In a world-renowned academic medical center in Cleveland, a diverse and cross-functional group came together with Reflection Point six times to explore issues around diversity and inclusion posed by carefully selected short stories. The doctors, nurses, administrators, and staff engaged in often searingly honest discussions, with help from facilitators to deepen their exploration and unearth shared understanding.
“Reflection Point provides a safe environment to explore perspectives regarding complex topics,” explained one participant, “The topics help us realize any conscious or unconscious biases that we have. Then those in the room help us grow to overcome these biases.”
For this group, overcoming bias meant openly offering or hearing a contrary point of view. The ability to disagree with respect and without retribution is a skill that vastly improves our ability to learn and collaborate. “These stories emphasize the importance of communication and perspective taking. It’s too easy to get into our own little framework in our head, and it takes effort to think of those other perspectives,” said one participant.
One story that invited these diverse perspectives was Jubilee, by Kirstin Valdez Quade. In the story, Andrea attends a fancy party thrown by the owner of the large California fruit farm where her father, a Mexican immigrant, works as a farmhand. She clashes with the owner’s daughter, her classmate at Stanford.
Most of the participants could relate to Andrea, while some were more sympathetic to her wealthy (but vulnerable) classmate. They debated whether the conflict in the story was one of ethnicity or socioeconomic status. They discussed the sometimes-uncomfortable extremes of working in an organization that serves a wide constituency - from the very poor to the outrageously rich.
“Jubilee…captures this first-generation college experience and out-of-placeness,” shared one participant. “So, I didn’t need to be a Mexican woman or a visible minority in order to feel the tension of the wealth and society and out-of-placeness.”
The tension in the story helped them confront the tensions in their own lives and work. Research has shown that hospitals have notoriously low psychological safety due to huge power differentials and structural impediments to speaking up. But in the safety of the Reflection Point sessions and the compelling narrative of the stories, hospital staff overcame the things that often keep them silent at work and they left the program with a whole new level of trust and connection.
One participant summed it up like this, “I was surprised at the power of this venue for giving us an opportunity to have deeper, more personal conversations on topics we currently do not have outlets to discuss.”
Selected social outcomes
Identical participants show marked shifts in social and work-related outcomes before and after Reflection Point.
