and President Clinton's One-America Racial Initiative

   theExact Word^®, Inc. specializes in bringing participants to an awareness of differences among people while providing solutions for the problems which differences create. Rather than one-time solutions, however, theExact Word's^® approach provides a permanent set of tools for continually adjusting the tools to new situations.  Participants learn to "tell the truth in a political environment," or "to say the unsayable" with diplomacy.    Participants learn to identify their strengths and to practice the strategies which create inclusion and trust. This approach, The Challenge of Inclusion, tailors to the clients' needs and includes follow-through evaluation.  Because diversity issues include racial, cultural, ethnic, gender, and physiological differences, theExact Word^® will focus upon specific areas of diversity or broad-based topics as each organization prefers and as diversity issues reveal often taboo topics tied to, but not rooted solely in, apparent differences.

     The racial-diversity work which theExact Word^® provides has taken as many forms as theExact Word^® has had clients. All programs have begun with the search for honesty and candor as the means to build trust, whether in course work, focus groups, or initial planning sessions.  theExact Word's^® programs and approach build upon trust to address "real" issues and heart-felt concerns which influence everyday lives. People often need help using diplomatic tools for telling the truth about sensitive areas.

     The "hard topics" affect productivity but often have a sensitive nature. theExact Word^® provides objectivity which otherwise very effective internal facilitators cannot, by definition, create in discussion.  Internal facilitators may appear to have personal agendas which "skew" objectivity.   On-going practical solutions beyond the euphoria of training, especially for diversity issues,  must include all staff, management, and leadership without exclusion.  Useful, practical solutions, built with the group, help participants to create an everyday practice of respect for difference.

     theExact Word^® has facilitated focus groups for:

• 50 or more people at a time
• video-viewing and interpretation for large audiences
• questionnaire and survey interpretation
• open-ended small-group discussions
• organization development

     Because long-term effectiveness evaluation must accompany good diversity training, intervention, or facilitation, theExact Word^® has produced thoughtful evaluative reports and tracked change in the affected organizations. These reporting tools, including pre-post assessments, help the organization's leadership to guide ongoing progress and process evaluation.

     With every "diversity" client, theExact Word^® staff has begun by listening. In every case, senior management and task-force teams or diversity committees have worked together to create coordination and input. The resulting synergy from multiple points-of-view sets the tone and establishes a paradigm for diverse audience members to see that multiple perspectives have representation from the beginning. Because people's personal (racial, or other diversity) experiences do not follow a standard pathway, diversity facilitation must have flexibility and fluidity as its nature. Diversity facilitation must, more than in other communications venues, create methods for people to experience points-of-view other than their own. That experiential, adult-model approach opens discussion and ideas for those exercises and events which can create real progress for each separate organization. Thus, theExact Word^® expects these planning sessions to be a crucial part of diversity development for each client.

    A more extensive explication will be provided to an organization's leadership upon request.

     Training materials: Because theExact Word^®customizes, no single set of training materials has served each client. Thus, theExact Word^® has created widely-different materials. For example, the manual, "They-ism to We-ism" includes multi-cultural, international mores and stereotypes. Further, a bound report, Someone Finally Asked, resulted from a series of focus groups which theExact Word^® facilitated in 1995 for several cross-culture occupational groups.

     Customization: theExact Word^® recommends that diversity training include tailoring to the client's needs in addition to including any generic principles of diversity training which apply. 

     The client's leadership may request a set of objectives which theExact Word ^® has developed for the Challenge of Inclusion. These objectives address goals and evaluative criteria for Individual/Organization/Customer benefits.

     theExact Word^® will provide sample copies, relevant vitae, or references upon request.

     Race relations include differences in nationality. Understanding international perspectives requires some sense of cultural mores and values as well as differences in gender, education, grade-level, age, and racial diversity within the same culture or nation. Other forms of diversity invariably surface during discussions stimulated by race initiatives. These topics become diversity topics. Such apparently wide-range topics include, (for government employees, Schedule-C versus the careerist-perspective), leadership topics, management and performance issues versus promotion for technical expertise. Further, in the workplace at large, physical differences and issues regarding wheelchairs, blindness, and hearing also surface.

     In other words, diversity topics invariably and correctly, lead to discussions of difference. Who is different and why, and where the power lies, or what is politically correct invariably emerge.

     In theExact Word's^® history as a company, the core of training and facilitation has revolved around this broad horizon of differences and how people can solve problems in satisfying, effective, ways that do not diminish or downgrade. The Challenge of Inclusion as an approach means learning to seek and welcome difference, not simply to tolerate it. Topics also include, therefore, the use and misuse of power, using self-concept positively, earning and gaining acknowledgment, recognizing how politically correct answers can serve as diplomacy vehicles and bridges to communications even in the most impossible situations.

     theExact Word's^® approach challenges participants to find exciting ways to seek to include other peoples' perspectives. Also, learning diplomatic tools to "say the unsayable" provides tools to address the workplace crisis of "silence-versus-confrontation."

Outcomes have included combinations of:

• Action Plans
• Best Practices and Lessons Learned
• facilitation
• extensive coaching
• classes and workshops
• "from-scratch planning" to guide managers to effective and believable group sessions
• a pre-post diversity survey
• tailored formats for reviewing broad organizational surveys about race and diversity
• tailored design, overview, and critique of race-initiative studies for large organizations
• coordination with other offices within the organization for comparing questionnaire and survey results as well as incorporating EEO requirements if appropriate.

    theExact Word^® customarily evaluates participants' progress and has written several extensive reports in formats which differ for each activity and client. Sometimes evaluation requires good prior planning to provide an evaluative tool during, immediately following, or further in the future for long-term assessment of diversity effectiveness. theExact Word^® feels responsible to provide foresight as well as recommendations and methodology to complete action steps.