There are 5 new posts in "Jeffrey Cufaude, Idea Architects"
Hi. I'm Jeffrey Cufaude.I believe deeply that the communities of which we are part are resource-full, but we must be more resourceful in how we invite and engage individuals to be caring contributors and learners. My past experience as executive director of two national associations and as a student affairs staff member at two large public universities has informed much of my subsequent 20+ years as a facilitator, strategist, leadership conference designer, consultant, and speaker. Meaning & Means: Three Questions for a More Sustainable You The pandemic has allowed many people time to take stock of their professional and personal situations: Are they living in the right place? Are they working in the right profession? Are they spending their years in the most rewarding manner? And many more. You could amass quite the collection of books on finding purpose in your life, career planning, and the like. I've read many of them, and many are quite good. Rather than a book, I offer these three fundamental questions for to help clarify intentions and aspirations:
 Recalibrating the meaning we seek and the means it requires will no doubt occur many times over our lives. We don't want to live beneath our possible meaning, nor do we want to live beyond our means. Neither are sustainable. The opportunity for each of us is to craft a life filled with meaning that requires means that we can sustain.   Exploring the creative tension between means and meaning is one aspect of my signature program, Say Yes Less: Why It Matters and How to Do It. After completing a free registration, you can watch an archived webinar on this topic. If you'd like me to share this content at an upcoming gathering, you can contact me here. The Clock Doesn't Tell the Whole Story “Everyone is given the same 24 hours in a day.”  Well, of course, right? How can you argue with such a simple “truth”?You can’t at face value, but the meaning behind the statement merits further examination. Think about how this statement is most commonly used. I most frequently hear it when people try to prod others into being more productive with their day. It’s often paired with the example of how some uber-entrepreneur invents some world-changing smartphone app before most of us finish our morning coffee.
Be. Like. Erin. The underlying message is we’re not worthy because we don’t make as much of a difference with our 24 hours as others do with theirs … and remember, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Except that we don’t. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I am self-employed. I am single. I don’t have kids. I don’t have pets.  These four facts are the basis of a 24-hour day that undoubtedly is very, very different than others. For the most part, I have almost complete control over my day unless I am speaking or facilitating for an organization or participating in the occasional conference call to plan upcoming client work. In general …I get up when I want. I work when I want. I don’t have to attend many meetings. No one checks when I punch in or out. This is the epitome of privilege. This is what genuine freedom of choice looks like, and it is a freedom that people possess in widely varying degrees. We may each start with the same 24 hours in a day, but what is important to acknowledge, understand, and appreciate is how many of those hours are genuinely available for our discretionary use. And that’s where the clock starts to tell time differently.  The bottom line is this: we don’t all have 24 hours a day available to us for our use. In fact many people have very few discretionary hours at their disposal in any given day. This needs to be acknowledged and addressed both at the personal level and the policy level. If we want to build more effective teams, if we want to strengthen interpersonal relationships, understanding a day in the life of others is a very good place to begin. Effective leadership can then enact policies to reduce some of the systemic inequities of the clock that inhibit people from making their strongest contributions in the workplace. Every Day is Interdependence Day Like many Americans you probably are excited for the upcoming Independence Day, more commonly referred to as July 4. While the independence associated with this holiday certainly merits celebrating, I’m not sure independence in and of itself is an entirely desirable goal today. Too often we fail to acknowledge the impact our choices have on others' well-being. The debate over wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic is perhaps the most obvious and current example. Our health and safety is somewhat dependent on choices that others' make. I wear a mask to protect you and hope that you wear a mask to protect me. Homeowners are very interdependent. If your immediate neighbors don't maintain reasonable care of their properties, it most definitely affects the price your home can attract when you next put it on the market. I don't have kids, but I need to be concerned about the quality of our inner-city schools or else I will live in a community that parents with school-age children find undesirable.
 But most of us have not really been schooled in what it means to be a true team player, to operate interdependently, or fully considered what it might mean for our individual choices. Interdependence also seems to go against the grain of the rugged individualism that many associate with America and that they will celebrate on July 4. If my success is somewhat dependent on what you do, what if you don’t come through? What indeed? That’s the beauty (or agony depending on your perspective) of interdependence: it asks us to be as concerned with the efforts of others as we are with our own. It asks us to own the whole, not just our individual piece of the puzzle. It asks us to readjust our priorities for any given day at work in order to support colleagues who may need our time and attention in order to complete their necessary assignments. It prompts us to be concerned with the welfare of those with whom we work and live.
Help Your Speakers Embrace Diversity and Inclusion Note: I wrote the following article for ASAE-The Center for Association Leadership, and it was originally published in their Associations Now Plus members-only resource. It is used here with permission and ASAE retains the copyright. A full commitment to diversity and inclusion means that an association’s educational programming—and the speakers providing it—reflect the learning community. Here are some practical steps associations can take to help presenters prepare sessions that reject assumptions about the audience and meet diverse attendee needs. Association resource materials for speakers traditionally include key dates and deadlines, room and AV logistics, and suggestions for slide and handout presentation. Some also include basic tips on adult learning and how to create more engaging and interactive sessions. Yet additional guidance in a critical area too often is missing: designing for the composition and culture of your learning community. Although this may be particularly valuable to presenters from outside your organization, even internal subject-matter experts can benefit from more specific instruction on how to design and deliver a session that not only is inclusive of the diverse participants they will address, but also reflects a genuine commitment to diversity and inclusiveness as core values. Learners want to both see themselves and hear themselves reflected in session content and delivery. Here are a few examples of what associations are doing to help presenters prepare. Guidance and Orientation LeadingAge Illinois, like some associations, includes a brief statement in their speaker guidelines “to sensitize speakers to the potential diversity in the audience.” It urges speakers to review their course content and style for inclusive language, professional content versus personal beliefs, and potential sexist, discriminatory, or similarly insensitive language. Presenter standards from the Promotional Products Association International also include advice on introducing panelists in a non-sexist manner and avoiding visual aids that show people in stereotypical roles. The latter echoes encouragement from the LeadingAge Illinois statement to “make no assumptions about those in the group other than a common interest in the content area delineated in the printed meeting materials.” One way to prevent speakers from making assumptions about attendees is to provide them an accurate profile of their audience. No doubt you orient new employees to key elements of your profession or industry, demographic data about your membership, and some of the cultural norms that may be unique to your organization. Speakers would benefit from the same insights. As a presenter, I find it useful to also receive detailed event or conference profiles that provide similar information for the specific conference community. Several years ago, I benefited from conversations with staff at the Foundation to Prevent Blindness about what types of visuals I could use effectively given the range of sightedness in the audience. Based on their guidance, I included more and differently designed visuals than I would otherwise have used. Other orientation materials could include
Broadening Participant Perspectives To help its subject-matter experts and other presenters infuse equity and inclusion into their conference presentations, ACPA-College Student Educators International offers comprehensive guidance for speakers in a micro-site. Dr. Kathy Obear, a diversity educator and organizational development consultant who led the development team for the guidelines, describes them as a “proactive step to help presenters develop formats, curriculum, and facilitator techniques to better meet the needs of an increasingly diverse membership.” While the ACPA guidelines help prepare speakers to design more inclusive sessions, Obear says they also are intended to “help facilitators infuse issues and images in presentations that help participants deepen their multicultural competencies and challenge implicit, unconscious bias.” In other words, presenter preparation should include planning how to help learners broaden, deepen, and be more inclusive of the perspectives that they themselves consider. Doing so is both art and science. Associations should engage speakers in sharing advice with each other about strategies they use to challenge the potentially limiting perspectives of participants on ways that facilitate growth and learning.  In my undergraduate coursework as an English major, one of my instructors taught my class to proof our work seven times, each time focusing on a specific variable: tone; spelling, grammar, and punctuation; cohesiveness of argument; and so on. Associations looking to help busy presenters design and deliver more inclusive presentations may be wise to create a similar checklist, one that includes such proofing criteria as inflammatory or unhelpful language, diversity of content sources referenced and examples offered, visual portrayal of people and groups in materials, and presenter confirmation bias. Until diversity in presentation design and delivery is your default, a checklist is a helpful tool to make sure you aren’t missing a critical program enhancement. Other presenter support—such as webinars, online resource centers, and speaker coaching—can address these same opportunities but in more specific ways. To make tangible improvements in their programs, analytical and more detailed-oriented presenters will appreciate having “before and after” examples of infusing inclusion into a session design, a particular teaching technique, or even a slide. Finally, associations should consider including a speaker-prep workshop at their conferences to continually build the capabilities and confidence of their members to be better presenters and learning facilitators. The Person Behind the Presenter Statements, tips, and checklists can definitely enhance a speaker’s presentation mechanics so that sessions better exemplify an inclusive design. But every presenter is also a person, and for these mechanics to have authentic meaning presenters may need to do their own inner work related to diversity and inclusion. That work has value beyond the conference itself. As Obear aptly notes, “Most organizations are preparing members to serve increasingly diverse populations locally, nationally, and globally, so their members may want more knowledge and skills for better serving others across all group identities.” Evidence that an association is truly committed to equity and inclusion should include support and learning opportunities for the person, the professional, and the presenter. More Recent Articles |