Now is the time for action.
When breaking news is relentless, it can be tempting to withdraw. To become paralyzed. It can seem reasonable to take that “social media break” we’ve been thinking of. I understand the desire to find a place that feels safe and to retreat. But that’s the wrong direction for the moment we are in.
Because it’s past time. Past time for people to stay on the sidelines. Past time for more preparation, more reading or more thinking. It’s past time to wait for someone else, someone better, to step in. We can stop waiting for Steph Curry or Jennifer Aniston or our favorite public figure to say the perfect words.
We can name our avoidance for what it is - a by-product of privilege that we carry. Privilege that allows us to ignore the news or to double down on a work project. We might carry positional privilege from being a leader which gives the false sense that we are unaffected or that we will be protected by our silence. Our positional privilege keeps us stagnant and unable to decide what to do.
Signs, signs, everywhere, signs.
We all have agency when we’re confident with our voice. This confidence is diminished when we feel like the sky is falling and there’s nothing we can do about it.
We are the leaders. It is not the person above you in the org chart, the person you voted for or the person with more access to power.
The person is you.
The person is each of us.
These are not moments we can passively scroll through.
Each of us, all of us has a voice and each of us from our positionality, has an important role to play with our voice and in our actions.
Perhaps you are the head of a business, a department or an institution. This is a time to lead by example, and the example is not business as usual, or to keep our head down and hope it all goes away.
As leaders, what do we do in times like these? (Hint: assume that these times are not momentary, but are continual. This is not a moment, it’s ongoing).
Check your assumptions:
- Do you know if everyone feels safe to appear at work in person? To shop? To take their children to school?
- Have you thought through how to develop mutual aid networks, how to pivot to remote work, how to allow some employees job security if they are not able to work at all temporarily?
- How can you establish safety within the workplace without making people reveal sensitive information?
Let’s get even more basic: Have you led a baseline conversation where people can share concerns about safety? Where do your employees sit relative to immigration or AI or the economy or healthcare? How is your business being impacted by these “market forces” or federal policies?
There are many ways to start but the point is to start. Become informed and distribute what you learn. Let employees know that safety is the cornerstone of being effective at work. That changing conditions might require a change in what “work” looks like.
From your positionality, you might carry some privilege to avoid what others are facing or are worried about. Now is the time to use that privilege in the service of others. We have seen models of this throughout Minneapolis. Of local restaurants being places that people have fled to for safety initially, and then become places that deliver food to those who cannot go outside. Of people lobbying state and local governments for an eviction freeze so that colleagues won’t lose their homes while they haven’t been able to work. Of getting to know neighbors and building local networks. Of building trust.
Action, Not Words
We all need to recognize the importance of building authentic trust. Of people acknowledging their power and using it in service of others. Leaders set the tone of what is expected in how we treat each other. Leaders determine whether we are a team or a group of individuals. In times that are moving quickly, the we can help you to slow down to make values-based decisions that support everyone. We work with you to decrease polarization and bias. We look at the thinking you don’t notice to see what unseen obstacles are preventing success.
One quick tool to help? AllSides is a premier tool for information integrity, keeping us from existing in an echo chamber. The curated newsfeed strips away as much bias as possible to provide a clear starting point for understanding.
The Thinking You Don’t Notice will continue to look at ways that our mind makes things harder and impacts our decision-making. We will explore how mitigating bias creates clarity, credibility, and trust over time.
Want to find out more? At the Percipio Company, we partner with business leaders to handle the tricky workplace issues no one wants to talk about. We reduce the biases that are hurting your performance. We love tackling the uncomfortable conversations most try to avoid.
Follow us on Substack @ The Thinking We Don't Notice.