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How To Create A Culture Of Curiosity And Openness: Moving Beyond Call-Out Culture

Since George Floyd’s and Ahmaud Arbery’s murders, many companies (perhaps yours among them) have issued public statements about their commitment to racial equity, diversity, and inclusion in their companies. 

Frustration

In the months since Mr. Floyd’s and Mr. Arbery’s deaths, many companies have talked about change, but many employees haven’t experienced much change. People understandably get frustrated by all talk and no action.  By saying the right things but not addressing the underlying issues. This woke-washing—whether at the level of the company, division, team, or individual employee—has been frustrating for many employees who were hoping for change. It can seem hypocritical and perpetuate inequity, disrespect, and exclusion. Companies thus de facto accept inequity and disrespect. It’s understandable that frustrated employees might want to “call out” inequity and disrespect when they see it to effect change. It’s important to acknowledge that frustration and to acknowledge that it’s understandable. Each of us would likely feel similarly.

Fear of Being Called Out or Cancelled

For some companies, the main driving force for statements of support for Black Lives Matter and DEI might have been fear: fear of appearing racist by not saying anything, fear of being called out, or “cancelled.” Fear of what their employees or customers would say or do if they said nothing. Other companies believe the supportive statements they’ve posted, and may work to increase the racial and ethnic diversity through hiring, but have no plan to make substantive, systemic changes. Substantive changes may include an equity review and adjustment of salaries and promotions, examining how high profile/challenging work is assigned, or how sponsorship and mentorship arise, all with an eye toward equity, inclusion, and diversity, what I’ll call EID. After all, without equity, there isn’t full inclusion, and efforts for diversity fail. Without inclusion, diverse candidates who are hired are more likely to leave. 

“Cancel culture” can leave individuals and organizations paralyzed about doing the wrong thing. About being called out, privately or publicly. As companies increase DEI efforts, there is understandable anxiety about whatever initiatives and interventions might be put in place: how will those interventions be received? Will they help the company achieve its DEI objectives? Will employees respond positively to those initiatives? What if employees don’t respond positively? Would it be better to do nothing than to do something that didn’t work?

A Frame of Curiosity and Openness

Organizations must move beyond their fear. They must undertake equity reviews from a stance of curiosity, of openness to the information discovered and to view that information as an opportunity for learning. The information is, in essence, feedback to the company—to discover how biases, assumptions, routines, and talent processes had inadvertently created inequity. With that knowledge, that feedback, change can happen.

This process parallels the frame that employees can take about inclusion and equity: a frame of curiosity, an openness to information (including feedback). It’s the information that will help them to be aware of acts that are, fundamentally, disrespectful and to appreciate deeply the difference between intent and impact.  It’s fundamentally about unearned respect toward colleagues, customers, and business partners. Sounds great, right? People get the message when insights are followed by actions.  

Employees themselves may go through a similar process, wanting to be better, fairer, more respectful, but unsure what that means, what each person can do as an individual, and even after reading about bias, about systemic disrespect and inequity, people can be afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. Of unintentionally being disrespectful. Of being called out—privately or publicly. 

What to Do?

Interventions and initiatives can transform any callout or cancel culture into a culture of learning and respect, and do so both targeting the level of employees and organizational systems.

Interventions for Individuals

We know that bias awareness training, in the ways it is usually done, has not been particularly effective in changing workplace behavior. Even with the best possible training, each of us will inadvertently say or do things that have a negative impact on our colleagues, customers, and business partners. We can’t know the range of things that will be disrespectful to each person. But, of course, we want to minimize the frequency and impact of those times we misstep. Here are some ways that every employee can decrease the frequency and intensity of those missteps.

 

  • Be Open to Feedback About Missteps and Mistakes. We need to be able to learn from our mistakes and missteps. When we feel ashamed, guilty, or even angry about our missteps and mistakes, it makes it much harder to learn from them. Focus training on creating a culture of openness to feedback and learning from mistakes. Ideally, leaders would be the first ones to adopt this perspective, and then model it for employees, sharing their mistakes and how they learned from them. Going one step further, for respectful engagement about missteps and mistakes, we want people to solicit feedback, which will open the door to more coaching and learning opportunities. The book Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen is a great resource for developing and deepening this frame. Ultimately, part of what is necessary is developing new habits—in hiring, promoting, interacting with colleagues. Habit change is hard, so we need to motivated. Developing empathy as we learn about other people’s experiences can increase motivation for that change.
  • Tolerate the discomfort of misstepping and earning back trust. It’s uncomfortable to know that we’ve hurt a colleague. Disrespected them. Lost their trust. To learn from our missteps and to regain our colleague’s trust, we must learn to tolerate the discomfort that will arise when we learn about the impact of our words or deed. Or the discomfort of knowing that we can’t flip a switch and make it all better. We must, though our behavior, re-earn our colleague’s trust. We must demonstrate that we understand how we were disrespectful and do better. To learn how to do it better, we must learn what to do instead (e.g., “what should I have done or said differently?”) As Sandra Quince, SVP Global D&I at Bank of America, urged people in a wonderful talk:

“Be respectful and listen, and ask how you can help, and then ask for grace. ‘Hey, this might come out wrong. I have a question, I really didn’t… I don’t understand this, so please forgive me if this doesn’t come out the right way…” 

  • Be Gracious When Others Misstep and Want to Learn. Another pearl of wisdom from Sandra Quince about giving each other grace when we make mistakes:

“On one hand, I have to give you grace when you say things that may be offensive to me … Everybody’s not going to get it right…I don’t know what I don’t know, and I’m not perfect…The flip side of that coin is, don’t discount my experience. Just because it doesn’t happen to you, don’t tell me it’s not happening. Don’t tell me that police don’t stop men of Color more, so I don’t believe that’s happening because it doesn’t happen to me, it’s never happened to me. Well, just because it doesn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. And so that’s where we have to say, don’t discount my experience. 

“And then acknowledge that other’s opinions might differ from yours, and that’s okay. This is not about …making people feel guilty, and it’s not about changing who you are at your core, it’s about enlightening, promoting, understanding.”

  • Tolerate the discomfort of real emotions. This work can bring up emotion. Emotion at work is ok. Being real at work is okay. Emotions can run deep when there’s real connection, or when there’s profound frustration. The speaker speaks to be heard is to be heard; the listener’s obligation is to try to really hear. Emotion can be a signal that there’s deep feeling. Note: the absence of apparent emotion doesn’t mean that there isn’t deep feeling! 
  • Make yourself accountable/hold others accountable. Holding yourself and others to be respectful and open to each other is the foundation of inclusion, and is the opposite of a cancel culture or calling people out. Accountability is more likely to arise within teams when everyone on the team understands what the goals are, how to get there, what each person and can do, and each person has been deputized to help, respectfully (as is part of our program at Live in Their World).

Interventions in Systems

Individuals work within systems. Although some culture change can happen from the bottom up, without a system to support that change, the change peters out. Therefore, leadership must create or strengthen the structures that enable an equitable, inclusive, and diverse culture. Without those structures, the organization provides talk but no (or little) action. At the systemic level, therefore, leadership must:

  • Develop and articulate the organization’s values and mission as it relates to DEI. Why work to have a culture of learning and respect? How does this tie in with the company’s value proposition?
  • Identify the organization’s goals for equity, inclusion, and diversity. How will the company know when they have achieved those goals or where they are in the process toward achieving them? Why those particular goals and not others? How do these goals relate to the company’s value proposition? Its mission and values? Who is ultimately responsible for progress on those goals and how much autonomy are they given? Why is this important to you in the moment and how important to your business?
  • Allocate the resources that will realistically be devoted to achieving those goals. 
  • Develop a strategy and actionable steps for achieving those goals. For instance, will the company do equity reviews and adjustments?
  • Create and implement a clear communication plan (about all of the above information) to inform employees, customers, business partners, and the public. Who will communicate it?
  • Hold various stakeholders accountable. What are the consequences for progress, and for a lack of progress? How will progress be measured and who will measure it?

As we’ve already seen with various articles about woke-washing, it’s one thing to plan and announce, it’s a whole other thing to implement and measure. It’s the latter that builds trust and fosters a respectful workplace.

Author: Robin Rosenberg, Ph.D.

 

Robin is a clinical psychologist, author, executive coach, and CEO of Live in Their World, a company which addresses issues of bias and incivility in the workplace through virtual reality.

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