May 17th, 2011
People are strange. For real.
I love them and I hate them and they are just out of their mind as a general rule and truly bizarre creatures.
One unique aspect of my job in that people are generally not happy to see me. A lot of what I do consists of designing and delivering learning and development programs related to diversity and inclusion. So there are generally a few people in the organization that think very highly of me and everyone else is giving me the stink eye.
They come into the room and they huff and puff and throw themselves down in the open seat closest to the back of the room and they cross their arms and roll their eyes like it’s their calling and they just let everyone on planet earth know that they have a chapped ass about being in “yet another stupid class about diversity.”
Which I never get tired of hearing. That is always evidence to me that I have once again found the place where I am supposed to be.
Chapped asses aside, I know what I am doing. I have good content and good delivery and I work a room and before too long that person has forgotten that they have a chapped ass and they are dancing with me and everyone is in the zone and it is a magical thing…until we start to talk about action. Then things get ugly again. Because people are strange.
We are two hours deep in a workshop and everyone loves it and they love me, but when we start to talk about action everyone gets confused. And then I get confused. I get confused because 90% of the people in the room believe one of two things:
a.) Nothing is ever going to change.
b.) Somebody else needs to change.
The people in the workshop get confused because they do not understand why I am talking to them about action…they believe nothing is ever going to change or nothing is ever going to change unless someone else makes it happen, so why would we waste our time talking about it? It is amazing how quickly and easily we remove ourselves from the story.
Anybody can diagnose a situation from the safety and comfort of their own perspective.
Anybody can diagnose another person behavior.
None of that requires any leadership or any courage.
It is something very different (and apparently fairly rare) to go beyond that stuff and say “this is what I will do to be part of the solution.”
Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
Be good to each other.
Great post Joe. I have witnessed this dynamic many times. I suspect it’s because much diversity training focuses on what people are doing “wrong” as opposed to what they can too to take charge and improve the situation. I really like the idea that people have the ability to exhibit courage and make changes to build diverse workplaces. So, rather than feeling discomfort they can experience the exhilaration that comes from helping things run better. I suppose the key (as you mention) is to find out what each person is willing to contribute and how they’ll take action.
I’m stalking you on D&I. My problems are cost/benefit, effectiveness, most of all who is this for. Having stumbled onto D&I [I am on many technical discussions] I’m now on many D&I discussions including “ex-felons”.
Would you equate D&I with Skinner or Adler? You [plural] are competing with 20+ years of ingrained character with only two tools: company dictum and presenter charisma.
I guess that’s a start.
All the best
Dan