.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} Michele Soria facilitates diversity and innovation training through a business she started last fall, New Realities. Photo by Duane Tinkey

Michele Soria has found a new avenue to do what she does best – break down cultural barriers and spark innovation – in a new company called New Realities.

Fearless in standing by her principles, the longtime diversity trainer resigned in January 2006 as executive director of the Iowa Council for International Understanding after its board of directors declined to support anti-bullying legislation intended to protect all students, including those who are or are perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, from harassment. Some board members argued that lobbying for the proposed anti-bullying legislation, now an Iowa law, would stray too far from the ICIU’s mission.

You can’t have innovation without diversity. You can’t have breakthroughs in terms of thinking if everybody is alike.
– Michele Soria New Realities founder

A confidentiality agreement prohibits Soria from talking about the specifics of her departure, but the dispute was widely reported by the media, which quoted sources who were not gagged by a settlement agreement. On the record, she’ll say the schism within an organization formed to build understanding, justice and equality in the world was too great to bridge. When working for a board of directors, Soria had to couch her words and choose her battles in a way that, ironically enough, seemed to encourage rather than discourage biases. So she quit and threw herself into financial uncertainty.

“I couldn’t live with myself otherwise,” she said.

The rift was not altogether unfamiliar territory for Soria. She was a member of the executive committee of the former National Conference for Community and Justice, a 77-year-old anti-bias group originally formed as the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The Iowa Region office, financially crippled after a breach with some of its longtime supporters over programming that focused on sexual orientation and events that were critical of U.S. policy in Israel, closed in 2004.

Still, though strides are being made, bias still thrives “in some lofty places,” Soria said.

Her own background taught her that much. She’s known discrimination, and how it feels. “Your heart feels like it’s dropped to the ground,” said Soria, a Latina and a Jew. “You are paralyzed and shocked.”

She believes – and was raised to believe through constant exposure by her parents to different cultures and ways of thinking – that change is possible, no matter how wide the gulf in understanding, no matter how great the injustice. Her father was a Bolivian and her mother was a Holocaust survivor, a “hidden child” from Brussels, Belgium, who taught her to “never take the role of the bystander.”

“Those who did speak out did risk their lives,” Soria said.

Soria leaves little doubt that she would expose herself to risk, including financial well-being, to defend what she believes. Now, unshackled by board policies on what is politically acceptable to talk about, she is no bystander.

As a diversity trainer, she talks honestly and openly about the “isms” – racism, sexism, ageism, sizism and other biases – that stand between individuals and acceptance and equality. With a frank discussion about biases and issues that divide people framed around the importance of diversity in the workplace and in society, gaps in understanding are bridged, she said.

Her new company was incorporated last August and she’s already provided training to groups such as the West Des Moines Community School District, Allied Nationwide Insurance, Hy-Vee Inc., the Stelter Co., Veridian Credit Union, and DreamWorks SKG in Los Angeles.

In addition to the diversity training for which she is best known, Soria is one of fewer than 20 people in the United States certified in synectics, an approach to innovation training that incorporates analogies and metaphors to help participants analyze problems, gain new insights and change their views.

The two kinds of training are close cousins, according to Soria. “You can’t have innovation without diversity,” she said. “You can’t have breakthroughs in terms of thinking if everybody is alike. When talking about innovation and creative processes, you need people of various backgrounds engaging multiple perspectives.”

Innovation is not just a buzzword casually tossed about by business, Soria said, but an imperative for businesses and organizations competing fiercely for an increasingly cynical cutomer base.

In the past, innovation training has been approached from arm’s length, she said, and though participants may have learned why innovation is necessary, they may not have learned strategies on how to actually accomplish it. She explained that outdated training models didn’t take into account the real-life challenges faced by participants. In her workshops, Soria doesn’t rely on typical PowerPoint presentation of dry facts and figures, but instead leads dialogue as participants work through individual issues they may be grappling with and helps them find a workable approach to dealing with them.

She changes her interactive presentations to fit her client’s unique needs and is selective in whom she works with. If the client isn’t a good fit with her values, she turns it down.

The rewards are great – financially and personally. Soria’s corporate rate for a full-day session is $5,000, and she commands a $2,400 speaking fee for local, state and national conferences.

Equally important, “it’s so rewarding when people tell you or write on an evaluation that they are a changed person, that their worldview has changed or they’ve gained a new perspective,” she said.

As a business owner, her goal isn’t to build New Realities to the point that she has to hire employees, but to provide a comfortable life that gives her the flexibility to spend more time with her 14-year-old daughter. Soria’s life has changed dramatically in the 15 months since she left the ICIU. “Without a board of directors,” she said, “my time is spent differently. My time is engaged in being creative, and I don’t have to spend it convincing others. It’s a different energy.”

And she’s as engaged as ever, working where she can to bring about systemic, institutional change and cultural understanding. She is a member of Drake University’s National Council for Diversity, Drake’s Center for Global Citizenship and the Mercy College of Health Sciences Diversity Task Force, and was recently asked to join the board of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa.