Difference

Before we are even born the ‘classification’ process begins. Very broadly, we start with our ethnicity, our social class, and the list becomes more granular as we grow and start to work out who we are. We have a need to belong, and we naturally align ourselves with characteristics that we recognise in others, so that we can make connections and fit in.
It seems so simple, but as we expand and cross-reference more of the things that we identify with, the less we truly belong to anything in particular because we are unique individuals. A classic paradox!

A comedy sketch springs to mind, where a teenager, with attitude, pulls back their sleeve to reveal to their parents the forbidden tattoo on their forearm. It is a single word, ‘Individual’. Their best friend then pulls back their sleeve, revealing their own defiant tattoo … ‘Individual’.

It made me laugh, but it also summed up the ongoing struggle of needing to belong, when in truth, we are unique individuals … complex intersectional beings.

In a Thinking Environment we acknowledge this from the start by holding the component of difference. Nancy Kline originally called it diversity, but over time this term has attracted some potentially limiting connotations. Some of this is through overuse as part of the tick box exercises in those organisations who are not necessarily fully committed to enacting it in practice. It has also come to represent some specific areas and issues that spring to mind, like ethnicity or gender. In contrast, when we think of difference it does not take us in a particular direction, it still maintains a wide-open door to all possibilities, of identities and experience, of thoughts and ideas and of the ways that thinking manifests for each of us.

What does thinking feel, look or sound like to you?

Difference is so fundamental a concept to independent thinking that a Thinking Environment programme was developed. It is called the Diversity Programme, and it provides a way to elicit an experience of being present as ourselves in a respectful and appreciative group. At the heart of the sessions is the idea that to do our best thinking we need to think as ourselves, and to do that we need to consciously engage with what being ourselves means.

The process provides the thinking and listening skills that we need to engage with each other so that we can hold the component of difference, but the majority of the focus is dedicated to exploring our own relationships to those ‘classifications’ that we have collected. We call them our group identities, the labels that help us to define ourselves, whilst helping us to feel that we belong. We have to create very safe spaces in order to do this, because when we are given permission to embrace our difference it is not always comfortable or easy. It is not something that we are often encouraged to do!

And of course, we recognise ourselves by comparing or measuring ourselves to others. This is not an exact science and can certainly be superficial, because everyone has their own definitions relating to their own life experiences of what a group identity means. So, for instance, I am a sister and I could tell you a lot about what being a sister is like for me. But what does being a sister mean to everyone else? By definition it could be ‘a woman or girl in relation to other daughters and sons of her parents’. It could also be, ‘a woman who shares an interest with you, especially that of improving women's rights’, or even ‘a female nurse who is in charge of a department of a hospital’.

There may be more specifics, but how much more can I truly say about being a sister without drawing on my specific individual experience? Some of those experiences will resonate with other people’s, but there will also be many that don’t! Without examination it is easy to carry around some faulty conclusions about the general nature of being a ‘sister’.

More than that, when we look at the world as a whole, we know that there can be very negative connotations for some group identities, perhaps even prejudices. When we belong to a group it also means that, by default, there are those who do not belong to the group, which can be enacted as ‘othering’.

In practice, what often happens, as we open up our understanding of our group identities, is that we discover untrue, limiting assumptions about who we are, because of those inherited understandings, or our own misconceptions, about what belonging, or not belonging to those groups means. We need to take some time to unpack these to make sure that we have not incorporated unhelpful assumptions that will hold us back into the story of who we are.

In a Thinking Environment we have the wonderful tools to construct Incisive Questions that will help us to breakthrough and then reframe our identities in a healthier way.
We can certainly ask the questions:
‘What does the world assume about [group identity] that can limit that group’s influence and self esteem?’ and ‘Are those assumptions true?’

An interesting way to start the process of exploring your group identities for yourself is by telling your story. When I told my own I looked back to my grandparents and their predominantly working class backgrounds, and worked my way forwards through inherited religious views and values, my gender, being a first child and a sister, going to university, becoming a mother, then a single parent, my working experiences as an employee, a business owner, a teacher, and then filled it all out in more detail with my dietary preferences, being part of a theatre group, through to being an ex-smoker! There was far more in the telling and so much more that wasn’t covered, but it made me notice and relearn how many strands of nature, nurture and life experience have gone into making ME. And how much that word intersectionality gives me an almost visual sense of the possibility of integration and synthesis of all that difference… a spiders web?

It also made me reflect on how important it is to make time to listen to other people’s stories and to share who we are in our relationships with others. It is an ongoing process getting to know ourselves, let alone getting to know somebody else’s world. Especially as we look into their world from the outside, largely unaware of the unique internal web of identity … seen through the lens of our own identity web!

And perhaps even more importantly, on a much broader level, how much conflict could be resolved if we just took more time to listen and to understand, before we made judgements or took offence?

How much more value and worth would people have if we spent more time exploring, encouraging and appreciating difference?