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Dismantling Racism: How Mentors Can Create Change Through Allyship Part 2, Getting Educated

by | Oct 22, 2020 | Advice for Leaders, Growth and Development

I’m crafty, which means I’m very good at starting crafts, forgetting, then returning to them years later. In fact, I have a blanket I started for my grandma stuffed away in my closet right now. I pulled it out the other day to find a knotted ball of yarn attached to the blanket’s start. It looked like it was played with by two kittens, a dog, then tossed in the garbage disposal for good measure. Looking at that mass, I was overwhelmed. I needed to find where it was attached to the blanket and work through the tangle of knots just so that I could start knitting the blanket. As I worked through the yarn, I began to pick up on the texture, how the knots form, how hard to pull on the strand, and eventually, I was better able to untangle the ball quickly. 

Photo of books stacked on top of each other
photo of 3 women in front of a laptop pointing at the screen

This knotted ball is allyship. Allyship is a complicated mass of knowledge and behaviors that we have to untangle. It requires that we learn and develop and work through a knotted mass that’s wrapped up with what we know, believe, and how we operate. This requires that we get educated. Starting at the beginning of the knotted ball, you will begin to untangle knots like systemic racism, power, covert racism, and privilege, gaining a longer and longer strand of usable yarn, which you will use to develop allyship. The process may be frustrating, and you may feel like giving up. Some knots will be incredibly hard to get through, while others will be straightforward. But unlike my blanket in the closet, keep working on that ball, so you can develop concrete ally behaviors to support people of color in and outside of the workplace. 

Getting educated is perhaps the most foundational piece of allyship, and it is forever ongoing, and if that sounds exhausting– it is. Thankfully, mentoring can provide you with support and direction as you begin to maneuver through the knots of racism, inequality, and social justice. In our last piece, we talked about the importance of developing an allyship partner and things to consider when selecting this partner. In Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring, authors Lisa Fain and Dr. Lois Zachary identify the three functions of mentoring that we can apply to allyship partnership: 

  • Support 
  • Vision 
  • Challenge  

Leaning on these three functions of mentoring can be the means through which one stays committed to their allyship journey. The following sections will elaborate on the benefits of using mentorship to foster allyship. 

Support

Support  is the management and process of a mentoring relationship (Fain & Zachary, 2019). As you work through allyship materials or engage in other allyship behaviors, ensure you have an excellent connection to lean on when you need advice, support, or comfort. There are many strategies you can utilize. Here are two examples to offer: 

  • Maintain a climate conducive to learning. Most likely, the work you will be doing with your partner will primarily involve learning new material. As such, develop an environment in your partnership that encourages exploration.
  • Create structure and maintain accountability. The main activity that you and your partner should begin with is creating structure and accountability pertaining to allyship. How will you document or discuss any experiences you have at work that required allyship? Who else can you talk to about allyship outside of this relationship?  

Vision

The vision is the link that binds you and your allyship partner together. Develop a roadmap for where you’d like to be due to this relationship (e.g., an advocate in the workplace). You can do this by: 

  • Sharing your story.  As allyship partners, you may decide to start by sharing your story concerning how you have experienced race. Where did you grow up? What was it like at your school? Have your political viewpoints shifted? If so, how did this come to be? As you begin to explore your history, you will begin to identify similarities and differences that you can use to flex your allyship muscles by examining the role your personal history has played on your current behaviors and values.
  • Creating future scenarios. Just like any new skill, allyship must be practiced. Ensuring that there is space for co-workers of color will not come naturally to most people. Nor will calling out racist statements or behaviors in the workplace. We encourage allyship partners to practice how they would react in scenarios where they should serve as an ally. 
  • Holding up a proverbial mirror to encourage mentee self-reflection and heightened self-awareness. Reflect on your readings or everyday experiences. You and your partner may use these to determine what allyship looks like for you both. Additionally, remember that you both will fail at serving as an ally at times. Use those instances as opportunities to learn for both you and your allyship partner. 

Challenge

Challenging each other may be the most pivotal function of an allyship partnership. Much of the material that you will cover may challenge what you have known. Here are three steps:  

  • Suggesting things outside of your comfort zone and providing a safe place for your partner to take risks. Given that you have created a structure and established trust, you and your partner should push each other to explore topics and scenarios outside of the norm. Consider role-playing scenarios that currently make you uncomfortable (e.g., standing up to your superior when making a racist comment). 
  • Presenting opposing viewpoints or perspectives. We are in a very divided time where people will have differing opinions from yours. In your partnership, consider what these perspectives are and how you may respond to views that run counter to allyship principles. 
  • Asking questions that bring past actions into consciousness and promote insights into change. Again, we emphasize reflection. Consider how your past actions have led you to where you are. How would you change?  

Resources 

A simple Google search can provide you with lists of antiracist materials. Ultimately, it will be up to you and your partner to determine what type of literature you both want to investigate.  

Ask yourself: 

  • What is our previous exposure to antiracist literature? 
  • How strong is our collective understanding of history? 
  • Do we have the same religious/value system? (e.g., Should we utilize a Christian lens to approach antiracism?)
  • Am I educating myself with diverse voices or just authors with the same identity as myself?  

Recognize that the foundation of allyship is understanding oppression, privilege, systemic racism, power, and white fragility. As you learn more, you might decide to discuss your learning with your mentoring partner (See note below for an important caveat). Here are three resources that might be helpful:    

  •  Me and White Supremacy originated as a 28-day Instagram Challenge from Layla F. Saad. Mentoring pairs may choose to work through the challenge together, process the material, and reflect together. 
  •  How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi examines how he has experienced and internalized racism and offers insights into how you can strive to be antiracist. This book is full of history. Ask yourself (and/or your mentee) some of these critical questions: Did I learn about this in school? Why or why not? Who will I share my new knowledge with now? How might this new knowledge change my social interactions?
  •  Dear White People is a comedy-drama that addresses intense social issues through Black students’ eyes on an Ivy League college campus. Mentoring pairs can watch an episode and reflect on how the episodes’ issue plays out in the world. Note: the series is rated TV-MA. 

Reflection Questions with Your Partner 

  • Use your allyship partnership to reflect on each resource you review. 
  • You and your allyship partner may choose to reflect on the literature using the same questions. For example:
    • What was new information? What did I already know?
    • How can I integrate the knowledge and principles I have gained in both my professional and personal life? 

Next Post: Create space 

In our next post, we will discuss how to give and receive feedback regarding allyship behaviors.  

CME is honored to be named a Top 10 Mentoring Blog  by Feedspot   

Dismantling Racism: How Mentors can create change through Allyship

by | Aug 21, 2020 | Advice for Leaders, Growth and Development, Making Mentoring Work For You, Mentoring Relationships, Mentoring Training

As our society navigates through an increasingly heightened collective consciousness about race, so many of us are wanting to know what we can do to become anti-racist.  While all action should begin with learning, it must not stop there.  Indeed, there is an important role mentors can play in thwarting racism in the workplace and promoting an inclusive and equitable work environment– the role of ally. 

In order to be an ally, one must engage in allyship – which requires action.  To wit, Ally is a verb, not a noun. To ally is to actively thwart oppression or racism as it is encountered in one’s life.  Allyship requires more than a label or lapel pin.  Rather, a person serves as an ally every day when they are willing to put their own comfort aside for the sake of promoting racial equality.  

illustration of woman sitting at desk with laptop
A black man and a white man sitting at a table in an office cafeteria.

Find an allyship partner.

An integral part of allyship is surrounding yourself with people who are also on the allyship journey. This work can be isolating and challenging, so having a partner or list of people you can call on is essential. Just as mentoring is reciprocal, so is any partnership focused on becoming a better ally. You will need to lean on each other and seek each other out for advice perhaps more than in a typical mentoring relationship. In this case, a partner may be someone who is on a similar journey who can provide peer accountability and a sounding board. One of you may have more experience with allyship, but that does not mean that the other person won’t need additional support. 

Significance of Race.

If you are white, it is important that when you select an allyship advisor, you choose someone who is also white.  Why?  Unlike more traditional mentorships where relationships across difference are not only valuable but encouraged, in this case, the work to be done in thwarting racism is best first done with someone of the same race as you.  When processing racism, oppression, power, privilege, and fragility it can be taxing for participants in the conversations. Being an ally means that you will do what is within your power to ensure that you are not putting additional emotional labor on people of color.   

Our Series on Allyship.

In this series we will discuss three themes of allyship as it relates to mentoring: Getting Educated, Create Space, and Walk the Talk. In Getting Educated we will discuss the foundations of allyship, resources, and reflection questions that you and your mentoring partner can work through together. In the next post, Create Space, we will elaborate on two very critical pieces that take immense amounts of courage: welcoming feedback from BIPOC peers and fellow allies regarding you behavior and learning how to amplify marginalized voices in the workplace. Lastly, we will conclude our allyship through mentoring discussion with a summary of how it may look to be an Everyday Ally. This work is hard, and never ending. Mentoring pairs will need strategies to keep moving forward and engaged with this difficult material. Along the way you may feel burnt out or find yourself checking out of conversations. This is completely normal, and we will discuss how you and your mentoring partner can develop a plan to get back on track.     

Action Steps.

Take the time to identify a partner, establish ground rules, what you hope to learn, and some goals you and your partner will work towards. After creating your foundation, stay tuned for our next post on “Getting Educated” where we will discuss what type of material to review, the importance of reflection, and how you can do this work with a mentoring partner.

Better Mentoring, in three lists.

by | May 14, 2020 | Advice for Leaders, Growth and Development, Making Mentoring Work For You

My new book,  “Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring” with Center for Mentoring Excellence founder Dr. Lois Zachary,  was recently released by Berrett-Koehler Publishers.  You may be wondering what the phrase “better mentoring means.” Wonder no more. I am about to define it for you and offer some tips and tidbits to so you can achieve better mentoring.

Since people best retain content in threes, here are 3 lists of 3 things to remember about Better Mentoring.

small pot with sprouting plant growing from it

LIST 1:  Better Mentoring is….

  1. A reciprocal partnership
    Like any other partnership, (think medical practice, law firm, marriage), both mentor and mentee give something to the relationship, and both benefit.  Yes, mentees, mentors benefit too.  We hear over and over from mentors that they gain new perspectives, better leadership skills, and a powerful sense of contribution, among other things.
  2. Developmental
    Mentoring should focus on the mentee’s development, not just the mentee’s performance. Supervisors, colleagues, and advisors can help a mentee in learning how to perform best in their current role.  Mentors should focus on helping mentees grow into and beyond the mentee role.  To do this, mentor and mentee must set goals that focus on improving the skills, knowledge, and competency of the mentee.
  3. An effective strategy for inclusion
    Better Mentoring bridges difference.  Through my work leading Diversity & Inclusion, I came to believe that leadership buy-in and educational programming are important, but nothing moved the needle more on inclusion than encouraging and fostering meaningful relationships across difference.  Something transformational occurs when organizations create a structure for workplace relationships where people who may not ordinarily come together build trust and learn from one another.

LIST 2: Better Mentoring requires…

  1. A relationship
    I often hear things like “I consider Oprah my mentor,”  or “Nelson Mandela was a mentor to me.”  This can be true only if you actually know and interact with Oprah or Nelson Mandela.   These and other celebrities can be considered role models, teachers, even guides, but not mentors.  Mentoring requires an actual relationship with mutuality of purpose, reciprocity and focus on the mentee’s development.
  2. An investment of time
    Though I work mostly with organizations that have structured mentoring programs,  effective mentoring relationships need not stem from a structured program.  Informal mentorship do yield powerful results.  However, even informal mentoring relationships require an investment of time.  Mentor and mentee must prepare, reflect, and follow up on meetings and commitments.
  3. Intentionality
    Mentoring should be purpose-driven from the get-go.  What are the goals and outcomes you want to achieve?  Without intentionality, it is difficult to gauge progress, measure results, or to steer a mentoring relationship back on course.

LIST 3:  Better Mentoring is not…

  1. A download of a mentor’s knowledge
    A mentor’s job is to facilitate the mentee’s learning.  This can best be accomplished when a mentor shares their experiences, however, mentoring is not effective when a mentor simply downloads their knowledge to the mentee. Rather, mentors must listen closely to their mentee’s needs, provide a sounding board and a safe space for the mentee to ask questions, take risks and explore possibilities.
  2. Transactional
    I am often asked for a checklist that people should complete in order to make mentoring effective.  While there are predictable phases of mentoring, and certain conversations that are important to have, there is no checklist for effective mentoring.  Why?  Because mentoring is relational, not transactional.
  3. One size fits all
    No two mentoring relationships are the same.  Each journey is highly personalized and co-created by mentor and mentees.  What’s more, the form of mentoring itself may vary.  Better mentoring takes many forms:  1-on-1 mentoring pairs, mentoring circles, peer mentoring, mutual mentoring, etc.  All can be effective as long as they follow the tips in these lists.

There you have it.  Three lists of three tips and tidbits that can guide you towards better mentoring.

3 Ways to Identify Cultural Differences on a Global Team

by | Jun 30, 2018 | Facilitating Learning, Growth and Development, Mentoring Relationships

By: Art Markman June 15, 2018 (Harvard Business Review)

In almost any business these days, you are guaranteed to interact with people whose cultural background is quite different from your own. In a global organization, you may have colleagues that come from a different country. You may partner with organizations whose employees come from another part of the country. There may also be cultural differences between you and some of the customers and clients you serve.

Dealing With Impostor Syndrome When You’re Treated as an Impostor

by | Jun 30, 2018 | Advice for Leaders, Facilitating Learning, Growth and Development, Mentoring Communication, Mentoring Questions, Mentoring Relationships, Mentoring Training, Supporting Mentors and Mentees

By The New York Times Kristin Wong June 12, 2018

Impostor syndrome is not a unique feeling, but some researchers believe it hits minority groups harder.

Last May, I walked into a room of impeccably dressed journalists at a media event in Los Angeles. I tugged on my pilly cardigan and patted down my frizzy bangs.

When a waiter presented a tray of sliced cucumbers and prosciutto and asked, “Crudité?” I resisted the temptation to shove three of them into my mouth and instead smiled and replied, “No, thank you.” I was focused on the task at hand: pretending not to be a fraud among this crowd of professionals.

Ironically, I was at the event to interview someone about impostor syndrome.

The psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes coined the term in 1978, describing it as “internal experience of intellectual phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” In other words, it’s that sinking sense that you are a fraud in your industry, role or position, regardless of your credibility, authority or accomplishments.

This is not a unique feeling, and it hits many of us at some point in our lives. But some researchers believe it hits minority groups harder, as a lack of representation can make minorities feel like outsiders, and discrimination creates even more stress and anxiety when coupled with impostorism, according to Kevin Cokley, a professor of educational psychology and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Read the full article here.