A Word About Process
TENSIONS AND SHARED KEY STEWARDSHIP LEARNING
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In a successful social innovation lab, participants move from rigid mental models to an increasing ability to hold tensions as they carve out action-oriented pathways forward. This meant participants had to be aware of their own biases, beliefs, wishes and interests as they supported their teammates’ differing journeys; they also had to balance that with occasionally conflicting feedback from the community. In developing prototype interventions to reduce racism, participants also had to be willing to go on a personal and transformational journey, engaging deeply in counter-cultural ways of being, reflecting, problem-solving and working together as good Treaty people. As well, participants were expected to try new approaches (we are a lab experimenting with ways to reduce racism). Not everything worked and we had to boldly go against the grain in many cases. We embraced this challenge. From the continual feedback we Stewards received on the process and outcomes, we want to share our learning, tensions, and some guiding principles we uncovered that might help in future action-oriented lab explorations and anti-racism initiatives.
