Avoid Overanalyzing, and Other Actions for Allies

Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.

1. Avoid overanalyzing

Do you ever second guess yourself when witnessing non-inclusive behavior? Perhaps you wonder if you’re the right person to say or do something. You might ask yourself if you even know the best action to take. You may be concerned that you’ll cause more harm than good.

As a result, you could end up doing nothing.

In a new edition of Spiraling Upward: The 5 Co-Creative Powers for Women on the Rise, Wendy Wallbridge described this behavior. She wrote about a man who noticed that a woman colleague wasn’t getting airtime in their group meetings, explaining:

“He knew she had things to contribute, but he didn’t know why she wasn’t joining the conversation. He was uncertain what to do, thinking that if he stopped the meeting to ask her opinion, she might feel put on the spot, but if he didn’t do anything, she might never speak up. He wondered if he was being condescending by even thinking about it; was he trying to rescue her? If he tried to help, would she think he was being paternalistic and get offended? Should he just mind his own business?”

By overanalyzing the situation, this person might never take action to create a more inclusive workplace. By doing nothing, he signals that he’s fine with how things are. But keeping quiet doesn’t make us neutral; it makes us complicit.

Wallbridge’s suggestion? Ask. Ask what actions you can take to support your colleague in the way they want to be supported.

After hearing this advice in a workshop, another man asked a coworker if she felt excluded in their meetings. Once he understood her perspective, he took action. Wallbridge explained, “At the beginning of the next meeting, he told the group that he’d like to hear from everyone, and that he’d interrupt the banter to make sure that all voices were being heard.”

I love it.

Share this action on LinkedIn, on Instagram, or on Threads.

2. Close the authority gap

In her TEDWoman 2023 talk, author and journalist Mary Ann Sieghart explored the “authority gap,” pointing out that women are routinely underestimated, overlooked, interrupted, talked over, or mistaken for someone more junior at the workplace. She said, “We assume a man knows what he’s talking about until he proves otherwise. While for a woman, it’s all too often the other way round.”

Sieghart highlighted these research findings that show the farther we are from the white, male, middle-class default, the wider the authority gap is:

• Men have six times more influence in group discussions than women.
• Women are twice as likely as men to say they have to provide evidence of their competence or that people are surprised at their abilities. And women of color are much more likely than white women to say this.
• If you’re working-class or living with a disability, the gap is even more significant.

To close the authority gap, she recommends:

• Flip things around. Ask yourself if you’d think or say the same thing if the person were a man.
• Point out when someone repeats an idea a woman raised minutes before. “I’m so glad you agree with what Evie said earlier.”
• Disrupt interruptions. “Hang on, I was really interested in what Rosa was saying there.”

Her advice is perfect for better allies everywhere.

(Many thanks to Karen Ko, managing director at WEST, for mentioning this TED talk on LinkedIn.)

3. Leave loudly

We’ve all got them: Personal things we need to do during work hours, such as attending children’s school events or appointments with healthcare providers. We might need to be home for a repair person or to care for a sick family member. We might be taking the day off for religious reasons.

While not all workers have the privilege and flexibility to take time off as needed to handle such commitments, many of us do. If you’re one of them, do you try to slink away from your office or lab, hoping no one notices? Or do you take the opportunity to “leave loudly” and tell people why you’re heading out or going to be unavailable for a while?

As allies, we can reinforce that prioritizing personal needs and utilizing flexible, family-friendly policies is okay (and frequently required). We can normalize taking advantage of benefits and flexible work arrangements by being transparent about it on our calendar, with a Slack status, or out-of-office automated email response. For example,

• “Working remotely to care for a sick child”
• “Leaving at 4pm today to coach youth basketball”
• “Meeting with my therapist”
• “At home waiting for a plumber”
• “On parental leave”

(That last one is crucial for guys to be loud about. Many American men don’t take advantage of it, perhaps over concerns they’ll be seen as less committed employees. The more men taking parental leave, the more accepted it will be.)

4. Use gender-neutral language

After reading my newsletter last week where I recommended avoiding saying “lady,” a newsletter subscriber sent me this email:

“I was happy to see you address the rampant use of ‘lady’ used to address women, and I agree 100% with what you wrote. And — there is another challenging and often painful layer to this kind of language that affects non-binary and transgender people, especially in a customer service context. I can’t begin even to count the many times my husband and I went to a restaurant hoping for an enjoyable dinner, only to have our evening ruined by a server calling us ‘ladies.’ Happens all the time and hurts every time.”

They added, “There is no reason to greet customers in a gendered way. Instead, just saying ‘How are you folks doing today?’ or simply ‘How are you doing today?’ would get the same message across without causing negative feelings.”

Allies, let’s avoid assumptions about someone’s gender. We can easily use gender-neutral language instead.

5. Offer large-print downloads

In my books Better Allies and Belonging in Healthcare, I wrote about 50 ways you might have privilege at work. I firmly believe that on the journey to be better allies, we need to realize that having some (or many) of these privileges impacts how we experience the workplace. And that someone who doesn’t have the same privileges will experience the workplace differently than we do.

I created free downloadable versions of these lists to encourage conversation and reflection about privilege. To squeeze all 50 onto one page, I used a 9-point font. When viewed online, it’s easy to zoom in if you want a larger font. However, if printed, the text is, well, tiny.

And tiny text isn’t accessible to everyone.

Recently, I learned that newsletter subscriber Ellen Kessler used the list in a large group meeting. Afterward, a colleague, Rosemarie Davenport, mentioned there was a person in the audience with a sight limitation, and someone had to read the 50 statements to the individual.

So, Kessler reached out to ask if I had a large-print version.

I must admit that I didn’t then, but I do now. You can find both the one-page and large-print versions (which use 14+ point font) on my website.

That’s all for this week. I wish you strength and safety as we all move forward.

— Karen Catlin (she/her), author of the Better Allies® book series

Copyright © 2024 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

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