As part of our drive towards developing an inclusive environment, we wanted to address both people's uniqueness and their sense of belonging.

作为推动打造包容性环境的一部分 我们想要强调人们的独特性及归属感

In order to do that we needed to be able to have conversations about somebody's uniqueness in order to achieve a sense of belongingness in the workplace.

为此 我们需要对话来讨论某人的独特性 让他在工作场所产生归属感

And therefore we felt like we needed to be able to put on the table conversations that were difficult topics – that people were wanting to shy away from maybe,

所以我们需要把那些困难的话题——人们想要回避的话题拿到明面上来讨论

because they were worried about asking questions, or they were worried about bringing up the topic.

他们之所以回避是因为害怕提问 或者是害怕提起这个话题

But yet those topics were critical to really understanding each other.

但这些话题对真正了解彼此至关重要

And we launched a series called RealTalk series in order to be able to put those more difficult things on the table.

我们发起了RealTalk系列 为了能够公开讨论一些更为困难的话题

It happened a little bit as a coincidence that there were a lot of current events that occurred as we were going through that RealTalk series.

这个时间点比较巧 因为我们在进行RealTalk系列的同时 发生了很多事

Things like natural disasters, a lot of the immigration changes that were happening in the U.S.

比如自然灾害 美国移民政策正在发生的很多变化

And then also the events that happened in Charlottesville.

当然还有在夏洛茨维尔发生的事

And those became great platforms for us to be able to have some of these difficult conversations to understand how people view things differently.

这些都成为了极好的平台 让我们能够进行一些比较困难的对话 了解人们对事情的不同看法

So people may see an event like Charlottesville and they feel badly about it.

有些人遇到夏洛茨维尔这类事件 可能会感觉很抱歉

They're unhappy about it but they sort of go on about their way.

他们不喜欢这种事 但也能继续正常生活

Whereas other people in the workplace feel very personally affected by it.

不过工作场所中的其他人却很容易受此影响

They may be angry. They may be very sad about it.

他们可能会很愤怒 很悲伤

And they need to be able to come into a workplace where people could recognize those emotions and show that they cared that they felt that way.

他们需要一个人们能察觉到他们这种情绪并且很关心他们的感受的工作场所

We wanted to have our participants get comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable.

我们想让参与者接受他们感觉不舒服的想法

And that was the guidance that we gave to the leaders for those sessions

那就是我们给领导人的指导

to make sure that we were raising up issues where people understood that it wasn't going to necessarily be an easy conversation.

确保让人们理解我们提出的问题并不一定是很轻松的对话

And people had to come prepared to be vulnerable and open to some level of discomfort.

人们必须要准备好坦诚接受某种程度的不舒服感

One of the things we asked for from the participants was to assume a positive intent.

我们让参与者做的其中一件事是想象一个积极目的

And a positive intent is simply necessary if you want to have these difficult conversations and have them be productive.

如果想进行困难的对话 并且想让它富有成效 就必须要有一个积极目的

It's so easy to go in and actually become defensive.

人们很容易进入一段对话却变得有防御性

That's usually the issue that creates the obstacles in having a productive conversation.

通常就是这个问题让人们无法进行有效的对话

It's not so much that people go negative but it's that they become defensive.

并不是说人们会变得消极 而是他们会很有防御性

And so we really asked people to come in and say let's assume a positive intent on the part of the other person

所以我们会让人们想象对方是带着积极的目的

so that we didn't go to an area of defensiveness immediately.

这样他们就不会立马进入防御状态

As we engaged in this series we wanted people to understand that it was a dialogue and not a debate.

我们在参与系列对话时 想让大家知道这是对话 而不是辩论

Dialogue is open-ended.

对话的结尾是开放式的

It's a conversation about how I might experience something and understanding how you might experience that exact same thing but in a different way.

这个对话讨论的是我对某事有何感受 而你却对同样的事有着完全不一样的感受

In a debate you're looking to win. You're looking to convince and have the final say in something.

在辩论中你希望能获胜 你希望说服别人 并且能拥有最后的发言权

And that's not the purpose of these conversations.

但对话的目的并不是这些

The purpose is to make sure that we can understand each other better and become better advocates for each other.

对话的目的是确保我们能更好地互相理解 并更好地互相支持

All the experiences that we had going through the RealTalk series really summed up to leading people to

在进行RealTalk系列的时候 我们的经验总结起来就是

commit to having ongoing conversations about things that matter even apart from the series.

让人们进行持续性对话 谈论那些重要的事情 即便是系列之外的事情

And it really led to a practical takeaway for people to just simply say "I'm going to sit down with somebody.

这是一种很实用的倾诉方式 只需要说“我要坐下来跟某人说说话

I'm going to ask their perspective on an event that happened.

我要问问他们对发生的某件事的看法

If something happened over the weekend in the news I'm going to commit to asking what was their experience around that?"

如果周末发生了某件事 我要问问他们对那件事有何感受？”

How did they feel about it and what impact might it have had on them?

他们是什么感觉 这件事对他们有什么影响？

And also sharing how I might feel about it without judgment as to what it should have been

同时也跟他们分享我的感受 不去评判它应该是什么样子

but just understanding each of our own perspectives on that event.

只是简单地理解对方对这件事的看法

So it was a very good experience for us.

这对我们来说是很好的体验

It was a very significant impact for leaders in the organization

这对机构中的领导人有重要影响

but also people who were participating in the series as individual contributors

而且对那些参与该系列的个人贡献者也有重要作用

to know that leaders cared and wanted to engage in those conversations.

让他们知道领导人在乎 想要加入这些对话中