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Big news! We have a new CEO at KIT. You may have seen the announcements that our beloved Jan Giacinti retired as of June 30. We were excited to welcome a new CEO to the KIT team (and a man, at that!). It has already been so fun to have an outside perspective on our work, with new questions and a fresh set of eyes on how we do business. At our recent staff meeting Jeff brought up the subject of quality, and how it’s not a destination we arrive at but more of an on-going practice. Yes!
What this brought up for me is related to how we teach organizations about inclusion. We are fond of saying that inclusion is a process and not a product and that the journey to inclusion really is the destination. There is no point when an organization crosses a finish line and can throw their arms up in the air and say “We did it! We are now officially inclusive!” It’s something you are constantly striving for, always refining and forever enhancing. Just when you think you’ve mastered it there will be a new challenge or you will find a new, better way of ensuring that your services can be accessed by everyone. And there is so much value in the journey. The exploration of an organization’s values, and the concept of working through the process of ensuring access is what actually leads to the organizational transformation.
When we deliver our services we are committed to what we call a “parallel process.” We want to model the behaviors that we hope our learners will adopt. We do this in our training modules by teaching the way we hope participants will teach others. We also strive to conduct our organizational business in this manner as well. This is why I saw the connection to quality so strongly. Achieving quality is also a journey, and going on the journey is what leads to better quality. There are some benchmarks along the way, but the finish line is ever changing. I know that at KIT we are so mission-focused that we keep moving the finish line farther and farther away from where we are now. It’s something I have always loved about being a part of KIT. The constant examination of what it means to have high quality (or be inclusive) is what makes it happen.
To all of you, my incredible KIT colleagues and those who engage with KIT at any level, I say let’s enjoy the journey!
2 comments:
As I read your post and thought of our meeting yesterday, it really makes me feel so lucky to have joined an organization like KIT at its blossoming phase. So many wonderful ideas have come up regarding what inclusion really is and as an inclusion institute are we including everyone. KIT can always grow. As the saying goes, the only constant is change. I feel as though KIT is an amazing non profit that strives to break the stereotypes and barriers childcare and child-based-programs contain. As the world changes its views, KIT is manuevering and rising above the challenges it faces. We can always grow positively as an organization, as KIT has already been doing for many years. Yay for KIT!
Kelly! Thank you for your response. You also make a really good point that I want to highlight. You said that as the world changes its views KIT maneuvers. So true! Many times what causes an evolution in how we do business is directly related to how the field we serve has grown (hopefully based on our intervention). So it's an interplay between our teaching, organizational learning and then back to us upping our game- over and over and over again.
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