founder Patti Digh featured in recent Podcast

Patti — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:19:00 -0400

Circle Project co-founders Patti Digh and David Robinson will present a 3-hour workshop on diversity and inclusion for ASTD Cascadia on the campus of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, on July 16th, 2008.

In preparation for that event, representatives from the ASTD Cascadia chapter interviewed Patti for their podcast, an excerpt from which is available for listening above. Another excerpt focused on living intentionally is available on Patti's blog, 37days.

Circle Project's Robinson gets rave reviews for NYC directorial debut

Patti — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:43:22 -0400

Circle Project co-founder, David Robinson, directed a play entitled "Dirt" in New York City this past August to rave reviews. "Dirt" explores what it is to be "the Other" and the impact of internalized racism, messages strongly connected to the diversity work of The Circle Project itself.

This review appeared on Aug 18, 2007:

"See this show.

Because it reminds us how rarely, and how inaccurately, we too often see each other and ourselves. On the subway after seeing Dirt, I thought hard about how I was looking at the strangers around me: the generalizations I was making about them; the lack of eye contact. See this show.

'My name is Sad. I'm 30 years old.' We hear this phrase repeatedly throughout this one-man play, in different incarnations. Sometimes he says he's 25 instead, sometimes he follows it with phrases such as 'I'm a piece of shit. I won't contest that.' Sad is a self-degrading illegal immigrant from Iraq, a peddler of roses, a self-confessed liar, a lover of America. He is the product of racism; he knows he is inferior, he knows he doesn't deserve to look an American in the eye, or sit on a park bench, or use a public toilet. Sad's monologue, directed straight at us, jumps back and forth. Through repetition, in spite of the lies, we see greater layers of truth, of who he is, where he came from, and where he now lives. But predominantly we are left with how terribly he views himself in comparison to the beautiful fair-skinned Americans.

See this show. The script, written by Robert Schneider and translated from German by Paul Dvorak, is rich, poetic, and unique. Christopher John Domig is captivating, highly skilled, and utterly heartbreaking as Sad. David Robinson's direction is smart and beautiful, relying heavily on contrasts. The elements come together with skill and precision, creating a true piece of art."

Another reviewer takes us deeper into the social context for the play:

"Behind the rhetoric of the nation’s current illegal immigrant discussion, underneath all the political debates about building fences and amnesty, lies a deeper accusation steeped in fear and anger: You are not one of us. Deemed unworthy by the majority, this growing segment of the American population is dismissed in title as well as stature. They are the illegals — the aliens — and since they have no rights, they aren’t really our problem.

In 'Dirt,' playwright Robert Schneider gives a face and a voice to the legions of illegals currently excluded from the conversation about their future. Taking the form of an animated monologue, Schneider’s thesis has less to do with politics than with something more basic about the nature of human identification and self-worth. And toward that end, the title 'Dirt' is not a mistake. Sad (Christopher Domig) sees himself as an insignificant speck on the glorious American landscape, a piece of dirt when compared to the magnificent light-skinned people who so casually dismiss him as he walks the city selling roses. Sitting in his cramped apartment, where he hides in his only chair and stares into the mirror, he works through the degrading stereotypes of Arabs as if they were facts. He talks of how he is not worthy of being seen by American eyes, not worthy of sitting on the benches in the city’s parks or using the public toilets reserved for the brave, admirable Americans.

He talks of his homeland in the Middle East, at first fondly but then only as a way of acknowledging all the ways he is inferior to Westerners. He talks about his roommate and friend, only casually mentioning the ways his comrade has tried to commit suicide, mocking him for being unaware of how lucky he is to be in this beautiful country without a language, family or heritage to call his own.

Then he gets angry, screams, and chugs more from a bottle of gin. Composing himself, he 'takes it all back.' He really loves this country. He has no right to complain.

Guided by a brilliant performance from Domig, who seamlessly segues from a man in awe of America to a man disgusted by its contempt of the unfamiliar, 'Dirt' — a ’90s hit in Europe and translated poignantly by Paul Dvorak to suit today’s immigration strife in America — turns our own rhetoric against us. Encouraging the audience to rise up against these foreigners, these 'dirty Arabs' mooching off the government and corrupting the children, he stretches our fears to their logical extreme, so we can see them in all their xenophobic glory. Sad’s dirt and he knows it — all he wants is for us to be more honest about the situation."

As we know in our work with Circle Project clients, theatre--and literature and the arts--provide communal experiences in which we together can search for meaning; we are losing touch with that kind of meaning-making in this culture--and in corporate America, which is where we do much of our work--but the arts have the capacity to get us back into these important conversations about our fears and anxieties about change and race, as a nation, as organizations, and as individuals.

Digh featured in Chronicle of Higher Education

Patti — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:14:33 -0400

What Can Be Done to Diversify Executive Suites?
From The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 28, 2007

Although the American population is growing more diverse, and colleges are seeking to enroll students and hire faculty members from many different backgrounds, the top leadership at most higher-education institutions remains quite homogeneous. For example, a 2005 Chronicle survey of about 1,300 presidents at four-year institutions, of whom 764 responded, found that nearly 89 percent were white and almost 81 percent were male.

At The Chronicle's second annual Presidents Forum, held in Washington in June, Mickey L. Burnim, president of Bowie State University; Patricia Digh, co-founder of the Global Diversity Roundtable and the Circle Project; and Laura Skandera Trombley, president of Pitzer College, discussed the issue and what can be done to diversify colleges' executive suites. Following is an excerpt of their answers to questions from the session's moderator, Sara Hebel, a senior reporter at The Chronicle, and from members of the audience.

Hebel: How much attention should institutions be paying to the issue of diversity among their top administrators? What can colleges do to hire and promote a wider range of top officials?

Trombley: Diversity has to be a goal of the board of trustees and viewed as a core value of the institution; otherwise, it will always remain on the margins. No one group should serve as an institution's symbol of diversity. It cannot be students; it cannot be staff; it cannot be faculty. Efforts to increase diversity have to involve everyone.

Trustees must support diversity initiatives, do outreach, and emphasize when they are conducting presidential searches that not only are they interested in a diverse pool of candidates, but also that the institution is ready for that diverse pool of candidates. I have been a candidate where it was clear that I was the "diversity candidate," and everyone was thrilled that their institution was so forward-thinking. But, in my view, if I was such a big surprise, that indicated that more foundational work needed to take place at that institution. Colleges can accomplish that by asking diversity experts to come in and help educate various groups on their campuses.

It is also important to have good institutional data. At Pitzer College, we know, for example, that 45 percent of the faculty members are women and 36 percent are people of color, and that 32 percent of the students are students of color. We have an institutional-research Web site that provides all that information, and that forms the basis for our discussions.

Hebel: What steps do leaders need to take to make sure that diversity is something that their campuses focus on?

Burnim: I agree that trustee leadership is critically important on campuses, that board members set a tone. To create the right climate or culture, a president must first articulate the value and the importance of having a diverse campus — of having diversity not just within the student body and the faculty ranks, but within the administration as well. Second, the president must walk the walk and make sure that the cabinet and senior leadership are diverse. What one does speaks a lot louder than what one says.

For example, at Bowie State University, we have spent a lot of time refining the strategic plan. Before we finalize that process, I want to make sure that we explicitly address the notion of diversity and what that means for our campus, and that we have some measurable objectives against which to gauge our progress. We need to put the right accountability measures and standards in place. We must also provide adequate resources, and recognize and reward behaviors that help us reach the outcomes that we want.

Hebel: Ms. Digh, you have described the lack of diversity in university leadership as a "wicked problem" for which simplistic or short-term solutions will not work.

Digh: The phrase "wicked problems and tame solutions" has come out of looking at diversity issues for about two decades and recognizing lately that I have made the mistake of proposing easy solutions to very complex problems. Racism in this country is a wicked problem. It is attached to a lot of other societal problems, so it is very difficult to say, "If I do A and B, then racism will disappear."

Americans like short-term, quick, linear solutions to issues like diversity or racism, which are long-term, complex issues that don't necessarily have solutions. Every wicked problem is unique. The lessons learned dealing with a wicked problem at one institution are not necessarily ones that can be easily transferred to others. What's more, wicked problems are often solved as well as they can be through group efforts. So you must constantly ask yourselves when you are in a strategic-planning process, for example, who else should be at this table? Are all the people in the room thinking just like me? Do we need different voices?

The easy way of trying to tame a wicked problem is to simply construct a definition of the problem that obscures its wicked nature and then apply linear methods to solve it. For example, a human-resources person called me to say, "We had some white employees put nooses on black employees' lockers. Could you come help us with this issue? We are wondering if you could conduct a two-hour workshop."

But such tame solutions, when they are imposed on wicked problems, exacerbate the situation by hiding the fact that it was wicked to begin with. If you have an issue on your campus and do a two-hour workshop on it, you might keep the trustees happy but actually make the situation worse.

Instead, we should make ourselves step back from our innate impulse to tidiness and ask, "Have I engaged fully in what the problem is? Do I understand the complexity of it?" And, like a Rubik's Cube, "if I change one thing or solve one part of it, will the other parts change?"

Hebel: How can colleges effectively set benchmarks and move forward in a concrete way?

Trombley: When we went through our strategic-planning process, we talked about what we wanted to see happen at the institution in five years and the areas where we had the greatest concern. Because Pitzer is a small college, we were able to come together and have an enormous amount of discussion — among large and small groups, in residence halls and elsewhere — and come up with common goals that we adopted as part of a strategic plan. I cannot overemphasize the importance of having a dialogue on a continuing basis; it cannot occur only during times of crisis. A lot of the best work happens when you are building relationships and channels of communication so that, if an issue does arise, you can work through it constructively.

Hebel: How do you foster discussions when people hold different views about diversifying the top ranks of the institution?

Burnim: It is not hard to engage in a discussion on campuses. We are intellectual communities, so whether it is a forum, a convocation at the beginning of an academic term, or commencement, I take the opportunity to teach a lesson or raise a question or issue. That continuing dialogue can take place throughout the campus and the academic year.

Trombley: I do not wait for students to come to me or for faculty members to drop by. I'm always walking around and talking with students and professors. And I tell students about how I had never even seen a woman president or taken a course from a female full professor when I was their age. The only woman I ever met in a leadership position was my mother, who was an elementary-school principal. I talk about how that is now simply part of their experience and how extraordinary it is that we can have such a conversation in my lifetime.

Hebel: If you are trying to diversify the top ranks, what are some specific ways that you can help build a pipeline of potential candidates and ultimately get a qualified pool of diverse applicants to chose from?

Burnim: It isn't enough for us as presidents to advertise for openings, to try to make sure that we have a diverse pool, and then to choose an appropriate person from that pool. We do not have a lot of people of color, for example, who are coming through the pipeline so they will be in positions to join the faculty and then move through the administrative ranks and ultimately become presidents. So in addition to trying to run open searches and creating a culture that fosters and encourages diversity, we have some obligations to help increase the supply of people who are in position to fill the top spots.

What can I do as a president to make sure that there are people who are in place to fill those roles? I can encourage people to position themselves for leadership. I can say: "I recognize some qualities in you that I think would make you a great dean or vice president down the road. Have you thought about attending leadership-development programs like the American Council on Education Fellows Program or the Millennium Leadership Initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities?"

Also, when I hire people, I say: "Look, I'm hiring you because you have outstanding credentials and the appropriate experience to perform this job, but I'm interested in your personal development as well. What do you want to do five years or 10 years down the road? I will work with you to see that you have the experiences and the development that will position you to do that." I figure that the person is going to serve my institution most effectively if he or she feels that they are doing something that will benefit themselves as well as me and the institution.

Hebel: What are some best practices and strategies to diversify the top ranks?

Digh: A friend always says that people do diversity work because of pain, vision, or a combination of the two. The demographics of the country have changed, and if you and your institution are not in pain right now, you will be. You must ask yourself, "What action must I take to make this institution inclusive?"

For example, I could buy one of many types of running shoes since they are all about the same price and quality, but I buy a certain brand because I know the company's CEO has a foundation that supports abused women. I would venture to say that most students who are now coming to your campuses are also making purchasing decisions based on, "What does this institution stand for?"

If I were a college president today, I would step back and ask: "What is the story that my institution is telling right now about diversity? When you look at my board, is it a white, male-dominated group?" Because that is the story that you are telling and what people are hearing. Change does not happen until an organization and its leader change their story.

One way to get at that is to teach people how to have a dialogue. We don't know how to do that in this country; we scream at each other a lot but do not necessarily know how to deal with conflict. How do you begin to bring people up in the ranks of your institution who have the skill to hold opposing points of views at the same time — to recognize that any diversity conversation is not an either-or, but a both-and conversation?

Also American institutions are largely built around culturally white traditions, and we need to prepare minority candidates to come into what are largely white, male-dominated organizations. We must say to our trustees, "You know, part of the process of diversity work is for you to acknowledge that there are different ways of doing this job." But often, we just graft people from minority backgrounds onto the institution, and then they fail in some significant way because we do not value their cultural norms in terms of how they operate. And then the board says, "I told you it just does not work." But the real problem is that we haven't provided the kind of support that people need.

Hebel: Let's take some questions.

Question: I just spent the last year coordinating a successful presidential search that resulted in our first black president in 60 years. What do you do with folks who have never had to work for a black president? What might we do to make sure that we have the kind of welcoming, nurturing environment for a minority CEO that will help him and the institution to succeed?

Burnim: As part of the transition, you might hire a consultant and ask that question: How can we best prepare the institution for this new leader? That would be beneficial because, no matter what the characteristics of the new leader coming in, a new president represents change for the institution, and that always requires some adjustment.

Trombley: I would suggest taking the administrative cabinet and the president on a retreat, perhaps with a consultant, where people spend the night off the campus so they do not have to try and juggle two or three things at the same time. I would also try to make it a safe space where people can ask honest questions. And at the conclusion of the retreat, I would try to come up with some common goals that unite everyone.

Digh: An acknowledgment that, "Yes, a black president is coming into our institution" is important. We dance around these issues. We bring in people from a wide diversity of backgrounds, but then we say, "We are not going to notice the fact that they actually are different from us." We need to have a conversation about why we so often mistakenly equate simply acknowledging difference with making a value judgment about a person — that they are better or worse than we are.

Question: I have studied the pipeline on the national level using data from the American Council on Education and found that different minority groups appear at different stages of the pipeline. For example, there may be people at the level of department chairman who are of Chinese and Indian descent, but how many chief executives are of Chinese and Indian descent? I am the chairman of the Asian-American committee at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The number of public-university presidents from China, India — indeed all of Asia — could sit comfortably in a very small room. How do we look at different groups, whether it is women or different ethnic minorities, that may appear at different levels of the pipeline?

Trombley: If you look at the pipeline, the typical path to the presidency is to become a department chair and then to become a dean and then move to the provost's office, and so on. But if you look at the percentage of deans who are people of color or women, then you see some startlingly small numbers.

What needs to happen at the departmental level is for administrations to actively promote people or think of alternate ways in which people can reach the presidency. I was never a department chair. My first administrative position was as an affirmative-action officer, and I had people across the college warning me not do it because they thought it would end my career. But I ignored them and went ahead and became an assistant provost and then went on to become dean of the faculty at a different institution.

But you have to be mindful of the pipeline. You need to determine how to exist within the system, and if it does not look as though that advancement is possible, then you should figure out alternatives.

Digh: Also, there is a difference between first-order and second-order change. First-order change is what I hear in most conferences and most conversations about diversity on campuses. We will just tweak things, make some adjustments. With first-order change, the system itself remains unchanged. Over time, it will self-correct and go back to where it was before.

Second-order change transforms the system. So if you are a college leader looking at diversity at your institution, you should ask yourself, "Is this a first-order change that I'm putting into place, or is it something that is going to go deeper?"

For example, Dean Ornish, author and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, does a lot of work with heart patients and how they change their lives to become healthier. We all think that change has to happen incrementally: "I could lose 20 pounds, if I just drink one more glass of water per day." But Ornish says that huge, massive change is the way to do it, because if you just start eating better in small incremental ways, you are not going to get the immediate health benefits that will keep you on the right path. So, whether as human beings or as institutions, we should make sweeping changes. We should make them big and systemic.

Burnim: Systems do need big change, but personal action is also required. Presidents individually should do a lot of self-assessment and ask themselves: "Am I doing what I can do to make a difference? Yes, faculty members, department chairs, and deans who are from China or India work at my institution. But have I encouraged them and offered to provide for their development and support?" That kind of introspection is something that we should not overlook.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i05/05b04801.htm
Section: Diversity in Academe
Volume 54, Issue 5, Page B48

Circle Project to be featured at Applied Improv Network

Patti — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:34:01 -0400

We are thrilled to be featured at the upcoming Applied Improv Network conference in Banff, Canada, from November 10-13, 2007.

A unique and innovative group will gather for workshops and open space dialogue--and we're pleased to be a part of it, offering our afternoon workshop on Culture, Conflict and Creativity using experiential, interactive learning techniques. Come, join us!

Feedback from our clients...

Patti — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:56:13 -0400

We are always thrilled to hear how The Circle Project is received--here are a few recent notes we've gotten from clients and participants:

Patti and David were able to take us to a level of insight beyond anything I could have imagined... and do this over and over again. In retrospect, I can see that they accomplished this through a combination of ingenious facilitation and workshop design, but at the time it felt more like a magic - a sleight of hand. We would begin by playing what seemed a simple game...and then, after laughing and enjoying gradual variations in the activity, we would suddenly find ourselves where we least expected to be: immersed in the deep end of human relationships, seeing ourselves and each other in new ways. Our group walked in as acquaintances and emerged feeling close, bonded by the experience and with a whole new language for relating to each other. It is absolutely the most engaging and enlightening workshop I have ever taken. I can't recommend it highly enough for teams with communications or cultural issues...or who just want to learn to work more effectively together. -Cate Goethals, Professor, University of Washington

We began diversity work in our organization several years ago, but through Patti and David's work with us, we have been better able to identify where our opportunities lie, where to focus our energy, and how our Diversity Council can be effective in a changing organizational climate. Patti and David partnered with us to conduct employee focus groups which helped uncover roadblocks that we may be putting in our own way, both as an organization and as a council in moving our diversity efforts forward. I believe the teaching methods that Patti and David have used with our employees have been instrumental in breaking down barriers, and have helped us to begin to understand what it means to truly build an inclusive culture. -Julie Blaikie, Assistant Vice President Human Resources, Equity Residential

Patti and David are a dynamite team with so much wisdom and power between them. Their training is like taking a personal and collective journey into a place where innate knowledge is illuminated into new ways of seeing ourselves and others. The Circle Project is both a robust and compassionate experience led by two very agile and authentic trainers. -Teresa Ferrer, Oregon Education Association, Portland, Oregon

Patti and David’s sensitivity to the needs of their clients is exceptional and beautiful to watch. It is dazzling to observe how quickly and creatively the two of them create new content and forms of coaching and training through use of anything available from participants and others as well as their own knowledge. It is not just creativity. All of their creative actions are taken from the perspective of the client. Patti and David almost never look for their own satisfaction of sharing their own ideas and knowledge even though they know a lot. Yes, they are amazing. -Kichiro Hayashi, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo

It's rare to have the safety and encouragement to explore your edges, question your assumptions, change your perspective, and have a lot of fun doing it. Patti and David's facilitation style is fluid, smart, creative, balanced, and aware. They expertly extracted the wisdom in the group and guided us through a playful, and sometimes uncomfortable, journey of discovery. None of us will ever forget it. -Marlo Goldstein, Adelante Services, Portland, Oregon

My experience with The Circle Project's writing retreat was absolutely magical! Patti Digh's wry humor, intelligence and expertise, combined with David Robinson's brilliant ability to facilitate learning through stories and theatrical games, created an environment in which I felt completely at ease. I was inspired and motivated to explore deeply within my own heart and mind. Patti and David's techniques are designed to gently break down barriers between participants and allow us to experience our human commonalities and connection. I was amazed and touched by the insights we were able to share with each other. I definitely came away from the workshop changed in a very positive way and have continued to benefit from the insights I gained. I recommend The Circle Project to anyone who wants to experience more joy, satisfaction and positive growth in their lives and within their organizations. -Janna Zonder, Writer, Musician, Actor, Asheville, NC

Lasting learning is co-created; in each case, we learn so much from our participants, too. If you'd like information on having us present to your group, drop us a line.

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