If you've ever taken one of my workshops, you have heard me say repeatedly that companies and organizations are not families. We are a community. Not just like a gated community. I imagine something more like a cul-de-sac where there is no actual exit or ending. It's just a circular group of people just looking out for each other's open car trunks or dogs that have escaped or invites to cookouts but knowing when to go home. This concept can't exist if we are not practicing this outside of the workplace.
We have to decide as a society whether or not we are going to be a community of people who take care of one another. Because we can't do it at work and not do it at home. And we can't do it at home and not do it at work. Much like the idea that I have when I say that consumers are also employees. When we think about the advancement of technology, sometimes there are business leaders who don't realize that for the sake of efficiency and driving technology, boasting about the jobs that have been eliminated leads to boasting inadvertently about the consumers you're losing.
No one can buy your widget if they don't have a job.
When I was in college and probably throughout most of my life, one of my favorite things and constant things is the Twilight Zone marathon. It gives me great comfort knowing that for at least 48 hours I can pop on cable (yes I know I'm a Gen X and I still have cable) and watch one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes of which there are many. Recently though I've been thinking about "The Brain Center at Whipple's" — the one where the boss gets so excited about Automation that he ends up replacing everyone and ultimately himself as well. There's a lot of great monologues from some of the workers that he eliminates, but most importantly they all have the same theme. You have to take care of people. This society does not exist without it.
Image of a man at a chalkboard with writing from Twilight Zone’s “The Brain Center at Whipple’s.”
If you are not Gen X and you've never seen Twilight Zone, you can go back to revisit it and discover that we've had many of these conversations we are having now for decades. You might wanna know what we did about a lot of that foreshadowing. And the answer is we expedited it. For some reason we live in a society where people have a hard time understanding that foreshadowing means there's a solid chance some of these things are gonna be true. Think Octavia Butler novels, the Terminator movies franchise, Twilight Zones, Star Wars, Star Trek…the list goes on when we think of times when art was telling us it was imitating a possible future. In the words of my elders, we have to touch the stove to make sure it's hot. This might be our downfall. But it doesn't have to be.
All of that foreshadowing points to the same thing: a community that stops looking out for each other eventually has no one left to look out for.
When I saw this Instagram video from actress Ashley Blaine, I watched it on repeat for a good hour plus because it beyond resonated with me. In it she talks about the importance of access and opportunity if we truly want to help people and shares the story of how she got cast in the TV show “Dear White People” through someone else’s power of access and giving her an opportunity. Access and opportunity are not abstract concepts. They are community practices. We need generosity as a regular practice now more than ever.
Still of actress Ashley Blaine in under eye patches wearing a Howard University sweatshirt from her Instagram Reel on Access x Opportunity.
I think we have an opportunity to take care of each other as a community both at work and at home. This is why a lot of my work is human centered. We cannot have a workplace without us. It's not too late for us to realize we can stop boasting about technology as a replacement for people. We can use it as a resource in order to make people's lives better. We have to be better stewards of community practices now if we are going to fairly design the future of work.
My latest podcast feature
I’m so grateful that Anousha asked me to be on her very forthcoming and beautifully designed podcast format. I’m sure I revealed more about myself and what matters to more than I’ve ever had by revisiting moments that make me who I am. From Eve Burhenne (the amazing person and now also friend of many decades who hired me to be a second EA when I did NOT fit any corporate mold), to Geraldine Boone who made Crossroads Theatre Company RUN when I was there, to growing up in Detroit and what the culture added to me, to meeting my husband and our first date being a play at New Federal Theatre Company (ran by American Theatre legend and fellow Detroiter Woodie King Jr. who is now an ancestor), I got to model why storytelling is the bedrock of the work we do here at Equity Activations.
The No Boundaries podcast can be found here on Substack.
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