Copywriter & Chief Editor | Asyah Saif | Grammatica Communications Ltd.
What To Expect in This Blog Series on Creating Brave Spaces
We have been busy developing a course that will revolutionize the workplace by creating brave leaders that show up authentically, encourage comfort in discomfort, foster psychological safety, and enable others to respond to conflict with compassion and curiosity. The mission of our course is to unlock the full potential of every individual by equipping them to be brave leaders who embrace diverse perspectives when leading through conflict and having difficult conversations.
So Why Share This Information in our Blog and Podcast?
This information is too critical to not share with a wider audience. Sinogap Solutions’ mission is to maximize the human potential across the workforce and equip leaders with the skills to be able to do that. Over the years, we’ve received many inquiries from clients asking for learning resources that focus on facilitating difficult conversations, working through conflict, and fostering psychological safety. There are resources that tackle these topics separately, but our unique approach is in recognizing that these topics are not independent from one another. As leaders, we utilize these skills simultaneously, and we have to train ourselves in a format that allows for integrating these concepts within each other.
This blog series will tackle themes regarding creating brave spaces that are covered more extensively throughout the Creating Brave Spaces course.
But Wait… What About Safe Spaces?
In their article “From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces”, authors Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens talk about their experience in leading diversity and social justice training for university students. The aim of their training was to touch on controversial issues with honesty, sensitivity, and respect; therefore, they often described those spaces as safe spaces with the hope of reassuring participants’ anxiety around discussing topics surrounding oppression, privilege, and racism. The authors found that in these settings, when conversations became more intense and charged, participants actually no longer felt safe. Participant feedback was: their workshops were not good learning experiences. They found that safety was often conflated with comfort and that framing their spaces as “safe” often hindered the outcomes and intentions of their work.
An example of an activity that Arao and Clemens reference is the “One Step Forward, One Step Back” activity: participants line up and then take a step forward or backward based on how they relate to facilitator-read statements focused on social identity and privilege. Students in the dominant group identity stated that they felt blamed or negatively judged for being at the front of the room. They also relayed feelings of guilt and helplessness, which sometimes tied to statements such as “I can’t help being white” or “these problems aren’t my fault”.
On the other hand, individuals with identities and experiences that brought them to the back of the room stated that their physical position at the end of the exercise was a reminder of the oppression and marginalization that they experienced day-to-day.
Interestingly, Arao and Clemens note a critique shared by individuals across different groups and identities: the activity was in direct violation of the safe space guidelines that were set at the beginning of the workshop. Essentially, these profound feelings of discomfort were at odds with what Arao and Clemens set out to do as a foundation for framing difficult discussions
“I know that when it comes to any kind of training around uncovering your bias, research and my own experience show that people walk away with frustration rather than enlightenment and higher self awareness. Sometimes, their biases are even more entrenched at the end.”
Dr. Johanna Pagonis
This activity can create an opportunity to connect with colleagues and expand your learning. This can also be a very vulnerable activity where you physically step into intense statements of experiences based on social identity and privilege. Even our own feelings of discomfort and guilt that surfaced were a pathway to connecting with others, learning something about ourselves, However, we have seen participants in these activities shutdown completely and not be receptive to any of the learnings.
From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces
Did Arao and Clemens just choose the wrong activity? Or perhaps their facilitators were not adequately trained? What was the flaw of the workshop?
It is important to note that safety is really important for these discussions to occur. However, Arao and Clemens feel strongly that authentic learning about social justice, in their case, often requires qualities of risk, difficulty, and controversy, which often are seen as incompatible with safety. This prompted Arao and Clemens to move towards setting their workshops within the framework of brave spaces.
Brave spaces encourage learners to rise to the challenge of genuine dialogue.
Arao and Clemens found that the simple act of using the term “brave space” at the beginning of the program had a really positive impact: it transformed the conversation. It set the tone and helped launch into constructive dialogue.
Just as Arao and Clemens encouraged their students to reflect on the differences of a safe space vs. a brave space in their workshops, we encourage you to ask this question within your workplace and teams.
“We mainly function in brave spaces, not safe spaces. Safe space is when there is 100% trust, you can open your mouth and say anything, and the concern that you will be judged negatively and lose credibility is minimal to nonexistent.”
Dr. Johanna Pagonis
Think of a time you were in a meeting and you wanted to speak up. You just felt like you had to. There is a physiological reaction associated with it, and knowing or working towards recognizing your own is key. You might feel something in your gut, your palms might get sweaty, your heart rate might go up, and you might feel like you just need to say something to correct a wrong or stand up for a value or a belief. You might know that if you don’t say anything, you would regret it.
However, there is also a lot of fear in opening up and speaking up. It might not fit the mood of the room, or it might set you as the outlier with such an opinion in the room. It is not easy to step up and speak up because you don’t know how others will perceive you or react. But when you do step up and say it… guess what? There’s usually somebody else in the room who wanted to say it too. By stepping up, we can be a role model for others on stepping into this brave space.
The power of a brave space is in being able to speak up and step up while maintaining trust and strengthening relationships. Through fostering brave spaces, eventually, we can get to a safe space as a team, where we can become powerful, effective, and efficient.
Are Safe Spaces Better Than Brave Spaces?
It is not a question of better than or worse than. It is more about creating awareness of what the difference is and that to create a basic level of safety, which often includes trust, is necessary to make someone feel comfortable and confident to be brave.
“A basic level of psychological safety and trust can be facilitated in our spaces to encourage authentic bravery and courage.”
Katie Allan
Think of an analogy of teaching someone a physical skill, such as a cartwheel. There is a level of progression to get us there. We see brave spaces as a level of progression to get you to safe spaces.
So, What Is a Brave Space?
Think of a time you found yourself in a brave space and how you would define it? What did it feel like? What was happening? What were others doing or not doing to make it brave?
We want to share an example that we find resonates with many individuals. In regards to topics surrounding equity, diversity, and inclusion, some of our views can defer to those of some friends or family. Some of those views are racist, for example. Sometimes, the shocking part is that people don’t even realize that what they said was racist.
Especially when unexpected, it can be very difficult to approach those conversations. This is where those triggers come in. What is your initial gut reaction? How do you feel? Do you want to stand up and be loud and dominate the conversation? Or do you want to leave the space or abruptly change the conversation? When you’re not feeling safe, you either act in silence or violence–it is part of our flight, fight, or freeze response.
Let’s focus in on the fight response for this example.
Being in tune with your emotional and physiological reactions can help create a brave space. When we are in a fight mode, our mind and thoughts are racing, which means that words will start racing. Stepping back from that fight mode can help us listen, ask questions to understand, lower everyone’s systems of defense, and be more open to hearing one another. This approach can foster a brave space that can challenge what was said, unpack the intentions behind actions and their impacts, and provide for a learning opportunity.
What if you are unable to control those trigger responses? That is ok too, and it is ok to revisit the conversation at a later time. You could say: “You know what, some of the things that you just said are very triggering for me. I would like to explore this further because I have a very different opinion than yours, but I am not in a space right now to talk about it without getting a little bit angry, and I don’t want to have that kind of a conversation.”
Ultimately, we should ask ourselves: what is the outcome we are seeking?
Is it for them to think like us and admit that they are a racist? Or is the outcome to help educate them with a different perspective and information that may get them to shift their thinking? If the latter is the outcome, we need to be very mindful of how we approach the conversation.
Connecting Theory to Practice
We wanted to share with you four practical steps you can take towards building brave spaces.
1. Establishing Rules of Engagement
Think about how you are going to engage. What values are going to be applied? An organic and effective time to establish these rules of engagement is at the beginning of a workshop or gathering. Rather than a list of expectations, such as punctuality, respecting each other, etc., really try and get to the root and the value of the space. Instead, try encouraging participants to 1) share one or two values that they want to live by and role model and 2) how they would put those values into action.
If someone says respect, then it is important to expand on what respect actually looks like when it is happening.
2. Look Inward
Reflect on what you are feeling and what your physiological responses to triggers are. What thoughts and reactions are you experiencing? With that, have some vulnerability with yourself. If you are feeling emotional or heightened, take stock of that.
Actively consider a growth mindset and bringing in a different perspective. Consider the outcome you would like to work towards.
3. Listen to Truly Understand
This would require empathy to feel with others and a certain level of psychological safety, which includes fostering an environment where individuals will not feel like they will be judged, ridiculed, or punished for genuine and honest engagement.
Have space for diverse perspectives and consider how you are listening to them fully.
Be mindful of unconscious bias. Looking inward to take stock of how we are feeling and reacting can be very good data about ourselves that can help grow our self-awareness of our biases.
4. Step In
Respond to a challenging situation, embrace conflict, say what is on your mind, take on the feedback, voice disagreement, or assert a boundary.
This step is also an invitation to consider how to step in with bravery and still be able to encourage and support those around you. Stepping in bravely can role model to others what form engagement within a brave space could take.
As with any new information and learning, recognizing and practicing these four steps can take time, and there could also be times where you step out of your rhythm and sidestep one of the steps. Don’t forget to give yourself and others grace when practicing brave space engagement.
Progress over perfection.