You’re at a black tie event.  You’re looking for the restroom.  Who do you ask?

“Me,” joked our new friend who spontaneously joined us at our table at a recent black-tie-event, jovially laughing at the third time in the last 10 minutes he’d been asked for directions.  “It’s hard to be a black man in a tuxedo at a formal event—everyone assumes I work here!”

Which is absolutely ridiculous, when you look around and realize that ALL THE MEN at the event are wearing tuxedos.

Our friend made light of the situation, playfully making fun, but it does belie unconscious bias/prejudice that may accompany first, immediate reactions to others.

So how do you combat your own biases?  How do you ‘humanize’ others around you?  Just for fun, listen to your gut, and then do or say the exact opposite.  Such as…

1.  At a very fine event, ask the older woman who’s dressed the best where to find the bathroom (or step out of your comfort zone…ask the person who’s least like you.)

2.  At restaurants, events, etc., ask your server’s name—he/she too is a person, and actually has a big influence on your enjoyment of your evening.

3. If you meet someone from Brazil (or fill in country name or neighborhood in City, etc.) don’t say “I would never go Rio, I’ve heard the crime is terrible.” (Yes, it has happened enough that it warrants mentioning.)

4.  When speaking with someone with an accent, listen for content.  “And treat them like a person, not an accent,” adds my husband, a native Portuguese speaker.  And never say “don’t you speak American?” (Yes, I’ve overheard that, too)

What other things have you seen others do (or fess up, what have you done?) that reveal an underlying bias?  What was the reaction?

My colleague was conducting a training during a “train the trainer” session this week on Intent and Impact, the idea being that in communications, sometimes our Intent does not equal the Impact we intended.  For example:

 “That sweater you’re wearing is really interesting” (intended as compliment).  Unexpected impact:  “You hate it don’t you?” (Spontaneous reaction:  heard as a catty, back-handed insult.)

The idea in that case to help maneuver out of that moment of discomfort is to assume positive intent on the part of the speaker, and use it as an opportunity to ask for clarification before jumping to conclusions.

Sarita, who is a brilliant, vivacious woman of Philippine and Pakistani descent, then went on to share an example of when she had used this approach.

“I was traveling back to LA after conducting an out of town training, and I had been upgraded to First Class.  I was sitting next to a businessman, who was Caucasian, and we started chatting.  He asked me if I traveled in First Class often….”

She continued, saying they talked about what she did (intercultural communications training), were discussing business and getting along famously when he said, “You know, if I close my eyes and just listen to you I don’t even know you’re a minority.”

Sarita started to break it down for the train the trainer group, and explain how she chose to try to diffuse this, but the rest of the group stopped her.  We couldn’t justify under any condition that this gentleman had ‘positive intent.’

That said, I do believe this gentleman thought he was paying Sarita a compliment.  Unfortunately he was doing it through an ethnocentric, privileged lens.  In essence he was saying “people of color can’t achieve success in their own right, only in how well they do something compared to how a white person would do it.”

Ignorance may have been bliss 50 years ago, but not anymore.  Want to keep up in a global, multicultural world?  Better brush up (or get started) on knowing your own culture is just an option.  An option among a plethora of successful, thriving cultures around the world. 

 Perhaps Sarita could have responded by politely giving him a copy of Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege:  Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”, with the added point: “I can, if I choose to, sit in First Class without being asked how I got there.”

 What do you think?  Have you been on either end of this conversation?  How have you responded?

Photo Credit:  Simpliflying

Walking in to teach aqua aerobics this morning, I looked across the sea of blue hair, wrinkles and skirted suits and remembered the ladies at the swimming pool at my Grandma’s apartment complex in Miami Beach:  “Don’t splash honey” they would say, plastic bags covering their freshly teased hair.  I was 5…how do you swim without splashing?

So I started off easy, until midway through the class when when of the ladies yelled “can you pick up the speed a little?!”

Afterwards, she said “I guess you saw a bunch of old ladies and thought we couldn’t move!”

Who me?  The one who is constantly reminding everyone about the danger of making assumptions based on superficial characteristics of difference?  Yes, that would be me and unconscious bias number 632.

Luckily for me there was not so much at stake, I’m sure I will be asked to sub again.  But there are a few good lessons learned as a parallel, to remember perhaps for the next business meeting where intercultural communications do matter:

1.  Beware of making assumptions about people based on physical characteristics:  race, ethnicity, age, ability, gender, etc. (Apparently that can’t be reiterated enough!)

2.  Do good research in advance.  In my defense, I did ask for the usual format, and once class started asked for feedback, but the former source hadn’t actually taken the class before, and once the class was going, most felt uncomfortable speaking up or saying something directly to me that might be considered negative.

3.  Welcome feedback as a gift.  Thanking someone for his or her suggestions is a great way to solocit ‘insider’ knowledge.  Once you say thanks for the insight, he or she may be willing to share more.  When a business deal is at stake, that could be just the ticket to your success.

It seems my assumptions about the abilities of seniors, however, are not isolated, as seen in this humorous German spot (posted below) by Grabarz & Partner (found via Adfreak) for Volkswagen’s parking-assist feature.  As in, it’s so easy even an old granny can parallel park it, or can she?  “In the middle of the process, the plucky senior morphs into a stubbly-faced young guy in a granny wig, then changes back again,” says Adfreak’s David Gianatasio.

Have you checked your assumptions lately?

Top Photo Credit:  Parafield Gardens Swim School