Don't minimize or invalidate
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The HR rep took off her glasses and sighed.
“I’m sure Ryan has good intentions,” she said to Janet. “So just try to be the bigger person. And if he comes off a bit rude sometimes, well, think of him as a diamond in the rough.”
Janet kept the mask of politeness on her face, but clenched her fists in anger down below the desk where they couldn’t be seen. “So that’s it? Ok.” she said. And left the office, feeling angry, dispirited, frustrated. And ready to start looking for a new job the instant she got home.
Ryan had told Janet, “You know, you’re pretty for a Black girl.”
He had made jokes about the “Kung Flu.”
He had called some nearby non-white neighborhoods “ghetto.”
And he had joked about Mexican workers needing siestas. And needing to stay in shape so they could outrun border patrol or get away from an ICE raid.
In the summer of 2020, Janet’s company had announced that it had a “zero tolerance policy for racist comments and behavior.” So she had put together a list of problematic things Ryan was going around saying and brought them to HR. And this was the response.
“Ryan has good intentions…”
“Be the bigger person…”
“Think of him as a diamond in the rough...”
Janet recognized the subtext of these comments. And she could translate them:
“We don’t care about Ryan’s negative impact…”
“It’s not his responsibility to change or do better. It’s your job to quietly accept the abuse and harm he is dishing out – and stop complaining.”
“Bad behavior doesn’t matter – at least not when the person behaving badly is someone in a power position.”
Last week, I ran a new workshop called Listen Like a Leader. I developed it as part of an inclusive leadership series for a long-standing client. (The series is: 1) Identity and Inclusive Leadership, 2) Listen Like a Leader, and 3) Speak Like a Leader.)
I unpacked the four biggest challenges leaders face when listening – especially leaders who are trying to incorporate an anti-bias lens into their leadership.
And Challenge 3 was the urge to dismiss other people’s experiences when they are different from our own.
When it’s not happening to you – and when it has never happened to you – it’s easy to not feel that it’s real. That it’s valid. That it’s possible.
What’s more, there is a strong urge to protect and defend people in power positions. Could be organizational power. Could be social power that comes from belonging to dominant groups.
So, like that HR rep talking to Janet, we often end up saying things that minimize or invalidate the experience of the person reporting the problem to us. Here are some examples from my database:
“I’m sure they have good intentions.”
“That’s just how they are.”
“He’s just really friendly.”
“She may sound harsh, but she just has high standards.”
“We don’t tolerate gender bias here. I’m sure he’s taking all factors into consideration.”
“Don’t take it personally. She didn’t mean it that way.”
“He’s actually a good guy.”
“It’s not a big deal. I think you’re being too sensitive here.”
These were comments made in response to reports of groping, biased work allocations, toxic bullying, racist comments, and pervasive sexual harassment.
In therapeutic psychology, these kinds of statements are called invalidation and disconfirmation. In popular culture, they are called gaslighting.
Comments like these show up a lot as part of problematic parenting. Children whose experiences, problems, and emotions are consistently invalidated by their caretakers often end up with psychological damage – and engaging in self harm.
And employees whose experiences, problems, and complaints are consistently invalidated by leadership also end up damaged. In my data collection on bias and employee experience, I’ve found a direct correlation between invalidation and low employee morale, low psychological safety, low levels of trust and high turnover.
Again, after George Floyd’s murder, the CEO of Janet’s company publicly announced their “zero tolerance policy for racist comments and behavior.”
But, in fact, the company has a quite high tolerance for racist comments and behavior. And through minimizing and invalidating comments, they show their employees who are targets of bias that their experience doesn’t matter. That the harm done to them doesn’t matter.
That they don’t matter.
So be on the lookout for invalidating and minimizing comments. Because they protect people who are behaving badly. And they tell people being treated badly, “Sorry, we just don’t care.”
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