Tag: Training

Like Grief

In the 200+ respectful workplace trainings I’ve done in the past year, I often get a version of the following comment, “People are just too sensitive.  Let’s be reasonable here. Anyone could be offended by anything.”  The assumption underlying this comment is that people should only be offended by the bad stuff and just stop complaining.  “Toughen up!  Grow up!  Be an adult!”  Essentially, everyone must feel the same way about everything.

We know this is not true.  We’ve learned through thousands of years of human behavior that we all grieve differently.  We understand this, we respect it, and we give each other support the way they want to receive it.  Even when our dearest friends are grieving, we might not know what to do, so we offer the support and love that we can while trying not to overstep or dictate how they should be feeling.

Why don’t we treat harassment the same way?  People are different.  We process comments and conduct differently.  What could make one person uncomfortable might be what another person revels in.  Here’s the example I use:

The company hires Ranya, a Palestinian who wears a hijab.  Steve, a former Political Science student, has been fascinated by the Middle East conflict for years.  Curious, Steve asks Ranya all sorts of questions about her life in the West Bank & why she wears her hijab.  Ranya comes to you as her co-worker & tells you that she is uncomfortable around Steve.

This example illustrates potential harassment on the basis of national origin and religion even if Steve does not intend it to be that way.  (Remember, harassment can occur if I have the purpose to harass or if my conduct results in harassment regardless of my intent.)  If you asked me what it was like to live in East Jerusalem, I could chat your ear off for days.  I’d be totally comfortable and excited that someone wants to know more.  But to Ranya, she is uncomfortable.   So, do we have to do something about this?  You betcha.

Under most harassment laws, whether conduct or comments is actionable harassment will come down to how a reasonable person would feel, meaning it is unlikely that Ranya could recover if she decided to sue the company.  That said, Ranya’s uncomfortableness could lead her to look for a different job or steer other Palestinians and Muslims away from working with the company – two things the company really wants to avoid under its diversity and inclusion initiatives.  Regardless of the law here, the company needs to have a chat with Steve and work to make Ranya more comfortable.

When I get the comment that we should all learn to be adults, I typically respond with “You know all people are different, right?  That we all process information differently?”  They say, “I know that.”  Then, I point out that they are trying to get everyone to feel the same way.   “Yes, we should have the grace to forgive when people make mistakes, but that does not mean that we should all just ignore what other people might find demeaning or demoralizing.”

Respecting that we are all different is the key to having an effective work environment free of harassment.  Seeking to understand and let people be themselves is part of this.  Just like we let our friends grieve however they want.

 

Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

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What Are You Going to Do?

If you walked past a fight on the street, what would you do?  Call the police?  Try to break it up?  Walk away?  Watch?   Not many people would do something if they inadvertently stumbled across a fight.  Would they intervene if something happened in the workplace?  Would you?

We live and work in a fascinating time.  We’re being forced (some are being dragged kicking and screaming) to look at our workplaces, see the inequities, evaluate the poor management, and do better.  This is hard.  Like really, really hard.  Citigroup recently published its finding that on the aggregate, it pays women nearly a third less than men.  When the numbers were adjusted to reflect pay at comparable positions, the difference was significantly less, placing the organization in a defensible position.  Yet, the aggregate numbers are a wake-up call.  Citigroup vowed to change, adding more women in high level positions across the globe, and I applaud both their transparency and their efforts to improve.

What Citigroup did was look and do something.  While Citigroup was pushed to look by a new UK law and an activist shareholder, the looking was an important step.  Because once we look, we can’t simply walk away.

In the past two years, we’ve been forced to look at harassment.  #MeToo has riveted our world. The headlines have opened our eyes to what has been happening in plain sight for decades.  We’ve found that it is the rare occurrence of harassment that no one in the company knows about.  Someone overheard a conversation, witnessed an odd touch, or saw an inappropriate text message.  Yet, we have looked away, justified our willful ignorance as “it’s 20XX, that can’t possibly be happening now.”  It’s this shrugging of our shoulders that has allowed harassment continue and worsen.

The same is true for other forms of harassment and discrimination.  Racial and religious epithets and symbols, putting the only black sales executive in a closet, offensive costumes that have a direct impact on students are all news items from the past eight weeks.  In the last eight weeks!  We see so much more now with more and more avenues for targets of discrimination and harassment to share their stories.  It is as if we are walking past this fight and are being asked “what would you do?”

For me, staying silent is not an option.  I avoid conflict as much as the next Midwesterner, yet, we are at a time – just like so many other times in our history – where staying silent makes the situation worse.  Today, we stop and think about the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.  “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”  Elie Wiesel once said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”  Looking at what’s happening in our workplaces and work, these two leaders ask us, what are you going to do?

I encourage you to look.  You can start by following #BlackBlogsMatter.  This group of amazing individuals have put together a movement designed to raise their voice, speak their truth, and teach us all how we can be better allies and simply do better.

 

Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

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