Ex-Bears Chaplain Says Pay Attention
April 15, 2021 at 10:45 p.m.
By Jackie [email protected]
Wilkins, a former chaplain for the Chicago Bears, is an emerging voice and cultural champion for team building, accountability and leadership development.
Wilkins currently serves as manager of leadership and learning development at CBRE where he most recently led the creation and delivery of a premier multifaceted learning program for managers. He is currently managing the development and launch of a new Global Learning Development program for 8,000 project management professionals.
“A lot has gone on,” Wilkins said. “We’ve seen a lot in the news from recent civil unrest. We’ve got fluctuations in the market. The global pandemic. Transitions of power. We’ve seen a lot happen ...”
A lot has happened and a lot “has happened to us,” Wilkins said, to the point where “we have to manage our emotional reactions, our mental psyche in the midst of this pandemic.”
One of Wilkins’ favorite quote is: “It’s not so much what happens to us, but how we choose to respond to it.”
A lot of students across the country are learning how to manage what’s going on, along with who they are and where they are, Wilkins said.
What comes from that is community, what it means and how to treat each other, Wilkins said.
Wilkins told a story of a farmer who sold his farm because he wasn’t seeing the value of it. The new owner studied the land and found diamonds. He used that story to say there’s hidden value in everyone. He then asked how do we make sure people don’t feel devalued?
The primary aim is to close the loop of “what we say and what we do,” he said. “It’s one thing to say we’re inclusive, we’re diverse. It’s something all together different to say that we are a community.”
Wilkins brought up implicit bias, which he said was information to “judge without question, without awareness, attention or control.”
Wilkins explained two concepts: the automatic brain and the deliberate brain.
The automatic brain is something a person is used to automatically doing, he said. The deliberate brain is something that helps people interpret what is happening.
He said bias is a preference and if people aren’t careful, it can lead to a conclusion. Things that can influence bias is who people’s friends are, what kind of family a person comes from, personal experiences, a person’s culture, etc.
When it comes to bias, it’s important to take a step back because what you may be looking at may not be what it is, Wilkins said.
Wilkins walked students through a personal example of his.
At one point after business school, he was between jobs. Wilkins took a job as a waiter to pay for bills and loans.
He said it a hard job. He also some people tipped him, while others that didn’t. He learned more about more about people and service at that job than in business school. One of the challenges he experienced was he started to judge people based on the tip he thought he would get, even though he said he’d never be that person.
“I got to figure out who to treat especially right and who to treat not as well. And that’s now who I am. That’s not how I was raised,” Wilkins said. He said that’s never who he wanted to be.
He had a wake up call when a teenage couple he thought wouldn’t tip more than $2. They ended up leaving $30.
He said he wasn’t paying attention to what he was feeling. His said his need for money was superceding his ability to be human, to feel humble and to be focused and diligent.
He later changed his approach to wait on people like they were in his living room, which paid off for him. He said it paid off when he changed to focusing not on what he could get, but what he could give.
Some things he told people to do to check their own biases is to pay attention to what’s going on in their own bodies, acknowledge your assumptions, understand your perspective, seek different perspective from others and examine your options and make a decision.
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Wilkins, a former chaplain for the Chicago Bears, is an emerging voice and cultural champion for team building, accountability and leadership development.
Wilkins currently serves as manager of leadership and learning development at CBRE where he most recently led the creation and delivery of a premier multifaceted learning program for managers. He is currently managing the development and launch of a new Global Learning Development program for 8,000 project management professionals.
“A lot has gone on,” Wilkins said. “We’ve seen a lot in the news from recent civil unrest. We’ve got fluctuations in the market. The global pandemic. Transitions of power. We’ve seen a lot happen ...”
A lot has happened and a lot “has happened to us,” Wilkins said, to the point where “we have to manage our emotional reactions, our mental psyche in the midst of this pandemic.”
One of Wilkins’ favorite quote is: “It’s not so much what happens to us, but how we choose to respond to it.”
A lot of students across the country are learning how to manage what’s going on, along with who they are and where they are, Wilkins said.
What comes from that is community, what it means and how to treat each other, Wilkins said.
Wilkins told a story of a farmer who sold his farm because he wasn’t seeing the value of it. The new owner studied the land and found diamonds. He used that story to say there’s hidden value in everyone. He then asked how do we make sure people don’t feel devalued?
The primary aim is to close the loop of “what we say and what we do,” he said. “It’s one thing to say we’re inclusive, we’re diverse. It’s something all together different to say that we are a community.”
Wilkins brought up implicit bias, which he said was information to “judge without question, without awareness, attention or control.”
Wilkins explained two concepts: the automatic brain and the deliberate brain.
The automatic brain is something a person is used to automatically doing, he said. The deliberate brain is something that helps people interpret what is happening.
He said bias is a preference and if people aren’t careful, it can lead to a conclusion. Things that can influence bias is who people’s friends are, what kind of family a person comes from, personal experiences, a person’s culture, etc.
When it comes to bias, it’s important to take a step back because what you may be looking at may not be what it is, Wilkins said.
Wilkins walked students through a personal example of his.
At one point after business school, he was between jobs. Wilkins took a job as a waiter to pay for bills and loans.
He said it a hard job. He also some people tipped him, while others that didn’t. He learned more about more about people and service at that job than in business school. One of the challenges he experienced was he started to judge people based on the tip he thought he would get, even though he said he’d never be that person.
“I got to figure out who to treat especially right and who to treat not as well. And that’s now who I am. That’s not how I was raised,” Wilkins said. He said that’s never who he wanted to be.
He had a wake up call when a teenage couple he thought wouldn’t tip more than $2. They ended up leaving $30.
He said he wasn’t paying attention to what he was feeling. His said his need for money was superceding his ability to be human, to feel humble and to be focused and diligent.
He later changed his approach to wait on people like they were in his living room, which paid off for him. He said it paid off when he changed to focusing not on what he could get, but what he could give.
Some things he told people to do to check their own biases is to pay attention to what’s going on in their own bodies, acknowledge your assumptions, understand your perspective, seek different perspective from others and examine your options and make a decision.
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