Julia Storytelling for Change Final Portfolio

Artist Statement

Over time, I realized a thickening thread of wanting to address change-making in the workplace, beginning with internal culture. I like to investigate the tender spots within a group and strengthen them with influences of communal love and change.

This process has revealed significant reflections of my learning and creative styles. I realized I will do almost anything to avoid seeing my writing up for criticism. I said this to my teammates and in my dialogue but writing publicly is one of the creative outlets that makes me feel most vulnerable. And perhaps why it’s the most therapeutic when I engage and choose to sit with its discomfort. I found myself applying lipstick, dancing, snacking, playing with my dog Greta, all to distance myself from the patient uncertainty that looms in the page of expression.

Having virtual gatherings with my group helped digest the material and the delicate art of weaving it all together. Allowing myself two full days to dedicate to space needed to sculpt the pieces of the portfolio together was beneficial in slowly understanding who I am in the work.

This year has challenged me to my edges, reaching for the anchor of my integrity daily as I drift in this chaotic climate. My focus has been demanded in many places this summer: leading new initiatives at work, mediating, navigating and healing family crisis, trying to understand what play looks like for me in a time of turmoil, and embracing my own anti-racism journey. I wish I could have brought more of myself to this course, but after everything, I did not have much left to give or invest. Nothing tests my feelings of worthiness quite like academia, which I know is a product of a white supremacist culture, and yet the value we put on the highest grades is still the beacon of “success” and one I have a hard time breaking up with. I have always bragged that I am the “anti-perfectionist” but the truth is that I still seek that validation and play the tired question of “is it good enough” mercilessly until I let go and then a mess unravels without the “reliable” structure that desire for perfection builds.

My Evaluative Criteria

• Would I be proud of this when I am older?
• Is this best representing who I am right now?
• Has it been created with integrity?
• Does it create beauty?
• Does it contribute to community?
• Have I taken time to build relationship with what I am creating?
• Is it hopeful?
• Does it create an environment that is nourishing and sustainable?
• Was it made with love?
• Did I allow contribution to its creation?

How does this portfolio measure up to my criteria? In a fulfilling manner, in many ways. I think an area that could use more love is around taking time with the idea. At the onset of the course, I was overwhelmed with possibility and struggled with focusing my thread. And even to its completion, I was continuing to sharpen the focus that I was seeking in my exercises and op-ed. I know my op-ed is mushier than what is recommended, but that is what makes something hopeful to me. And I know it was made with love because I transformed through many stages of growth while creating it. The heart of this work is to overgrow unsustainable systems with ones rooted in adaptable love.

Module 1 Exercise

Narrative Framing

“How important is it for those who care about economic justice, racial and gender equality, a livable planet, and global peace to utilize a broader, more inclusive narrative at this point in history?”  

It is vital for those who care about economic justice, racial and gender equality, a livable planet, and global peace to adapt a more inclusive narrative. Media and messaging are more powerful than ever. As witnessed in the clip with the little boy, the entire moral truth shifts by what is included in the story. I want the organization of Orvis to be hierarchically more democratic, for leadership to emerge with support from any area in the company, and for people to feel empowered as they would in the most hospitable of environments. That requires listening to and sharing a variety of narratives.

“How can messaging to your audiences help shift narratives? For your issue, would a focus on shared values and outcomes, rather than problems and process, help? Why or why not?“

Understanding what the audience (my colleagues) believe and what is at their moral foundations help to shift narratives by finding a middle ground. When communicating the need for solidarity with BIPOC to my colleagues, focusing on our Core Values as a company is the connection to deliver the message. When differences in process and rhetoric are overt, similarities in belief systems can sometimes be challenging to find. But those Core Values can serve as a connector and an anchor of discussion.

“What are the implications if you were to try to reach more winnable people ‘in the middle’ of the two sets of frames you identified?”

The implications are that those incremental connections and similarities go a long way. Finding a common step to share along the path makes are a steadier journey to change. Through building a strong foundation of beliefs, transformation can and does occur.

Module 2 Exercise

Best Story Reflection

Family Business, Making the Business Case, video from Patagonia

The story that stuck with me was a corporate culture communications story told through video by Patagonia. It is concise in explaining the circumstances that lead to mothers not returning to full-time work and how that impacts the career development of parents everywhere. It also delightfully illustrates what is possible in the world through re-imagining unsustainable corporate systems. This story focuses on gendered labor and through it, I see a future for me that I had not previously recognized. The clarity of the story makes change accessible, not some unattainable dream. The video articulated how it can be done and why it should be done.

In addition to the economic benefits, it explores how creating a workplace environment that values family contributes to a higher quality of life and a deeper connection to one’s work. By capturing how change can happen when organizations address the roots of systemic labor inequities, I was filled with the hope of possibility.

Some of the organizational barriers to good storytelling that I have experienced come from access to a “microphone” to share those values we often communicate through tale. In corporate culture especially, the “microphone” is often given to those with the most power at the top (re: white men earning exponentially more than most of the company). Jennifer introduced me to the idea of “liberating structures” which seeks ideas from all levels of an organization. By implementing this approach, the experience of individuals is crowdsourced, not mined from one demographic alone. Another barrier is having a sense of permission to tell one’s stories; when only one demographic of people is represented through imagery, articles and alike in an organization, the empowerment to speak up and out is diminished, if not non-existent.

Op-ed Pitch

Capitalism: The elephant in the DEI Committee Room (Sub. line)

Pitch to: Nathalie Baptiste at Mother Jones

As the Black Lives Matter movement gains more momentum than ever before, we have witnessed companies and corporations making public claims of their change initiatives and the formation of internal JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) committees to address those issues. While the rise of this change breeds hope, we need to talk about the elephant in these committee rooms: capitalism. Racism is rooted in the toxic soil of capitalism.

As a member of one of these corporate committees, it is hard to ignore the looming inequities in the room claiming to create the conditions for the opposite. While there is diverse representation on our JEDI team, all the people of color are employed in the lower-paying tiers of the company. It is also hard to avoid the gleaming wage disparities of the all-white C-suite members on the team who are making exponentially higher salaries than other members of the committee. 

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

I co-facilitate a JEDI committee for The Orvis Company.

Op-Ed

Capitalism: The Elephant in the DEI Committee Room.

As the Black Lives Matter movement gains more momentum than ever before, we have witnessed companies and corporations making public claims of their change initiatives and the formation of internal JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) committees to address those issues. While the rise of this change breeds hope, we need to talk about the elephant in these committee rooms: capitalism.

 Racism’s function in our society is to maximize profit. From The New Yorker’s Is Capitalism Racist? “Johnson’s guiding concept is ‘racial capitalism’: racism as a technique for exploiting black people and for fomenting the hostility of working-class whites toward blacks, so as to enable white capitalists to extract value from everyone else.” Since the beginning of slavery in North America, degradation of non-white people’s humility has contributed to justifying exploitation of their labor. What does this have to do with a DEI Committee? A company with a for-profit model Dismantling foundational structures like capitalism takes time, creativity, and collective change. How can anti-racism effectively occur within a for-profit company in a capitalist society? Creating an environment for sustainable change among the people of an organization within existing structures is the place to start.  

As a member of one of these corporate committees, it is hard to ignore the looming inequities in the same room claiming to create the conditions for the opposite. While there is diverse representation on our JEDI team, all the people of color are employed in the lower-paying tiers of the company. It is also hard to avoid the gleaming wage disparities of the all-white C-suite members on the team who are making exponentially higher salaries than other members of the committee. By acknowledging the elephant of capitalism and its impact, we can work to create an environment that overgrows its harmful structures and models, reshaping it from the inside out. Why should we do that? Because it is the most economical, ethical, and sustainable way forward.  

Initially it would be a slow transition and adoption but lowering executive wages to fund DEI work and support the recruitment and employment of BIPOC partners is crucial in the economic viability of an organization’s future. Ideally, DEI work leads to smarter models of retention for employees due to higher quality of life, work-family balance, and a clearer trajectory of career development. It is attractive to argue that every new hire requires a +33% of that position’s salary, but that would be relying on viewing humans as machines and reinforcing the value of capitalism.  

Integrity and ethics are all we have these days. Instinctively listening to what our communities need from us is one of the most ethical actions we can experience. Capitalism breeds off a singular voice, while DEI infrastructure shares the grounds for storytelling. Integrity in this scenario requires hearing and believing stories from the workplace. To evolve forward as an organization, the collective input needs to be heard and acted upon. To be heard, space must be created and shared by those occupying it. What does that look like?

From the Green Economist, “Capitalism is an economic system where production is controlled by the people who organize exchange, or trade, rather than the producers. This is wasteful, since value is extracted by people who are not productive. A green economy cannot be a wasteful economy since we must reduce our consumption of the earth’s resources and so have to ensure that those we use are used efficiently.” By pivoting our goals to be less capitalistic-oriented and more people-oriented, the future of the company will be more sustainable.

            To be sure, one could argue that anti-racism work and capitalism have nothing to do with one another. That racism is a function of politics and that capitalism is a function of business. But if we are to embark on DEI work, we must be willing to see the roots deeper than we want to understand. And be willing to believe business and trade can be reimagined in new models outside of capitalism that will more sustainable for all.

Before the internal dismantling begins, the acknowledgement of the power dynamics at work must be openly addressed on a DEI or change-focused team. To make real change, systems that prevent that change must be met head on.