Tuesday 27 October 2009

Equality and Expertise

I have just been reading about skill and how expertise and success rests with our skill level. This got me thinking what is the skill set required for us working in the equalities field. What is exactly is the skill set of an equality and diversity practitioner.

When I am discussing what I do and why I feel so fiercely passionate about working with people on developing skills and knowledge around equality. I talk a lot about the power of being driven by passion and having a pride in what I do What I need to add to this mix is the skill.Without the right skills all the passion in the world would leave me floundering. Without the passion I would have to purpose or direction for my skills.

Our skill gives us our abilities to direct and make the changes that we aspire to.So with this in mind I would like put forward a question. What are the skills required to make Equality and Diversity aspirations a reality. When I consider some of my skills I break them down into the following categories

Psychological Skill – the ability to gain insights into what makes people tick.
Motivational skill – the ability to inspire people to want to engage
Entrepreneurial skill – the ability to keep projects going, creating resources
Promotional skill – getting noticed, it used to be knowledge was power now attention is power.
Dramatic skill – getting people to engage, effectively presenting material in an interesting way
Creative skill – the ability to reframe issues and make them pertinent to people
Writing skill – the ability to communicate through written workAcademic skill – the ability to learn and take in new information
Time skill – the ability to understand how to use the time we have to achieve all the tasks we need to

These are just a few of my suggestions. What are your skills and how would then go about enhancing them? Step one is identifying them; step two is then about setting yourself goals to enhance them. By doing this and combining this with our passion I believe we begin to build a force that will need to reckoned with in the equality field.

http://www.learningthroughdiversity.com/

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