We were lucky to catch up with Anne-Marie Mawhiney recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anne-Marie, appreciate you joining us today. Any thoughts around creating more inclusive workplaces?

Spindrifts, my novel, depicts an inclusive world where everyone is accepted and honored for their contributions towards saving the world. The story takes place 50 years from now. It was a challenge to imagine how such inclusiveness could have happened but describing what it would be like was straightforward: people never comment in appearances and are accepting of each and every person, knowing they add value to the goals and mission. The focus is always on the work not personalities or judgement. Creating an excitement about the mission of the organization can facilitate this.

How do we create an environment where we don’t base our behaviors and beliefs on the way people look, speak, or their differences from the person viewing them? One way is to highlight the value each employee brings to realize workplace goals.

It starts at the top with leaders being clear of their vision for an inclusive workplace and their excitement about and their expectations to meet this, and training and coaching all staff, not merely short sessions, but intensive sessions that are ongoing. Hiring employees who are excited to work in an open, inclusive environment is key. Employees who do not exemplify expectations will be let go, sending another strong signal to everyone. Leaders must themselves be adept early intervention if there is any sign of an issue, and they also must 100% lead by example. The easiest way to accomplish this is to hire a cadre of high performing, diverse, inclusive leaders.

Shifting an existing workplace to an inclusive one will not happen over night. The preliminary qualities include a leader prepared to be indefatigably focused on this goal, overcoming the hiring tendency to hire people like those on the hiring panel ( training by experts can help), keeping note of employees who are resisting as well as those excited at moving forward and providing incentives to the latter and more focused training on the former. Those who continue to resist may need to leave the organization. This, obviously, frees space for opportunities to begin to hire new employees that are consistent with the vision of inclusivity.

Always ask what employees need and expect from their workplace and understand that issues such as work space requirements, washrooms, tools, supports, etc, including the need for some to have private workspace, for example, demand that not one standard office or policy fits all needs.

Being inclusive means accommodating different needs is fair and equitable.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am Canadian and live in Northern Ontario in a resource-based community of 165,000 people. I am a retired post-secondary school educator and senior administrator who spent my career pushing for equality and fairness for all people. This required me to create work and learning environments where everyone could thrive. While not 100% successful at completing my vision, I worked along side talented colleagues to establish programmes and policies that still provide learners and employees with more inclusive practices. There is much more work to be done.

Once I retired, I had plans to travel and spend more time with family and friends. Then 18 months later arrived the world-wide pandemic and a series of lockdowns.

In the first lockdown, I became immersed in the daily reports and news of the events occurring all over the world. In early April 2020 I picked up my laptop when I recognized I needed a healthier outlet to cope with the wild emotions I was feeling. Much to my surprise I found myself writing a novel about a place called Hope. It was a place where I felt focused and calm. The story that emerged from my imagination and out of my fingertips as I typed was published in November 2021. It was short-listed for three awards. I have just completed the sequel. So, now I am an author, something I dreamed of being when I was ten years old.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I was a new educator in the early 1980s, I wanted to change our social work curriculum to include more content on diversity, especially with respect to First Nations who were, and still are, over-represented in our child welfare and prison systems. Naively, I thought a few new courses would shift beliefs and practices that would improve services and programs for First Nations.

I met with our then called Native Studies Department. When I finished introducing my idea, one of the faculty members, now a respected Elder, asked, “Will we be involved or will this be another white idea?”

Ignorant at that time of the history of colonization, I, fortunately, said, “We share the goal of wanting to do this right, and you are the experts.”

Over the next several years, guided by a working group and Elders from First Nations of the Robinson-Huron Treaty Area, two First Nations women consulted people in every First Nation in the Area, bringing back their ideas to the working group.

Through these years and the decades that followed I was immersed in teachings that changed my understanding of First Nations history, the resilience and ways of living and thinking. I also learned not to intrude in that space,, understanding my place as an outsider.

Through the years of program development my role was to work with the working group to understand their vision for such a program and also I worked the institution, preparing the institution to accept a unique program that would not fit the norm, because what the First Nations requested was a program that met all Canadian accreditation standards and also incorporated First Nations ways of knowing, teaching, and healing. Much of this would occur on the land instead of in classrooms.

I anticipated some barriers along the complex approval processes (there were thirteen committees needed to approve the program) and yet the program was approved unanimously at all levels. the Indigenous social work program started in 1988, taught by First Nations faculty. I knew then it was my time to step back, remaining in contact if or when invited to be involved.

The lesson I had to unlearn was thinking my “solution” to a concern was the best one. It became the best moment of my work life when I respected the question about the best way forward with this project. What occurred over the next decades was a constant unlearning of my assumptions and beliefs.

There have been and still are so many times even well intended outsiders take over and impose ideas that are not appropriate. I also had to re-learn the value of listening, and also my place as an outsider. Outsiders can make positive contributions but only after listening and understanding what is truly needed. This can take a long time for those of us who have privilege.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The whole process of writing a book and promoting it is rewarding. I still shake my head when I stop to realize I have a story out in the world and people are reading it. Some are even liking it based on reviews they have posted.

Becoming a writer of fiction also required me to shift from my academic way of writing, which is formal and filled with technical language to a style that flows and draws the reader be feel emotions as images from the story tickle their imagination. In the writing of my first book this was no easy task, but friends and my skilled editor guided my re-learning.

Since publication I have become part of an on-line creative community, mainly of writers, who are collaborative, encouraging, and kind. Really, it is such a joy each day to be in touch with them as we uplift each other’s writing.

It is a stimulating time of creativity for me and I value every moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: Ammawhiney.com
• Instagram: @ammawhiney
• Facebook: Anne-Marie Mawhiney
• Twitter: @ammawhiney

Image Credits
My head shot should be credited to Laurie Pennell, used with permission The rest of the photos of me are taken by David mcGill, used with permission The photo of the tea set is mine as is the sunrise that inspired my writing.