Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. If you must interrupt, start with a compliment
One of the more straightforward ways to take action as an ally is to look out for interruptions in meetings and stop them in their tracks. For example, “Hold on a sec. I’d like to hear Emma finish what she was saying.”
Yet, there may be situations when you need to interrupt someone. Perhaps it’s because you have new data for the project being discussed. Or you might have highly relevant insights about the client you’re pitching to. What’s an ally to do?
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, I read about an inclusive way to interrupt. …
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
Because I am on vacation this week, I invited my friends David Smith and Brad Johnson to be guest authors. I’m delighted to share their wisdom with all of you! In this edition, you’ll read about five strategies for showing up as a male ally in everyday interactions with women at work, based on their recent book, Good Guys. You’ll find that their message is akin to the Better Allies approach, albeit with a laser focus on equality for women.
While they write to encourage more men to be “good guys,” I think their advice works for people of all…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
Because June is Pride Month, a month to celebrate LGBTQ members of our communities, I decided to create a “best of” edition for today’s newsletter. Here are five ways you can take action as an ally for your LGBTQ coworkers, from some of our past newsletters.
1. Say “We don’t do that here” to promote an LGBTQ-friendly culture
A few years back, Aja Hammerly, a developer advocate at Google, wrote a blog post with the following story:
“The college I attended was small and very LGBT friendly. One day someone came to visit and used the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s. A current student looked…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Be an Upstander with these responses
In Better Allies, I described seven different roles that allies can play to support colleagues from underrepresented groups. (If you don’t have my book, you can read about them in this excerpt in The Muse, 7 Examples of What Being an Ally at Work Really Looks Like.)
One of these roles is the Upstander. For example, a white woman who told me she spoke up when asked to name her “spirit animal” as part of a team-building exercise. She wasn’t comfortable taking part in an exercise that appropriated Native American spiritual traditions.
When an ally takes on the role of…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Be curious, not furious
This week, I had the opportunity to attend the Professional BusinessWomen of California conference and hear Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Center, interviewed. One of the topics she addressed was how people can take action to address bias in the workplace. As you might imagine, I was paying close attention.
Dr. King emphasized the importance of getting out of our silos and connecting with coworkers in a real way. She encouraged us to be curious and understand their world. Learn where they are. Give them space and place to have genuine and honest conversations.
As an example, she…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Listen to voices across an organization
Last week, enterprise software maker Basecamp announced several changes, including banning societal and political discussions. As CEO Jason Fried wrote, “These are difficult enough waters to navigate in life, but significantly more so at work. It’s become too much. It’s a major distraction.”
When I first read the announcement, I thought to myself, “What event caused the CEO to take this stand?” I found the answer in What really happened at Basecamp. Employees had discussed an internal list of “funny-sounding” customer names, how the list was inappropriate and often racist, and how the company should hold itself accountable.
In other…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Combat the “halo-horns” effect
In How One Company Worked to Root Out Bias from Performance Reviews, I learned a new term: “halo-horns.”
“The ‘halo-horns’ effect [is] where white men are artificially advantaged … because they get halos (where one strength is generalized into an overall high rating) whereas other groups get horns (where one mistake is generalized into an overall low rating).”
To combat this effect, the study’s authors recommend that performance review forms require at least three pieces of evidence to back ratings. This change, coupled with training on how the bias showed up in previous reviews, made a difference. …
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. See the light, yet share their fear
On Tuesday, a jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd. As President Biden tweeted, the verdict “can be a giant step forward on the march towards justice in America.” While I’m hopeful that there is light ahead of us, we still have much to do. And as a white woman, here’s just one thing I’m focused on: Doing the work to understand the fear faced by Black people and others who are marginalized in America as they navigate their daily lives.
In a recent Fortune RaceAhead newsletter, Ellen McGirt provided some insight into one of…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Understand your privilege
I’ve written about the “p-word” in previous newsletters, and it’s time to do so again because it’s one of the first steps in the ally journey.
At its core, privilege is a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group. Due to our race, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographical location, ability, religion, and more, all of us have greater or lesser access to resources and social power.
Here’s the thing: Privilege is often invisible to those who have it. This means that people can get defensive when someone mentions their privilege. Having one’s…
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Don’t dismiss racism against AAPI employees
Last Friday, I attended “Tech for AAPI Rally,” a virtual event to understand violence and racism against tech employees of Asian and Pacific Island descent. During a panel discussion of how allies can lead change, Bloomberg tech journalist Tom Giles shared the following:
“There is a tendency and a temptation to minimize the problems that are faced by the Asian community … that ‘they’re doing fine.’ It gets back to the model minority myth. … When you think about oppressed groups…
Better Allies®
Everyday actions to create inclusive, engaging workplaces. Together, we can — and will — make a difference with the Better Allies® approach.
