This course walks participants through a series of activations centered in building community through empathy. Empathy is the intentional practice of understanding, being sensitive to, and co-laboring with the experiences, feelings, and thoughts of another person. Empathy that is not cultivated languishes. The purpose of this session is to empower participants with actionable tools to bridge gaps and engender trust in both their personal and professional lives.

"Are the Right People In Your Boat?" is a transformative course designed to equip leaders with the insights and tools needed to optimize team composition and performance. Through understanding the innate strengths and tendencies of each team member, leaders can strategically align roles to harness the full potential of their workforce. This course emphasizes the importance of placing individuals in positions where they can thrive, thereby maximizing job satisfaction, productivity, and overall team effectiveness. Participants will walk away with a comprehensive strategy for assessing and leveraging team dynamics, ensuring that every member is positioned to excel and contribute to the organization's success.

Join us for an insightful virtual lunch and learn designed to illuminate your career path and propel you toward your professional goals. In this session, you'll gain clarity on your passion and vocation, pinpoint your current position on our Career Journey Ladder, and explore effective strategies for career advancement. We'll also introduce you to essential tools and resources to support your ongoing career development journey, ensuring you're equipped to navigate the path to success with confidence and purpose.

Everyone carries mindbugs—what scientists refer to as “ingrained habits of thought that lead to errors in how we perceive, remember, reason, and make decisions.” These errors in judgement are pervasive in our unconscious mind, which controls the vast majority of our decision-making process. This session will engage participants in exploring individual and cultural biases they may hold through context setting and mind activation. Participants will leave with specific strategies for reducing the impact of unconscious bias in their decision-making.

Everyone carries mindbugs—what scientists refer to as “ingrained habits of thought that lead to errors in how we perceive, remember, reason, and make decisions.” These errors in judgement are pervasive in our unconscious mind, which controls the vast majority of our decision-making process. This session will engage participants in exploring individual and cultural biases they may hold through context setting and mind activation. Participants will leave with specific strategies for reducing the impact of unconscious bias in their decision-making.

Building community is the process of inviting the gifts and talents of each community member to fulfill the larger purpose of an organization. A flourishing community is one in which its members are fulfilling their purpose in an environment that is welcoming. This session invites participants to reflect on and activate their purpose while working to ignite psychological safety within community.

Feedback is a conversation. It is two or more people convening to uncover what it is about each other’s behavior and work style that is contributing to and inhibiting team performance. It requires equal attention, participation, and skill from both the giver and the receiver. Mastering the Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback is designed to enhance the communication skills of team members, decrease conflict, and improve productivity.

This session provides a racial equity framework for participants to explicitly take into consideration racial equity when making policy, practice, programmatic, and budgetary decisions. The racial equity framework helps organizations avoid the unintended consequences of racially biased and discriminatory practices by applying a racial equity lens focused on achieving equal outcomes for people of color relative to their peers.

Racial diversity, particularly among the most senior positions, continues to elude many organizations. Creating a climate that attracts diverse talent is about creating a climate where people of color feel like they belong. This session walks participants through an inclusive organization framework grounded in organizational development best practice that helps companies better position themselves to recruit and retain staff from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Inclusion refers to authentically bringing traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities, and decision/policy making in a way that shares power. This session discusses the ways in which people can be included and excluded within workplaces and communities by exploring Social Group Identity theory and the real and potential impacts on organizations and communities.

Conversations About Race provides an opportunity for learning communities to be vulnerable and have an open dialogue about race and race relations through the lens of each individual participant’s experience. This learning experience will allow participants to explore the impact of race on American systems and historically oppressed racial and ethnic groups, and advance a common vision to mitigate racial bias within our spheres of influence.

The Almond Group helps people foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, both in the workplace and in their personal lives. Changing the world won't happen by one leader making a sweeping declaration of what should happen or by a broad piece of legislation. Change happens when we build authentic relationships with our neighbors and community members. It happens when we bridge divides and foster meaningful, honest dialogue. It happens person by person, day by day, in big and small ways. Join us at local coffeeshops for these free, in-person thought-provoking discussions with members of your community. This is a safe and trusting space for everyone to share their lived experiences and cultural identities.