Deconstruction Journey

We believe that to reach equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workspace, we all need to go through a journey of deconstruction to question our privileges, our cultural context and take actions to contribute to a better world.

This template was designed to guide a small group of people on this journey and to enable meaningful conversations.

In 1.30 hr session, the participants will learn, reflect on inequalities and will be asked to share stories and commit to being active agents of change in their workspace.

1. Give definitions

Make your audience reflect on the different definitions and meanings of sex, gender, sexual preferences, intersectionality.

Ask them to match the terminology with the definition.

2. Reflect on the cultural heritage

Once the audience has a common understanding on the topic, guide them in a reflection on the cultural expectations on gender roles/ behaviours.

Ask the participants to drop the images and texts in the circle they believe is the most appropriate one (man/ woman).

3. Scenarios to reflect on workplace (in)equality

At this point it is time to bring the focus of the discussion in the workplace.

You can pick some scenarios to make your audience reflect on situations where different behaviours may appear depending if the protagonist is a man or a woman.

As a facilitator you can either:

Option 1

Duplicate this board and discuss as many scenarios as you want.

Experience suggested: Guide your audience in a deconstruction journey.

Option 2

Divide the group in break out rooms and ask them to focus on a specific scenario.

4. Commitments

Hopefully, when the discussion will be concluded, your audience will be finishing a deconstructive journey where some mental models will be broken.

Ask to share learnings and to brainstorm and commit on one action that can contribute to create a more diverse and inclusive workspace

Suggestions:

After each part of the workshop, stop sharing the screen, give time for reflection and enable and facilitate face-to-face communication.

Disclaimer:

Along this workshop there might be sensitive conversations that involved personal or intimate stories. Please ensure that the conditions for a safe space are met and respect if people don't want to share.

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Shout outs!

This resource was created in close collaboration with Abigail Schreider, service designer facilitator and activist fighting to bring feminist values to the ways we think, work, and collaborate; Marcelo Baudino, expert in developing strategies for managing diversity and fostering an inclusive workplace; Piera Mattioli, service designer social innovator and visualizer passionate about creating engaging spaces to enable meaningful conversations.