Our Artistic Director, Kristen van Ginhoven, was honored to be invited to deliver the keynote speech at the 1Berkshire Good News Salute for Women’s Business Month at Seven Hills Inn. She had many requests to share her speech. Here it is:
October 24, 2018
As an organization that strives for truth and equity, all of us at WAM would like to begin by acknowledging, with gratitude and humility, that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Mohican Tribe who are the stewards of this land. We pay honor and respect to their elders, past and present.
Thank you so much to 1Berkshire for this Good News Salute. All of us at WAM Theatre are so honored to be recognized in this way- it is a great celebration at the end of our first decade of making an impact for women and girls through theatre.
And what an honor it is to be the keynote speaker in this room full of people who inspire me and to have an MC like Margaret Keller- Wow! This room is not intimidating at all….
Today, after thinking about it long and hard, I am choosing to speak to you about what I’ve learned over the past nine years of building WAM Theatre about the power and responsibility that comes with being a business leader.
I’d like to start with a learning moment that was a real turning point for me.
As a participant in the 1Berkshire Leadership Program (or BLP) in Spring 2016, I learned that I’m a D. Anyone else out there a D on the DISC assessment tool?
DISC is like Meyers Briggs- I’m sure many of you, if not all of you out there, have done DISC or Meyers Briggs. You know- those character assessment tools we use to learn about ourselves and build great teams?
Well, we did a DISC assessment during BLP and my results showed that I’m mostly a D.
D stands for Dominant….
Yeah. I’m a D, with lots of I (influencer) and C (Conscientiousness) thrown in for good measure, which serves me very well at WAM.
I’m pretty low on the S, or Steadiness scale, which explains a lot and was not a surprise to my family at all!
I have to say, though, since that program, I have been working really hard on my S and it has served me well. It’s amazing what one can learn when one actively listens and actually thinks before they speak!
So, I learned in the BLP program that, as a D, I can come across as Aggressive, especially if I’m stressed. I may not intend to come across that way, and most certainly, I don’t have that intention, (most times), but, to some people with different personalities than me, they may perceive my behavior that way. So, if I’m coming across to any of you that way right now, given that I’m stressed about being the one making this keynote speech, I apologize.
I also learned in the BLP program that it’s up to me to adjust my behavior. Even though it’s not my intention to come across as aggressive, it’s how I may be perceived and therefore, if I want to be an effective leader, which I do, then it’s part of my role to learn how to adjust my behavior. As I learned in the program, I can’t change who I am, but I can learn how to adjust my behavior.
I remember a moment with Deb Blatt, who was our instructor in the BLP Program, when I was talking about my frustration about people who don’t meet deadlines on time. FYI, for a D, it’s ok for us miss a deadline but no one else is allowed that luxury and also for a D, our deadline is actually like three days before the actual deadline!
So- I’m talking to Deb about this frustration and we start talking about adjusting behaviors. Deb suggests I call the person two days before the deadline to remind them. I say to her, why do I have to make the effort to remind them about it! How are they making any adjustments in this scenario??
And she says:
They will meet the deadline.
At first, I don’t get it. I actually looked at her blankly. I didn’t understand how that was an adjustment. A deadline is a deadline. She calmly says, otherwise, they wouldn’t meet the deadline. They would be late. Their adjustment is to meet the deadline.
Wow.
That was a hard pill for me to swallow. But, she was right!
Since then, I’ve been working hard on adjusting my behaviors and WAM is reaping the benefits of it. More work is getting done and communication with my valued team is better than ever. It‘s not easy. I have to work at it every day. It’s often uncomfortable for me. But it’s worth it.
So- why am I sharing all of this with you?
Because this hard daily practice has led me to realize that, as a leader, with the power that comes with that role, I have a responsibility to think about adjusting my behaviors in all kinds of areas- not just as a boss, as a woman of influence in business, but also as a woman of white privilege.
I would posit that part of the role of being men and women of privilege, especially cisgender, heterosexual, middle class white men and women, is to learn how to adjust our behaviors when communicating with people who are not like us. As I learned in the leadership program, I can’t change who I am, but I can learn how to adjust my behavior.
And all too often, in our world today, we aren’t doing that. We are doing what I was doing before the BLP leadership program. We are expecting those who are not like us to do all the adjusting.
When I was asked to speak at this event I did think long and hard about what I would say. I wanted desperately to say the whole ‘Go women in business, we rock, keep it up, we are awesome’ And we ARE! And it’s important for us to celebrate ourselves as Women in Business. Heck, as a woman in the arts, my whole family was speechless when I told them I was the keynote speaker of a Women in Business event. They said ‘but you run a theatre!’. My parents even drove all the way from Canada to join me tonight so they could see this with their own eyes!
Yes I do run a theatre. And myself and my amazing team and our dedicated WAMily have grown that theatre from a $10,000 grassroots organization to a $250,000 small business in ten years. That is definitely worth a good news salute! And a shout out to all our corporate sponsors out there who are a part of that WAMily and have been supporting us all these years. And if you are not yet a corporate sponsor, what are you waiting for- clearly we are the place to be and next year is our ten year anniversary- so get on it! Find me later and we’ll set up appointment or better yet, just hand me check:)
SO- today, while I do wholeheartedly celebrate all of our success in this room, I have instead chosen to speak to you about our responsibility as business leaders, as influencers in our community, to learn how to adjust our behaviors when communicating with people who don’t have our privilege. In order to do that myself, I’ve had to learn how to tolerate a lot of discomfort.
And I don’t mean the discomfort we can sometimes feel being a woman in business- because we likely all have stories of what that has sometimes felt like for us- I mean the discomfort of accepting our privilege and learning how to use it as our power- which is a completely different thing.
Over the past ten years, since co-founding WAM Theatre, I have been slowly but surely having an awakening…. And I’ll tell you, it isn’t a comfortable one…
I have learned so much about running a business and being a leader. And, over the past few years, as I start to build more and more relationships with community partners, have more and more interactions with people that are termed ‘other’, and have the lucky opportunity to be part of the Embodied Leadership program run by Gwendolyn Hampton Van Sant and Tuti Scott, I have learned that white fragility and white supremacy are very real and, that as a white cisgender, heterosexual, middle class woman, I suffer from both.
I choose the word suffer on purpose because, in my white fragility, that is what it feels like to me- I am constantly suffering in it- I constantly and deeply feel the discomfort about it. Even now, as I give this keynote speech to you, I wonder what all of you are thinking and I feel a deep discomfort.
But if I truly want to be a change-maker, if I truly want to be of service to my beloved Berkshire community, then this discomfort is something I have to learn to move through. And I have to do that now.
As a dear, respected colleague of color said to me a few weeks ago in an Embodied Leadership session- ‘white women always need time’. I asked her to explain that more to me. She said- having the time to ponder something and think about something is a privilege that can come with being white. She doesn’t have that luxury. If she’s in a meeting and a racist comment happens, she has to speak up or let the moment pass, which reinforces unjust behavior. This wonderful colleague said to me that all too often, she is in a meeting with white, supportive colleagues, something uncomfortable happens and they all complain about in the bar afterwards, but in the moment, none of them speak up. And when my colleague asks them why, they say things like ‘I didn’t know what to say’, ‘I was afraid I’d say the wrong thing’, I needed time to think’, or ‘I panicked’.
I realized in that moment that if I truly believe in equity, diversity and inclusion, then I no longer have the luxury to take time. It is my responsibility, as her colleague, as a new citizen of this country, and as a human being, to own the power of my privilege and speak up. I won’t do it right all the time, failure WILL happen, people will get defensive or angry, toes WILL be stepped on, but, for me, I have no other choice. If something happens that is racist, sexist, classist, ageist, or whatever is you want to add to the list, I must use my privilege as my power, I must tolerate the discomfort and I must try to earn the label of ally by speaking up.
And that’s terrifying. How can I do that? When my heart is beating fast in my chest and I’m petrified I’ll make someone angry or I’ll say something wrong or stupid or disrespectful which is usually what stops me from saying anything at all in those moments.
Well, I gleaned a priceless nugget from another respected colleague- When I’m in those moments and I don’t know what to do, ask a clarifying question. It’s a great strategy. I’m learning to do it and it helps me get past that panicked ‘I need time’ moment AND, most importantly, it shows my colleagues that I am with them, I am supporting them, I am there for them.
It’s still hard to do, it’s still uncomfortable, but with daily and intentional practice, it gets easier, as many of you out there know who are already doing this work.
For me, a social entrepreneur who runs a non-profit organization at the intersection of arts and activism, I believe that until justice is achieved, every organization is a social justice organization. I believe that, while I may experience a lack of privilege because I’m a woman, as someone who was born white, my whiteness can be a power. If I can continue to learn to tolerate my discomfort and figure out how to be of service to those who don’t have my privilege by speaking up more, then I truly stand on the shoulders of all those who worked so hard to get me where I am.
We are in a time of reckoning and each of us is facing that reckoning in our own way.
My reckoning means that when my body is at its most uncomfortable, when the feeling in the room changes or my breath gets shorter, that is when I know I have to find a way to speak up- in my own way, in my own words, ideally with calmness and respect- I must channel my inner S and let her shine!
And by the way, the same is true for white men. The power of the color of their skin and gender affords them such an incredible opportunity.
When I talk to men who are, dare I say, leaning in to the work of dismantling the patriarchy, they are both excited and terrified but they are all incredibly glad to be on the journey.
I encourage us all, wherever we are on the privilege scale, that if we truly want to help shape a culture of empathy, equity and belonging, then we need to continue the personal and deeply challenging work of tolerating our own discomfort around accepting our privilege.
As women of influence, as people of influence, that is our responsibility and our greatest power.
Thank you.