What is it?
Trailblazer Pathway is a facilitated program (9-sessions) for organizational leaders who are serious about clarifying and implementing a robust JEDI action plan.
Trailblazer Pathway was created to offer community accountability, deep JEDI learning and guidance on creating and implementing a robust justice, equity, diversity & inclusion action plan within companies.
What you’ll learn
You’ll meet with your peer group and facilitators once a month for 1.5 hours. There will be videos and readings/podcasts assigned as homework between sessions. Participants will have 24hr. access to materials within the Learning Management System and, upon completion, will be invited to join our online OSC J.E.D.I community to ensure ongoing support and connection beyond the course timeline.
Session 1
Building a Scaffold
Introductions, trust building, and how to build/refining your commitment plan
Session 2
Stereotypes & Microaggressions
Identifying stereotypes and single stories in the natural products industry:
- Workshopping through hidden messages and impacts of microaggressions
- How microaggressions and stereotypes show up in the plan building process itself (e.g. assuming BIPOC people will take the lead on building the plan)
- How this impacts workplace culture
Session 3
Bias + Power
Dive deeper into how power functions using the 4 I’s of oppression. Explore the cycles of grief that people can feel when engaging in JEDI work
Session 4
Having Difficult Conversations
Powerful non-defensive communication. How to talk to people who have very different values. Worksheet on tips and tricks to calling people in
Session 5
Shifting Culture from Exclusion to Belonging
Review cultural hallmarks and explore how they can both prevent building a JEDI plan and doing JEDI work. We’ll also cover solutions to shifting/de-centralizing cultural hallmarks of white supremacy.
Session 6
Gather Data & Identify Key Stakeholders and Success Metrics
Discussion and expert guided peer to peer review
Session 7
Prioritize Objectives & Create implementation Roadmap
Share objectives, timeline and roadmap draft with peers
Session 8
Refine Actionable Plan to reach a Strategic Objective
Create action plan for a strategic objective including - KPIs, Metrics and Timeline
Session 9
Final Sharing of J.E.D.I Commitments
Share refined J.E.D.I plans with cohort. Celebrate!!!
Additional Learning Opportunities
In addition to the scheduled session topics, Trailblazer participants may also invited to attend additional, other learning discussions and opportunities including courses offered through our organizational partners, at a discounted registration price.
Past themes have included:
Culture
- Hiring and recruitment with an equity lens
- Diversity on boards and inclusive board practices
- Enhanced Allyship - rethinking traditional mentor/mentee relationships and moving toward reciprocal, non-extractive allyship.
Consumer
- Brand activism: How brands can advocate for JEDI policy
- Representation in marketing
Communities
- Supplier diversity
- Food history and decolonizing the natural products industry
Meet your facilitator
Cynthia Billops
VP - Operations, Membership & Belonging, One Step Closer
Cynthia is an inspired, “human-first” champion of people, projects and organizations with a goal of implementing systems and practices that use diversity, belonging and inclusion as catalysts to ensure sustainable, socially responsible, profitable growth. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from Mills College; is an enthusiastic believer in proactive risk-identification and mitigation using Powerful Non-Defensive Communication and has spent the last few decades guiding groups as they define, ramp-up on and launch complex IT, Web/SaaS and "Culture Shift" initiatives - resulting in:
- structurally efficient
- opportunity enhancing
- revenue generating
Projects and Programming that support, engage and "level up" systemically marginalized individuals and communities while also, positively, contributing to organizational capacity, resilience and financial stability.
What you’ll gain
Trailblazer Pathway participants will:
Build individual skills and knowledge related to JEDI, including;
- Building deeper self awareness and analysis related to power, privilege, and oppression
- Build skills on better leading JEDI work and building inclusive culture
- Build skills to better have difficult conversations
- Build a peer to peer network dedicated to ongoing learning
Build skills and knowledge for building out a more detailed JEDI action plan
- Build skills and knowledge about how to conduct company wide analysis to inform JEDI action plan
- Gain knowledge about specific strategies and tactics for each commitment area to build out a more detail action plan
- Learn from peers about successes, challenges, and creative solutions
Use ongoing plan refinement + cohort support/accountability to prioritize and implement key objectives
- Learn how to prioritize multiple fundamental objectives using strategic planning tools and/or assessment grids
- Gain knowledge about theoretical foundations and the practical procedures to implement multiple-objective analysis
What will you leave with?
A robust action plan, with SMART goals and reliable tactics to ensure your company executes holistic, equitable, inclusive practices and policies!
Lindsey Bolton
Sales & Marketing at All Good
Enrollment Details
PREREQUISITES:
Company has the following:
- CEO/Executive Buy In & Support
- JEDI Committee or ERG Overseeing Company’s JEDI Work
- JEDI Statement
- JEDI Commitments
TIMEFRAME:
Begins Q1 2024 and continues every 3rd Wednesday from 12:00pm-1:30pm PST for 7 months. Includes 2 “deep-dive” 1:1 sessions to optimize and operationalize commitment plan and final, showcase for folks to present and celebrate what we’ve achieved!
(Note: the entire program spans a 7 month cycle however, Sessions 7 and 8 are devoted to individual facilitation per organization with a schedule TBD by the participants.)
FORMAT:
This is a 9-session facilitated program that meets monthly for 1.5 hours. There will be videos and readings/podcasts assigned as homework between sessions.
PARTICIPANTS:
This program is for organizational leaders facilitating a company-wide JEDI Committee
COST:
$2,500 per participant (non-transferrable). Minimum of two participants per organization; no maximum.
Are you ready to take your company’s JEDI commitment to the next level?