Monthly Libation – December 2024
Welcome to December! We made it, y’all! We see December as full of rich opportunities to reflect on our year, as well as set intentions for the year ahead. There are so many examples from nature, our ancestors, and history to pull from. We must remember that to act, move, or practice, we don’t need to come up with something new. There is inspiration, ideas, and resources all around us.
We know some may still be mourning the results of the election, and even contending with the significant changes that a new administration will bring both at work and at home. We compiled some reflections and resources to support you to leverage the opportunity to make December a time of intentional introspection, hope, and joyful anticipation.
What We Are Feeling (Heart)
“To practice active hope, we do not need to believe that everything will work out in the end. We need only decide who we are choosing to be and how we are choosing to function.”
- Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, from Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care
Despite still navigating the post-election rollercoaster of emotions, the feeling that most present for our team is HOPE. We feel hopeful. Before you roll your eyes, we invite you to be intentional about the lens you bring to your work, your relationships, and our community. Where does your expectation lie? As individuals and as a team, we are choosing to be fiercely intentional in designing our facilitations, trainings, and engagements in expectation of good work, good, people, and hope in action. We’ve been in consulting and capacity building for decades, and our experience shows us that the heart and hope of the people is always stronger than the limited imagination and wounds of oppressive systems. We don’t deny the ills of systematic racism and unethical stewardship of power. We have and continue to be personally impacted by it. But as Mariame Kaba says, Hope is a discipline. One which we undertake with focus and stubborn tenacity akin to our ancestors who, if we are super honest, could only dream of the day-to-day privileges and agency we have. So, we will not be deterred. We will disrupt where and how we can, acknowledging that most of the times we wish we could do more. We will acknowledge and imagine into the best of what humanity has to offer. We will hope and move toward the compassion of truth-telling to well-meaning but misinformed power brokers and gatekeepers. We embody hope through seeing it in the incredible change agents we serve, the way they keep trying, reimagining their workplaces as places of belonging and impact. We replicate the hope of the natural world, shedding the debris and dead weight, turning inward through the cold snaps and storms, readying our minds and bodies for the next chance to bloom. We love this article from Nonprofit Quarterly that invites us to explore how we can center hope and love in our work.
Where are you finding hope in yourselves and your community? How can you cultivate and share these lessons with those struggling to believe that positive change is possible?
What We Are Thinking/Reading (Head)
Many of our client partners are focusing on building cultures of engagement, inclusion, and belonging. To support that work, we find that individuals and teams need to find and practice trust building. We say this with an important acknowledgement that trust in the workplace must not be expected to replicate trust in our personal lives and relationships. We know that would be unrealistic. However, the research tells us that trust is critical to team success, and that building trust is especially important in times of change and uncertainty. This article from the Center for Creative Leadership acknowledges the paradoxes of trust building that we believe leaders are holding as they work to establish thriving organizational cultures.
It is the responsibility of leaders to define not only what trust looks like in the workplace, but to explicitly ask the team how they create the conditions for trust. We frequently help leadership teams and organization identify the behaviors of trust, as well name and discuss their experiences of betrayal or breaches of trust. While the latter may feel counterintuitive, we assert that trust can only be earned and built, and that the building blocks are often laid through co-designed accountability practices that are enacted AFTER trust is broken or ruptured. Apologizing after harm is done, while uncomfortable, is a critical skill leaders must develop to build and sustain trust in their organization. Nothing can be reconciled which is first not acknowledged. Put another way, are we as leaders making time to acknowledge harm, move at the slow speed of repair and trust, and really listen and believe our colleagues when they name or raise concerns? The piece around repair and moving past “ruptures” in trust and communication is critical to building work cultures that walk the talk and align with stated values. To that end, we have been reading the work of Dennis and Michelle Reina around building sustainable trust and how leaders can build trust one mistake at a time. Their work also offers interesting and accessible models for rebuilding trust after betrayal.
Are you building trust on your teams? How do you define or recognize trust in action, and how do you repair trust when it has been broken?
What We Are Practicing (Loving and Intentional Action)
We are practicing a slower, delicious, and more deliberate pace this December. We are pausing. We are detaching as best we can from externally defined notions of success, of right and wrong, good or bad. We are seeing so clearly the damage and trauma that these binaries have had on leaders, particularly Black and Indigenous leaders. We are helping and healing ourselves and our trusted circle in resting and seeking clarity in stillness. We know this is not a new practice. Nor is it without incredible scholarship and resources. We do believe that despite the call for rest as resistance and a rise in BIPOC leader sabbaticals, moving slow and saying no is still unpopular, not only in our society at large, but specifically in consulting and “gig culture.” It is a persistent and complex tension to hold: to actively disrupt and dismantle the very system you must participate in to care for yourself and your family. But we are practicing and trying it anyway.
How? We We CHECK IN with ourselves to reflect on our core values, and ways to align with those in our work and daily decision making. We CALENDAR time for checking in with ourselves on how the week is going. We incorporate check ins into our team meeting that include asking how we can help hold each other accountable to staying aligned with our values, and our need to remain self-aware and healthy. We CALL FORWARD actions, intentions, and behaviors in one another that support "refilling the cup" of libation.
Are you tapped into your core values and how they show up in your leadership? How do you hold yourself accountable? Who are you trusting to share your slips and help get you back on track? If it’s been awhile since you’ve thought about your values, try this great exercise (pro tip: consider doing this with your whole team and discussing as a group).
We hope you enjoyed this month’s offering. Please share with those in your network who might enjoy it. Please follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn to stay informed of our upcoming work and/or events, and to keep receiving the Monthly Libation. If you are looking for organizational development consultation, support, or coaching, you can email us at info@colemonassociates.org.
Stay safe. Take care of yourselves and each other. May the month bring joy and wonder.
C&A Team
This was so powerful and so true. Thank you for this! I look forward to reading more editions.