By Raiana Lira
Raiana is a changemaker who attended one of our Crucial Conversations (formerly called Courageous Conversations) last year looking at the topic of decolonising business schools. In this blog, she details her experience as a participant.
I would like to share some insights from my participation during a “Courageous Conversation” organized by the Global Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI). Manish, Andres and I shared some thoughts and experiences with people around the globe through the mediation of Lana and Andres.
It was very interesting to hear complementary experiences and perspectives of my colleagues and follow at least one group discussion – and eager for answers from the participants. We all agreed that we need to hold on to questions so we can explore narratives and practices, and mostly open spaces to voices that are not often heard.
I am a superfan of questions… to fall in love with them, like a language we don’t speak yet (as Rainer Rilke said). So yes, we need to raise many, many questions to arrive at the bottom of this complex relation of education/business/ decolonization. And I deeply understand people who are looking for ways to start.
So thinking on this I wrote down some insights and suggestions of possible starts. And I would love to hear what you think too.
- Let’s not use the intellect to solve this puzzle and explore this topic, but also feelings.
Andres started our conversation with this and read Lana’s poem on the following, setting the energy for the conversation. Yes. We need to allow ourselves to connect with our emotions to build any different path – curiosity, fear, joy, anger….
- Decolonize yourself.
There is no other way and again it is not that easy. Manish mentioned his experience of leaving India to study and work and the decision to come back to his grandmother village. Manish said he is 25 years in this direction and he had to, on his way, re-root himself and reframe shame stories into responsibility. And he is doing a beautiful work on rethinking education and development. I suggest their work around the culture of gift, which I am starting to dive into too.
To be able to build his vision he needed to unlearn a couple of things learnt on the financial market and decolonize his perception of education, recognize his privileges and so on. According to my experience after following over 200 people on their path to become more efficient changemakers, we need to be ready to not have all the answers, to question key aspects of our society, if we think is right or wrong… we need to question more. This is where freedom lives.
Uneducate yourself! Find a mentor, do courses, study, go back to your homeland… What do you need to decolonize your mind?!
Have a safe trip!
- If you are an Educator, review the bibliography you offer to your students.
It is good and important to read what mainstream Universities are producing as knowledge. AND what are scientists and activists from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East producing? How many authors are women, non-binary, LGBTQI+, etc.? If you are using case studies, how can they confront the creativity of your students? I always remember when 2 US students trying to understand how people could live with 1USD a day moved to experience that during a period of time in Guatelama. In a certain moment they mentioned how their schools haven’’ prepared them to understand or offer solutions to that problem. They filmed the journey in a documentary: Living one dollar.
- It is not easy, but nobody said that changing the systems was.
Invite people in your department to review the diversity and inclusion policies of the faculty members, board…
Different perspectives bring creativity to the table, open space to healthy dialogues and will make it much easier to find a way to decolonize your school. The work of bell hooks can be inspiring, try Teaching to transgress to start. Stimulate change on the curricula to include emergent challenges (social and ecological challenges), manage multicultural teams and a purpose driven generation of workers.
- Discuss money and profit driven business.
In the near futures it is highly possible that multiple economic models will share the scenario. How will new professionals navigate and offer possibilities according to the sector and vision of business and social business if they don’t know what exists? we need to talk about capitalism, why billionaires shouldn’t exist and the harm of imperialism if we want to decolonize our schools… and I can anticipate that conscient capitalism is not a good path to invest your energy.
- Stimulate critical thinking on the exams.
I am not sure about the efficiency of exams in schools as we do today. There is a lot of fear, cheating and no reliability on the results. So, what if project based exams, critical and system thinking could be more used. Are you prepared to dialogue with your students, colleagues? Debates and safe space for doubts and experimentation is the best preparation we can offer during a discipline (in my experience so far).
- Debate how we can include Earth as a shareholder in the business.
Investors and customers are more critical. Movements like ESG, SDGs, Social Impact Business, Zero Waste, Bio Leadership, Earth center design, and so on.. are signs of redirection of business as usual. Are you aware of them?! There is a lot to reflect and debate here but, for sure I can echo Bob Dylan and say: The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. Sometimes as a breeze in the shape of an open letter with advice, sometimes as a windstorm like Patagonia’s decision.
- Teach people how to lead and manage using more diverse methods.
“The great man theory” is still the baseline for many management schools (even if they are not fully aware of the effects of this paradigm). The ideas behind this theory like “leaders are born and not made” are still a commonly repeated mantra and lead people to burn out and feel loneliness while managing people in real life. Especially nowadays when many people want more from work than to make a living.
9. Stimulate people to learn new languages.
A language is not the words and sounds. It holds cultural heritage, norms and history. Take Brazilian Portuguese for example. The Portuguese brought with the colonizers are not what we daily speak here. Brazilian Portuguese are full of indigenous, african, arabic, hispanic expressions and mannerisms… Once one understands that, the richness of a culture can emerge. Beyond that, new languages help us to be humble and listen more so we can communicate better and we can access information from a more diverse source.
10. Don’t assume the obvious.
We need to talk, to explain, to draw (if it is needed) the problems’ roots. Not all are aware that consequences of colonialism are still in people’s body, mind and behavior. For instance, being aware of the collective trauma effects and the assumptions and mental models that drive decisions of certain cultural groups can explain a lot of non-verbal communications.
11. We need healing and care centers inside schools
Understanding that many people are suffering consequences from systemic problems, what do we do until we create a better and more inclusive world? Care seems to me a great word. Care and healing spaces – individual and collective – for people move from the survival mode to the thriving mode. Not thinking about productivity, but offering their best to the society.
What do you think? Does it resonate with your thinking about decolonizing business schools? If you choose one thing and carry it on, it will make an enormous difference. I would love to hear if you do.
From my end, I am working on and keeping up, one day and person at time.
More insights here
