Part 3: Leading Consciously and the path toward justice

A THREE-PART ANALYSIS OF THE LONG JOURNEY

Why Part 3?

It happened again this week. I went to a fundraising luncheon and ran into a long-term colleague whom I hadn’t seen in a few years. The conversation almost immediately shifted to how we were both coping in light of the backlash occurring against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

“I think things must be getting better or the backlash wouldn’t be so intense,” she said.

I readily agreed, adding my knowledge of history is what keeps me optimistic.

“I’m actually writing a three-part series about it on my blog,” I explained. “So many people are treating this current wave of backlash as unexpected and novel, and I wanted to write about how we as a country have been here several times before. I’ve written Parts 1 and 2 and you can find them on my blog.”

This post is Part 3, focused on what you and I can do in the face of the backlash. In particular, I will focus on how our everyday habits and interactions feed into a blaming, win/lose culture that paves the way for the backlash.

If we want the backlash to slow down or stop, we need to pay attention to how we treat one another – both those we agree with and those we don’t. 

Imagine a parent beating her child with a belt, screaming, “Stop hitting your baby brother!” 

Is the parent teaching the child to stop hitting? Her words say so, but her actions say to hit when you are angry.

In a similar fashion, we progressives may talk a good game about respect, mutual understanding, and empathy – we declare this is how we prefer to treat others and to be treated. However, our own actions often reflect something very different. 

We, too, are products of the culture that created the backlash. We have learned to lash out with the figurative belt whenever someone is doing something we think is wrong. It’s in the air we breathe, and we hardly notice it.

If we want the backlash to shift back toward progressive causes, we can’t continue to beat each other and those with whom we are at odds. Instead, we have to use more effective tactics.

Review of Parts 1 and 2 

Before I move into Part 3, let’s briefly review the past two posts in this series.

Part 1 explains how we evolved as a country toward a racial reckoning following George Floyd’s murder, and then inevitably toward the current attempts to suppress the importance of race, culture, and inclusion. 

Rather than viewing today’s antagonism as novel in human history, we reviewed several periods in history to show that decades (or centuries) of progress toward greater inclusive and human rights (public interests) were followed by periods of retrenchment and a focus on individualism (private interests), such as we are experiencing now.

My knowledge of this history is what keeps me going.  As Dr. King says, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The notion that racial progress will occur in an uninterrupted straight line is a myth.

In Part 2, we continued the review of how private vs public interests have played out in this country’s history, with a focus on solutions that hold promise during periods of retrenchment.   

A long period of private interests often is disrupted by one or more critical incidents in which the conscience of the nation is shaken as it becomes clear that groups of people are being unfairly targeted or treated. An angry public demands change, prompting public interest solutions (Reconstruction after slavery, War on Poverty after the civil rights movement).

Because angry disruption and protests work on the road from private interests to public interests, people assume these tactics will work to forestall the swing back toward private interests. Not necessarily so. The tactics work mainly when the zeitgeist supports it.

We are just in the beginning of this swing back toward private interests. People are weary and cynical about calls for change. Fighting back with protests and threats is likely to increase the weariness, not promote change.

This is the time for a slow build of consciousness-raising to win hearts and minds. In Part 2 we discuss two approaches: transitional justice and race class narrative (RCN).

In this, Part 3, the focus continues on what it takes to change hearts and minds. Here we also discuss how Leading Consciously offers skills to pave the way for this change.

How to stay optimistic

I began this series – and this Part 3 – with the question: what can we do to keep ourselves optimistic?  The people I know who are least optimistic are those who frankly don’t know how they personally might contribute toward furthering public interests in their communities or their work places. 

They are dismayed to witness discrimination and inequitable practices in their communities, their workplaces, and on social media. The see companies retrenching from DEI, state legislatures implementing regressive laws, and the heartbreak can be overpowering. 

Yet they also feel helpless – that their own puny efforts to counteract these laws and regressive policies don’t really matter. They think grand movements and stirring orators and millions of people rising up are required for anything meaningful to change.

I fervently disagree. Those movements and orators and millions will come back in their own time. Meanwhile, our job is to prepare the ground for the new growth to take root. This means committing to building a culture where our everyday lives support progressive ideals and everyone has an opportunity to flourish. 

We can’t beat the kid at home and then wonder why he keeps skipping school and acting insolently toward adults. Similarly, we can’t ignore her or treat her kid dismissively and then wonder why she is turning out to be so selfish and oppositional, surrounding herself with a small clan of similarly rebellious peers. 

Let’s look at ourselves. How ready are we to blame others when they aren’t acting as we think they should? What example are we setting for the type of culture we want to create for all of us? 

Let’s take stock and choose to be the change we want to see – creating a ripple effect so when our part of the stream flows into the river that flows into the lake that flows into the ocean, we know we have done our part well.

If we can pull that off, we will have made a difference. If we take a stand to be the change we want to see within our sphere of influence, no matter how small, we can know we have done our part to make a positive contribution to the vastness of the ocean.

And that knowledge – along with the hard work of self-reflection and personal retooling – will help to keep us optimistic. At least this is true for me, and for all those I know who are doing what they can to live their ideals. There is no time for fatalism. We are doing the work.

How to effect change

Doing the work requires understanding how change occurs – how to induce it in ourselves and in others.  If we aspire to be the change we want to see, a corollary is to gain a good grasp of how we might induce change back toward public interests and away from private interests, where individualism is glorified and government and organizational policies have no role in leveling the playing field.

I recently watched a movie that provided a vivid illustration in my mind of how *not* to induce change. 

Sterling K. Brown (famous for his gripping role in the TV series, This Is Us), was the domineering, well-intentioned father whose 18-year-old son was a high-ranking competitor in a sport, hoping that it would bring him a college scholarship. (I will do my best to avoid spoilers here.)

He pushed and pushed the son to do better, to succeed despite obstacles and adversities. He required him to do additional practice every evening to build strength and test his endurance again and again after the school-based training was over.

It was clear that the boy both admired and feared his father.

The father told his son that for Black people, doing well is not enough. We have to be best.

Not once did he ask the boy a question. No curiosity as to what was inside his son’s mind. The son was not trying as hard as his father thought he should. Why wasn’t he? No questions were asked and the son did not volunteer any responses. In fact, a case could be made for saying that the son didn’t dare offer any explanation for fear his father would think he was a loser and an excuser.

Turns out the son was concealing information that would’ve changed everything had the father known. But since the father never asked, he didn’t find out until it was too late and a tragedy had befallen the family.

I watched the show, agitated that so much of what I stood for – and that I provide coaching in and that is in my books – was not even a talking point in the movie. The father kept pushing, the son concealing, and the rest of the family withdrawing from one another, which in my mind was just so unnecessary had they had the tools to break the impasse.

I paced the floor and ranted aloud to the movie characters, and especially to the father:

• Do you really think that lecture you just gave him is going to motivate him to try harder?
• Can you not see your son’s simmering resentment boiling beneath the surface?
• Look at your wife’s face when she looks at you. Why hasn’t your daughter confided in you? Can you see your family is separating themselves from you?

The movie was so disturbing to watch because I see similar scenarios everywhere. Someone in power wants something to happen so they take these predictable steps:

• They start off with logical reasoning, carefully explaining their thinking without ever asking for the other person’s opinion. The assumption is that if only that person understood how perfectly reasonable the logic was, they would fall into line.
• The desired change does not happen, so they up the ante and move into control mode. “I’m not going to let him get away with this.” “I’ll let them know who’s in charge.” That’s when the overt or covert threats start up because the person in charge wants to assert dominance and authority.
• Rebellious response comes next. The person or persons being lectured to may first respond with covert sabotage. At school, the child may play hooky for a class or for a full day. At work, the employee may slow down, “lose” important documents, or fail to meet deadlines. They are being asked to do more than they can do or want to do, so it simply does not get done. In their heart of hearts they are thinking, “You can’t make me!”

Why does an effort to control the other person follow failed attempts at logical reasoning?

Here’s how this played out with a client of mine. She explained how hard it was to deal with one of her direct employees who seemed to not go the extra mile to get the work done. She described the employee as someone who followed all direct instructions but didn’t use any brainpower to consider alternative paths when she ran into a brick wall.

As my client said to me, “I don’t know how to tell you how angry it all makes me. I can’t make her do anything that needs to be done. I can’t make her think ahead. If I haven’t told her what to do, she does nothing.”

Since my client was in a control mindset, I responded:

Let’s talk about what happens when you try to “make” someone do something. It’s the difference between leadership and management. Leadership is what happens when people willingly follow your lead. They have intrinsic motivation to follow your lead and do what needs to be done. They are not into extrinsic motivation when they either fear the consequences of not meeting your standards or they expect rewards from your approval of their work. It sounds to me that you’re relying on extrinsic motivation – your ability to force her to comply with your directives – rather than intrinsic motivation where they’re committed to success for its own sake.

I wondered about that, she responded. Why doesn’t she just do the job because it’s there to be done and is her job? Why do I have to stay on top of her all the time?

I responded that the surest way to squash intrinsic motivation is to use extrinsic motivation. It’s called the undermining effect of intrinsic motivation. If initially a person decides that the only reason for doing the task is to avoid the punishment or to gain the reward, then they will decide that they’re not doing it for its own sake and intrinsic motivation goes out the window.

Now let’s go to my client. I asked her if she believed her employee was intrinsically motivated, and if not, why not. Her response let me know where the breakdown was occurring. She said:

I asked her why didn’t she want to do her job, and she said she was already doing it. I told her she was not and she just sat there and refused to say anything other than she was doing her job whether I liked it or not. It made me furious, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to bring HR down on me for creating a toxic work environment.

Right then and there, I knew that my client would have to work hard to regain her employee’s intrinsic motivation if it was even possible. Her covert threats and berating of her employee were enough to drive intrinsic motivation out of the window.

If the son in the movie had dared tell his father what he was thinking, do you think it would have gone well for the son? I think not. I think the father was so used to being in control that he would’ve regarded his son as insubordinate and punished him, thereby increasing his son’s fear of extrinsic punishment and diminishing his son’s desire for intrinsic motivation.

The father was playing a win/lose game.  One of the problems with dominance is there’s always a fear of someone replacing you, of losing your power and then being subordinate to someone else. The notion of sharing power without fear and with everyone having their own rightful power is simply not in the cards.

Does that sound familiar to you in terms of the cultural wars and political jockeying now going on? Numerous studies have shown that a sizeable contingent of White men view themselves as the new victims, subject to reverse discrimination.¹ In this view, someone has to be on top, and the racial situation is turning against them.

The possibility of a win/win

I was in my doctoral program when I first heard about the possibility of a win/win and learned to distinguish between win/win, win/lose, and lose/lose.

• Win/lose or lose/win:  One of us wins and one of us loses. In the movie, either things were done the father’s way or he lost authority. There is no in between.
• Lose/lose:  We try to compromise. The son offers to skip practice one time and instead to do half the reps he normally does in the evening practice. The father goes along, even while disapproving of the decision, and has a sinking feeling he is compromising his son’s future and has given up some of his dominance. The son senses his father’s disappointment and disapproval, so even though he got part of what he wanted, it’s a hollow victory.
• Win/win: They talk it over and find a solution that gets them what they both want, although maybe in a different way. Perhaps they agree to get up a half hour earlier the next morning. Perhaps they agree to add a few reps every evening for the rest of the week. Perhaps they find a different exercise that is easier for the son and less taxing on his body. The point is they are committed to no one losing at the other’s expense, and both gaining a desired outcome.

The Sum of Us

In Heather McGhee’s book, The Sum of Us, one of her major points is how racism and the desire for dominance can lead White government leaders to engage in lose/lose strategies to the detriment of all.

She writes of a segregated town that chose to close the public swimming pool rather than integrate it. As a result, homeowners who could afford it started building backyard pools, and the expense of owning a home went up all over the country.

Something similar happened in my home town. The one restaurant that was open downtown was segregated. During the civil rights movement, a group of influential Negro leaders went to talk to the owner of the department store in which the restaurant was located. They reminded him how much money they had collectively spent in that store and that they would take their business elsewhere if the restaurant was not integrated. The department store owners chose to close the restaurant.

Think about that for a moment. Rather than integrate the restaurant, they closed the one store downtown where you could sit and relax while shopping. When I was growing up we called that biting off your nose to spite your face.

The department store owners started with a win/lose mindset by setting up the restaurant for Whites only. Rather than shift into a win/win by integrating it, they feared their loss of dominance so much they enacted a lose/lose strategy. The restaurant was closed to all.

In The Sum of Us, McGhee explores how the zero-sum game – the win/lose belief that progress for some must come at the expense of others – has detrimental effects on society as a whole. She challenges the misconception that gains for people of color are losses for Whites, emphasizing that racial inequality is detrimental to the entire economy and leads to a loss of productive wealth and harm to communities

In essence, The Sum of Us advocates for rejecting the zero-sum game narrative and promoting collective action across racial lines to achieve shared prosperity and address systemic issues related to racism and inequality

To bring this about, McGhee introduces the idea of the "solidarity dividend," emphasizing that when people come together, they can accrue benefits such as clean air, water, better-funded schools, and higher-paying jobs

Five surprising facts about change

We can’t build solidarity dividend with those with whom we can’t talk, or who we put off by our insistence on our point of view. We can’t lead if no one is willing to follow. A first step, then, is to learn how to effect change, especially in those with whom we disagree.

A chance encounter on a cross-cultural group online led me to research and investigate how and why people change. I wrote it up an article.² These principles undergird what is now known as Leading Consciously.

Here they are:

1. People don’t resist change. They resist imposed change. The saying goes that people don’t want to change. That’s not correct. People want to grow and learn and change but not at the expense of their autonomy. People resist imposed change; if you want people to willingly change, you have to gain their buy-in.

2. People will comply on a short-term basis with imposed change. If you want lasting change, it has to come from internal commitment – intrinsic motivation – not because of extrinsic compliance.

3. If you’re trying to induce change and people think you have a hidden motive, they will ignore your rationale and instead attribute your motives to self-interest. This means that if you are a member of a group that could benefit from the change – if you are a “Negro leader” explaining to a White store owner why he should integrate his restaurant – your reasons will automatically be discounted as self-interest and not coming from a valid place.

During and after the #MeToo movement, we heard again and again, “believe her.” The reason this is so hard and counterintuitive to some is because the woman is a double minority: demographic minority (woman) and an attitudinal minority (holding an attitude at odds with mainstream views about how to handle sexual offenses). Those two things in combination raise skepticism among outsiders.

4. People are more motivated by the belief that they can achieve something than by being told how sorry they are. The father in the movie berated his son, urging him to try harder and telling him to live up to his commitment to excel in the sport.

Derogating people on social media is now a sport. How is it that we are steeped in a culture that lauds trying to motivate kids to study harder by telling them that they’re dumb, or by telling out of work colleagues that they’re lazy, or by telling overweight people that they’re fat? How is that one mistake can result in public shame and “canceling” that ends up wiping out decades of the person’s prior heroic work?  Why, as progressives, do we derogate or cancel people rather than help them use their mistakes as learning opportunities?

5. People often jump to the conclusion that there is a personality difference inhibiting work success, when the issue could be either a systemic or cultural difference. Here’s an example:

My client (above) wanted me to understand that she had done all she could with the problem employee.

Client: Jean, I don’t have time for what you are implying. I have plenty of employees who are doing great; my best employee is a mini-me. I don’t have to explain anything to her, she just knows what needs to be done and gets it done. Me: So the mini-me already thinks like you think and therefore there is no need to explain things to her? Client: [Pause.] Then, are you implying I can only lead people like me? Me: Actually, I’m trying to understand what you’re saying. If you’re saying the person who is demographically different from you is not adhering to what you’re looking for, while the mini-me does, then my question is whether there is some kind of culture difference worth considering.

What my client had deemed as an interpersonal difference is now appearing to both of us as actually reflecting a cultural difference.  

Paving the way for Leading Consciously

In each of these change principles, there’s so much going on whenever anyone tries to influence another that there is always another variable to be looked at. 

A son is not exercising as diligently as the father thinks he should.

• Is the son intrinsically motivated, or has his intrinsic motivation been squashed by the father’s attempts to impose change?
• If the son told the father the real problem, would the father listen or just think the son was making excuses?
• How are the father’s words landing on the son – and on others in the family? Are the father’s good intentions being heard as he means them, or is the family hearing a win/lose play for dominance?
• Does the son really believe the father believes in him? Would the father still believe in his son if he knew the information the son was concealing?
• The father is blaming the son’s diminished performance on motivation. Was something else more systemic in nature going on? How might the father find out?

That’s on the father. Now for the son, here are my questions:

• What’s keeping you from telling your father the truth about your situation?
• What kind of support do you need from him?
• Is it a zero-sum game for you – either your truth or your father’s illusion of truth? If so, can you conceive that it may be possible for both of you to get what you want for your relationship and for your future?

The father thinks the son doesn’t care enough. The son thinks the father cares more about a scholarship and the sport than about him. Both are ascribing personality characteristics to the other without testing their assumptions.

How Leading Consciously can help you learn to bring about the change you want to see

All those personality assumptions are handy as explanations; they are reinforced by what we watch on social media and TV. We hear politicians and business leaders attribute motives to people as the sole reason for why their efforts to induce change don’t work. 

Based on my experiences and research, I know that people are predisposed to react in a protective way when they don’t know what else to do, when they are fearful because of a real threat or a zero-sum mindset.

Knowing this, I was highly motivated to identify the skills that people could use when they are stuck in doing the same thing over and over again for the same dismal results. What are the skills that can actually foster positive relationships, promote influence, and initiate change? How does a person learn to change themselves so that they induce the change in others that they are desperately seeking to implement?

More specifically to this series of blog posts, how can we facilitate the change we want to see in our lives, our workplaces, our communities, and our world? 

Rather than succumbing to despair as the backlash works its way through society, how do we serve as a countervailing force, skilled and ready to promote the changes we want to see in our sphere of influence?

My coauthor and I, first independently and then together, wrote our first book during a period of retrenchment. We wrote it knowing people were facing uphill battles in trying to bridge differences and promote change in a polarized society. Our first book sought to address this dilemma through developing what are now the 6 principles and 36 skill sets. That book is still in print.³

I will start talking about it in March to mark the upcoming release of our new book, Conscious Change, How to Navigate Differences and Foster Inclusion in Everyday Relationships.

Recall how I was shouting at the television, watching the father mess up his relationship with his son? I was shouting skills from our books that he could have used.  “Don’t say that! Say this instead!”

But the father didn’t know – and since he was in TV Land and I was in my family room, he couldn’t hear me, or learn what to do.

I hope you are interested in doing so.  Stay tuned.

Questions to ask yourself Think of a recent disagreement at work or home. How was it framed in terms of win/loss? How would you do it differently now that you know better? What is your view of the vast gulf between the two extremes in the US now? Can you reframe it to make room for hope, learning, and change?

Conscious Change skills covered in this blog post

• Test negative assumptions
• Move from the answer into the question
• Look for multiple points of view
• Consciously test your negative assumptions
• Check to see if you are making cultural assumptions
• Bridge differences
• Address underlying systemic biases
• Learn to recognize dominant/nondominant dynamics
• Call others in rather than calling them out
• Conscious use of self
• Accept responsibility for your own contributions
• Initiate change
• Commit to personal change
• Surface undiscussables
• Learn from resistance
• Acknowledge small wins

#LeadingConsciously  #ConsciousChange  #ReframingChange  #TheChangeYouWantToSee