We often find that there are three phases in the experiences of employees working in dysfunctional workplaces. Recognizing these phases allows employees to shift from seeing heir failure to thrive as purely the result of their own deficiencies rather than a symptom of flaws in the company’s culture. In Phase One, the employee believes that their hard work will pay off. What you put in is what you…
This week, I had the pleasure of having workplace expert Denise Hamilton join us on the Radical Respect podcast. Her new book Indivisible: How to Forge Our Differences Into A Stronger Future urges readers to reexamine long-held beliefs and dismantle the hierarchies that shape our society. Here’s an excerpt from the prologue: “What does it mean to be indivisible? A few years ago, I was scrolling…
People who are from systemically advantaged groups or dominant in some way are much more likely to get away with or even be rewarded for bloviating BS. In a fascinating study, researchers asked men and women whether they were experts in 16 distinct math topics, 3 of which were made up. Men were much more likely to claim expertise in these made-up topics than women, as were the rich over the middle…
A RADICAL REWRITE The paperback of Just Work is going to come out in May of 2024 under the name Radical Respect . There’s a lot that’s new besides the title. It’s been radically edited. Just Work came out in March 2021. Once I saw teams taking the book and putting it into practice in their organizations, I realized several things. A shorter book would be a better book. So I cut 40,000 words–…
We can all think of typical bullying behavior: finger-pointing, name-calling, and yelling, and ridiculing, threatening, and intimidating others. But one particularly insidious form of bullying is what I call bloviating BS. This is what happens when one person, usually not the most informed person in the room, has the unearned confidence to make things up and take more than their fair share of the…
Unless leaders create real consequences for bullying, the behavior benefits the bully at the expense of others on the team. As a leader, you have three levers at your disposal: Conversational consequences, compensation consequences and career consequences. Let’s focus on the first one: Conversation consequences. Your first response to bullying should be to pull the bully aside and give clear…
HOW LEADERS CAN PREVENT IT, AND WHY THEY MUST Bullying creates an atmosphere of fear that undermines a team’s morale and ultimately their success. Unless managers intervene, bullying is likely to result in getting the bully more than their fair share of airtime, credit, headcount, budget, or the like. This results in a toxic culture and misallocation of resources. If bullying gets rewarded, it’s…
HOW LEADERS CAN PREVENT IT FROM RUINING RESPECT What if the issue in your workplace isn’t unconscious bias, but a very consciously held prejudice, reflecting a stereotype that you believe is inaccurate and unfair, and that people on your team find offensive? What can you as a leader do about that? The first thing to do is to manage your own emotions. Prejudice can induce a strong response:…
It’s important that the person whose bias has been disrupted is treated respectfully–and equally important that they respond with respect. But these are hard moments. Most people feel deeply ashamed when their biases are pointed out. Our fight or flight instincts are activated. We rarely respond well in such moments. How can leaders help themselves and their employees learn to respond when their…
A shared vocabulary helps people know what to say when they don’t know what to say. I’m referring to unconscious bias. But pointing bias out is awkward; most people don’t know what to say. And they fear retribution for pointing it out, or looking like they are virtue signaling. That’s why it’s helpful to have a norm of disrupting bias publicly, and a go-to phrase that they know to say when they…
When helping your team address unproductive, biased patterns of thought, one of the best things you can do is sit down with them and explain why you think doing so is essential to a collaborative, respectful working environment. But for this to work, you have to have an open conversation. Be willing to listen to the reasons why your team may be reluctant. People have painful experiences that make…
How can you teach your team to disrupt bias so that they can treat one another with respect, make more rational, impartial decisions, and collaborate in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts? Much has been written about unconscious bias training: when it is helpful, and when it can backfire. I’ll say this. There are some trainings that are enormously helpful, and others that…
Bill Walsh, the former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, explained in his book The Score Takes Care of Itself that his job was to win football games. But he couldn’t win those games if he focused too much on the score, a lagging indicator of what he was doing well or poorly as a coach. He needed to back up and understand the leading indicators: behaving ethically, demanding high standards,…
As a leader, it is your job to prevent bias, prejudice and bullying from destroying respect on your team. Given the prevalence of these attitudes and behaviors, this may feel like trying to prevent the inevitable. That’s why it’s important that when these problems do occur, you respond in a way that makes it less likely they will happen again. Preventing these behaviors is especially difficult for…
For me, the chief joy in being a leader is creating an environment where everyone can love their work and working together. That kind of working environment allows a team to achieve astounding results collectively while being at their best individually. As a leader, you don’t have to choose between collective results and each person’s individuality. In fact, you can’t get one without the other.…
Each challenge in the workplace requires a different solution: An “I” statement challenges bias by inviting the person to consider your perspective; an “It” statement draws a clear boundary of which the other person should not cross and is a good response to prejudice. “You” statements push the other person away, so it’s often an effective response to bullying. Do you want to charge into your next…
When she was CEO of OpenTable, Christa Quarles made improving gender diversity a priority. Knowing she had to start from the top, she and her team publicly emphasized the importance of hiring women and other underrepresented people. She didn’t set a specific target number but instead focused on the need to fix the process . The results were remarkable. By the next quarter, the share of newly hired…
Respond with a “you” statement (or question) Once, my children and their cousins were talking about being bullied in school. I offered them some guidance, suggesting they respond: “I feel sad when you …” They did little to conceal how stupid they thought my advice was. I continued to defend my position until my daughter said, banging her fist on the table in frustration, “Mom! They are trying to…
How is prejudice different? Unlike bias, prejudice is a conscious belief, usually incorporating an unfair and inaccurate stereotype. Examples include: People of one race are inferior or superior. One gender tends to be better or worse leaders. People of a given generation are slower or faster on the uptake, wiser or more foolish. When it comes to confronting prejudice, holding up a mirror tends…
How should you respond when you notice bias in the workplace? “I” statements offer a new lens to help everyone involved understand what’s happening. An “I” statement is a generous response to someone else’s unconscious bias; it helps them learn, inviting the person to understand your perspective without calling them out. “I” statements push the person to notice their mistake and consider things…