Over the last two weeks, I have had the opportunity to witness a number of workplace performances. I am not referring to the everyday performances that we perform continually in the workplace, but those that are significant and intentional, that connote a larger purpose even if that larger purpose is not always explicitly specified. All of them related to various initiatives that can be linked closely to facilitating #EDIB (equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging). Certainly, the critique of the “performative,” of language and/or gestures that signal a consideration of #EDIB, but are not often followed up with accountability and transparency and a strategic program of change and transformation, is valuable and valid. And certainly, I have found myself in agreement in many of these instances, when leaders are called out by EDIB advocates and activists for their ingenuity.
However, what I now wonder that is threatened to be lost is the value and power of performance that is at once symbolic, emotive, and a behaviour that signals a willingness to either make change or that a change has taken place and the performance represents that change. Moreover, attending a performance is a cross-cultural way to be with people, to witness an event, to have an experience, and to be moved or affected in often a positive way. Performance is an essential culturally-variable but cross-culturally relevant mode to experience an event of significance that might bring about new emotion and new action.
Or, put another way, change can only be demonstrated by performance, a shift in our behaviour, the cultivating of a new ritual, practice, or habit.
This occurred to me over the last two weeks when I attended that related to my work:
A well-publicized, well-attended, launch of a new institutional #EDIB plan and framework, coupled with a external keynote speaker who stressed the importance of a data-driven #EDIB approach
A smudge ceremony by an Indigenous knowledge keeper as part of activities to commemorate National Truth and Reconciliation Day, a federal statutory holiday in Canada (although not in Ontario, where I reside) since 2021
A session that I designed and facilitated with leaders on acting and leading with integrity, where I actively connected integrity to #EDIB, as per the client’s institutional goals
While some may deride these as performative gestures, I want to emphasize that it was through their participation in these performances that people came together to connect, communicate and reflect about a set of current realities and to intentionally propose change. As such, the vehicles of a launch of an institutional framework, the ceremony of an Indigenous ritual, and a professional development session were various performances, without the possibility of bringing individuals to contemplate and plan change. Certainly, the performance seems fleeting; and without other initiatives, it can easily be derided or dismissed.
Yet, there were other endeavours that were connected beyond the performances themselves:
For the institutional EDIB plan and framework, an opportunity to peruse a workbook that delineated the institution’s four-pillared collective goals. There was time to initiate conversations and dialogue at one’s table that allowed us to share and take stock of where our respective teams and colleagues were in respect to these goals and the work that was ahead of us
For the ceremony, it opened a day of experiential activities that included making moccasins that would be included in kits that would be donated to Indigenous children in the child welfare system, reflective of the continued systemic inequities and also deeply symbolic of an important element to reconciliation in Canada, which includes the still-persistent trauma of the residential school system that separated Indigenous children from their families, languages and cultures.
For my session, it marked the embedding of cultivating integrity, arguably an important workplace professional behaviour, that providing a cohort with an opportunity to explore a topic that is often missing in standard leadership development programs, and deepen their own engagement in a workplace that values their personal and professional development
(Note: this image has been AI-generated through Wix.)
Next time, you hear someone snicker about the performative, or you question where to invest the time to participate in a performance around #EDIB, #ESG, or another organizational initiative, take a moment to pause and ask yourself: How can participating in the performance help you ponder and reflect on the larger value and meaning of the initiative that the performance symbolizes and what you can do to bring about desirable change within yourself and the institutions in which you work?
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