RQ - Race Intelligence
A Coaching Program
A new and bold way to learn, lead, live and heal in a racialized world.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
RQ™ Race Intelligence is the capacity to understand our relationship with race and reveal and recognize, conscious and unconscious mindsets, belief systems, and behaviors, which enable racialized oppression. RQ, as a coaching modality, seeks to equip individuals, teams, and organizations in accessing this form of intelligence and to develop specific and deliberate skills that transcend conversations beyond blame and shame to healing and hope. The interdependent relationships, in which we all coexist as a nested system within a racialized system, are explored to enhance, support, and leverage our collective potential to foster growth, connection, restoration, and healing to live out the values of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The way through is in relationship.
REVEAL
Accessing new insights and the potential within, creates a catalyst for change in our relationship with race and each other.
RECOGNIZE
New ways of thinking and being with race can be integrated and accessed, creating the conditions for skilled and productive conversations.
RESTORE
Living and leading in meaningful and authentic relationship with our humanity and our differences.
COACHING PROGRAM PHASES
PHASE 1: DARING LEADERSHIP
Dare to Lead™ (DTL) is a research-based body of transformative work. Authored and designed by Dr. Brené Brown, it is the ultimate playbook for developing brave leaders and courageous cultures. With Kempe’s certified Dare to Lead™ facilitators, you will build and apply the four skill sets of courage - all of which are 100% teachable, measurable, and observable.
You will learn the language, thinking, tools, and skills that establish daring leadership. During each interactive learning event, Kempe DTL facilitators will use a coach approach to deepen and tailor the most uniquely relevant conversations for your team. Together, we will delve into how shame shows up in conversations related to race power, and privilege in yourself and your organization.
We review the myths of vulnerability and explore how they may be hindering your courage as a leader. We will examine how trust is built, how it is broken and ways of being that allow leaders to lean into relationship, enhancing EQ, SI and RSI (relationship systems intelligence).
PHASE 2: DISCOVERY (1:1 COACHING)
Each participant will begin with individual coaching sessions. These initial sessions will help the participants explore their relationship with race, power, privilege, and oppression from their lived experience.
Participants will engage in conversations with their coach to support the discovery of their power, internal struggles, triggers, de-triggering and recovery strategies to increase their range and ability to stay engaged in conversations about race, power, privilege, and oppression.
Participants will begin to identify their Forwarding Action Change Initiative - what they will work on during and after the coaching experience to apply the new learning and skills toward addressing inequities within their sphere of influence.
Participants will have 2 to 3 additional 1:1 coaching sessions throughout the next phase as they work to integrate new learning into their old operating system.
PHASE 3: RQ -RACE INTELLIGENCE COACHING (TEAM/GROUP COACHING)
We learn best in collaboration with each other and our diversity of experiences. Together we create the opportunity for the sharing of experiences, without judgment, develop new insights about ourselves and others while building the courage and skills to stay in difficult conversations, foster empathy and grace in inherently conflictual conversations.
The way through is in relationship.
Team/Group coaching expands on Phase 2 and forwards the following:
Opportunity to deepen awareness and build skills. For any system to transform, new information and skills must enter, thus the expression of differences and dissension adds rich texture to the collective intelligence of the system. The coaching cohort will learn to listen for the forces for and against change internally and systemically as they hold conversations that advance an understanding of racialized oppression.
Coaching cohorts will engage in experiential activities intended to reveal, recognize, and reconcile conscious and unconscious mindsets, attitudes, behaviors, and belief systems to ignite cultural shifts in individuals, leaders, teams, organizations, and systems.
Coachees will discuss challenges they are experiencing with their Forwarding Action Change Initiative and receive coaching support from the coaches and the team/group. In this model, no one walks it alone.
Asynchronous (independent study) learning opportunities in the form of videos, books, articles, podcasts, documentaries, and webinars (live & recorded) will be provided to generate new thinking. The leadership cohort interacting with relevant new material – through a multitude of media, will create, connect, and deepen the cohort’s collective understanding of systemic racism and the intersections between race, power, and privilege with all identities.
PHASE 4: FORWARDING RQ ACTION AND TRANSFORMING OUR INNER & EXTERNAL SYSTEMS
New ways of being and doing to operate as an equity-focused individual, leader, and organization are ready to be nurtured. Outside of spaces where growth and development are encouraged, it is easy to get discouraged, distracted, lost, or overwhelmed as the system resists change. The RQ-Race Intelligence program offers quarterly support to alumni participants. These opportunities will be used for anchor setting to activate and sustain Forwarding the Action Change Initiatives.
After formal coaching ends, participants will have access to opportunities to discuss and learn from one another with coach facilitated support:
- Successful strategies and impediments to implementing policies and practices that support equity and inclusion.
- Efforts to organize the structures, culture, roles, practices, and policy strategies around anti-racism and anti-oppressive practices.
- Increasing the representation of diverse groups within organizations and communities.
- Increasing participation of underrepresented groups in leadership roles, decision-making processes, and high-impact projects.
All phases can be customized based on the needs of the team or organization while remaining in fidelity to the RQ coaching program.
RQ™ - Race Intelligence Coaching Program Theoretical Framework
RQ™ - Race Intelligence Coaching Program is enhanced by accessing other forms of intelligence such as emotional intelligence (EQ), social intelligence (SI), relationship systems intelligence (RSI), spiritual intelligence (SP), and decency intelligence (DI).
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions.
Social Intelligence is the capacity to know oneself and to know others.
Relationship Systems Intelligence (RSI) – the ability to interpret an individual’s experience (and that of others) as an expression of the system. The experience is personal and belongs to the system, which is a group of interdependent entities with a common focus or goal. For example, in the context to address systemic racism, our common goal could be to tap into the collective wisdom of us all to determine a course of action to improve psychological safety.[1]
Spiritual Intelligence (SP) is the ability to act with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace, regardless of the circumstances. Spiritual intelligence is the way we assign meaning and feel connected to a power larger than ourselves.
Decency Intelligence (DI) is genuinely caring for others and wanting to do right by them by holding to the integrity of honesty and transparency and to hold not only yourself accountable, but also to hold others accountable.[2]
Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, and Dare to Lead are concepts infused throughout the coaching program. Understanding the importance of vulnerability, empathy, and perspective-taking are essential to both our vertical and horizontal development in race equity work.
[1] Uit de Weerd, F. and Fridjhon, M. (2021) Systems Inspired Leadership. How to Tap Collective Wisdom to Navigate Change, Enhance Agility, and Foster Collaboration. Published by CRR Global. https://crrglobal.com
[2] https://www.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-fuqua-insights/dean-bill-boulding-decency-isn%E2%80%99t-soft
What others have said...
“I think primarily where I benefited was in relationship building
with the other folks who were involved in the program. …
Sometimes we don't always want the same outcomes. [But] in
this space everybody really did.”
“It challenges my fundamental approach to
DEI work, and not saying we were told not
to do the outward action items. It was that
we must do the [internal work] first to be
able to do the action items as well.”
“Understanding the scope of racism and
systemic racism has felt overwhelming and
insurmountable in a lot of ways. This
coaching helped to narrow down to [focus]
on change that can happen within
relationships and that change can be
impactful even when it’s little and slow.”
“This approach was more holistic than I expected it to be
[compared to] any other type of work I've done. I had expected
there to be an equity focus on the coaching and there was, but
the benefit felt a lot more personal and deeper than certainly
checking a box for the DEI work portion of my job.”
“I feel more confident in approaching the issues and talking about
them in a more open way without worrying so much about whether I'm
doing it right.”
Connect with us:
Michelle D. Davis, M.S., LPC, PCC, ORSCC
Assistant Professor | Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Justice
The Kempe Center University of Colorado-Anschutz
13123 E 16th Ave, Aurora, CO 80045
Email: michelle.davis@cuanschutz.edu
Phone: 469-854-9650
www.kempecenter.org