November has been a pretty interesting month so far. We’ve had lockdowns, elections and new budgets. And we’re only a week in!
The month of November is also an interesting time for challenges – we have numerous charity and abstinence goals that have been going around social media, including my own personal favourite of Movember (which for me started about four months ago!).
I recently came across about NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. The goal is writing a 50,000 word manuscript, approx 1,500 words every day. The main encouragement of this is to simply write – not get bogged down by doubting your own writing, nor being too worried about editing until you get to the end.
I’ve had the idea of writing an e-book on my mind since the beginning of the year, so what better time than now when we’re all locked down?
I’ve taken some creative liberties, in that it won’t be a novel, rather a non-fiction book. I’ve been in the field Diversity and Inclusion for some time, along with working as a coach. Using my experience, I am really keen to build a new way of understanding Diversity and Inclusion through a new coaching framework.
As I’m sure you are all aware, 2020 has been a seismic year for racial awareness and wider diversity activity. We’ve seen many managers and leaders suddenly becoming far more aware of these issues, but not necessarily having the understanding or competence to deal with these issues in the measured way it deserves.
As such, I have created the ‘CUBE’ model. I invite individuals to look at their Culture, Upbringing, Bias and (lived) experience. Essentially, by asking yourself more about your own understanding about these elements that make up your background, it helps you recognise more effectively the particular experience you have had, and how much this has shaped you. So when you are dealing with an experience that is different than your own, it is easier to understand the effect this might have on those individuals.
I’m currently about 7000 words in, with heavy editorial input required! So as a disclaimer I probably won’t have a completely finalised product by the end of the month, but I do want to push myeslf to get as far ahead with it as I can – so do wish me luck!
I will let you all know how it goes – and if you’d like to read an early draft do let me know!