STACEY CAILLIER:
There are some stances we bring to the work to help ensure that improvement is always in service of equity. First, we think it’s really important to prioritize connecting people as humans and creating a sense of belonging. This is essential for any deep learning to take place for kids or adults. Too often when folks are engaged in the work of improving things, we get stuck in strategy. Land and strategy is super important, but so are the stories and the lived experiences. So we think it’s critical to make time for people to connect to their why for the work, and to take time to ask questions, and really listening to those that we’re trying to serve through the work. Another common thing that we see is that folks will do improvement work and then they’ll do equity work, and it’s almost as if they’re distinct activities that they’re pivoting between.

But if our goal is to create lasting change for equity, the two really need to feel seamless. We need to do the self work and the systems work. We need to shift mindsets and our ways of relating to each other. We need to ensure equitable outcomes, but also design more liberatory processes for getting there. The goal is integration, and there’s no improvement without equity. This last stance is one that tripped us up quite a bit when we were early in the work and what we’ve learned that it’s really important to focus on the learning instead of perfection. Often folks think that continuous improvement is about the tools, and they enter into it with the goal of making the perfect fishbone diagram. The perfect driver diagram, resist that urge, . The goal is to engage in dialogue that pushes our thinking. That evolves our learning. There’s no one right way. If you’re learning and being changed by the work, you are doing it right.