How We Work

HOW WE WORK

Imagine you want to begin a journey to the North Pole. You reach into your pocket, pull out your compass, and follow the needle, right? Not exactly. To get to the North Pole, or “true north,” simply following your compass needle won't work. You need to have learned and understand the difference between magnetic north — where your compass is pointing — and true north, your actual destination. This is why the term true north has become synonymous with knowing the right path.

OUR MISSION

True North EDI was founded on the belief that organizational and institutional change can only happen through deep and informed reflection on the ways that identity, history, and power intersect and impact our lives. We facilitate across spheres to support organizations in making meaningful connections between people and ideas, reflection and action, and past, present, and possibility. Through workshops, training, and coaching, we support professional communities in the development of human-centered practices, policies, and cultures that allow for and promote the possibility of all of us showing up as our whole selves.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Even with the best of intentions, organizations and institutions aren’t designed with whole people in mind. Our society values production, urgency, and returns on investment; it contextualizes people not as who they are, but for what they can produce. As a society, we’ve inherited this way of being. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, the long-term success of organizations, companies, and institutions depends on it not being this way. Only when we allow ourselves and others to show up un-severed from our passions, identity, emotions, and histories, can we truly manifest the respective impacts we aim to achieve.

PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE

Equity, Diversity, and Interdependence
We believe that moving forward with integrity requires deep education and understanding of the systems, practices, and beliefs designed to produce and maintain power for select groups, and ultimately, create inequitable outcomes. We believe that diversity and representation is of great importance, but does not in and of itself hold us appropriately accountable to challenging persistent and harmful power structures. We believe that when it comes to the work of disrupting and dismantling systems of inequity—but also as it relates to any dream humankind can dream for itself—we are more powerful together than alone. Allyship is key, but only when power is a point of constant reflection.

Balance in the Process
True North EDI approaches organizational change through a process that centers community health, balance, and wholeness. This approach frames each of us—be it individual or organizational—as a complex combination of the emotional, the intellectual, the physical, and the spiritual self (the latter referring to anything we are connected to that feels bigger than us). It is the lens through which we operate both internally and externally, and the framework we share with partners who wish to transform their cultures and practices in meaningful and lasting ways.

Transformative Facilitation
A True North EDI session lives in our growing edge, that space in which we are invited into new, sometimes intimidating, but inspiring possibilities. During a session, at the moment one finds themselves thinking, I don’t know if I can do this, our facilitators are there to assure them, “You already are.” True North EDI facilitators play the role of both guide and companion. They are charged with bringing light, compassion, and a keen ability to demonstrate and engender powerful connections in groups.