Janklin

Belonging shouldn't be determined by a select few. Especially where we work.

When we think of safe or psychologically safe work places, belonging is often found as a value that we strive to create. But what happens when our attempts to create belonging, to create safety or to make someone feel included do the opposite?

We come with good intentions but rarely to we understand how those intentions land.

Ever ask the question "Where are you from?" It feels like small talk. It feels like a way for me to 'get to know' someone. But for many people, this question can do the exact opposite.

💼 In my latest newsletter series, 'The Invisible Briefcase', I unpack what this question really signals, the cost of not creating belonging in our workplace and practical dos and don'ts for leaders who want to create belonging. It will serve as a series of posts and resources I will be sharing for the month of May. https://www.janklin.ca/articles/who-gets-to-belong-and-who-doesnt

🫡 Stay tuned for more information and visit my website to read last month's Invisible Briefcase series on power and authority! I've created a resource page with a quiz, podcast links, resources and practical tools you can use Monday morning: https://www.janklin.ca/hierarchy-and-me.

🌟 I'm currently taking expressions of interest for my upcoming Relational Project Management Course this September. Please reach out to me if you are interested, [email protected] or DM me.

👇 And let me know what you think about this question? Have you asked it? Have you been the one asked? How did it land for you? I'd love to hear 🤗

Who Gets To Belong? And Who Doesn't? — JANKLIN CONSULTING What does "Where are you from?" really communicate? Leadership consultant Andrea explores the Invisible Briefcase — the unseen privileges and assumptions that shape who feels like they belong — and offers practical Dos & Don'ts for leaders building culturally safe, inclusive workplaces

I grew up with very narrow hierarchies.

🫡 The first was in my home with both parents from military families. High views of respecting those in authority, using titles like 'sir' or 'maam', and timeliness conditioned and formed me.

🌎 The second was in my North American upbringing with racial hierarchies, where art, media, government, policy and infrastructure were built around the "supremacy of the most privileged". It was how Canada and the United States were constructed.

So my view of hierarchy, was very negative. And rightly so.

What I didn't see or experience, however, were other forms of hierarchy. Hierarchies not based on absolute power, as those that I grew up with, but based on having power WITH people instead of over them. Hierarchies marked by mutual concern and reciprocity. Hierarchies marked by how generous you were instead of how much you hoarded.

So when I engaged with someone who was from a more formal hierarchy or form of social order, I was repulsed by it and didn't try to understand it.

You see the biggest hierarchy, I believe, we have to examine is the one within us. My judgement of hierarchy was because I witnessed the harm of absolute power within those structures. And my judgement clouded me from seeing the healing of collective, interrelated power within other structures.

My invitation to you is: How do you see power? How do you see hierarchy?

Because, dear friend, if we want a world that we deserve, we have to learn and unlearn the structures that were designed to narrow, obscure and isolate relationships - relationships, I believe, we all deserve.

Honouring how we see the world will enable us to honour how we see others.

I'd love to hear your relationship with hierarchical systems! Please leave a comment below 👇 🙂

And stay tuned as part two of "Inherited Power. Imagined Equality" drops tomorrow on Canadian Salad podcast. If you haven't listened to part one, please do and share your thoughts with me: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/canadian-salad/id1704170473?i=1000760013754