Our Approach to Diversity & Inclusion
We believe that diversity and inclusion isn’t something that we have, but instead something we do. Issues like racism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia don’t just arise out of thin air. Our organizational practices--large and small, formal and informal--create and cultivate what we experience as cultural norms at work and in organizational life.
Our framework asks organizational members to individually and collectively examine policies, practices, and personal assumptions that limit ways of being and working in the organization. We approach this by asking two deceptively simple questions:
What counts as normal?
Who or what does that exclude?
The texture of our work is oriented around norms, and what happens when we make them visible. To examine what counts as normal in our organizations is to look at the taken for granted assumptions that undergird our policies and practices. These norms can perpetuate racism, sexism, cisheteronormativity, and ableism by protecting the status quo that makes oppression and marginalization seem invisible. Thus, to question what counts as normal in our organizations is to not only examine our privilege, but also intervene in the -isms and -phobias that explicitly and/or implicitly shape our organizations.
Our training and coaching sessions engage these questions at a variety of levels as we move beyond models of inclusion into frameworks of inquiry and introspection. We walk alongside you as you engage in these questions in a way that is relevant and specific to your organization and needs. For more on our offerings, visit our services page.
What do we mean by DEVIATE?
To intentionally move away from the norm.
*****
“…to take a look at its foundations and question them...explore its limits, its biases, and its boundaries. It’s looking for places where there’s elasticity or discovering ways we can transform it into something new...And even when we leave something unchanged, we have changed our relationship to it”
Glickman | 2012
We work with clients across a variety of industries
Business
Non-Profit
Tech
Health / Wellness
Higher Education
Civic and Community Organizations