When Normal For You is a Trigger for Me - Working Successfully Across Multiple Generations in the Workplace and the Link to White Privilege ...
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WA Non-Profits www.cruxnw.com
When Normal For You
is a Trigger for Me…
Working Successfully Across Multiple Generations in the Workplace
and the Link to White Privilege
Barbara Grant, Crux Consulting Consortium
& Linda Nageotte, Food Lifeline
1
The job of the CEO
• “Normal” Twenty Years Ago – Get things done. Be effective and efficient. Focus on improving outputs.
• Leader’s Job: Tell People What to Do/Develop Visions of “What’s Possible”
• Young People’s Job: Fit in/Climb the Ladder
• “Normal” Ten Years Ago - Get things done. Be effective and efficient. Focus on improving outcomes.
• Leader’s Job: Still Leading from the Top Down/Including More Voices, Broader Visions
• Young People’s Job: Translate Reality/Question the Ladder/Disrupt Assumptions
• “Normal” Emerging Now– Evolve the mission. Build a purposeful culture. Champion Change.
• Leader’s Job: Learn. Ask People to Help Define the Problem & Solutions/Facilitate and Follow
• Young People’s Job: Challenge, Engage, Innovate, Teach, Partner
2
White Privilege and The Dominant Normal
• Fifty-Five Years Ago – being born in 1964 – the year that the Civil Rights Act passed
• Maternal Health Care – options for my white mother separate from Latinx or Black mothers
• Normal = white hospitals, neighborhoods, churches, schools, presidents, mayors, principals, coaches
• Twenty-Five Years Ago – working at Microsoft – hiring people as the company grew rapidly
• Hiring more than 100 people within 6 months – 99.9% of the resumes –white men
• Normal = white male applicants, HR systems set up to screen out “unqualified candidates” based on prior experience, no active recruiting for diverse candidates
• Fifteen Years Ago – Hurricane Katrina strikes ground in New Orleans
• TV images of black residents waiting for aid while President Bush’s plane flies overhead on the way back from vacation at his ranch. Unfounded rumors of
gangs and violence significantly delay rescue efforts. Black neighborhoods and businesses the last to receive aid and recovery resources
• Normal = almost exclusively 100% white federal leaders talking about “caution” and “patience” while black Americans suffer
• Five Years Ago – Laquan McDonald is shot 17 times while walking away from a police officer in Chicago
• Police officer on paid leave, eventual charges downgraded –a 6.75 year sentence. Three police officers who covered up evidence acquitted
• Normal = police officers are frightened by black teenagers, black drivers, black college students, and shoot them – while being much more skilled in disarming
and de-escalating white teenagers, white drivers, white mass murderers
•
White Privilege means that I have a choice whether or not to pay attention to any of this. That when my personal or professional
life became painful or difficult, I could choose to “turn off the news” and focus on my own challenges –
because these sort of “extra challenges” aren’t added on top of whatever else I’m going through in my own life.
Being within the “dominant normal” means that without any conscious effort or inherent superiority on my part –
advantages accrued to me automatically – a choice in neighborhoods, schools, health care, professional opportunities, civic protections
and having to worry about teaching my teenager how to stay alive while driving–
but not how to stay alive while stopped for a traffic violation. 3
May 2019 - Seattle
Privilege
• The Privilege of the dominant definition of Normal
• Dominant Normal – doesn’t always mean the majority by numbers, but instead what societal categorization
automatically accrues/receives the majority of positive societal visible and attitudinal benefits
• “White privilege” - the term commonly used to refer to societal privilege that benefits people whom society identifies as
white in some countries, beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people under the same social, political, or
economic circumstances
• Some ways it shows up:
• “Normal” Flesh-colored bandaids; a “normal aisle” for hair products with lots of choices;
• “First visual scan” as a “safe person” or someone who “probably belongs here” – when here is the CEO’s office, or Congress, in an
elite university dorm, driving a fancy sportscar; or trying to find your key outside of your door in an expensive condo community
• Never being expected automatically that you should head up the Diversity Committee
• Most of your early experiences of professional role models (doctor, mayor, teachers, fire-fighters, police officers) sharing your
physical and social racialized characteristics
• Almost non-existent chance that you would read about your own racial group used to characterize the likelihood of negative future
outcomes, or hear a debate about whether your human or civil rights are worth protecting or advancing
5
So Why Does Understanding Generations Matter?
• Expectations RE “Normal” that vary across Generations:
• Professional Development
• Compensation
• Workplace Norms
• Transparency
• Internal Communication Patterns
• Rate of Promotion
• Use of technology What is currently
the dominant
• Appropriate or Professional Behavior
“generational”
normal in our
workplace?…
In the Non-Profit Eco-system… 5 Generations
• Board Members
• Funders
• Interns
• Volunteers
• Partner Organizations
• Financial Managers, Auditors
• Political and Governmental Partners
• Vendors and Contractors
• Consultants
• IT Managers, Digital Technology Experts
• Project Managers
• Field & Project/Services Colleagues
7
How Old Are They?
MILLENNIALS:
>74 55-75ish 40-55ish 26 – 40ish
How Generational Influences Shape our Perspective About
What is “Right” or “Appropriate” in the workplace?
• Gender Roles and Gender norms
Age 0 – 18… shaping our world-view…
• Explicit teachings
• Legal codes
• Family or cultural values
• Historical context, understandings, societal “norms”
• Professionals we see, industries we understand
• Peer group behavior
• Past and Present experience of ourselves and our community members
• Modeling by respected community or political leaders
WHAT WAS “NORMAL” IN THE WORLD OF OUR EARLY EXPERIENCES
2013
Talking about my
generation: Exploring the
benefits engagement
challenge
Wealth.Barclays.com
10Perspective: Technology in the Workplace…
GENERATION DEVICE: Mobile Phone Technology…
BOOMERS Telephones - Comfortable with landlines, Late adopter of cell phones, uses basic
features, focuses on voice calls. Uses network of experts for productivity.
XERS Cell Phone (early adopters), maybe loved their Blackberry, has gone through flip to
smart phones - uses voice, email and basic apps. Usually prefers computer for
productivity.
MILLENNIALS Smart Phone - Uses in equal partnership with laptop, considers it a power tool,
productivity tool, gaming device, communication across multiple aps, might
occasionally check voicemail.
Z-STERS PHONE has no relationship to landlines. PHONE is a personal companion, a civil right -
tracking device, social connection platform, instant access to multiple levels of
information, time keeping, pacifier, calculator, oracle, music player, wallet,
transportation pass, never leaves their physical possession.
11When we are “triggered” – how do we get past our Past?
• Future-Oriented Triangle Conversations…
➢ Look at my environment and see it
from a few different perspectives without blame
➢ Be able to ask others for their input/perspective
and learn from it
➢ Be able to discuss awkward differences
without getting stuck in personalized defensiveness
12The Usual Reaction to “Awkward Stuff”
Make Up Stories about
Why It’s Happening Evaluate the others
• Patronizing
• Insensitive
• Incompetent
Take it • Entitled
personally
React
Lose focus
• Get mad
• Act Superior
• Retaliate
• Withdraw
Weaken or Destroy
PartnershipFuture-Oriented Thinking: Inclusivity and Innovation
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
• Four Levels and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
• My perspective/My “normal”
• Your perspective/Your “normal” When the soul lies down in that grass
• Is there a “Dominant Normal”? the world is too full to talk about.”
• What we learn/decide/discover beyond those points ― Jalal Ad-Din Rumi
• If we get through 3 levels of this conversation – beyond positions and values, beyond institutionalized bias
• We may find an Innovative way forward
• We may come to the situation where we agree that though there isn’t a 3rd way, we understand some things differently
• We may be able to resolve future things having built stronger affinity/connections
14Developing Culturally Competent Mindsets
• What is Normal for Me May not be a Universal Truth • If I Want to:
• Be a useful and innovative partner to the multi-
• What is Normal to Me Could be A Trigger for you
generational staff who work with me
• Develop capacity for positive and productive
communication in a multi-generational environment
• Attract/Invite employees into an inclusive workplace
• Lead our organization into the next 5 -10 years
• Then I need to:
• Learn how to create an environment that is “normed”
differently than “How We Have Always Done It”The job of leaders in our sector…
• It’s hard. So why do we stay in this work?
• Because it’s our job
• Because it’s our privilege
• Because it’s our society and our community – and for me – because it’s our neighbors who are experiencing hunger in a world
where hunger shouldn’t have to be a reality
• What do I take forward when thinking across differences – of generations, and of privilege?
• Good Intentions don’t matter – Impact Matters
• Addressing harmful impact – is my job. Whether it’s happening in the world or within the walls of the organization I lead.
• What Future – Oriented Conversations are in front of me?
• With our board – how do we step away from maintaining the systems that perpetuate hunger?
• With our staff – how can we listen and engage each other as partners, learning from all of our strengths and generational insights?
• With the communities we serve – how do we listen to the communities we serve, recognize them as the experts, and actually
follow their lead?
• What Future-Oriented conversations are in front of you?
Partners…
16Next Steps…
• Read books. Listen to podcasts. Talk to other people. Commit to learning.
• Exercise your future-oriented “muscles” in conversations across generations
and/or race.
• Have difficult, awkward conversations. Keep practicing. Get better at it.Thanks for the Good Work
Barbara Grant and Linda Nageotte
You Do in Our Shared World
www.cruxnw.com
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