Community Possibilities
Community Possibilities
Leading Using the Seven Directions With Dr. Nicky Bowman
Dr. Nicole Bowman joins me to talk about the rich tapestry of traditional knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing. Nicky, known as the "Blue Collar Scholar," shares her transformative journey as an advocate for culturally responsive and Indigenous research, policy, and evaluation. We dive deep into the necessity of challenging norms and advocating for marginalized communities and the critical need for Indigenous representation and diversity within editorial boards and thought councils. Nikki’s insights on "speaking into the listening" and the balance between radical advocacy and strategic communication are inspiring, emphasizing the importance of understanding one’s positionality amidst prevalent white privilege.
We delve into practical tools for fostering cultural sensitivity and her Seven Directions model, rooted in Indigenous wisdom, serves as a powerful framework for leadership and policy development. Nicky emphasizes the critical role of decolonizing author agreements and integrating language and culture preservation into policy and practice.
Dr. Bowman's Bio
Nicole is a traditional Ndulunaapeewi Kwe (Lunaape woman) and an evaluation innovator whose academic lodge sits at the intersection of traditional knowledge, Tribal sovereignty, and evaluation. She is the President of Bowman Performance Consulting and an Associate Scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nicole is a subject matter expert in systems (Nation to Nation), culturally responsive, and Indigenous research, policy, and evaluation. She is AEA’s 2018 Robert Ingle Service Award winner (first Indigenous awardee) and serves on numerous global evaluation or educational journal review boards. including as co-chair of AEA’s Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation Topical Interest Group and a Global Member of both EvalIndigenous and AEA’s International Work Group. Her dissertation is titled Indigenous Educational Policy Development with Tribal Governments: A Case Study.
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- BPC’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bpcwi/
- BPC’s You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/user/bpcwi
- Nicky’s Twitter: @nbpc1
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Hi everybody, welcome back to the show Today, dr Nicole Bowman. Nikki Bowman joins me Now. I have known of Nikki for a long time, but only met her a few years ago when I got up the nerve to introduce myself when we were both in gosh, winnipeg at the Canadian Evaluation Society conference. I had to go all the way to Canada to meet Nikki. We are both members of the American Evaluation Association as well. Anyway, I have admired Nikki's work for a long time.
Speaker 2:She is a beautiful human being. She's an innovator. She challenges in all the good ways. So we're going to be talking about the intersection of traditional knowledge and indigenous ways of knowing. We're going to talk about learning and unlearning and relearning. It's a beautiful conversation. I'm so excited to have Nikki on the show. I've wanted to have her on the show for a long time. She's president of Bowman Performance Consulting and associate scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she is a subject matter expert in systems, nation to nationnation, culturally responsive and indigenous research policy and evaluation. She is AEA's 2018 Robert Engel Service Award winner, the first indigenous awardee of that award. She is an amazing human being and I know you're going to enjoy our conversation today. Hi everybody, welcome to Community Possibilities. I am thrilled to introduce you to my colleague and she doesn't know this, but she's my shero, nicole Bowman. Hey, nikki.
Speaker 3:Hi Kolmose. Good, what are we afternoon?
Speaker 2:You know I got to tell you I've admired your work for a lot of years. You don't know that I've been watching you for a long time and we never met in person until CES a couple of years ago. And you were checking in to the hotel and I'm like that's Nikki Bowman, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say hi and I said hi, nicole, and you said call me Nikki. I can tell you had a baseball bling hat on. I remember exactly because I was.
Speaker 3:I was so nervous to meet you well, first of all, it's I'm so glad to finally get to visit with you. You are just a lovely human being and and it's weird for me to hear when people say that's Nikki Bowman, like that, because I try very hard to be approachable and normal or my kind of normal, especially in academia and the field of evaluation is always interesting to try to stay balanced and stay grounded, you know. So it's always sort of weird still for people to say that's Nikki Bowman, yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 3:I love being accessible to every kind of person that I can be and feel like the work that we do shouldn't be in a what do I want to say artificial intelligence in a classroom, or it should be in real life. And so I sort of I was saying to you earlier, being the blue collar scholar, I like doing that very much and I have to work very hard on speaking politically correctly and professionally. Obviously I can do that. I try to do it more in my publications, because then somebody else is editing me other than hey, just whatever's off my heart and off my head, you know. So I'm happy to be here, I'm looking forward to visiting and I hope that I speak in a plain and accessible language, in that maybe once in a while you find some of the things that I use analogies or common phrases even funny. That's a high compliment to me, because I want to be funny too, as well as impactful.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Wow. I just feel like you and I have so much in common and we don't even know it yet. Right and fun fact not only have I seen you at the American Evaluation Association Conference probably, for I don't know the last 20 years, and at CES the last couple of years, I know you from Zoom land, so you are funny and you are accessible. It's me, it's not you. So I'm totally excited to talk to you about all things working in communities, because we definitely have a heart for communities. We definitely have a heart for you know, speaking in a very accessible way, you know, just keeping it real. And you know, I don't know about you, but sometimes I get the message that you're too much right, Too, this too loud, too, whatever. So, sister, you bring it. Oh, really.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, that's interesting to hear. That's all I can say that I'm too much, no no, no, not you.
Speaker 2:That's the message that I sometimes receive. You may not get that message.
Speaker 3:I mean, I probably do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, definitely not you.
Speaker 3:I thought of the Heatmiser song from the, those old school cartoons from the 70s. One of them's, I'm Mr Heatmiser, and at the end of it it says you're too much. Oh well, welcome to welcome to our energy stream. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, you know, maybe it's a gender thing, but anyway, I'm all over the map and I told you I was so nervous to talk to you because I'm such a fan. But enough about me and my neuroticisms, let's talk about you. Okay, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience?
Speaker 3:Tell us who you are, and I always tell people. Don't tell me your academic bio, becauseinonjiagi Shawna, wisconsin. Hi, I introduce myself in my Lenape language. I am Stockbridge, muncie and Mohican, or Moshikan as I like to say, and my English name is Nicole Bowman comma, phd. That's all I'll say. I really just like to be Nikki, known as the Blue Collar Sch scholar.
Speaker 3:Um, interestingly enough, uh, as I prepare for some of these fall conferences, um, I find myself they're like who are you in the in sort of the list? Uh, this, the list that I gave is basically it starts out as wife and daughter, auntie, vigil, vigil, auntie, as I like to say, sister, friend, ally, community member. Traditional Lenape Kwe, that means a Lenape traditional woman. Kike Kwe, which means like a woman leader. There are words for Alokian, which means like a servant leader. There are words for Alokian, which means like a servant leader. So I try to use a lot of my decolonized indigenous language and the stories therein because it doesn't transfer sometimes well to English to talk about who I am. I also am someone who does evaluation, but at my roots, at my core, I am continuing to learn about my indigeneity. I'm actually biracial. I have a native father and a Polish mother, and my Polish mother was the one who influenced all four of us children. Mom and dad have four kids. I am the oldest, the eldest daughter To embrace our indigeneity and, you know, because that's something we weren't born with due to, you know, assimilation, colonization and the public education policies and other policies therein that didn't allow us to speak our language or it was very harmful to us physically, socially and in other ways, and so, as an adult, you know, I started learning my language and I found it to be very helpful to me.
Speaker 3:I like to talk about origin stories and I hope your audience can appreciate this that everyone has an origin story and I'm continuing to still find out mine. So I'm preparing for the second weekend in August is our Pawao, the Mohican Nation in northeastern Wisconsin, and we also have culture and language camp that I go to. I go to Zoomland culture and language camp and in-person culture and language camp. Sometimes during our camps we only speak Lenape or Mohican. They're different languages, but we're a blended nation and I'm learning about origin stories of rocks, plants, our origin stories as Mohican and Lenape people. So this origin story is a journey that I'm on and that gives me the roots to who I am and to who I am and how I am in this world, and I would just really encourage that the leaders know their stories, your audience, as well as being good listeners, being a good relative so you can hear others' origin stories. Because when you share origin stories you find out we're much more alike than we are different, and you'll sort of hear about that too. Inside of the seven directions medicine wheel framing that I use, it's a circle for a reason, because it's meant to be inclusive. It was inclusive before. Dei was cool. So that's a little bit about who I am. I love.
Speaker 3:I'm a business owner. I own my own company, bowman Performance Consulting, in Shawnee, wisconsin. We do work inside and outside the United States. We do work spiritually as well.
Speaker 3:Spirituality is a big part of the work because footnotes and frontal lobes will only get you so far. So you must be working on your own healing pathway if you're going to, I feel, reach and inspire the heart and the spirit of others. You know we may be carrying around different carcasses, parts of it that we like, parts of it maybe that we wish were more like our 20-year-old selves or whatever, but I really like. I like the grays that are starting to come into my hair. Those are wisdom stripes, as we like to say and I'm just sort of embracing where I am in my 50s now and enjoying life, building out a new business. The blue collar is truly happening because I'm painting and tearing things out and building things along with my husband and the crew of people and trying to build new relationships, networks and pieces of information or projects that we put out into the world. So thank you for asking who I was. That was very long, wasn't the elevator pitch, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:No that you know, I just think it's such an important question because those of us who are whether it be in this space or maybe therapists or whatever, whatever it is I mean I just really feel like we're all called to the work for for a reason, and if we can kind of be in touch with that and be honest and, um, you know, get in inside that and get in touch with that spiritual part, then we're going to be that much more effective.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, and I think that when you I really talk about roots and origin stories, because in those roots and origin stories you, you know what your values and your ethics are. You know it's there your guide, for me, that's the guideposts. Even when you have to push through like rotten contract negotiations, dealing with subcontractors, dealing with partner, you know if there's some hard stuff you always just can go. Go back to those roots, go back to those ceremonies, the, the teachings in the origin stories that you're, you know that you're hearing about, and that's really what shape. It wouldn't matter if I was an evaluator or a teacher or, you know, a plumber, a doctor, fill in the blank. These are the things that would shape who I am, and the more I can learn about that, the deep, the deeper my roots grow. So then, when the winds of life are crashing, blowing, whatever they're doing, at least got something to hold you solid.
Speaker 2:You talk, you can talk up a little bit, until the crap passes over right, yeah, and for me it's kind of getting in, getting in touch with you know, um, the trite way of saying is, when my buttons are being pushed I can go.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know where this is coming from. I know why my hands are sweaty or my gut, you know, is tight. I know why because there's something in my past that this is touching on and it just makes us a better facilitator and I got to tell you I'm so glad you brought up the language because I was so curious about that, because you speak to me, to my white ears, the language so beautifully and I love it. Every time you do it I'm saying from my ears, and I'm in the middle of reading Braiding Sweetgrass and it breaks my heart when you know the author talks about she didn't have her language and trying to learn her language as an adult and she had, you know, sticky notes all over her house and how frustrating it was to learn the language. That was taken away from her and her family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I really resonate with Robin Kimmerer's book. She has another one that's coming out. Oh, I can't remember what that is. It's about the carriers. It's something about birds and seeds and it's the carriers. It's brand new that's out. I love how she personifies. She talks about trees and she talks about the otter and the origin story.
Speaker 3:Just think you know, part of these origin stories is knowing others. So you can see, like you're making my point, how robin kimmerer's braiding sweetgrass book spoke to you a lot of a lot of her speaking. She is personifying and speaking on behalf of sweetgrass, of the otter, of our non-human relatives, and I think that, uh, there, there are many ways that non-humans can teach us if the humans would just pay attention. And I'm not just talking about stopping global warming, I'm saying if you see the resilience of NB, water, right, that flows, she can flow through mountains, she is persistent and she is strong and she is quiet. So that shows you about that type of those type of leadership styles right.
Speaker 3:It doesn't always have to be an Aries and Papatakweak. Papatakweak is lightning and thunder and I'm Aries, so I can be like boom. Somebody said I give the sharp, the hardest right hooks but the best hugs. And so it's like you know, it's a, it's a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll with me, but yeah, I mean you. Learning from the non humans, I think is really important.
Speaker 3:She talks about the spirituality and things, and I think that it definitely has a place in our workplace, even for images, analogies, and then you know, when you go on retreats or you do things out in nature, people feel differently. It's different than sitting in this artificial intelligence. You know, zoom land office, whatever it might be. And one of my favorite quotes from her book is she says sweet grass, it's towards the beginning.
Speaker 3:Sweet grass thrives along disturbed edges and I think the way that I do my work and how I am and who I am in the world started when I was very young, like two or three years old, I'm told. And just being part of and just being part of the word performance is in Bowman Performance Consulting, because if I cannot, I was used to being a better athlete than the boys all the way through high school even, and I thought, well, if I can get, if I can shoot the basketball at this percent, or if I can run this fast, that should there should be equity. I didn't call it equity back then, but, um, you know the the reason? I think I've been around the disturbed edges for a long time because I'm like, well, why can't I? You know I felt sexism and racism. I don't know that I would, that. I called it that when I was young, and I don't try to use either of those words too much, cause I want to believe the best in people. But I am like sweetgrass.
Speaker 3:I thrive along disturbed edges because I'm always disturbing the peace. It gets you back to that vigilante in me. Why can't we? I don't care if we always did it this way why can't we? Why isn't there more indigenous representation on this editorial board? Or why aren't there more women under 40 on this thought council? You know that we're on, there's just so much. You know that I've always been kind of disturbing the peace, so I thrive along disturbed edges. I don't mind conflict, I really don't. And if you think about it, even growth, a flower pushing through the ground is conflict against the earth right, and then it finds its way to become one with the ground and the water and the sun and the ecosystem around it. So there are a lot of. Just really encourage your listeners to really consider the lessons that our plant and water and air relatives could teach us. There's lots in there.
Speaker 2:Well, that's one of the reasons why I think so much of you is because you do disturb the edges and you, along with a lot of other people, have been challenging our field, our field of evaluation. We're going to get into that, but before we do that, let's talk about Bowman Performance Consulting and how you disturbed the edges there. And I'm very curious about your mission, because you talk about using your professional and academic activities intentionally I love that word intentionally as a way to ground, document, utilize and advance traditional knowledge, indigenous scholarship and sovereign human and cultural rights of First Nations and indigenous people everywhere on Mother Earth. There's so much richness there, but I think that just speaks to the heart and the heart of your company and I just wanted to give you an opportunity to tell us about what you guys do.
Speaker 3:Well, it's definitely evolving. It definitely has evolved over. I think I'm starting on my third decade, I'm over 25 but less than 30 years old here. And the more I learn about myself we call it the seventh direction, the inward journey the more unafraid I am to sort of just put stuff out there and just I mean, every day and every week I have to sort of say this is how we work and and the intentional. I've always been transparent and a truth teller. I'm learning the older I get, how to sort of finesse it a little more Guilty. Yeah, the late, the late stafford hood said to me nick, you don't got to carry your louisville slugger around all the time. Well, many, many years later, and hazel simonette, dr hazel simonette you know dr stafford hood and dr hazel simonette, hazel, still with us here on earth. They both had a lot that they taught me and and hazel taught me to speak into the listening, and you know it's the same thing.
Speaker 3:So I try, I'm getting better at meeting people where they're at. But I also know that in my origin story our warriors carried clubs so that we did have the original louisville slugger. You know what I'm saying. So I got a I little like I said, a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll in me. So it could I'm uh, I have more strategies, so I feel a lot better about that. Uh, somebody said well, nick, even when you're an elder, you got to stay radical, because we need a few radical elders too. So I'm an elder in training. I'm not quite that far, but, um, anyways, so I uh your question, repeat your question.
Speaker 2:Well, we were going to talk about your company, but I'm still I'm still marinating on speaking into the listening. What is that speaking into the listening? I'm kind of rattling that around. I'm letting that marinate in me. What does that mean?
Speaker 3:So the relationship between speaking into the listening and sort of the rich you know, mission and vision that I have for mission I'm carrying out, vision that I have for the company, is to me it's connected at positionality and and. When you are a person of color, when you are from the LGBTQ two-spirit community, when you're poor, when you're an immigrant, I mean there's lots of things you can list. When you're non-Christian faith, especially in the United States context, the norm is considered white and privileged and mostly male. Right, it's an unspoken privilege. That's why it's called white privilege and so one of the things that I really try to be is, uh, transparent about my positionality. Like I, because I'm mixed race, I can hide a little bit more than some of some of my um brothers and sisters in our tribe or other tribes that have two native parents, right, right, but that was part of my that's for another podcast of my spirit name sort of incorporated me having a white mother and a Native dad and being able to speak into the listening of others. It wasn't quite put like that by my first elder that gave me that name, but it means that we're coming authentically and truthfully to the situation.
Speaker 3:So I think it's very important for those who outwardly may not look female or of color, or who have privilege and power and whiteness, to say I know my, to have academic, professional, cultural humility, to know their origin story, to know what parts of their origin story are fiction and were created by our educational and social and academic institutions versus what are the real lived experiences. I mean they killed most of us so we weren't around to be able to. You know we didn't speak English either. You know we didn't get to talk about our stories, about our treaties. That isn't in your Houghton, mifflin or Sage book or whatever you know as typical K-12 or higher ed or professional development curriculum. So it's important that you know yourself as well as if you benefited or were harmed by colonization, right, and so then you can figure out if if you're a settler ally or if you're just a settler.
Speaker 3:I'll just leave it at that like I said that could be another whole podcast or three, and so, by me proclaiming who I am, unapologetically and as as I know more about who I am, being able to use culture and language and to lineup eight years, I offer my apologies if I am not speaking it properly, but I am speaking it intentionally and that's what matters. Student for sure of the language, uh and uh, try to use it in a good way, so that it is benefiting the community and other indigenous scholars, not just BPC. But when, when you put it out there, if I come to a meeting or I just I won't name the organization, but um, and whenever federal bids come out that really have a national study on Indigenous populations, my phone and email blow up. And I'm very intentional on my website about who I am and how I work. There's a checklist you have to go through. I have the 12 steps to emancipate from colonization.
Speaker 3:I don't hide who I am, and so when people say that they've read that and they want to work with me, and then they act like assholes, pardon the French, uh, but you know and go. Well, we can't do that, or we only have 12 months to collect data, not 24, or you know, why does this cost so much? And I'm like you can't do a regular study or evaluation. If you're working with tribes, you know. Or if you're like you can't do your regular Western built on Western theories, methods and constructs. If you're working with LGBTQ two-spirit or if you're working with I, have no business talking about them because I'm not first voice.
Speaker 3:I'm a straight female, married to my husband for almost 30 years. But what I'm saying in the indigenous lane I can speak a little bit more about. You don't know what it costs. That's why you're asking me to be your PI or your subject matter expert. So it really ticks me off. You know I come being intentional, I come with my positionality and transparency, but then when that's not met by white privileged settler people, companies fill in the blank. Want to be partners. You know, that's all I'm asking. Show up in a real way and in a truthful way.
Speaker 3:And part of that is and I think it's missing from the leadership, academic, professional and community conversations is white, courageous white people who are okay and comfortable talking about what they're unlearning and relearning.
Speaker 3:As somebody who has different forms of privilege, you know, and I think that's a really important area that we need to look at we shouldn't lay DEI stuff at the feet of the grantees or the feet of people of color or the feet of the people who are, who have the lowest socioeconomic level.
Speaker 3:You know, colonization in the settler state and the blind spots of the people who are in power and running things, making policy funding, making executive decisions are the ones who their ancestors created this and if they don't know that history and they don't know their blind spots and their privilege and can't talk about it, then they shouldn't be leading. They need to know that. To me, that's a leadership competency skill that you need to know for your constituency and not at a book level. I mean, it's good if you read books and listen to blogs and podcasts, but how are you getting out there with the people? And that's when I say when you're a servant leader, then you're really in real community context, not being Dr Nikki Bowman ooh la la, just Nikki, or whatever it is you know did.
Speaker 3:I did I go on too long with that answer?
Speaker 2:No, no, I mean, you know, I'm a big believer in what is supposed to happen will happen where we're supposed. Where we are is where we're supposed to be. And that actually kind of leads to my other question, which was what, what a community leaders need to know about whiteness, privilege and colonization. Because, believe me, if I went into communities where I, you know, live and work most of the time and said those three words, people would look at me like I have three heads and maybe that has to do with, you know, speaking to the listening and accepting people where they are, but then not staying there, right? So you know, you've kind of touched on that a little bit, but is there more you could say about being in communities with those community leaders? So one is get in touch with their origin story, understand the harm that you know, maybe their families have done that. They had no idea that have happened.
Speaker 2:And I will tell you, I was looking through by way of sharing, some of our, our ancestry. My, my sister, my older sister, is doing our genealogy and it's so, you know, interesting sometimes. Um, we have a whole mormon side on my dad's side, so that's very interesting, um, but you know it comes up that you know there's ancestors there that own slaves. Well, that's, yeah, that's new information for me. So, anyway, I, I kind of I went off on a tangent, but I think it does speak to kind of knowing your history. I know, um, when she did the dna test, we're like one percent native american, one, one percent. Wow, who who came before me? That I will never know.
Speaker 3:Anyway, wherever that takes you, Well, I mean, I think that in a few places, I mean I think you're making steps to learn about your history and your origin story.
Speaker 3:You know, it's also about reading the stories and practicing the language, practicing the culture, eating the food, understanding how you know you came through generation by generation.
Speaker 3:I mean I've read, I had a I won't name my, I won't name one of my family members, but it kept getting in trouble with you can kind of tell who the troublemakers were, because you could read court records and stuff like that, you know, but just sort of, you know, trying to get as close to that lived experience as you can. You know, and oh, I was going to say on my wall what used to be on my wall, because we packed up this old office, I have a whole wall of the oldest pictures that I can find of my family, all the way through the youngest family members. It's like a. It's like a, it's like a visual timeline to remind me of the um, you know, sacrifices and hard work that all of the previous generations, which is, you know, polish, german, stockbridge, Muncie, italian that have come through my family, so that I can, you know, I see these old black and white pictures and go. Would they be proud of me, you know that's part of what's important to me.
Speaker 3:And then I see the youngest pictures and say is what I'm doing today going to help them in the next seven generations? You know that's seven generations is sort of the mindset you know that a lot of indigenous people think about are my decisions today and how will it affect, you know, the next seven generations? So it does. It becomes a community and a legacy, a kinship legacy, both backwards and forwards. And so you know, you're sort of when I started out and said who am I? It's a journey. I'm learning about myself. You're on that same journey, yeah, and you know it's. It's uh, and blood quantum is a colonized construct. Blood quantum was made to erase the indians along with a bunch of other stuff. Uh, indigenous people should not be treated like dogs. You know, like, are you this much or this much? But it is something that is so embedded even in our own people that it's just it really creates a lot of trauma and turmoil, you know, for us to this very day.
Speaker 3:And so you know, sort of going off on what you're saying here in, in what, besides origin stories, I mean history and context are very important I think, though, that, um, when we talk, I think as a defense mechanism people either play dumb or they say I don't see color or they say, um, they'll sort of put the burden on your feet. And when people say, what do we need to know, I usually say, well, what do you think you need to know? Or what don't you know? You know, I don't. We shouldn't have to carry the burden of colonizing and educating people.
Speaker 3:If you wanted to learn about buying a new house or building something. You do the research. It's the same thing and certainly we should be seen as human and worth something more than oh, what's the latest DIY project. So one of the things that I really like that has been super helpful is Dr Milton Bennett has a intercultural sensitivity scale and on one end is white supremacist and on the other end is white abolitionist, and it's used for leadership development actually. But I use it. I use it a lot as an analytical framework and someday I'm going to rewrite it for the field of evaluation.
Speaker 3:I just have too much direct work that I'm doing right now. I have so many things that I want to publish. But that scale he has, if you look close enough in the Intercultural Leadership Institute, I think is the organization that he runs. There's a 14 or 20 page PDF companion document and it goes through. It's like a developmental scale, you know. So there's those two ends, but they're stuck in the middle and you can actually see and I've used it where am I on this scale? Where is my program or department on this scale? Where is the bigger organization on this scale, right? So let's say that we're working with the Kellogg Foundation and I'm working with Healthy Children and Families I don't even know the names If I'm working with them and they want to work on building and bridging capacity or working on diversity, equity and inclusion. Dei is the effect. What's the cause? Why do we even need to have all of these programs.
Speaker 3:It's because we have to talk about white supremacy, culture. We have to talk about white privilege, male privilege, heteronormative privilege, right? Am I saying that, right? I?
Speaker 2:think so.
Speaker 3:That means you have to have the white privileged people who are in charge be able to talk, to look at themselves and talk about it instead of pushing it on us, and so that's a very uncomfortable look. So at least with this scale, you can sort of say where am I on here? And you can. It says this is what it sounds like, this is what it looks like, this is what it feels like, you know. And so when you're trying to be ethno-relativism is when you say I don't see any color, we're all from the human.
Speaker 3:that's bullshit right we're different and it's okay to be different. We can embrace that. I mean, look at how many different plant and animal species there are and they figure out how to live in harmony right. Sometimes there's an evasive species and I would like to say I feel that way in the human world too, like death or retirement just take a lane, you know what I'm saying. Like it's too much. So anyways, I guess where I want to go with this is that would be. One place that I would start is the intercultural sensitivity scale by Dr Bennett. It's really lovely, it's very practical and it helps start conversations, even if it's just with yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love you know I'm all about practical right, especially when we're talking about being in community and we actually have. We've got some like concrete nuggets here for community folks like know your own story, know your own history, think seven generations behind you and in front of you. I would add, know your community history right? I live in a state with some very interesting county names. Oh good Lord.
Speaker 3:Named after indigenous people.
Speaker 2:No, no Well we won't go there then? No, I live in Cherokee County, georgia, nikki, cherokee County, and I'm just saying that, I'm guessing that well, and maybe I'm and I don't mean to judge my fellow folks who live in Cherokee County, and I can't, and I try to bring this to the, to the leadership development activities that we work on with foundations, nonprofits, corporations fill in the blank government agencies, research one institutions, whatever is.
Speaker 3:Why do we make things so complex? Like, being a good human being, a good professional, can be way simpler, but I think that we I think part of the intentional or unintentional strategy is to deflect and look out instead of that inward seventh direction and it is to it is to overthink and over-complexify things. Okay, now, I'm not trying to be a simpleton here. I realize there's a lot of cultural, historical, political factors that go into all kinds of things, but you know, when it boils down to it, if there's, if you're trying to have community-based work that's transformative and that is inclusive, then it means that you co-create, you talk about what matters to this community or to this project. How are we going to handle? What are we going to call things? How do we handle conflict? You know, how do we uplift and remember to use strengths-based when somebody has a blind spot. What's a safe way to meet somebody where they're at, to say, hey, I know, you didn't mean to call this an outfit, it's actually my regalia. It's an outfit or a costume is harmful. Because that's what? Because people dress up like Indians all the time for Halloween. It's called regalia and here's different types of regalia and, by the way, here's a little 10 minute video on the story of what a jingle dress is and why they're medicine people and why it's important in our powwow. You know, there there are tons of things.
Speaker 3:And then to be able to have humility to say and I mean I'm courageous. I'm courageous, I have been in calling people out on their stuff, but I'm also courageous in saying I didn't really say that the right way. I mean, I just did it this morning when I said, ooh, my response to that is something that I'm working on. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. You know I'm working on that. And thanks for your patience with me and for trusting me to say you know whatever was said to me, right, and I'm the boss, I sign all the checks you know, yeah, but no, but I think it's important.
Speaker 2:You know, I just had a debrief with a community this morning and we were talking about you know, when you're facilitating, when you're working in communities, whether that be me, like you, 20-something years in this field, I'm still learning. I'm still making mistakes, right, and that's the lesson for community leaders as well. Yes, know your history, know why your town is named that town, know why that tree is in the middle of your town square. There's a reason, right, and recognize that we're all growing. We're all you know, we all make mistakes on that and move forward.
Speaker 3:That's how people heal. And if you look at let's look at clinic. You said you're a clinical psychologist, community psychologist yeah, okay. Well, in the psychology realm I evaluate a lot of projects where intergenerational trauma has to be explicitly talked about and dealt with from a clinical and a cultural way of dealing with things. And I think about Dr Ruby Gibson. She's brilliant at this. She is the master teacher, the den mother I don't know what you would call her the matriarch of the Freedom Lodge out of South Dakota, and I've been her evaluator for five years now. Listening to historical trauma master class.
Speaker 3:People come through and they're together for a good nine months and they talk about the trauma that they've been through and some of it's like unfathomable to me because it's never happened, right and in order for—there's a safe space that's got to be created. But people have to talk about uncomfortable things and when it's physical and sexual assault, that's super uncomfortable. And it's always crazy to me how white privileged people are super uncomfortable about stupid things. You know I mean stupid. It isn't stupid to them, right, but in the bigger picture of being gang raped and having the courage to talk about it and to get through it, you both got to talk about it and go through it versus I'm ashamed and embarrassed to talk about how I privilege from being white, white and male. Like is. That's just an. That's just an uneven comparison. So maybe this is me. Stupid isn't the right word, maybe relative would have been a better word to use, you know in that moment.
Speaker 3:But you, you know, in that I'm trying to show some humility. You know we're humans and but we got to figure out, and that was me saying how do I meet, speaking to the listening, how do I meet people where they're at, you know, and sometimes, like with that Milton Bennett scale or other things I can go. This is where I'm, I feel you and I perceive you and I observe you. How do we? Is there something, one or two things here that you can, we can, work on so that in 2025, it'll be not, it'll be gone?
Speaker 3:you know, work on little things and get people moving through that and I just you can't do that unless you sort of have a self-awareness and a self able to self-reflect, and you may need a clinical coach, a clinical psychologist.
Speaker 3:You may need a trauma-informed specialist, depending on what it is. I don't know if white fragility needs a trauma-informed coach, but if somewhere out there I mean I can list lots of people and Anne, you would be in that lots of people list that are open and comfortable to talking about it I need more white courageous conversations because there's always going to be more white people doing evaluations with Indigenous populations than there will be Indigenous people, as we represent about 8% of the global population, maybe a little bit more than that, depending on the numbers that you look at. But in the United States, you know we're probably six or seven, somewhere six or seven, and we don't. We're never going to have enough teachers that are Native. We're never going to have enough evaluators that are Native. So we have to find out ways that we can work with other non-Native folks you know, to be allies, partners, and figure out how to hold hands and walk together. You know learn and walk and do this work together.
Speaker 2:Well, I would be the first one to say I am a work in progress, for sure, and I got a long way to go.
Speaker 3:And that's good, though, because I think in this part of the settler culture or the colonized culture we're in is you have to be perfect, you have to be done. Your website's got to be perfect. You got to have the perfect manicured pictures you know to put out on social media. You know Show up as you are. That's what I like, because there's an authenticity in it. Instead of this, I like to say I don't know if any folks listen to country music, but there's a song that talks that Maren Maven Morris, maven Morris. She talks about the bones of the house. You know, the house don't fall if the bones are good.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know that one yeah.
Speaker 3:So, like I'm the bones of the house. I'm not the window dressing.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to keep bones right and there'll be bones after us. Right to your point. I wanted to, um, just mention, and let me see if I can kind of, you know, kind of wrap this up, but, um, I mentioned to you that, uh, dr joseph gone was on the podcast. I I try really hard to make sure that all flavors are represented here in my little podcast corner of the world. Anyway, dr Gahn talked about societal erasure and ever since he said that, that has just settled in me Because he talked about, just like settled in me, um, because he talked about, um, that native americans, indigenous folks, we're there, but we're usually on your cartoon or on your sports jersey, right, um, and I think about that because I love, uh, visiting our national parks.
Speaker 2:I also recognize that those beautiful spaces were occupied before they were national parks. Right, they were. And that's not the right word Occupied is not the right word. There were other keepers of the land. There were, you know, there were those folks before I ever, you know, swiped my card at the entrance, or, like I said, living in Cherokee County. What advice would you give to community members, other than what we've already talked about, to kind of lift up and support Native American or Indigenous communities?
Speaker 3:Well, one of them would be find ways to honor treaties and sovereignty. So there's a big land-back movement. All you have to do is type land back or active land back land. Uh, I think illuminative. Oh, I have that wrong. Indian collective, nbn collective can give you some basic information about that. I think understand, I think, just getting a basic understanding of how many tribes there are and what sovereignty is, not by a white author but by an indigenous author. So the Native Governance Center and the National Congress of American Indians both have really wonderful sovereignty 101 and tribes 101. So I think those are ways. Those are ways.
Speaker 3:Another way is that it make it an intentional policy and put funding towards building capacity in your organization around this. So don't say I want to work with tribes but then you like literally don't have an experience with them. Like we talk about evaluation, capacity and readiness before you go, that's like you know it has to be done with communities. Capacity and readiness before you go, that's like you know it has to be done with communities. It's like saying I'm running the boston marathon tomorrow and I literally haven't jogged to my mailbox. Like it, it doesn't. I just want. Another way is just use freaking common sense. You know what I mean like native people, um, tribal nations, you know, uh, require the same type of uh preparation and thought that you would do in any activity. You know you. Just it's, sometimes it's this is again the. I'm not trying to oversimplify, I'm just trying to say slow down and quit making things so complex. Who else do you think you can? Just, you know the.
Speaker 3:The expectation that tribes or indigenous people want to work with you or want to talk to you, you, so you can pick their brain and you can help them is we have the right to say no.
Speaker 3:You know we have the right to say no. We have the right to say it's not our job to teach you or to comfort you. And there are, um, there are people far smarter than me, uh, that can talk about right to comfort, that can talk about than me, that can talk about right to comfort, that can talk about first voice, that can talk about you know the responsibilities of non-Indigenous people to fix this. You know it's amazing to me how colonization and the settler state have created most of the situations that we're in today, have created most of the situations that we're in today. You know whether you can go from global warming to health disparities, to educational disparities, to missing, murdered indigenous women, to raping the land. There isn't an area that colonization in the current settler state hasn't affected us, and so to be able to trace and understand that is important, and then to have equitable resources and a level of readiness just basic readiness to you know, observe and be respectful and reciprocal when you are working with Indigenous communities is important.
Speaker 3:We are very loyal If you're a good partner, we're very loyal, but you have to come correctly and you have to continue to earn our trust and the right to be around us, because we have many, many centuries of distrust and it's not like because it's 2024 that the level of stupidness has gone away, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree. So you guys are in the midst of moving. What is next for Bowman Performance Consulting and what's next for you?
Speaker 3:Literally, lunch is what's next for me.
Speaker 2:I'm standing between Nikki and lunch.
Speaker 3:But what I mean? I see, well, I have a group. I'm really excited. There's a few things I'm excited a lot, but I'm excited about the, the seven directions and getting that out there a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Oh, say more about that, cause we were talking a little bit before I hit record, so say a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean so the many tribes not all of them have a medicine wheel, but not all of them. And it is a round model and you'd normally see it behind me. But we're moving, oh, and we're listening to the podcast. We're not looking through Zoom, but it's a circle, circle, and it's got an eastern doorway, a southern doorway, a western doorway and a northern doorway and there's colors and there's teachings. It can represent the seasons. It can represent, um, infancy, childhood, adulthood and elder.
Speaker 3:You know, uh, so, the number, you know, like the three little pigs or the three billy goats, gruff, we're into fours and we're also into sevens, seven generations. So, if you take that medicine wheel model I'm sorry for coughing on a podcast here, hang on, let me get a drink. So there's the four cardinal directions, but then we add the earthward direction, because mother earth teaches us something. The skyward direction, which is where the ancestors live, up by the Elokeon, that's the stars, and that's where, uh, when people pass, they go to the sky world, and when babies come, they come from the sky world. And then the seventh direction is the inward direction. And I think, I think, um, babies come, they come from the sky world, and then the seventh direction is the inward direction and I think, I think, um, the inward direction is the least utilized. If you think about what, I don't care if it's leadership development, organizational development, government programs, evidence-based this, that or the other self or human development, um, you know, when you go to professional development, a lot of people don't want to get inside the seventh direction and talk about what's going on. So, and from there, thanks, and from there I think that these that's where these courageous conversations come from non-Indigenous, to talk about the privilege to unlearn and relearn a different way going forward.
Speaker 3:And so I'm excited about some of the Seven Directions work that's going to be coming out. I mean because I'm using that model to really shape a lot of my publications. One's coming out from Oxford University Press. I didn't know you had to be invited to write for Oxford University Press, but I'm telling you, when I shared the Seven Directions, I gave my heart and my mind and put that spirit into the work. I found some really beautiful people, even at Oxford probably one of the most Western-leaning publishing houses that really embraced the way we wanted to organize information around the seven directions. We're doing annotated bibliography on Indigenous evaluation. We've used it to help with missing, murdered Indigenous women and shaping how different ways to do policy and research and evidence-based practice using that seven directions model.
Speaker 3:I'm really it. It's been almost 30 years. I've been learning about the medicine wheel. She's been with me for a while and, uh, and we're on our journey together, you know, and, and the more I look, so I'm excited about sharing that. It's.
Speaker 3:My logo is updated, you can see it. I did a quiet drop of my seven directions logo because it used to be four, so check it out. And the inward direction are seven fires to light your fire. You know there's whole teachings behind that, but anyways. So I'm excited about that, I'm excited about the move, and I have a team of, I guess, millennials that are helping. You know the Nikki who puts the no in technology. They're, they're really young leaders that are helping me.
Speaker 3:You know, from from um mental health and wellness in the workplace to how do you, how do you put, how do you market and put yourself out there, to making my PowerPoints or presentations or images and work products look cool.
Speaker 3:You know um with with different images and videos and music and fine arts.
Speaker 3:So it's pretty, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 3:Those are the things that I really love, you know, being able to just continue to learn and to sort of put, put myself out there in a good way. Some people are going to like it and some people won't, but I can. I'm sleeping good at night because I know that I continue to add to my own origin story and showing up truthfully and authentically, and I'm usually I'm trying to use all the gifts that the creator gave me physical, mental, spiritually, emotional. I'm trying to learn how to rest more, so on Wednesdays and Fridays I try not to take meetings so I can do writing or meditation or ceremonies, because you can't come up with cool new things if you're constantly functioning from a place of tension and stress and not rest. So has this move and building out the new place been hard? Yes, I plan on taking some time off now for powwow culture and language camp and I'm going to go fishing where there's no computers. So it all balances out eventually, you know so. But it has to be intentional, it has to be planned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm still working on that and I, before I ask you the last question, I just have to say I love how you referred to the. Is it the wheel, the seven wheel, as she?
Speaker 3:you referred to the um, is it the wheel, the seven wheel, as she? For now, she, well, it's a living, it's living, it's a living being. To me she's a living being. And um, that and uh, you know, just continues to grow with me. And there's there, you know some people are, are into, you know, um, making regalia, or the porcupine quills will speak to them or feathers, or beads. You know so I've, you know, everything that you stitch in. You know I don't make that, you know, regalia or beadwork, but there's, it's living, you're putting living energy into every stitch or when you cook, you know so it's
Speaker 3:the same thing with my academic work and that's why I really want to be when I write, I try to be in a good place when I'm doing my writing with the seven directions, or I'm meditating, getting up writing something down, going back into meditation, you know, or ceremony, or whatever it is, and just trying to listen. The other thing is trusting and listening to your inside voice. You know your inner voice, those hunches, because that's how the spirit world is getting at you. I believe in a metaphysical part of my work and I'm working every day to make sure that I am less, that I'm unencumbered with the settler state and more fulfilled with these tobacco meshkiki is a medicine, right, these tobacco plants are living behind me, they literally have my back, you know, or the things that aren't human or aren't necessarily seen, and it's really weird, you know, for whether you're working on leadership, development or development or evaluation, like, people are like what are you smoking? And I'm like nothing. I'm high on life, baby, I'm happy.
Speaker 2:Well, well, I'm gonna remember that advice because I have a report that I am editing, so I'm gonna try to come from that that other space and not the oh my god, it has to be perfect and done yesterday space.
Speaker 3:But sometimes I feel that way, though still I'm not gonna lie and then I my dog, eden, or other people reminding me you need a break, I've got, I've got my garden here to the left, nikki.
Speaker 2:then I have my dog eating or other people reminding me you need a break, I've got my garden here to the left, nikki, and I have my bluebird feeder and my or my bluebird house and my feeders right here. So there they are reminding me to take a breath. Okay, last question, I'm between you and your lunch. When you look to the future, what community possibilities do you see?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to talk about the evaluation community. We're working in my community on language and culture preservation and I see more and more young folks coming through and putting that into policy and practice and making things that will live beyond our lifetime. That's you know, that's you know. So when I work on decolonized author agreements, frequently known as indigenous data, sovereignty like what's ours should stay ours. That's something that'll live beyond my lifetime. So in that sort of flows into the evaluation community and the more that I'm able to, you know, whether it's do this podcast, whether it's, we're going to European Evaluation Society to do a decolonized evaluation workshop. So we're literally going into the belly of the beast, where Christopher Columbus came from Italy. Okay, and that's all I'm going to say, except, you know, take back the doctrine of discovery.
Speaker 2:Rescind and thank you for all those diseases.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was wrong. Well, and that policy is what continues to support what constitutionally happens, why our treaty rights aren't there. And and I'm what I'm what I'm hopeful for is that by one framework at a time, one publication at a time, one one publication at a time, one podcast at a time, or just one interaction at a time, like when you and I saw each other walking in that, if I can be a good relative and act in a good way you never know who's listening, you never know who you can touch that will consider sort of being open to doing things differently. And I see it more and more in the last few years of my business where big organizations or big foundations are saying we like that seven directions or we like how you bring spirituality along with scholarship into your work. How do we do more of that? And so I can only be me, I can only show up as me and try to put together my best team to do that. So I'm hopeful because I see more publication houses having decolonized author agreements, including Oxford. Thank you very much, oxford.
Speaker 3:I see real humans inside of these bigger organizations that are having places to influence change. Rome wasn't built in a day, didn't somebody say that? So I'm just like everything now that I'm over 50, I'm sad to saying what's gonna, what's worth, you know what? Not, it's not just what's in my wheelhouse or will make us money, um, cause, like if I wanted to quit I probably could, but I love my work so much. Um, it's what's going to last after I'm dead. Yeah, is that for blood ending what's going?
Speaker 2:to last, after I'm dead.
Speaker 3:That will make it easier for others. Whether it's allies that have worked with us, policies that stand. I don't want my native counterparts, seven generations or enough, fighting about the same topics. I want the allies that I work with to be the ones who are teaching about. Didn't you know there was, you know, 574 tribes, or whatever the number will be by then. Then I know that I've had some influence, you know, in people's lives.
Speaker 3:You know, how are we incorporating? You know, I'm hopeful that we're going to get more neurodivergent ways to lead and to evaluate and to develop humans into the mix, because I think that's another place that's missing, especially for evaluation. But you know, the more and more generations coming up are, definitely you know, there's a generational difference in how things are framed and done and seen um, and so I think that it's just going to take time and more of that will come and I won't look as radical. I don't look as radical. I don't look as radical anymore now than I did, you know, 10 or 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you stay disturbing the edges, friend, stay disturbing the edges and thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 3:Yep, you're welcome. I had such a great time. This was a good visit. It went fast Well. Thank you so much, Nikki. All right, Take care.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody, Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of Community Possibilities. Please like and share the episode. Share it with a community leader you know and love, or just someone who needs a little boost today. If you could take an extra minute or two and leave a review, that would be so helpful. Now I just want to remind you that my course Powerful Evidence Evaluation for Non-Evaluators, is live. We are offering a 50% discount as a pilot. Thank you to the first 10 folks who register for the course.
Speaker 2:It is designed for non-profit and community leaders who really want to build the evaluation capacity of their organization and maybe it's just not in the budget to hire an evaluator or consultant. No worries, this is going to get you started. Your organization is going to learn practical insights and strategies to collect, analyze and interpret and share evidence in ways that's really going to demonstrate the outcomes of your organization. And, of course, we wanted to inform your strategic decision making. Evaluation at its best is all about making the world a better place. It includes seven modules, including one bonus module where I really give you some tips and tricks on how to share data in a compelling way. It includes five plus hours of guided video content and a beautiful 80-page workbook that walks you through step-by-step the evaluation process. Please reach out to me if you have any questions, and thank you so much for enrolling in Powerful Evidence. It is meant just for you, my friend. See you next time. Thank you ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.