There's an awakening that's happening in the workplace. It’s different from being woke, but it's similar. Being woke seems to be instantaneous. Awakening is more of a process. Let’s consider how a new day begins.
When you think about suddenly becoming awakened out of a deep sleep because of a loud noise, it's jarring. It’s unsettling. It brings on a slight panic because you aren’t sure what woke you up. Depending on how suddenly your wokeness occurred, you might be thrust into the state of “fight or flight” until you realize your safety is not being threatened at all. Then, the emotion is downshifted from panic at the onset of becoming woke, to being perturbed about becoming woke, to being puzzled about what it was that woke you. Sometimes the fact that you've become woke, possibly before you were ready to get up, is disturbing because of the way you became woke - but an awakening is something more subtle.
An awakening is more like an alarm that goes off which you subconsciously hear, almost as if you’re dreaming that the alarm is going off. But it's not until you hear it in your awakened state, that you turn off the alarm and realize it's time to wake-up and get up to greet a new day. When it comes to our general situational awareness, we're awakened differently based on our experiences, based on our background, based on what we're willing to recognize and respond to as an alarm that indicates the opportunity to become woke about something. In my work as a Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Consultant, I'm finding that the difference between folks getting woke and being mad about it, and folks becoming awakened and being accepting of it, is the method.