#frontieracademy

The act of commenting on the topic of race or equity (and it’s not lost on me that I am a white male, with all the privilege that confers), has become—for me—just short of insurmountably taboo. It’s as if there’s a preventative force that’s grown within me, that often holds me back from walking the path my younger self looked at with a sense of calling. And that’s because the exponentially available, searchable, and amplifiable amount of information now networked across the globe seems ready, at moment’s notice, to diminish anyone or what they have to say.

It’s an inner voice saying “not you.” Because, as Mr. Crowley also explained to us, “writers write what they know.” Who am I, privileged as I am, to comment on racism? Who’s out there ready to tell me I’ve got something all wrong? What’s another digital communique going to do?

To add to all this, those of us who live in Richmond face a local set of protests regarding the place of confederate monuments in our city—protests that most residents have treated cautiously, but that ultimately came without the violence manifested in Charlottesville. These protests remind all of us of unresolved questions and tensions around how we confront our history, our future, and the role race must play in that journey. Often I ask: where to begin?

I’ve grappled with all these questions, and plenty of others, and here’s a readily available observation guiding me now: there are millions of people across the planet, many of them here in the U.S., that would welcome and dream of a day when the only thing between themselves and taking any action would be a little bit of fear. Instead, it is not only fear that holds them back (though that may be part of it) but poverty or war or systemic racism or injustice in its many forms.

So I have no excuses for my fear. Please, Ryan, get over it and get on with it.

As I drove home that day and Mr. Crowley’s voice popped into my head, I found myself curtailing what I thought would be deeper reflection and further research into what I wanted to say about all this—about the unacceptability of hate and the white supremacists in Charlottesville. Instead, I began to think more about something my friend and coworker Mila Thomas said to me.

I had walked her into talking about race and politics and their place at work. Somewhere along the line I mentioned that I’d called both George Mason’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Harvard Law School’s Program On Negotiation to ask what tools or resources they have for helping people to talk about these issues—the difficult issues that walk with us everyday, but that so many of us don’t know what (exactly) to do with. Politics and race at work? Yikes. Initially, I thought I’d package that up to share with you here in this article.

But I don’t need any of that to move from reflection to action, which is what Mila so gracefully reminded me.

Because somewhere in our conversation, Mila, visibly a little frustrated, paused for a moment and said, “you know, I don’t think we need any more research or tools for this thing. Just be a neighbor.”

She explained to me that “be a neighbor” is something she has derived from her faith. It looks like white-couple friends of hers moving into the Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond and taking in a next door neighbor’s black son. To have him live alongside their family, including three children of their own. It’s this couple choosing to live in a predominantly black neighborhood that continues to struggle in overcoming a long history of discrimination. They could live elsewhere, but they couldn’t be the neighbors they want to be if they did.

It looks like talking to people that are different than you with respect at the grocery store register, working on empathy for anyone you have a hard time relating to, and supporting organizations that matter to you with your time and or your money. It looks like concerning yourself first with the wellbeing of people on the planet today before you concern yourself about what exactly you will get back from that.

For Mila, it’s changing her perspective about a family that’s moving into the unit above her—a single mom with three kids in a two bedroom apartment—from one of grievance, because chances are there will be some additional noise around her home, into a perspective in which she can invite them down for dinner and even spend time with the kids.

“Be a neighbor.” It’s hit home for me.

It has helped me to jump my one miniscule and taboo hurdle. A blog post is the least of what I can and will do. It’s also helped ground me and remind me that the issue isn’t that I’m not already being a neighbor in some fashion, but that I am dissatisfied with what’s happening and need to do more. Taking that to heart is important—there’s a host of things I’ve done, and you’ve likely done, to help create a better world, but it’s too easy to focus on the fact that they simply aren’t enough.

It’s hard—really hard—and incremental work. It’s inefficient and messy and another thing on the to do list that’s already packed full. About a month ago, the issue of racism had headline attention because of the event in Charlottesville—but what have I done? What have you done? Is all of this yesterday’s news?

What do you do?

You be a neighbor.

How do you be a neighbor?

You go and be a neighbor.

I arrive home, park the car, and instead of retreating with a head full of tired thoughts from the work day, talk to my (literal) neighbor about her bat problem. I talk to another neighbor about the stress he’s feeling with a newborn and a house project. We leave those conversations with a little more of the sense that we’re all in it together.

And it’s about what I don’t do, too.

What I work to not do is let judgement of myself and whether or not my actions—past and present—are as good or as meaningful as what others are doing get in my way. Because, again, if only getting over a little self-judgement was the one thing facing the mom of that little boy instead of the full plate of challenges that surround her right now. If only the parents on the long list of young people arrested or violently assaulted could have the luxury of committing effort to issues with their “free” time. It’s their full time, on the daily—and not by choice.

My choice? I can do the next thing that’s in front of me. I can type out these words.

I am a neighbor by now providing regular financial support to the Equal Justice Initiative that advances another strategy which mobilizes the tools of narrative, legal action, and advocacy. EJI talks honestly about our history and shines a light on the false stories that need correction, on a day-to-day basis, in court rooms and living rooms. I recognize that the complexity of issues involved is massive and the solutions elusive, but I can still take action, no matter how small it may seem.

I am a neighbor by confronting the fact that I’ve not had much luck aligning my schedule to volunteer more with an organization in town that I care about called Blue Sky Fund, so I open up a new door by connecting with the Peter Paul Development Center.

I am a neighbor by writing this so that maybe, if you personally relate to anything I’ve had to say, it will help you take your next step, whatever that may be, in your effort to create a world where peace and equality and love are the connective tissue at home and across the globe.

And I am a neighbor by starting this conversation with more and more people around me every day. I don’t wait for the perfect question or moment; I jump right in.

I’d like to avoid a patronizing tone, so I won’t lay out instructions for what you should do, because I don’t know. For me, it means ceasing to look for a guide on the internet or just commiserating with like-minded people that “the world is just so crazy—what do we do?” It means doing the next thing, whatever it is, instead of getting caught up in the what-if’s. My what-ifs are the tiniest of paper tigers when compared to the road that the friends and families of the 4,000 African Americans lynched between 1877 to 1950 have walked, and will walk, alongside the friends and families now of Heather Heyer too.

I am encouraged that as I continue to speak with others openly about the problems of our world, and continue to educate myself on issues like racial inequality in the U.S., the number of good people that believe in equality far overwhelms those that don’t. I see that there’s more momentum that can be made. I remind myself that while I feel encouraged, there are still scores and scores of people experiencing something awful right here and now, today, and that’s why I have to keep all of this top of mind, top of heart.

Forgive yourself for not doing enough and do, right now, what’s next. I guess I am giving direction after all, at the risk of sounding patronizing. Big changes start with little changes. Take the first step. Do the next thing. What does the next thing look like for you?

Be a neighbor.

Recent neuroscience suggests that slowing down and writing (rather than typing) fires up the brain, improving long term memory retention and increasing our ability to generate ideas. Scientists think that’s not only because we’re less distracted by notifications flying across the screen, but because writing by hand requires a deeper level of neurological processing. (You can read more about that research here and here.)

Since writing allows us to better comprehend and remember our thoughts, we feel it’s important to support those brain functions with the right tools. That’s why we are picky about our workshop materials. Our worksheets are created in-house by our content writers and designers, and we print everything on eco-friendly, recycled paper.

To print our new Frontier Academy notebooks, we’ve teamed up with Scout Books. Based out of Portland, Oregon, Scout Books crafts high quality custom notebooks right here in the USA using 100% recycled paper and Earth-friendly, vegetable-based inks.  Their shop even runs on renewable energy. (You can read more about Scout Books here.)

Don’t they look great?

Last Tuesday, I was rushing out the door to drive to the airport. All the while, I was also on a conference call with my colleagues. I was doing what most of us consider multi-tasking, something I know I really can't do based on neuroscience, but something I attempt daily. Travel is a big part of my role at Frontier Academy, and so driving to the airport is a routine as driving to my house these days. Being on a call at the same time seemed like no big deal. Right?

As I arrived at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, I pulled up my airline app on my phone to check my gate. “Delta: DAL—Gate 1,” read the screen. It didn’t make sense to me, because I knew Delta always flew out of Gate E. But hey, I had to focus on the conference call, so something must have just been wrong on the app. I shrugged to myself and pulled into the Gate E parking lot.

As I walked to security, still on the conference call, I allowed myself a brief moment of self-congratulations: "See Katie, you can do all these things at once. You are awesome and efficient!"

Still on my call, I smiled and waved apologetically at the security guard as I handed him my ID and placed my iPhone on the scanner. That's when everything changed.

The scanner turned red.

I tried again. The scanner turned red again.

Completely confused, I looked at the guard, who announced loudly. "Ma'am you are at the wrong airport." I hung up on my colleagues and gasped "I'm sorry—what?"

There’s a first time for everything, and that day was my first time flying out of Dallas Love Field, 9 miles away from the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, where I still stood dumbfounded in front of the security guard.

I rushed to my car and made it to Love Field in time to board my flight. I could only laugh at myself.

Habits are powerful. They can be extremely useful in the right situations, and frustrating in others. My mishap was avoidable, but understandable.

Learning new ways of doing things is hard. It's useful and challenging all at the same time. So know that, and embrace that reality. As you challenge yourself and your team to drive new behaviors, habits, and skills, keep in mind how difficult this process is while still diligently pressing forward to form new and better habits.

My airport fiasco was a great reminder: I am nothing more than a collection of habits. I must be mindful of and attentive to how I create and maintain them. When push comes to shove—when the two parts of my brain battle for control—my habits are in control more than I care to admit.

If you’re ready to harness the power of habit for your team, here’s what you need to know:

> Your Guide // Katie, Partner for Frontier Academy

“Ryan?”

“Yes. Erick?”

“Were you waiting long?”

“No, no, maybe 15 minutes.” “Okay, good, good. Welcome to Antigua.”

Erick, who I came to know over the next few hours, immediately seemed more like my cousin than new-guy-I-just-met. He is both one of the most calm people I’ve met in a long time, and one of the most elated in regards to his day-to-day being. His love for both his family and Guatemala are ever present, and he will regularly thread in notes about how lucky he is or how special small pieces of this dynamic stretch of earth are. It contains vestiges of a rich Mayan culture woven amongst the deep forests and sharp-peaked volcanoes. His is a story full of color: he grew up during the tail end of the country’s civil war; lived abroad in a foreign country as a youngster; and returned home to a close-knit village community that goes as one to the same church every Sunday, then lounges afterwards for hours in an adjacent park.

His world is also one in which you create the life you want together with the people around you because, as he sees it, government isn’t all that capable. It’s a world in which thousands of people travel to be a part of religious observance and celebration—both massive events and independent spiritual journeys. It is, intentionally, simpler than other lifestyles, where locals join together to protect Antigua from both architectural harm and the hard push of technology lapping against it with digital waves.

We covered a lot of ground that day. Erick gave me an immense amount of historical context to chew on as we meandered the streets. There was one story, however, that all these weeks later still sticks with me.

Hermano Pedro, eventually canonized as Hermano Pedro de San Jose Betancourt in 2002, established himself in Antigua in the late 17th century. When he arrived, he was destitute, yet completely committed to living a life of service. In a few short years he had set up a tiny hospital for the poor. Eventually, his passion and hard work begat all the gifted resources he needed to support a fully functioning hospital. It grew to become an important and significant institution in Antigua. It still is.

“Hermano Pedro is everywhere,” Erick explained to me as we were walking through San Francisco Church, home to the saint’s tomb. Tucked in the southeast corner of the village, it feels ancient, humble, and resilient.

“You see these?” Erick asked. “These are from people who travel here to say thank you, to pay respects.”

The wall he pointed to was covered in small tiles. Each of them contained a note of thanks and the name of a loved one. I was floored. Many of the tiles have been placed recently, in the last 50 years, honoring a man that has been deceased for more than 300. Whether it was hundreds of years ago, or six months ago, family and friends—perhaps separated by generations—arrive here to pay respect and to pray for the man who is responsible for care of a loved one.

It was a powerful moment, gazing over all those tiles. So many people, organizations, and cultures strive for success. Usually we define this as the accumulation of wealth and, perhaps, a note in the history books (or at least a page on Wikipedia). But as I stood in a quiet stream of what has been and what will continue to be a path that thousands travel to offer their thanks, the value of basic medical care and food and shelter registered anew for me.

The next day, working in tandem with my co-facilitator (the venerable Dr. Aaron Anderson), I arrived at what I was hoping for in the early morning, leaning against that wall in Antigua—a better way to articulate something within my facilitation. As I shared with a phenomenal group of nonprofit leaders brought together through NetHope: at the hot epicenter of influence, and of what I’ll call “good” power, is an authentic desire to do something that matters to you, but also to generate action by another person - or scores of people. Something they begin to do for themselves, and others, too. You see, the most impressive thing is not that Hermano Pedro’s work continues to motivate people to travel thousands of miles (though, wow). It’s that, because of him, those thousands of people are likely asking themselves: what can I do to help those in need? What can I give? How can I turn a conversation that is downplaying the plight of another into a bringing of us together? Is using my time this way really important, or could I do something more important today?

Whether you practice a religion or not, it’s a message worth considering.

Often, as we work all around the globe helping people develop themselves, we are choreographing conversations embedded in organizational politics, budgets, technological hurdles, and the inefficiencies of complex projects. When we all stop for a moment and ask ourselves why we do what we do—I mean really dig into it—frequently it has to do with benefiting others. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, there is a downstream gain.

I spent 18 hours in Antigua to come to this realization, but a minute in the middle of your daily schedule can have the same effect. Before you jump back into your current task, take a moment. Consider your motivation beyond this morning’s meetings and this afternoon’s deadlines and even your plans for the weekend. Hermano Pedro knew his purpose: to heal through giving.

Whether you have yet to discoverer your purpose, or you carry it defined within you everyday, pause for this moment.

What can you give?

Is there anything more important?  

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how Frontier Academy’s workshops can help define your purpose, here’s what you need to know:

We’ve not set the bar high enough to begin with. We don’t require training to be better, to deliver true change, and we let it continue as a check-the-box function. So ultimately, training (and now, much needed continuous learning) isn’t great because we have not demanded it be great. We say we make learning, our people, and their development a priority, but we don’t really invest in doing it with excellence. It just doesn’t seem like the best use of resources, and that’s because…

We unfairly set training up as a cure-all and it disappoints us. It’s the training team that leaders turn to when they need a quick fix, and then these same leaders wonder why that team can’t deliver one. The fact is no training program, in and of itself, is the answer. Leadership bears the burden of holding their people accountable to results—they just don’t, won’t, or can’t seem to make time for it … and perhaps they aren’t sure how to do it either.

How do we break free from the baggage around training and avoid a lot of  frustration and wasted resources? Let me offer some perspective and some hope.

First, ask yourself: Is a learning MINDSET at the core of your people? Is it at your core? If not, it will be hard as a company to compete and keep your current workforce intact, engaged, and productive. I say mindset because having a “learning culture” is all the rage these days, but the mindset comes first. You can’t set up a catalog of training events, a Corporate University, and professional development goals and call it a culture.  Your people’s collective beliefs set culture—do they believe in realizing their potential? Do you? Are you willing to stay up-to-date on the latest books, try new things, and learn from mistakes? What do you want to accomplish together? Instilling this mindset is a transformational effort that demands leadership engagement—it’s not a project for your L&D team alone.

Second, upgrade your training. How? Stop doing it the way you’ve always done it and completely rethink your approach. We need to stop looking at training as a silo that helps other departments when called upon. We need to stop looking at it as purely remedial, compliance-driven, or developmental. We need to stop looking at it as a “nice-to-have” and an employee benefit. We need to stop looking at it as something only L&D people can do. Instead, we need to start treating learning year round, every day, as a strategic component of a larger company movement to compete in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent marketplace. It should be a part of the same conversations as Marketing, Ops, Communications, and Customer Experience. I’m not saying you should throw out strong programs that have proven results. What I am saying is that the pace of change is accelerating, and you likely need to reimagine what learning looks for you and your teams so that they thrive, stick with you, and keep you viable.  

There are many ways to get there, so rather than chart a course, I’d rather paint a picture of what it will look like when you arrive. When your company has a learning mindset, employees pull new content, new ideas, and new approaches into your business, without you having to stay on top of it all and push new strategies to them. They present and invite a critique of each other’s work and want to learn how other teams might approach the same problem. They seek personal feedback because they know it will make them better. They bubble up what they hear from customers and thoughtfully share information with team members who will benefit from it. Finally, they openly own the mistakes and misjudgments they make, because they understand these are a part of learning, and they want everyone else to benefit from their lessons. What you get with a learning mindset is a lack of ego, newly realized potential, and a lot of progress for the benefit of all. If it sounds utopian, it’s not. But it does require interpersonal trust, and it takes leaders at all levels to promote and protect learning as the ultimate cultural norm.

And if you need support, we’re here to help.

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how Frontier Academy can help create a learning mindset in you team, reach out to us: 

First, check your mindset. Training isn’t something your people do on their own. They shouldn’t be solely responsible for their own growth immediately after being introduced to a new tool, concept or mental shift. Instead, recognize that you play a critical role in creating the environment they’ll need to change and develop.

Why? It takes between 21 and 254 days for individuals to form new behaviors. It’s a bumpy journey, one that requires reinforcement, focus, and nurturing. What you’re really doing when you form a behavior is replacing the old way of doing things.  And that’s super painful. The old way has worked for so long that you’re naturally going to fight the new way, consciously and subconsciously. Which is what the people on your team will do, too.    

Which begs the question: so what do you do to get the most out of training, exactly?   

Before the Training

A checklist you are likely familiar with.

1. Identify the skill gap or area for growth.  (We can help if this is a struggle, as it often is.)

2. Source the content and learning partner, internal or external.

3. Plan the implementation and iron out those logistics mentioned earlier.  

During the Training

Here’s where the real work gets started, and questions are important.

 1. Listen.  

Once you begin, and activities unfold between your team members, get ready to hold back.  Because you have so much invested—both in terms of resources and your own energy—you will have an almost unfettered desire to re-direct conversational tangents or assert a rationale for a current process.  You will want to tamper skepticism when it arises to anything new.  Don’t.  Instead, ask yourself, “what is the underlying issue?”  Provide enough space to find this.  

 You can always ask a clarifying question as the conversation unfolds, or afterwards, at lunch or over a phone call.  When your team expresses concerns or communicates their reasons for pushing back, listen: They are about to give you something valuable. Think of it as critical intel on the roadblocks you can help remove for your team to move forward. Shut this communication process down, and you’ll have no clue what needs attention in your organization’s environment. 

Note: if you are not attending a session in person, find a surrogate to do this for you—someone that you trust to give you their honest observation, even when—especially when—that means hearing something they know you won’t want to hear.  

2.  Identify one item your people need most.  

Because you’ve listened, you can now clarify the needs being expressed.  And here’s where your judgement and experience come in. What, truly, is going to fuel your people? What is in their way regarding the new practice everyone wants to see in action? Is it time? Clearer direction from you? Access to different information? More accountability between business units? Find these things, then, pick one as a place to start. Keep your notes on the others for future consideration.  

After the Training

Here’s where it gets tangible.

1.  Require commitments of your team and, most importantly, of yourself.  

Start by sharing the primary item you’ve identified that your team needs—this can be done in 3-5 minutes. Then, most importantly, tell your team what you are committing to do about it. That could mean a commitment to a new sales-pitch flow, creating protected time for people to spend on a new practice, or socializing a new feedback practice. Each individual will need to do this, too. Ideally, everyone will self-identify what they need to work on so that they are personally invested. If, for example, you run your team through a workshop like Insight Selling, some people will need to work on how they structure their pitch and others will need to work on re-calibrating their collateral. Allow enough space for your team to identify an area for change or improvement. Capture these goals and make time for regular and shared reflection on the progress between leadership and team members.  

 2.  Adopt a new mechanism for catalyzing the progress and use it intentionally.

Here’s how I’ve seen this done after a workshop with Frontier Academy.  Start by picking a tool to drive a desired behavior. Think of this tool as your small, burning ember.  If you’re not personally attending the session, this is where your surrogate becomes most important.  They’ll need to recommend this piece and you’ll need to advance their recommendation.  This could look like a feedback tool, a new formula and process for innovation, that new sales pitch flow that everyone will adopt, or even shared expectations regarding meetings management.  Now, allow that tool to do the building it is capable of.  Use the language and vocabulary that supports what you’ve selected.  Do this regularly, and do this yourself.  Push opportunities into meeting agendas.  Where else does your team think this tool needs to exist?  Work with them to put it there.   

3.  When you see effort, reward it.  

As you move forward you may see a furrowed brow or hear someone asking for help, or maybe you’ll witness early morning arrivals to invest more time into the project at hand.  When you see this, well before the final product is shared, reward the effort.  A thank you in person, a card to the same effect, calling someone out at a team meeting, or even stopping into their office with ten bucks and a walk to grab some coffee around the corner will nurture the effort—and progress—being made.  If someone identifies a mistake and works toward understanding what happened to learn from the misstep—it’s critical that you reward that, too.  

4.  Share what you’ve learned—the good, the bad, the key takeaways.

Find a time and format for sharing your own learning—this will model the type of sharing you are looking for from your team.  This is can be as simple as sharing small anecdotes about what happened when you used the tool you committed to.  What were the bumps?  What worked well?  Great.  Now, what’s your team got to share?  This reflection both demonstrates there has been effort made and generates shared engagement with the new behavior(s) you’re after.  Without this follow-through and digestion, that ember from several weeks ago will die.  Keep it appropriately oxygenated.  

The good news about all of this is, really, that it won’t consume epic amounts of time.  Instead, you can reflect on the pieces above as you move through the process, adjusting and tuning as you go.  The hard work is re-configuring what you are doing right now when the topic of training comes up.  Print this out, put some time on your calendar to take your own notes, and you’re on your way.  

And if you need additional support, we’re here to help.

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how Frontier Academy’s workshops can help your team engage with one another on a deeper level, here’s what you need to know: