IBIS’s Innovative Theater-Based DEI Training Highlighted in Harvard Business Review
We’re thrilled to share that a new article about our Interactive Theater DEI Training can be found on Harvard Business Review. Entitled The Missing Piece of Your Diversity Training, it delves into the 3 key reasons why Interactive Theater is so effective when it comes to workplace dialogue about racial equity. Go straight to the article here. Read an excerpt from the article here:
Talking about race at work is not easy. But it is vital to lessening the impact of bias on the careers, contributions, and well-being of every employee in your organization.
Organizational leaders want to build cultures that empower employees to contribute ideas and access opportunities, no matter their identity—so they engage consultants to facilitate training on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However well-intentioned, though, mandatory DEI training can be demoralizing, disengaging, and frustrating.
In Interactive Theater, employees explore racism and bias by watching true-to-life scenarios connected to their own workplace, such as meetings, interviews, and career-development conversations, portrayed by professional actors who stay in character after each scene to answer questions. A facilitator helps support lasting, meaningful dialogue between the characters and audience members.
Engaging Learners Nontraditionally with Interactive Theater
This unique approach to DEI understanding enables learners to discern impact from intent. They can start to recognize how their behavior affects others and develop actions that align with their sphere of influence.
3 Reasons Why Interactive Theater Works
An Interactive Theater session is an opportunity to help employees process real-life challenges, empowering them to frame the conversation. Rather than being based in theory, or a list of do’s and don’ts, the technique explores the complexities and ambiguities of how diversity affects the way we engage with one another, and it does this by using three important tenets.
A Flexible Solution That Fits Each Organization
Organizations can offer employees Interactive Theater virtually or in person and can easily adapt its content to support managers, executives, independent contributors, recruiting teams, and many other levels and roles.
A global appetite for nontraditional DEI learning has brought the virtual Interactive Theater training modality to thousands of employees around the world at organizations such as Stanford University, Hasbro, Inc., and Edgewell Personal Care Company, where Karen Anderson, director of DEI, said, “The impact can be felt throughout our company and has resulted in meaningful dialogue at different levels within the organization.”
As long-time thought leaders on innovative DEI training strategies, it’s an honor to have the opportunity to feature our approach in Harvard Business Review. Go directly to the HBR article or learn more about IBIS's interactive theater training modality.