METANOIA CULTURE: BUILDING PRACTICES THAT REINFORCE TRAINING
I have my suspicions that practice makes perfect. However, I do know that, practice makes progress.
Our Practice. One of Metanoia’s practices woven into the fabric of team meetings is a moment of silence. It is this practice of silence that allows the individuals and the collective to:
- Locate ourselves (including our thoughts and feelings);
- Hold the tension between our intentions and where we are;
- Listen generously to ourselves;
- Slow down enough to see each other.
The practice of silence provides the opportunity for us return to ourselves. It provides the physical space to practice this transformation that we call metanoia. To quote Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, we embody our belief that “Love and justice are not two. Without inner change, there is no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.”
It is in these practices that Metanoia makes progress. This progress individually and collectively leads to change. Fundamentally, we bring ourselves to the work every day open to change and to also be changed.
Our Training. Metanoia values life-long learning and education for individual growth, skill advancement, and assuring Metanoia leads with best (and next) practices. We express this value through budgeting ongoing employee training and professional development. In addition, we are one of the YWCA’s Racial Equity Institute training partners and require all employees to attend the YWCA’s two-day training. Most of our Board Members have attended this training as well.
At Metanoia, we collectively understand that training is a module. We define practice as day-to-day application, implementation, and integration of our training.
Simply stated, training sets the table but PRACTICE is where the real meal of personal and community transformation is eaten. It is easy to do the training. It is hard work to stick to practice because practice requires intention, application, tools and consistency. Investments made in training and development require supplemental day-to-day practices that keep us true to our values.
In this light, Metanoia deepened our internal work over the past seven months through the development of new policies for our staff. The goal was more than just updating our personnel policies to conform with the most recent employment law, it was to realize our opportunity to practice our value of life and humanity of each employee through our organization’s operations. We asked ourselves, “What would it take for us to celebrate our differences and honor our collective humanity every day?”
Honoring Our Differences and Our Humanity Through Practice.
Most readers of this article have been raised and educated under Western thought and practices that too often systematically deny of the life and freedom of people of Black, Indigenous, Asian and Latino descent. In February 2021, Metanoia launched our Guide to Employee and Workplace Culture. This guide integrates Metanoia’s most fundamental values on humanity and equity, on inclusion and belonging, on accountability and justice, and our hope and practice of a better tomorrow.
If Metanoians are to truly honor the legacy of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and that “Black lives are worthy,” (INSERT LINK) then our work is not to wait for police reform to happen. It is the accumulation of little changes that must occur in us by embedding internal practices that values differences and celebrates humanity.
Metanoia Board Member Anton Gunn oftentimes states, “We must inspect what we expect.” By this, Gunn means that it is upon companies, corporations, and organizations of today to inspect our internal policies and practices as a reflection of what we expect in the world.
Metanoia expects a world in which we honor the lives and humanity of each child, each parent and grandparent, each family, and every community member. Our guide establish a series of practices that support the value of people and enable us to see one another’s humanity. These practices include celebrating individual differences and life experiences as a strength rather than a liability to our work together.. We reiterate that we value people in our management practices and policies - from recruitment and selection to compensation and benefits.
As American novelist, Afrofuturist, and MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Octavia Butler says,
First forget inspiration.
Habit is more dependable.
Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not.
Habit will help you finish and polish your stories.
Inspiration won’t.
Habit is persistence in practice.
Our practice will not be perfect, nor will we be perfect as we practice,, but we just might discover is that our practice makes progress. And, we just might learn along the way that the summation of our progress can create and become the world that we seek.