6 Team Conditions Statement on the Movement for Racial Justice
The recent horrific 8 minutes and 46 seconds’ suffocation of George Floyd has revealed once again that the 400+ year “original sin” of racial discrimination in the United States has never been fully addressed or healed. One of our stated beliefs and values at 6 Team Conditions has always been that the world’s greatest challenges, its “wicked problems,” can only be solved through highly effective collaborations. We have offered the 6 Team Conditions framework as a way of thinking about and fostering great collaboration through teams. We want to bring our knowledge and conviction about collaboration to all wicked problems and great aspirations. Racism is among the wickedest problems threatening the peace and prosperity of the planet and especially the right to life, freedom, and wellbeing of those who are targets of this bias and hatred. We believe, as Martin Luther King said: “We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
Black lives matter.
The disease of racism, much like Covid19, is global in its scope. It demands a transformation in human consciousness and action that is also global and multi-level (i.e. individual, family, organization, community, nation, world). All of us can contribute at one or more of these levels. We are inspired by the multi-racial and multi-generational protest movement taking place around the world, and we look forward to making our contribution to this urgent challenge. At 6 Team Conditions we continue to reflect and consult on recent events and have committed ourselves to the following actions:
- Convening our global community of practitioners to engage in constructive dialogue on this important topic.
- Listening to people of color within our ranks who wish to share their stories and perspectives about racial injustice; and supporting our non-black community members to reflect on the essential role they must play in rooting out racial injustice in all its forms.
- Continuing to reinforce and expand the diversity of our faculty team and the participants in our training programs.
- Leveraging our expertise in the area of groups, teams and intergroup relations to foster shifts in consciousness and action through our media channels (e.g. blog, podcast, webinars).
- Offering our pro-bono team coaching program to support organizations working for racial justice (www.6TeamConditions.com/racialjustice/)
We understand that issuing public corporate statements on racial injustice, while important, is insufficient and that it is our sincere actions that follow which ultimately matter. We hope that history will look back favorably on this time and that it was this generation that rose to the occasion once and for all and blotted out the scourge of racial injustice from the world.
In solidarity and partnership,
The 6 Conditions Team
Ruth Wageman, Krister Lowe, Juliane Corman, Pauline Willis, and Andrew Evans
Melissa Sayer, Gabe Abella, David Matthew Prior, Krish Iyer, Carissa Bub, Fernando Dias, Georgina Woudstra, Harvey Floyd II, and JD Lanigan
