Today we’d like to introduce you to Alfonso Wenker and Trina Olson.
Hi Alfonso and Trina, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
We started Team Dynamics mid-career. After a combined 25 years in advocacy, nonprofits, philanthropy and political campaigns we were feeling limited by our day jobs. We had more skills, tools and ideas than our jobs afforded us to leverage. We had known of one another for more than a decade through LGBTQ+ advocacy work.
In 2015, our work intersected more formally and we started to get the opportunity to create a training curriculum together. What these side projects offered was an opportunity to bring our stories of organizational change to folks really grappling with race and gender equity questions in their organizations. The bonus was we were modeling what they were trying to do. Trina is a white woman, Alfonso is a Latinx man, we’re both queer. Our facilitation style was modeling what it was like to be in relationship, collaborating AND addressing how our race, gender and more impact how we work together.
In 2017, our friend and mentor, Bernadette Christiansen, (who passed away late last year), offered us a contract for work that exceeded our “side hustle” capacity and meant we could leave our day jobs and Team Dynamics was born. Our work lives squarely at the intersection of organizational development and race/gender equity. Given our work in the diversity, equity and inclusion space, we soon started receiving dozens of emails and calls asking, “how do we diversify our candidate pool for our latest job opening.” Trina having worked in campaigns for 18 years and Alfonso having run a fellowship program, we’d compiled a dozens of stories, tips, tricks, pit falls and better best practices for equitable hiring. It was hard to answer those questions in a simple phone call or short blog post. Out of frustration, we said, “well, let’s write it all down in a book.” What resulted was, Hiring Revolution: A Guide to Disrupt Racism + Sexism in Hiring.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We never imagined starting a business, launching a podcast, writing a book and not just living through but growing during the COVID-19 pandemic would be easy. We’re both balanced in our optimism and pragmatism. Fighting racism and sexism everyday, telling the truth of how people feel hurt and pushed out because of their race and gender at work, supporting people who are just now realizing how their life is impacted by racism and sexism – that’s intense and necessary work. Being co-owners of business who are of different races and different genders with many different styles of communication and working between us means there is always an opportunity to misunderstand or come at things from a different angle. Our work partnership has given us some of the best conflicts of our lives. We care about one another and this work – because of that we regularly engage in health conflict. Not because we’re excited to or because we like it but because if we swept it under the rug we’d resent it. Writing Hiring Revolution together provided many moments of wrestle for us. There was one time at Alfonso’s cabin, we were in the porch writing, working hard to meet a deadline and feeling the pressure of the large number of changes we needed to make – there was definitely some shouting. Never mean or violent, but we were pretty animate. At one point our friend tapped on the door and said, “Everything okay?” To which we both shouted back, “yeah, we’re writing a book!”
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Team Dynamics?
Team Dynamics is a national strategy firm, based in Minneapolis, MN. We are a People of Color, women, and LGBTQ+ owned firm, intentionally comprised of an interdisciplinary team of facilitators and strategists with decades of combined expertise in adult learning, intercultural capacity building, and driving teams towards shared goals. Our work is focused at the intersections of racial and gender equity – the differences currently making the largest difference in U.S. based institutions.
Team Dynamics believes that diversity, equity and inclusion work is serious, iterative, and imperative to the current and future ability of organizations to serve the needs of an ever-evolving community. Our practice is built on the foundation (and research) that mixed teams (across race, ethnicity, gender identity, ability, class, faith tradition, immigration experience, and more) have the capacity to be more creative, innovative, and impactful if that mix is both acknowledged and leveraged strategically.
Team Dynamics develops a tailored set of organizational development, leadership development and capacity building strategies for increasing intercultural capacity. Together we will increase awareness of and comfort talking about how cultural differences across race, culture and other identities manifest in our work (both internally and externally).
Move from believing to doing. The desire to do things “right” can make it difficult to move from strategy to action. We will design a series of opportunities through group work and leadership coaching to engage in skills-based learning, practicing practical application in real-life context of the work you’re doing.
We must begin this work by investigating our own instincts and patterns. What did we learn explicitly and implicitly about how to “behave” and what that behavior meant to communities alike and different from our own? We will work with your team to get really close to their own stories so that they are even better prepared to receive and believe the stories and lived experiences of others.
This work will include reflection and re-negotiation with one another about where each of your boundaries, tender spots, and growing edges are currently. We will help your team move from “golden rule” thinking: “treat others as you would want to be treated” to “platinum rule” thinking and practice “do unto others as they want done to them.”
One size fits all solutions are not real and should not be your goal if you truly want to benefit from all the perspectives of a truly mixed team. We will help lean into equity principles as a way to be innovative and creative in the pursuit of the multiple solutions that will ultimately much better meet the needs of your teams and your goals.
There are a number of ways to engage with us to build your capacity to achieve race/gender equity goals:
– hire our trainers + coaches to bring your team through guided development
– sign up for our online courses, https://www.teamdynamicsmn.com/online-series
– listen to our podcast BEHAVE, https://www.teamdynamicsmn.com/season-3
– purchase a copy of our book, www.HiringRevolutionBook.com
– download self guided free resources on our website, www.TeamDynamicsMN.com
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
We have had so so many folks invest in our work as mentors, co-conspirators, collaborators and more! Our coach Debra Peevey, Danielle Steer and everyone at Lunar Start Ups, Lars Leafblad and Marcia Ballinger, our publishing partner Dara Beevas at Wise Ink, our attorney Zaylore Stout, Stephannie Lewis our first hire, Tyrai Bronson-Pruitt and Levi Weinhagen for being our first full time trainers, Bernadette Christiansen for giving us that first big contract, so so many wonderful clients for inviting us in, and of course everyone on our team.
Contact Info:
- Email: Team@TeamDynamicsMN.com
- Website: www.TeamDynamicsMN.com
- Instagram: @TeamDynamicsMN
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamDynamicsMN
- Twitter: @teamdynamicsllc
Image Credits
Anna Min
Youth Lens 360
Team Dynamics
