Watch out for overly-accommodating and patronizing management behavior
In the January issue of Workforce Management magazine (subscribe here), Sondra Thiederman writes “Guerrillas in Your Midst” (based on her book “Making Diversity Work”):
Gretchen, marketing director at a large U.S.-based pharmaceutical company, listened as the new Cambodian supervisor explained his design idea. She then nodded respectfully and said she’d think about it. But she returned to her desk with little understanding of what the man had said. “Saru’s accent was so heavy I just gave up,” Gretchen recalls. “I’m sure that his ideas were fine. I didn’t want to discourage him, so I gave him permission to go ahead with the project.”
(Note this language barrier issue. I will soon be discussing it in connection with “English-only” policies and multilingualism.)
Poor Gretchen. She thinks of herself as a “nice” person who would never harbor a bias against anyone. Trouble is, she and other well-intentioned managers are, in fact, carriers of a particularly dangerous strain of prejudice I call “guerrilla bias.”
The guerrilla bias is a dangerous prejudice for two reasons. First, . . . guerrilla bias is concealed behind good intentions, kind words and even thoughtful acts. Second, it is based on the perverse premise that all . . . those who are outside the so-called “majority” population are to some degree fragile, quick to explode or in need of special treatment.
The behavior is manifested in ways such as reluctance to coach a female employee for fear of hurting her feelings, or excessive accommodation for cultural differences such as varying standards of punctuality. There are many examples of the bias interfering with effectiveness in the workplace. Gretchen’s decision not to confront Saru about his communication skills is one. At issue is her inability or unwillingness to honestly discuss the problem or to provide effective coaching.
How often do managers fail to tell the truth to members of emerging groups for fear of hurting their feelings, getting slapped with a lawsuit or being labeled prejudiced? All of these feelings are based on the underlying premise of guerrilla bias: that members of emerging groups just don’t have what it takes to hear the truth. The result is an employee who is never taught how to excel at the job and, therefore, isn’t able to move up in the organization.
A woman once approached me after a diversity workshop. She was utterly confused about how to handle what seemed to be a straightforward management issue. Her confusion surprised me because she had appeared so bright and experienced during the workshop. The conversation went something like this:
“I just don’t know what to do. I have several Native American employees who are late to work every day. I know they all have reliable transportation, so there’s really no reason for them to be so lax. All I can figure out is that it must have to do with their culture, so I decided to give them some leeway and let them come in anytime up to half an hour after everybody else. Now my problem is that the other employees are complaining and want the same flexibility. In my industry, that just isn’t going to work. What do I do now?”
My response to this woman was simple. “Why? Why would you allow the Native Americans to come in late when everybody else isn’t granted the same privilege?” . . . After I had talked with her for a while, it became clear that cultural differences were not the problem, her bias was. She was another “nice” person guilty of guerrilla bias. . . . [H]er attitude harmed her ability to build harmonious teams. It demeaned the Native Americans by implying that they were not able to measure up to the same standard as other employees. It diminished productivity by throwing off the early-morning work schedule. And it created tension among team members and, she says, caused the non-Native Americans to look down on their colleagues.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again. Concern over “rights” and lawsuits and “diversity” and “respect for cultural differences” can perversely have an adverse effect on equal opportunity. Opponents of affirmative action say the same about it.
A related issue is that bending over backwards for minorities can bite back if there is ultimately a decision to crack down. Here’s the question you don’t want to have to answer in your deposition as a management witness: “So, Mr./Ms. Manager, if Employee X’s attendance/performance was so unacceptable, why’d the company accept it for over 5 years before you came in as the new supervisor and suddenly fired him/her for it?”
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