We need a fundamental shift in how we define diversity, by asking two simple questions in any situation:
- How are we unique?
- How are we common?
I believe we have a powerful opportunity to manifest diversity as the natural synergy of similarity and difference, uniqueness and commonality that exists in all people, in all places, at all times.
I've developed a unique approach to understanding diversity, centred around inquiry, that facilitates a process of creative change involving curiosity, exploration, acceptance and willingness to be wrong. From this open, rather than controlling, space springs your potential for improvement, cohesion and growth.
The shadow of this method is uncertainty, complexity, decay and being prepared to be wrong — all of which most people try to avoid — but they are essential to healthy, resilient change. I'll leave you feeling confident to hold yourself and situations in a way that allows you to respond clearly, flexibly and professionally to the "light and dark" of change.
I work comfortably with businesses, community and academic organisations, Government agencies and individuals. My professional experience in counselling, social work, adult learning, business management, social media, public speaking and entertainment give me a range of contexts to draw from.
Functional diversity
Functional diversity presents a more dynamic and constructive paradigm than the current dominant ones (for example medical or social models), to describe and change the impact of impairment and disability. It proposes different thought patterns, new language and constructive behaviour, reframing the distinction between “normal” and “abnormal” function as “common” and “unique”.
The ideology was inspired by my personal and professional frustration with the existing polarized ideology of human function, which fails to adequately describe the diversity of physiological and psychosocial function amongst people. It aims to provoke and inspire dialogue about our current paradigm of human function in relation to value and capacity.
Within the paper, “Constructive Functional Diversity: A new paradigm beyond disability and impairment” below, published in Disability and Rehabilitation, [October–November 2007; 29(20–21): 1625–1633], I critique society’s biases regarding functional deficit relative to the subconscious fear of losing function; question the polarity of the negatively framed language of impairment and disability; and offer constructive, creative ‘solutions’ to describe the experience of atypical function. In so doing, an entirely new language of diverse human function and a concept of Constructive Functional Diversity (CFD) is proposed, which includes a complex yet logical array of modes and outcomes of function.
Finally I suggest the benefits of a more dynamic paradigm of functional change in enhancing rehabilitative outcomes, including client-directed practice.
Constructive Functional Diversity article »
Please contact me if you would be interested in a functional diversity workshop.
Experiential diversity
Having realised the potential for personal and social change offered by functional diversity, I sought to widen its scope. Experiential diversity incorporates all elements of human diversity, challenging us to suspend judgment on what we now define as “mainstream” and “non-mainstream” experience and reframe it as “common” and “unique”.
Diversity can be seen as a complex synergy of uniqueness and commonality (or difference and similarity) – that’s our definition of diversity, which is not the usual list of characteristics with which we associate diversity. Something is unique when it is different in a way worthy of note; it is common when it is ordinary, usual, lacking in distinction and unexceptional. Unique could be judged as interesting; common as rather dull and boring.
Using this change in lens, we are challenged to suspend judgment on what we now define as “non-mainstream” and reframe it as “unique” experience. Everything else then becomes common in comparison. We lose our fixation with normality and begin to explore with interest the uniqueness of people that we currently see as abnormal. As a result, we may begin to value and recognise with more clarity our own uniqueness, rather than desperately trying to “fit in”.
Please contact me if you would be interested in an experiential diversity workshop.
