The Muted Middle

There’s a strange thing that happens in a lot of organizations.

The people with the clearest view of what’s actually happening are often not the people with the most influence over what happens next.

Executives have a wide view. They’re thinking about strategy, direction, performance, budgets, growth, and what the organization needs to become.

Employees have a close view. They know where the process breaks, what customers are frustrated by, which expectations don’t make sense, and which parts of the work are harder than they probably need to be.

And then there are managers.

Managers live somewhere between those two realities.

They’re close enough to the work to know what people are experiencing, but far enough into the organization to understand at least some of the strategy behind it. They’re expected to translate direction downward, reality upward, keep people engaged, hit the numbers, solve problems, manage change, and somehow hold all of that together at the same time.

Which should make managers one of the most valuable sources of information in the organization.

And yet, remarkably often, they go quiet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why.

We tend to assume silence is an individual problem. Maybe the manager isn’t confident enough. Maybe they need more leadership training. Maybe they need to communicate more clearly or advocate more strongly.

Sometimes, sure.

But I think there’s a more interesting explanation.

What if the problem isn’t primarily the manager? What if it’s the position?

Managers are one of the only groups in an organization being asked to operate inside two different realities at once. Senior leaders tend to think in quarters and years, while employees experience work in days, deadlines, customers, tasks, and immediate problems.

Managers have to carry both.

They also have an unusual amount of relational responsibility without a corresponding amount of organizational power.

They’re responsible for the experience of their teams, but they didn’t necessarily design the systems shaping that experience. They’re accountable for outcomes, but often aren’t the ones setting the timelines, budgets, staffing levels, or strategic priorities behind them.

They hear frustrations from below that they may not have the authority to fix, while receiving decisions from above that they may not have had any meaningful role in making.

And over time, people adapt to the seat they’re sitting in.

Managers learn which questions are welcomed and which ones create friction. They learn how much pushback is seen as thoughtful and how much becomes resistance. They learn when their team needs them to advocate and when their leaders need them to align.

Sometimes the most rational response to all of that is simply to say less.

That’s what I’ve started calling The Muted Middle.

It's not that managers have nothing to say.

Managers have an enormous amount to say, but they have slowly learned there may not be much of a place for it to go.

That distinction matters because managers sit incredibly close to the places where culture actually becomes real. They see frustration before it becomes disengagement. They see the confusing process before it becomes a performance problem. They see the person struggling long before that person becomes a retention statistic.

The information usually isn’t missing.

It’s sitting somewhere in the middle.

And if we keep treating manager silence as a confidence problem, we may keep trying to develop the person while leaving untouched the conditions that taught them to be quiet in the first place.

So maybe the first question isn’t:

How do we get our managers to speak up more?

Maybe it’s:

What have we created that makes speaking up worth it?

I'll explore that in writing here over the next few weeks. I hope you'll join me.

Culture is the Condition

There's a phrase that shapes how we think about organizational culture at Space Creator: Culture is the condition.

What do we mean?

We mean that culture is not just a value statement.
It's not a set of perks.
Not the stuff on your wall or your company's LinkedIn presence.

Culture is the actual environment that work happens inside of.

And like any environment, it either supports life or makes it harder than it needs to be. That distinction sounds obvious, but many organizations still treat culture as something separate from operations, strategy, or performance. Something to address after the "real work" gets done. A layer on top.

But it isn't. Culture is the ground everything else is built on. It's where we start.

What "condition" actually means

When we say culture is the condition, we mean it in the most literal sense. Cultural conditions shape:

Whether people feel safe enough to be honest, or whether the unspoken rules of the room teach them to stay quiet.

Whether people are clear enough to stay aligned, or whether people spend enormous energy filling in gaps due to ambiguity.

Whether people feel supported enough to keep growing, or whether accountability becomes synonymous with blame.

Whether people feel connected enough to keep caring, or whether they disengage quietly, doing just enough to stay out of trouble.

These aren't peripheral concerns. These are the cultural conditions that determine how pressure gets handled, how managers carry out responsibility, how teams move through conflict, and whether organizations can sustain momentum through change.

They sort of mean everything.

The practical stakes

Culture becomes the condition for outcomes that organizations say they care deeply about: performance, wellbeing, engagement, and the ability to sustain meaningful change.

And we're not talking in the abstract. We're talking about practical, cultural patterns that either enable those outcomes or quietly undermine them, regardless of what a strategy document says.

The conditions being created right now are either building something or slowly eroding it.

The goal isn't to be dramatic, just honest. Organizations that treat culture as an afterthought aren't neutral. They're still creating conditions. They've just chosen not to be intentional about which ones.

If you want better outcomes, you have to pay closer attention to the environment those outcomes are coming from.

But how, you may ask.

Where the work begins

The question we hear most often isn't "Does our culture matter?" The question we hear is: "Where do we start?"

The honest answer is that it depends on where the conditions are breaking down. For some organizations, it starts with leadership. When the people at the top aren't equipped to model the conditions they want to create, everything downstream feels it.
➡️ Our Executive Coaching + Strategic Advising is designed for leaders who want to close that gap, building the trust and clarity their teams need to do better work.

For others, the starting point is getting a team into a real conversation. Not a meeting, not a survey, but an experience that creates the kind of reflection and connection that actually shifts something.
➡️ Our Workshops are built for exactly that: focused, high-impact sessions teams can walk away from feeling differently than when they walked in.

Sometimes, the need goes deeper than a single session.
➡️ Our Accelerant Culture Series provides a facilitated framework for organizations working to build lasting alignment, belonging, and collaboration. This is the work of developing a culture deliberately, over time, rather than hoping it sorts itself out with a quick fix.

And finally, some organizations are ready to work on the whole system. They're ready for organizational transformation.
➡️ Our Full Accelerant Partnership integrates culture development and leadership development into one cohesive pathway, connected and catalyzed by real-time data through the Experience Indicator assessment.

Whatever the entry point, the goal is the same: to help organizations become more intentional about the conditions they're building.

Not just what they want culture to look like, but what they're willing to consistently do to get there.

The Data Behind Culture Change

Culture change rarely fails because people don’t care. It fails because leaders are making high-stakes decisions with partial information. Financial data, operational metrics, and performance dashboards are reviewed with discipline and regularity, but the data that shapes how people experience the organization is often anecdotal, assumed, or inferred secondhand. When culture conversations rely solely on stories or intuition, they tend to drift toward opinion instead of clarity.

Data does not replace relationships or stories, but it does sharpen them. When culture data is well designed, it does something powerful: it reveals patterns that individual conversations can’t. It surfaces misalignment between intent and impact. It shows where systems are supporting people, and where they’re quietly working against them. In that sense, culture data isn’t about measurement for its own sake; it’s about creating a shared reality from which meaningful change can actually begin.

The fact is...

Most organizations already say the right things.

We value trust.
We believe in accountability.
We want people to feel supported, engaged, and empowered.

And yet... If you ask people what it actually feels like to work inside the organization, you often get a much more complicated answer.

That gap between what we say and what people experience is where culture lives.

And it’s exactly why we built the Experience Indicator.

Why We Created the Experience Indicator

We’ve facilitated culture conversations in boardrooms, break rooms, job sites, classrooms, and city halls. And across industries, one pattern shows up again and again:

Leaders are making decisions with intentions.
Employees are responding to experiences.

When culture work stalls, it’s rarely because leaders don’t care. It’s because they’re missing a shared, honest picture of what’s happening right now, not in theory, but in lived experience.

The Experience Indicator was designed to surface that picture.

Not to grade people.
Not to label teams.
And not to produce a glossy scorecard that simply looks good but changes nothing.

Instead, it creates shared language, shared clarity, and shared direction.

What the Experience Indicator Measures

At its core, the Experience Indicator asks a simple but powerful question: “What is it actually like to work here, day to day?”

The assessment explores how people experience the organization across four critical cultural dimensions:

Enrollment – Do people understand and buy into the purpose, direction, and expectations?
Education – Do they feel equipped, developed, and supported to do their work well?
Engagement – Are people invited into meaningful participation, ownership, and problem-solving?
Examination – Is there psychological safety, feedback, and space to learn from what’s working and what’s not?

Together, these dimensions help leaders see where energy and momentum is flowing, and where it’s leaking.

How Organizations Use the Experience Indicator

Organizations use the Experience Indicator in different ways, depending on their goals:

As a baseline before a culture initiative or strategic shift
As a conversation catalyst during leadership retreats or team workshops
As a diagnostic tool following growth, restructuring, or change
As a check-in to measure progress and recalibrate direction

What matters most isn’t when you use it, although that's a stratrgic decision as well.

What really matters most is what you’re willing to do with what it reveals.

Culture Isn’t What You Intend. It’s What You Create Space For.

The Experience Indicator doesn’t give you the answer.

It gives you visibility.

Visibility into how systems, leadership behaviors, communication patterns, and assumptions are shaping daily experience, often in ways no one meant, but everyone feels.

And from that visibility comes choice.

Choice to clarify.
Choice to adjust.
Choice to create more space for trust, ownership, and growth.

If you’re curious what your people are experiencing, we’d love to explore what the Experience Indicator could surface for your organization.

Assume Positive Intent: Tool or Trap?

The Seduction of a Simple Phrase

In professional settings, few phrases circulate as widely, or with as much hope, as “assume positive intent.” It shows up in leadership books, management seminars, and coaching conversations. It shows up when managers have to engage in hard conversations, and in moments where team members are seeking repair or resolution.

The idea is deceptively simple: if you interpret someone’s words or actions as clumsy rather than malicious, you open up space for dialogue instead of defensiveness.

That’s beautiful. Hard to do, for sure, but simple in theory.

And in many cases, it works. Conversations are less likely to spiral into accusation. Leaders can anchor themselves in curiosity. Colleagues can find common ground even when emotions flare.

But like so many phrases that gain traction in organizational culture, “assume positive intent” can also become a blunt instrument. What’s meant as a tool for reframing can, in some contexts, morph into a trap, especially for people with less power, fewer options, or marginalized identities.

The Promise: Why Assuming Positive Intent Matters

Why does this phrase resonate so strongly in leadership circles?

It reframes conflict.
When we assume someone’s intent is good, we give them the benefit of the doubt. A comment that could be taken as dismissive may instead be understood as rushed, or poorly worded. A response that felt snarky or hurtful might be reinterpreted as distracted or lacking broader perspective. The difference between those interpretations can determine whether connection is cultivated or eroded.

It protects relational trust.
Most people do not wake up in the morning scheming to derail their colleagues. They are trying, often imperfectly, to get through the day, to do their work, to be heard. Assuming positive intent reminds us that, even when values don’t look aligned in real time, beneath the surface, many of us are motivated by shared desires for belonging, contribution, and progress.

It encourages curiosity over judgment.
By setting aside the instinct to defend or retaliate, we leave space to ask clarifying questions: “What did you mean by that?” or “Can you tell me more?” This is where real understanding takes root, and where real connection can flourish.

For leaders, this mindset can be a lifeline. It helps them resist the pull of cynicism and keeps communication open in high-stakes moments. For team members, it’s a reset button that often needed in the rush of workflow and the crush of deadlines, moving targets, and complicated relationships.

The Peril: When Assuming Positive Intent Causes Harm

The danger emerges when “assume positive intent” is treated as a universal directive instead of a situational tool.

For people with less organizational power, or those carrying the weight of risk (for a variety of reasons), the phrase can land very differently. It may feel less like an invitation and more like an obligation.

Endure microaggressions.
A woman in a male-dominated meeting is told, “You’re so articulate.” She’s encouraged to “assume positive intent” rather than name the condescension embedded in the comment.

Reinterpret exclusion.
A colleague is consistently left off key emails. They’re advised to assume it’s an oversight, not exclusion, even as the pattern persists.

Normalize gaslighting.
A leader denies something harmful they said the day before. To “assume positive intent” is to dismiss your own lived experience in favor of their narrative.

Own someone else’s bigotry.
A team member is referred to as a “DEI hire.” They’re told to see it as a political comment about statistics rather than a personal attack.

Here, the phrase risks becoming complicit with harm. Instead of fostering dialogue, it shifts responsibility onto those already bearing the greatest burden. It asks the person experiencing harm to be generous while asking little of the person causing harm.

That’s when “assume positive intent” crosses the line, from a helpful tool to harmful trap.

Why Both Realities Exist

The tension exists because intent and impact are not the same.

Intent speaks to motivation. Did someone mean to be harmful, or were they careless, uninformed, or stressed?

Impact speaks to effect. Did their words or actions cause harm, regardless of what they meant?

Assume positive intent prioritizes the first. But when we prioritize intent without equally addressing impact, we end up excusing behavior rather than holding it accountable.

That’s why this phrase feels liberating for some and dangerous for others. It protects relationships in some contexts but erodes them in others.

A Healthier Middle Ground

The solution is not to abandon the phrase altogether, but to hold it with nuance.

Treat it as a choice, not a command. No one should be forced to assume positive intent. For some, the healthiest response is to name harm directly, without being pressured into generosity.

Consider power dynamics.
Leaders and those with privilege are in the best position to assume positive intent because they are least at risk. The greater your authority, the more you can afford to extend this posture without compromising your dignity or safety.

Balance intent with accountability.
We can acknowledge that someone did not mean harm while also making clear that harm was done. The conversation then becomes: “I trust you didn’t mean to, but here’s the impact your words had. Let’s work on repairing it.”

Pair grace with guardrails.
Extend curiosity, but never at the expense of clarity. Ask questions, but also set boundaries. Generosity should not mean silence.

For leaders, the takeaway is clear: assume positive intent is not a universal cure-all. It is a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Used wisely, it can reduce unnecessary conflict. Used carelessly, it can perpetuate injustice.

Leaders must ask themselves: Who benefits from me using this phrase right now? Who bears the cost? Am I prioritizing my own comfort over someone else’s lived reality?

If the answers lean toward self-protection, it’s time to reach for a different tool.

The real work of leadership is not in discarding the phrase, nor in wielding it indiscriminately, but in discerning the difference.

Generosity matters. Accountability matters. Both can, and must, coexist if we want to create cultures where everyone gets to get better, together.

Better Communication, Better Conflict

There is a lot going on in our world as we gather to work together.

For many, it’s never felt as complicated as it does in this moment right now.

A near-nuclear partisan landscape... the politicalization of inclusion and diversity... workplaces ripe with mistrust... return-to-work protests and the unending challenge of a hybrid workforce… dismal employee engagement scores, with wellness not far behind… and the unceasing tension of stepping on a conversational landmine...

First things first: there are no easy answers.

It's way more complicated than that. We can't pretend nothing is going on, but we also can't turn every moment into a battleground.

What do we do? What can we do?

We have to create space with our teams and team members where we express, explore, and engage with one another in ways that spark connection rather than corrosion.

Engaging in conflict without personal attack.
Setting boundaries and protecting one another's dignity.
Envisioning and curating a team that understands the strength of similarity and difference, of conflict and collaboration, of personal beliefs and expansive worldviews.

There is a really powerful research study out of MIT's Sloan School of Management, referencing nearly 1.5 million employee reviews.

You know what it says?

Toxic culture kills.

Toxic culture is 10 times more impactful than compensation to an employee considering leaving a company, much less choosing how much to engage with their work and team. That should terrify us, given our current workplace climate.

This is the work of real culture shift. It's the work of unlearning and relearning, the work of asking and listening, and the work of new frameworks, mindsets, and behaviors.

That's our work.

And, that’s why we’re offering a 2-part series this year to address some fundamental skills of better culture building: Better Communication and Better Conflict.

Interested?

We’re offering this 2-part series across 2025, on a first come first served basis.

This Spring and Summer we’ll be offering Better Communication, an engaging workshop designed to support team members in communicating more reflectively with themselves, more collaboratively with their teams, and more strategically across their organizations.

Through the Fall and Winter we’ll be offering Better Conflict, building on our first workshop together, and designed to support team members in engaging in conflict more productively and less personally by understanding the levels of conflict and what they seek to solve for us.

Connect with us to schedule your series today.

CONNECT

Risking the Asterisk

Let's face it: learning is hard. It asks us to push against what we think we already understand. It invites us into a world called "I didn't know that yet."

That’s a hard place to be.

And, sometimes the learning isn't even a straight line. Sometimes we run into an asterisk.

An asterisk asks us to check the margins, to skim to the bottom of the page, to look for an additional note somewhere.

It’s an extra.

Not a bonus, exactly, but a here’s-something-else-you-should-know.

It’s hard to pay attention to the asterisks, sometimes. We risk losing our place. Our momentum. We’ve already built inertia, and looking away from what we’ve always done toward something else feels unnecessary. It feels like too much.

But what does following the asterisk give us? What reward follows the risk?

An asterisk unfolds new lenses, new perspectives, new context. It frames, or reframes, what we’re doing. It makes sense of the inertia we’ve already developed, and it often describes a different destination that demands we adjust our trajectory.

The asterisk doesn’t let us blithely or blindly commit to momentum simply because we’ve got it. It doesn’t let us float at the buoyancy line of we’ve-always-done-it-this-way, or rest on the laurels of our status quo.

What do we risk when we risk the asterisk?

Everything.

Everything we’ve ever done, and all the reasons we’ve ever done it.

Not to reject what’s come before, necessarily, but to redefine what could come next.

It’s a risk, yes. But one that’s worth it.

Let’s risk the asterisk.

The Siren Call of Civility

The word civility is getting a lot of airtime right now.

And, in a season of anonymous online trolls and in-your-face politics, it’s a pretty seductive idea.

Can’t we all just get along?

Frankly, I’d be on board with that. Who wouldn’t? It sounds lovely.

But all the way from across-the-world global conflicts to across-the-street warring neighbors, we just don’t seem to be able to do it.

Why not?

The root of the problem might lie with the evolution of the word civility itself.

Civility comes from the Latin civilis, meaning “relating to public life” or “befitting of a citizen.” That sounds pretty good; it covers a lot of ground.

However, over a couple hundred years, the word migrated from a meaning related to citizenship to a meaning more anecdotally rooted in the “minimum standards of courtesy.” It became less associated with the challenging decisions of society-building and more associated with the ways society-builders (people with power) behaved in the room together.

In other words, civility came to be a word used as a compliment when people behaved nicely or politely.

“Civilized” conversations were conversations that eschewed difficult themes or potentially challenging topics.

It moved toward easy.

You see, “civil” as a way to practice citizenship within a community might very well mean talking about the tough stuff. But “civil” as a way to practice niceties means you avoid those things on purpose.

By prioritizing our modern definition of civility, we’ve taught ourselves to avoid conflict rather than engage in it productively. We’ve said “Don’t talk about religion or politics at the dinner table,” and robbed ourselves of the practice of listening to one another and holding ideas in tension.

Holding ideas in tension while holding the people who hold those ideas in trust or safety is hard. It’s complicated. It can feel uncomfortable or stretching. That’s a part of conflict.

Conflict is a learned skill, and civility has told us not to practice it.

So what do we do? We might try to reclaim the word. Use it as it was originally intended. But, language changes. And if the word civility is now a stand-in for polite, it might not benefit us as much as we pretend it does:

Using the word civility asks us to “play nice” when perhaps we should engage well.
Using the word civility tells others to watch their tone or their perspectives.
Using the word civility cues us to value avoidance rather than progress.

It’s the antithesis of what we say we want, but it is the easiest way out. We feel good and, perhaps, sound good saying it.

It just doesn’t deliver what we actually want.

Instead, let’s learn the skill of conflict engagement, not avoidance.

It makes us, and everyone else, better.

The Day After The Day After

An election is a watershed event. A continental divide that separates us not so much by geography, but by our version of what America has been and our vision of what we want it to become.

It’s a long and tiresome season, ending in a day of anxiety and an evening watching the states change color, telling us we’ve been right all along, or let down again, or lied to, or cast aside.

Many of us are trying to figure out how we integrate this new information into our lives. November 6th is an overwhelming day, perhaps no matter where your political loyalties lie. It’s almost a phantom, a thing that exists but just barely. The long and loud campaigns have ended, but our ears still ring with the media clips and stump speeches. The voting’s over, and the results are in, but we’ve not yet held them in our heads or hearts long enough to make sense of them.

And then it’s November 7th. The day after the day after.

Whether you’re excited by the election result, dismayed by it, or devastated, November 7th is an interesting day. The world has continued to spin. The sun has risen again, the coffee shops have opened, and businesses have unlocked their doors. We’ve logged in and started the meeting we always have on Thursdays. We’ve prepared our curriculum and have stood at our classroom doors waiting for our students to fill the room. We’ve loaded the rakes and leaf blowers into our trucks and have headed out toward our first customer of the day. We’ve dropped our cars off at the oil change place, or pumped gas. We’ve made a grocery run, or at least started making the shopping list for the weekend.

It’s not just business as usual on November 7th, but life does go on. We keep moving. We must.

For those who are excited by the win, consider its cost. Consider what it’s meant to win. What was necessary to do so. Consider the fallout for those impacted. For many, it’s not an “oh shucks” moment; it’s the beginning of a long season of questions, uncertainty, or fear. For some, the win was predicated on their dehumanization. Consider those in your community that become political talking points, who lost their individuality as they became a statistic or a straw man. How might you meet them in that space, showing compassion rather than crowing about a win for your team, seeking connection rather than confirmation of your party’s dominance?

For those who are crushed by the loss, I have less pointed advice. I know my position in society - in terms of my race, age, education, sexuality, gender expression, socioeconomic class, and other facets of my identity - allows me the privilege of minimal impact. I’m able to float above the fray in a way I know many others cannot. I’m not apologizing for it, but I am aware of it.

I hope you are able to find connection with people who create space for you, who speak to your individual value and significance, and who are able to hold your grief, or anger, or confusion without judgment or need to fix. I hope your community and friends are a visible and present support to you. I hope to be that to mine.

There may be some meaning in movement, in not getting stuck. Though it can feel strange, it’s reassuring the world has moved forward on November 7th. We get another day, and likely another, and another, and another, to make sense of the world that is, and pursue the world that we want it to be.

And, I’m sure there’s meaning in stillness, in purposefully not moving forward. Stillness doesn’t have to be stuck. Though I seek to understand, I know I cannot fully appreciate the weight that many are feeling right now. I would never want to push someone to move on from a place that deserves to be stayed at, rested on, considered, grieved.

We, all of us, get to choose how we show up in the world today.

Comfort over celebration.

Compassion over gloating.

Connection over isolation.

Community over division.

LeaderShift 2023

(SCROLL DOWN FOR PICTURES)

LeaderShift is a gathering for folks who are inclusionists - people who are working to make the spaces they influence more equitable and just for all. Some have titles. Some don't. Some have been in the work for decades. Others are preparing to begin.

But all those who have a passion for DEI have a place at LeaderShift.

We gathered over 100 of these folks in Dayton, OH on May 18th, 2023 for a day of content and connection.

And it was an amazing day! It was reflective and fun. Relational and connective. We sank into deep conversation, and we danced. It was an absolute joy!

Dr. Bleuzette Marshall schooled us on moving DEI work from project-oriented moments to consistent embedment within the systems of the organization.

Jamille Jones practiced what she preaches as she took us on a journey of play, joy, and rest as protest. We laughed, danced, and experienced a new way to hold hard moments.

Laura Hutchinson explained a deeper side of allyship, and the unintentional identity binaries it creates, as she guided us toward allyship as a verb.

amaha sellassie wove a meaningful exploration of co-conspiratorial community-building as he and I talked about what community means, doesn't, and how it gets sustained.

Dr. Pascal Losambe absolutely brought the house down as he passionately encouraged us to move from resilience to anti-fragility, to lean into discomfort, and to take strength from uncertainty.

Michael Carter took us on a guided tour of "Our American Journey," a custom-curated museum exhibit exploring the Black experience in America, currently being hosted by Sinclair Community College.

We'll be back in Dayton on May 16th, 2024, and in Columbus as well. Watch for that date coming soon!

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A few "thank you's" who made LeaderShift 2023 a success.

To all that attended - thank you. 💚 I call these events "gather-to-grow" events because if you all don't show up in power, grace, wisdom, and joy, it doesn't matter what I've got planned. You all showed up, and helped us all grow up. Thank you for trusting me with this day.

Sinclair Community College, Michael Carter, and Michele Marcum - thank you for hosting us. Your generosity and graciousness made the details of the day easy to manage, and your gift of the space made the day possible in the first place. Thank you for being excited about this vision with me.

Bleuzette Marshall, Jamille Jones, Laura Hutchinson, amaha sellassie, and Pascal Losambe, Ph.D. - thank you for your time and the treasure of your thinking. You collectively distilled decades and decades of expertise into a singular experience for us. We are beyond grateful.

To the people, companies and organizations that bought tickets, created space for time off, and handled responsibilities in the absence of our attendees, thank you.

Julian Myles Photography - thank you for capturing the day. You were a joy to work with!

To download these pictures simply right-click on them and "Save Image As".

GUTS & GRACE: unpacking and understanding unconscious bias

The “unconscious bias” train is still rolling, potentially even continuing to pick up momentum. Overall, I think this is great. It’s a push for us to understand more about the way our brains work, and how that influences how we see, understand, and, ultimately, evaluate people. Again, this is important dialogue.

And, we’re seeing these conversations playing out across a wide gamut of experience, from law enforcement procedures to nonprofit policies to CEO summits. People everywhere are talking.

But, not all talking is created equal.

Talking at someone isn’t quite the same as talking with someone, is it? And, when we’re dealing with ideas like bias, which can lead us right into conversations around prejudice and discrimination, most of us come in with our defenses up.

We’re half waiting to be shown how we’re wrong so we can adjust, and half waiting to defend ourselves when we are.

And, in the midst of this kind of posturing, there’s always one thing that’s never actually getting dealt with: our bias.

So, how do we step into conversational or relational spaces ready to talk with someone, rather than at them? How do we disarm the defense mechanisms that spring so quickly into readiness.

Two words come to mind: guts, and grace.

First, we must accept the fact that, simply by virtue of being alive, we are biased creatures. Our brains are attempting to process an absurd amount of data, every moment of every day, and to the extent it can group that data into some kind of category, to simplify processing, it will.

That’s all bias is, really. An over-eager attempt by our brains to reduce something (or someone) down to the sum of just a few of their parts. Highly complex, nuanced, layered people become one data point - black, or female, or disabled, or white, or educated, or republican, or whatever bit of salience our brain decides to target.

So, in order to productively confront some of those categorizations that are happening, which are likely happening before we realize they are, we must have the guts to acknowledge that they are, in fact, happening. That we’re biased. That given some set of cultural, historical, social, educative, and economic factors, are brains are reducing the people around us down from complicated, unique data sets to single-issue identities.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow.

We’d like to believe that we are above that, better than that. We hate to think of ourselves as judgers and evaluators. We scoff at the idea that we, you, me, are prejudicial and discriminatory.

It takes real courage, real guts, to process that reality, and to accept it as true. And, unless we’re able to fully disabuse ourselves of the notion that we’ve somehow risen above this brain pattern and socialized norming, we’ll never actually be able to do much about it.

That’s the guts part.

You’re biased. Welcome to the human race.

And, this is where grace steps in. Grace is a confrontation of reality, not a sidestepping of it. Grace doesn’t allow us to pretend the bias isn’t happening; it asks us to “forgive” our brains for doing it.

Not forgive and forget, though. Forgive and get better.

There are two instances in which I see grace as a support to those who actually wish to become more aware of, and proactively address, their biases.

First, we give ourselves grace for messing up. We’re going to continue to use biased thought patterns. Even if we don’t want to. At some point, we’re going to do it. The best remedy for this, that I’ve found, is to acknowledge when it happens, give ourselves grace, ask for grace from the offended party, and seek to make it right.

It’s not helpful to us, or to others, to browbeat ourselves in private, or try to explain it away. It happened. Fix it. Move forward.

Most people who are actually interested in being a part of productive conversation or relationship with you are more than ready for you to admit bias openly when it happens, and equally ready to move the conversation or relationship forward.

The second way I think grace plays in to this is in offering grace to other people, particularly to those who have been on the receiving end of lots of bias. It’s an exhausting existence to manage and carry other people’s bias about you, and for those that have to do this a lot, they are just that: exhausted.

And, sometimes that exhaustion and frustration comes out. Rightly, wrongly. Directly, passively. Loudly, quietly. Whatever. But it comes out.

And, because many of our biases are cultural and historic, some people have been facing the same bias, and its implications, for generations and generations. That’s a lot of weight to carry.

Those who are honestly interested in mitigating their own biases simply do not jump down the throats of those who experience large amounts of it. Even when the desire to “defend” oneself rears up, those who have had the guts to fully own their biased brains respond with grace.

People are allowed to get mad about bias. People are allowed to be frustrated by prejudice. People are allowed to fight back about discrimination.

Giving people the grace to do that, and the space in which they can be heard and listened to, can make all the difference in the world, to both parties.

Those experiencing the bias can be honest and forthright with their feelings about it, and those who expressed bias in some kind of way can embed into their experiences the hurt that bias can really cause. That’s a helpful emotional and mental pause button for next time.

We won’t “fix” bias. It exists, and seems to be hardwired into our brains, at least to some degree.

We can, though, mitigate its cascading effects by having the guts to acknowledge that we’re actually doing it, and by being grace-givers to all involved, offenders and recipients.

Guts and grace. It’s not complicated, but it does take a certain amount of courage.

And, we’re all worth it.