Cultural Principles for Guiding Personal and Workplace Performance Toward Holism and Health

Transcription

1 Cultural Principles for Guiding Personal and Workplace Performance Toward Holism and Health Presented by: Atum Azzahir Cultural Wellness Center Minneapolis, MN

2 At the completion of this learning experience, participants will have developed the following: Cultural awareness-the ability to understand, appreciate and utilize the workplace as a spiritual classroom. Cultural authenticity-the ability to connect spiritual values more closely with daily work. Cultural alchemy-the facility to work in greater harmony with colleagues by resolving seemingly irreconcilable differences and Objectives written by: Jojopah Maria Nsoroma systemic conflicts. Cultural authority-the ability to clarify the external tasks and challenges of leadership through ones own internal spiritual development. Cultural abundance-the effective and appropriate practices for maintaining a nurturing and supportive work environment.

3 Knowledge: A great ancestor, Frederick Douglas, filled with deep intellectual, moral and spiritual courage, once said that knowledge is power. This statement goes further in recognizing that knowledge is the key to our community s edification. i.e. Organization s are created in a community to fulfill a community s future plans and to reconcile past struggles. (continued )

4 Participation: in life pursuits, in our society at any level, demands that we respect knowledge as the basis of our being. To the degree that we do not possess power as a people, we are equally, to that degree, in a state where an absence of knowledge exists. i.e. choosing an academic degree, a career path or responding to a calling. (continued )

5 Knowledge: The reason power does what it does to community people is because power knows more. To live is to learn, to have knowledge is to control your destiny. Experience is the best teacher. i.e. Sayings from the old people in Mississippi: bought sense is better than told sense Don t be no educated fool (continued )

6 Knowledge: We must know that knowledge is socially constructed. It is something created by people through experience and study. We must learn to control what is called knowledge by creating it, as well as pursuing it. i.e. every experience good or bad brings a message, it is often said that the more severe the experience the deeper the wisdom.

7 Self-Respect: Respecting one s self is the first step in gaining the respect of others. Self-respect, in a cultural sense, does not end with respecting only your own person. True self-respect means recognizing all the positive realities by which you are surrounded: family, community, and a sense of people-hood (not race). i.e. Cultural Elders teach that the physical self is a mirror for expressing the spiritual self. How a person feels, think and act tells the story of the learning's along the journey.

8 Self-Respect: All traditions, all memories that we hold dear are at the core of self-respecting behavior. To respect yourself is to respect your own humanity and that of your people and others no matter what your past experiences have been. i.e. interactions with other individuals often trigger the pain or delight of past experiences. To trust, respect authority and to have faith in the immediate interaction is often tied to past interactions.

9 Self-Reliance: Self-Reliance is the oldest of cultural traditions. Institution building is the key to self-reliance. The accumulation of capital from among ourselves is self-reliance. Trading with community businesses and other institutions within the community is an act of self-reliance.

10 Self-Reliance: Culturally-empowered community members believe that self-reliance begins with giving to your self, family and community as to time, talent, knowledge and finances. i.e. learned skills such as: building trades, professional services, community services, all are dedicated to stabilizing the whole community not only the individual.

11 Life-Affirming Values: The values of a cultural society are opposed to all forms of self-destructive behavior. Selfdestructive behavior is tied to the nature of our oppression, that is, it is against our own interest. Cultural values teach us to respect each other and to respect the home as the first teacher.

12 Life-Affirming Values: Family/relatives are viewed as sisters/mothers/aunts and as brothers/fathers/uncles, whether biological or not (there is no such thing as single parents). i.e. Reflections from participants on their own experiences and on how this familiar system feeds the professional roles they play.

13 Life-Affirming Values: Values recognize the principle of connectedness in every aspect of our lives and in relationship to each other. i.e. Reflections from participants: Name values that inform co-worker and supervisor relationships.

14 Community Service: To be able to serve others is one of the greatest blessings of life. To serve others is a life-giving activity. To whom much is given, much is required. To be socially engaged is to be blessed. i.e. Reflections from participants on types of service for their cultural community.

15 Community Service: It is therefore, imperative that members of cultural communities be committed to service, be willing to give of their time, talent, and skill to make their communities places where beauty thrives. To serve is the highest act of love for one s community. i.e. Give Examples of traditions of service in cultural communities which must now replace the rescue tradition.

16 Re-Creation: One of the central aims of cultural knowledge is to recreate the life of our community. A transformation of values is the source of this cultural engagement. Accordingly, community members must be living examples of cultural values and views. Members will live these values and views through everyday practice. The best way to teach is by example. i.e. A group s governance and decision making process is about examining the places where there is an interruption in peace, harmony and balance in the individual, the community or the institution. (continued )

17 Re-Creation: (continued ) Through habits of speech, dress, manners and conduct, in a basic attitude toward life, cultural community members are expected to touch the lives of others by interaction with members of the community.

18 Love: A cultural sense of love is all-encompassing. It goes beyond our immediate families and blood kin. Cultural Love can become universal, it flows from the Sun within our hearts and from our Soul. To be a culturally-engaged teacher and student is to pursue altruism rather than egoism. Love must be a willful act that is joyfully practiced in all that one does.

19 Love (continued): Cultural Love is the struggle to meet and know all members of the community with an equality of caring and of friendship. i.e. What are the challenges in the workplace with this concept of love? Are there questions of professional boundaries?

20 When the intellect is not ready to be ruled by the wisdom of the heart, human beings are in danger of selfdestruction. Adapted from: Ancient Kemetic (Egypt) Teaching

21 Culture: consists of practices that people create to give themselves continuity and cohesion across generations. Culture consists of a set of highly patterned, unspoken implicit rules, behaviors and thoughts which control everything that [we] do. [A people, peoplehood is at the core of culture.]

22 Valuing Culture: Culture is carried by the women of a people It is learned It is adaptable to the environment It is a dynamic system, but it is not without a fixed, unchangeable core. i.e. Examine these points relative to organizational culture.

23 Culturally Centered Decision Making and Authority: Means that the elders are influential at every stage of decision making and decisions are informed by how the decision impacts people from each age stage participating in the continuity of the community. i.e. this includes problems, strategies and solutions

24 Cultural Intelligence

25 Core Competencies and Skills Sensing, seeing, sorting, relating to the spiritual (i.e., the spirits, the seen and unseen) Self-mastery (i.e., self-regulation, capacity for self-knowledge, actively participating, contributing) Capacity for anchoring one s self Capacity for responding appropriately to the obligations and duties of life