Chapter 3: Hijacked!
by Emily Schwartz Kemper
Description:
When a colleague interrupts Emily’s work on an important and time-sensitive report, she lashes out. She is emotionally flooded, unable to react thoughtfully and with patience to a request she later recognizes as simple and reasonable. In future tension-filled situations, she plans to practice using emotional clearing techniques to avoid unnecessary conflict.
Bio:
Emily Schwartz Kemper received her master’s degree in social work and has enjoyed working in the nonprofit sector with homeless women struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues.
Chapter 4: Choosing a Career Can Be Emotional Work
by Shanquela Williams (with Amy Foy Hageman)
Description:
Choosing an academic major—and its career implications—overwhelms Shanquela. She uses journaling to clear her emotions which leads to a better decision.
Bio:
Shanquela Williams earned a master’s degree and a PhD from the University of Alabama-Birmingham. She is committed to using her experiences to bridge gaps and enhance communities, local and global.
Chapter 5: Learning to Test Negative Assumptions
by Eli Davis
Description:
Eli looks back on a difficult situation where he felt caught between his immediate supervisor and corporate guidelines. In retrospect, he walks us through a method he could have used to test his assumptions and perhaps shape a different outcome.
Bio:
After receiving a master’s degree and a circuitous career path through a few different helping professions, Eli Davis found his passion in social justice advocacy and policy work.
Chapter 6: Dashed Hopes and Expectations
by Tracy Forman
Description:
Aware that negative energy might hamper the change process, Tracy is intentionally mindful of her emotions and attitudes. She knows the ways in which she shows up impacts her ability to enroll others in change.
Bio:
Tracy Forman, LCSW, received a Master of Social Work and for over fifteen years, has worked in the field of social services and behavioral health, subsequently finding her passion working in forensics and inpatient behavioral health, as well as in her private practice.
Chapter 7: Can Anyone Be a Social Worker? The Challenge of Correcting Misinformation
by Alicia Beatrice
Description:
To Alicia, hearing “I can be the social worker” from her new supervisor is an emotional trigger. Working through her emotional response is a crucial first step in giving her new options for dealing with the dilemma of whether and how to approach her manager about this.
Bio:
Alicia Beatrice received a Master of Social Work. After an adventurous career track through several different helping professions, she continues to find purpose in her work as a therapist and in pursuits supporting Black and Brown women entrepreneurs.
Chapter 8: Clearing Emotions Can Be a Daunting Task
by Carole Marmell
Description:
As chair of a local political group, Carole learns that another member has invited individuals to a meeting without getting approval. Rather than responding in anger, as is her first instinct, she challenges her assumptions, diffuses the potential conflict, and then makes systemic changes so the problem will not recur.
Bio:
Carole Marmell received her BA from Tufts University and MSW from the University of Houston. Prior to retirement, she worked as a social worker in various medical settings until finding her passion in hospice care.
Chapter 9: What You See Depends on the Lens You Use
by Steven Hayes
Description:
When Steven reflects on an uncomfortable interaction with a nurse in a full-service HIV clinic, an unexpected new reality opens up for him. New information about the nurse and her intentions blows his mind. He now has insight into how her perspective might be influenced by cultural as well as professional differences.
Bio:
As a Licensed Master Social Worker, Steven has acted in the role of therapist, medical case manager, and supervisor of community health workers. He uses motivational interviewing and a strengths-based approach to cognition behavioral therapy.
Chapter 10: I Need to Understand Where She’s Coming From
by Ashley Ochoa
Description:
The story told by Ashley of training a new hire vividly demonstrates how the smallest misunderstanding can create havoc in relationships. It also highlights how helpful the Conscious Change principles and skills can be in unearthing barriers to effective communication.
Bio:
Ashley Ochoa is a Licensed Master of Social Work in Houston, Texas.She earned her BSW from Brigham Young University–Idaho and MSW from the University of Houston. Ashley’s work has primarily been with policies and organizations in the field of recovery from alcohol and other drugs.
Chapter 11: De-escalate Tense and Dangerous Situations
by Larry Hill (with Eli Davis)
Description:
Larry recalls his interactions as a Black male with police on two separate occasions and how he used the Conscious Change skills to successfully maneuver these precarious situations. His ability to take the officers’ perspectives may well have saved his life.
Bio:
Dr. Larry Hill received a PhD in Social Work from the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. He has twenty years’ experience leading community engagement and social impact projects and ten-plus years’ experience working on funded research studies.
Chapter 12: Change in a Bureaucratic Organization Can Be a Slog
by Chamara Harris
Description:
Chamara’s persistent change efforts in a large and seemingly intractable bureaucracy is an impressive example of perseverance and its payoffs. Her success in bringing about change, against the odds, is testimony to the effectiveness of the Conscious Change skills.
Bio:
Chamara Harris, LCSW-S, LPC-S, CCM earned both a Master of SocialWork and a Master of Education: Counseling. She works with individuals, groups, and organizations to amplify their authenticity and empower them to become better versions of themselves.
Chapter 13: How Do I Deal with a Hostile Work Environment?
by Orfelinda Coronado
Description:
Orfelinda tells us her workplace felt like hostile territory; as a Latina, she experienced continual microaggressions. By experimenting with new ways of thinking and behaving, one small step at a time, she drastically alters her approach to her tormentor and eventually turns the situation around.
Bio:
Orfelinda Coronado obtained her Master of Clinical Social Work and found her passion in the application of clinical assessment skills in the medical case-management field, where she assists vulnerable populations.
Chapter 14: Walking a Fine Line: Building Relationships in the Face of Skepticism and Distrust
by Nadia Maynard
Description:
Nadia is a representative of a large humanitarian organization, working with family separation of immigrants in the Southwest. She describes how she managed the tricky relationships among actors as diverse as suspicious regional office staff, the Border Patrol, immigrant advocacy groups, and immigrant families and children using the Conscious Change skills.
Bio:
With a master’s degree in social work, Nadia Kalinchuk Maynard (she/her/ella) has worked in academic, governmental, and non-governmental settings to support trauma-informed and healing-centered mental health services for immigrant and refugee communities. Throughout her career, she has primarily worked at the intersection of migration, gender, and youth, specifically with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, (im)migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.
Chapter 15: Act Out of Values Rather than Emotions
by Ashleigh Gardner-Cormier
Description:
Ashleigh demonstrates great courage as she walks into a meeting with her accuser and their supervisors. It takes even greater courage, personal insight, and a huge dose of humility for her to own up to her contribution to the friction she and her coworker are experiencing. This is a remarkable story of how she utilizes Conscious Change skills to reframe the situation, identify dominant group dynamics, and resolve the conflict in a win-win manner.
Ashleigh demonstrates great courage as she walks into a meeting with her accuser and their supervisors. It takes even greater courage, personal insight, and a huge dose of humility for her to own up to her contribution to the friction she and her coworker are experiencing. This is a remarkable story of how she utilizes Conscious Change skills to reframe the situation, identify dominant group dynamics, and resolve the conflict in a win-win manner.
Bio:
Ashleigh Gardner-Cormier is a Licensed Master Social Worker with over fifteen years of experience in the field. She has spent the last five years in the area of legal social work, where she works alongside attorneys to ensure that holistic services are provided to the clients they serve.
Chapter 16: Compassion Wins the Day
by Treshina Smith
Description:
After a couple of seemingly disastrous assignments during her onboarding process with a new organization, Treshina is left feeling uncertain about herself and her capabilities. She provides an illuminating description of how her own conscious choices and those of subsequent team leaders turn the situation around.
Bio:
Treshina Smith received a BA in Business Administration from TexasSouthern University, an MS in Global Project Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and her license in massage therapy after serving six years in the Army. She is an avid believer that compassion wins.
Chapter 17: We Will Learn Today
by Charles D. Shaw
Description:
Charles makes a conscious choice to confront his team members’ disrespectful statements. As a Black male team leader, it might be easier to for him to ignore what feels like passive-aggressive attacks or write off the individuals as irredeemable. He chooses instead to take the risk of openly addressing the issues and is quite effective in his use of several Conscious Change skills.
Bio:
Charles D. Shaw has held leadership positions with Meta Platforms with Amazon, Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut), Walmart, and Spectra Energy. He earned a PhD in organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco and specializes in advancing organizational culture, performance management, leadership and organizational development, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Chapter 18: Testing! Testing! Digging Deeper into Initial Resistance to Change
by Erika Young
Description:
When a key person in the organization threatens to block Erika’s diversity and inclusion efforts, she successfully manages her emotions and engages in inquiry to learn the other person’s point of view. She has learned that Conscious Change skills are more effective than railing about the unfairness of situations.
Bio:
Erika Young is Sr. Director of Origination for NextEra Energy Resources (NEER), responsible for origination of renewable power generation projects in Texas. Prior to joining NextEra in 2018, Erika spent seventeen years of her career at Enbridge’s Gas Transmission group and its predecessor companies, Spectra Energy and Duke Energy.
Chapter 19: Introducing New Ways of Thinking into a Risk-Averse Organization
by Melissa Simon
Description:
Melissa describes a comprehensive change effort in which a new CEO of a non-profit organization consciously uses herself. Many of the Conscious Change principles and skills come into play when she is confronted with resistance to change.
Bio:
Melissa Simon received a Master of Social Work from the University of Houston after working for several years with at-risk youth and their families involved in the criminal justice system. Her career trajectory took her into nonprofit fund development and management, always in social-service agencies focused on at-risk populations.
Chapter 20: Anticipate a Certain Amount of Resistance
by Mary H. Beck
Description:
Mary has developed her Conscious Change skills over several decades. When she became leader of two recently merged units in a non-profit organization—one of which was reported to be dysfunctional—she draws on those skills to counter her new team’s distrust and resistance.
Bio:
Mary H. Beck, LMSW, CAI, is the president and CEO of The Council on Recovery, which serves more than 55,000 people annually in the Greater Houston area. A leader in addiction services for nearly twenty years, Mary is an accomplished and respected executive with a distinctive passion for supporting and uplifting the Houston community and behavioral health field.
Chapter 21: Goal: Create a Culturally Responsive Organization
by Sylvia R. Epps
Description:
Sylvia consciously commits to increasing the cultural responsiveness of her organization, internally as well as externally. In her view, key components of this organization-wide change are making fewer topics undiscussable. Organizational members are learning to routinely offer one another grace to mess up.
Bio:
Sylvia R. Epps, PhD, earned her doctorate in human development and family sciences from the University of Texas at Austin and completed postdoctoral studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Currently, she is president of Decision Information Resources, Inc. (DIR) an African American–owned research firm that provides contracted services to government agencies, foundations, and other research firms.
