Creating a Sharing Culture by Setting Clear Boundaries

Every organization has a culture with spoken and unspoken “rules”. These “rules” include how much we are expected to share of our personal lives outside of work. This interactive workshop will provide participants with insight into your library’s culture of sharing and create space for you to identify how and where you fit into its culture-building efforts. With increased sharing comes greater responsibility-to feedback. Who is empowered to give feedback and set boundaries on what they are willing or unwilling to share? How do these boundaries look peer to peer and across power differentials e.g., supervisor to employee? Can pressuring our colleagues to share their personal stories create dysfunction on the team-or make it stronger? We will introduce and discuss several practical models and participants will leave with additional resources to practice and explore.

Presenter Bio: Mike Bishop Ph.D. is an educator and coach who has facilitated interactive workshops with a focus on human development, human rights, and human dignity for 25 years. He is a Freeville resident who organizes with his White neighbors against White supremacy through his activism, research, teaching, and writing. Originally from a small town in western New York, he spent seven years as a youth counselor leading adventure-based activities. He then worked in higher education for more than 20 years leading workshops, creating campus-community partnerships, facilitating dialogues across differences, and designing social action leadership programs. Mike works with stories to nurture anti-racist allies, growing social movements to challenge policies that dehumanize Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in rural New York state. He currently serves as the managing director of the Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative.