In the previous chapter, I reviewed a few of the concepts that inform our
work at the individual and group level. In the education and awareness
workshops, we aim to help individuals come to terms with their own
attitudes toward people of the other gender and people of other races,
sexual orientation, ability levels and so forth. We also provide structured
events that enable workshop participants to experience in simulations
the ways power dynamics based on group membership operate in or-
ganizations and society. As the descriptions suggest, facilitating these
processes requires both an in-depth knowledge of the historical and so-
ciological facts of oppression and extensive training in the processes of
adult and experiential education.

In this chapter I turn to an even more difficult challenge--how to
analyze and change the culture of an organization so that long-standing
practices, policies and norms that favor one group over another are re-
moved, and new ones put in their place. I use one organization, to which
we consulted for a period of eight years in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
as the focus of this discussion. Many of the concepts, however, are those
we use regularly in many companies, and some of the examples could
be drawn from virtually any organization.

In the mid-to-late 1980s more and more U.S. companies were begin-
ning to recognize that doing business as usual was becoming less pro-

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