Latest / Career Identity + Growth Conversations for Professional Women: Exposing the Hidden Reality / 059: When Silence Enables Harm: Culture, Power, and Speaking Up

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059: When Silence Enables Harm: Culture, Power, and Speaking Up · Career Identity + Growth Conversations for Professional Women: Exposing the Hidden Reality

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So Sandra, before we begin this conversation, it's a continuation
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of episode 58, and I want people to be able.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: To take care of themselves.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: So let's give a fair trigger warning here that this
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: conversation includes discussion about sexual assault, drugging, trauma. Please take
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: care of yourself before you listen. We're going to be
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: talking about the recent Cornell case, and we're going to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: bring in some other cases that demonstrate the same kind
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of systemic issues. The Cornell case is still under active investigation.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Sandra and I don't claim to know the truth. We're
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: just giving you our perspective. We're not here to decide
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: criminal guilt in our podcast episode. We are here to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: examine what happens around a case like this and how
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it affects many different aspects of our life, including workplace dynamics.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Thank you, Annette. And we remind everyone to subscribe.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: If you find our conversations interesting and thought-provoking, we invite
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: you to like and follow us. so that you can
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: be notified of future episodes as well. Last time on that,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: we looked at formal systems and we looked at specifically
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: how they utilize protection and consequence, both as a reward
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: and punishment. This time, we wanna go somewhere That's a
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: lot more uncomfortable. We touched on it last episode. And
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: the issue that we want to turn to is policy
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: only tells us what can happen to us when we
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: choose certain activities. And legal ramifications are really the lowest concern.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: bar in terms of making choices around appropriate behavior. What
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: we want to talk about today is something that's a
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: lot more pervasive and much more difficult to put a
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: finger on, and that's culture. How do people learn to
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: behave the way that they behave? How do people learn
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: what is appropriate and not appropriate? How do they learn
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: the unspoken rules. We talked about that in work environments
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: all the time, right? There's the rules and then there's
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: the unspoken rules, right? And that's what we really want
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: to explore today. One of the cases that I think
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: brings this to light is Giselle Bélicot' s trial from 2024.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: And if you don't remember that case, this is a
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: woman living in France in a small town. And for years,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: her husband drugged her without her knowledge and then recruited
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: men to assault her sexually while she was unconscious. It
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: was discovered because the husband was arrested on a different
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: sexual misconduct And in going through his phone to find
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: evidence of that sexual misconduct, they found all of the
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: videos and pictures of these men having sex with his
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: wife while she was unconscious. So they actually approached her,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: let her know that she was a victim, and she
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: chose to have a very public experience. I remember seeing
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: a photograph of opening day with a line of men,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: almost 50 of them. who were all co-defendants.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And that's not all of them.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: No, there were 72.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I think that's who they probably had video evidence of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: or who the husband remembered.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think the question that particular case raises,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: and it's one that I became very aware of when
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: my kids were little, we tell kids not to talk
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: to strangers, but we never explain what a stranger is.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: When you talk to the person on the street corner
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: or you talk to the crossing guard and now there's
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: a relationship in the kid's mind, when you talk to
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: your neighbor, are they strangers?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Technically, yeah.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: We know that as adults, but our children don't. And
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: so it can't be as easy as we don't talk
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to strangers. So we need to define The challenge that
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I think the Giselle case brings up is these men
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: did not look like predators. They were plumbers. They were painters.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: They were fathers. They were husbands. They looked like regular people.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: question at the heart of this is how do we know?
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: And today I am specifically dressed in non-business attire. I
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: have my muscle shirt on. I have my tattoos clearly visible.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: I am really making a statement here deliberately because I
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: could walk into an interview like this. This is a
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: choice that I'm making. The We make judgments about people,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: their competence. I mean, nothing has changed about my competence.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: I know what I know. I know what I know,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: whether I look professional or not.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Professional, in air quotes.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: The real question is, what assumptions are we making? I
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: raise that deliberately because we think that someone who's dressed
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: professional is respectable, reputable, knowledgeable. How do we know? How
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: can we protect ourselves? Often the blame is placed on
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: the woman. You should have known better. You shouldn't have
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: dressed the way that you did. And the reality is
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: we can point to lots of people who look professional
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: and yet they're not. Let's dig in. Where do you
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: want to start?
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's so loaded. And I feel like
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: It's hard. Do we live our whole life never trusting anybody,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: never taking a risk?
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Really, that's what it is.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And last time we talked about the invisible work of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: being a woman.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: And trying to decide who's safe and am I safe
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: where I'm at?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And so is this more of that or is it
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a different side of that coin or a different portion.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Of the coin? I'm not sure.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should talk about what we can look to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: when we're assessing. Maybe this is where we should go.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: We can't look at somebody, right? Never judge a book
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: by its cover. That's essentially what we're talking about. Or
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: always judge a book by its cover. But what we
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: can judge or make decisions on is people's behavior. So
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I think we need to pay attention to the jokes,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the just kiddings. Oh, the just kidding comes up all
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: At work, right?
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: And- You're being too sensitive.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I'm starting. You want to escalate it? We can escalate it.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I like to go from Smallest to largest.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: It's all in your head. You misread what I meant. Oh, yes.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Correct. These are the gaslighting.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: They're also normalizing behaviors, right?
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: They are, yes.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: When we're talking about young children, these would be called
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: grooming behaviors.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, shoot, Sandra.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: And that's, I think, the part that gets missed in
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: all of this is that we call them different things
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: depending on the situation that we're in. They're all the same.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: They are establishing norms. They're establishing power. I have power
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: to define what I really said rather than taking accountability
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: for making you uncomfortable.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: And acting inappropriately.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I really want to sit with that for a moment
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: because if I tell you, Annette, I don't like the
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: way you addressed me and you say to me, you're
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: just being too sensitive. What does that say about your
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: level of respect? for me.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: If you tell me I'm being too sensitive.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: You make a comment and I say, I don't like
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: the way you addressed me. And you say you're just
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: being too sensitive.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Clearly it's your problem and I don't respect you enough
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to hear you out. And I also probably don't have
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the level of self-awareness to think that it's my problem.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And one other option that just came to mind is
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: that I'm the one sitting in power and privilege and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: it's your problem, Sandra, not mine.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: And I lack The self-confidence to be challenged about the
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: way that I respond or the way that I speak
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: to you. If you come to me and you say,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I don't like the way you addressed me. And I
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: am self-confident in my own knowledge or in my own
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: self-view that I am a good person. person and that
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: I did not mean to offend you, then I should
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: feel confident enough to say, tell me more or to say,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. What can I do to either repair
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: this or tell me what aspect of that made you
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: feel uncomfortable so that I can correct my behavior? Because
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: I don't want to make you uncomfortable. It's not just
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: noticing what gets said and making our boundary known. I
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: think it's also noticing how it's received. And I don't
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: think we do that often enough.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: You're talking about emotional intelligence.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: I think there's an element of awareness first before we
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: turn it into intelligence.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Or lack thereof.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: You have to be aware of your behaviors. You have
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: to be aware that you're not the only person in
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the universe. And then you have to read a room.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And that's the part that I was tagging as emotional intelligence.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Because many women, many people that are aware of how
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the room impacts their safety are very good at feeling
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the room, feeling the vibe, noticing the moment something changes,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and then making decisions based on that information.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. There's an element of it that comes up before
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: we challenge what was said and say, I am uncomfortable
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: with the way you addressed me. When I say that,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: in this particular case, I'm talking about women pointing that out.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: But it's also men need to point it out. This
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: is not acceptable behavior.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: We don't talk like that.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: We don't talk like that.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Did you mean to say that out loud?
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Which is my favorite question to ask people when they're
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: acting a little bit wild.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: You're using your outside voice. Just so you know.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: You said that out loud. Can you believe that?
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Or the other one that you told
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: me years ago. I can't believe you felt comfortable saying
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: that to me.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And these are all such showstoppers, Sandra, because people are
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: not used to being addressed that way.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes. In this conversation, what we're trying to
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: position is many of these situations long before someone actually speaks.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Meaning there has been this culture, this group norm, this
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: expectation of what is acceptable in the group. What is
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: acceptable culture? And when those norms, those group norms are formed,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: they are not formed by the people who have less power.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: They're formed by the people who have more power. And
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: so challenging those group norms, whether they're cultural, as in
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: like true culture from a society perspective, or whether they
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: are cultural from a corporation perspective, even teams within corporations,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: we've seen that too. In this team, this is how
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: we behave. And then you meet You go to another
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: group and you have to learn all the unspoken rules
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: in those organizations. At home, in your family, there are
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: cultural norms. One of the things that we do really
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: well when we are not those in control or power is,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: as you've already said, we read the undercurrent. We learn
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: what gets punished. We learn what gets rewarded. We learn
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: what we need to do to belong and sometimes to survive.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: very often to survive, especially when we're talking about children,
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: which is one of the reasons that I've always talked
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: about mindset as being something that is really challenging for
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: me when people use it as a way to look
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: at what's happening underneath, because often it's used in a
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: way that is shaming rather than used as a way
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: of saying, what did you learn? Because we all adapt
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: creatively to survive. And so mindset should never be used
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: as a judgment or a shaming process. It should be
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: used as a way to examine what beliefs did we acquire,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: what creative adjustments were required for us in order to
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: survive the environments that we were in. And as a
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: lens for compassion, one of the most trauma informed ways
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: of looking at the way people are behaving is to
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: say what happened to you rather than to say, how
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: could you feel that way? Or why did you do
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: that thing?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: It's what do you think you are?
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: I got that question a lot as a child.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Who do you think you are?
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: And then I'm hearkened back to The Breakfast Club. I'm
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: exactly who you think I am. That's exactly correct.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to change your perception of me. I
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: can only change how I move in the world.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Sandra, I'm going to bring us back to something that
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the author Meredith Fineman said.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: She has a blog and a weekly conversation and her
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: conversation last week, maybe she talks about the proverbial group chat.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: And in this digital age, I feel like this is
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: where the socialization is happening.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: This is where we're learning the norms.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: This is where we're looking and learning which conduct flies.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: And which one doesn't. Even being able to speak up
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: in the group chat.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I remember leaving a group chat in 2017 and somebody
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: calling me later and crying over it. I'm like, it
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: just wasn't the place for me. You don't have to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: cry about it. I was ostracized for walking out. I'm like, okay,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: there you go. It confirms that I wasn't where I
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be. Not that everybody can do that,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but I feel like this is the silent, scary place
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: where we are learning these norms that make it really
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable in person to then stand up when there's something
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: actually happening in the real physical world.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I think every conversation we have with our children about
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: how we behave is important. Every single one of them.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Walk them through the scenarios. Walk them through what happens
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: when you see this. What happens when.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: You see that?
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Help them process. They're like fire drills, right? We
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: can't wait for the situation to happen for us to
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: have that conversation. So definitely when somebody offers you drugs,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: what do you say, right? Now the challenge becomes we
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: have to walk them through the discomfort that happens when
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: we challenge. And that's where I think some of this
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: conversation gets overly simplified. It's one thing to know what
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: we're supposed to do. It's a totally different thing to say,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling the discomfort of actually having to do this now.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And maybe it's even talking about how uncomfortable it will feel.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: How doing the right thing, defending someone else, saying, stop,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: this is not for me. feels really bad, but not
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: doing that can lead to something even worse.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: I want to share because looking back on it, I
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: realized what I didn't fully appreciate at the time when
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: my kids moved from preschool to kindergarten. My boys are twins,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: so they were in the same class. They have different personalities.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Now the class is much larger. The teacher is very different.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: And I have one child who is much more of
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: a free spirit. I'm okay being who I am. And
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: I have another child who is much more concerned with
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: group dynamics and being liked. or fitting in. So a
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: situation happened. This is kindergarten. We're talking about five-year-olds, right?
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: A situation happened where one of them got into trouble.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: What happened was during a lesson, he was caught tossing
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: cotton balls at a person. And so he got in trouble.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: And the note that came home from the teacher was,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: I felt condescending. It was basically saying, you must instruct
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: name that they must follow directions and what adults tell them.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: And what I thought to myself was, no, I don't
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: want my child learning that he must follow what an
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: adult tells them. Not all adults have their best interests
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: at heart. I want to teach him to think for himself.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I want to teach him what it means to own
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: your behavior. So my conversation at five was, hey, What happened?
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Have him tell me. Did you know that was the
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: wrong thing to do? And his response was, so-and-so did
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: it first. And then so-and-so did it next. And so
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I did it too. But by then the teacher was looking.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: I'm the one that got in trouble. And great. That
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: was perfect. Because then my next question became, did you
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: know that you should not be tossing cotton balls?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, mom.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: I know I shouldn't be doing that. So why did
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: you do that? Because everybody else was doing it. And this,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: of course, is when you and I grew up with
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: parents who said, if everybody jumped off a bridge, would
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: you jump off a bridge too, right?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: When he said that, I heard my grandmother's voice in
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: my mind asking that question.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Would you jump off a bridge too? Which,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: of course, to a five-year-old means nothing. So what I
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: said to him was, what would have happened if you didn't?
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: And we walked through, in age-appropriate conversation, what it might
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: feel like. To not do what all the other kids
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: were doing because he knew that he should not be
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: doing it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: And I did it deliberately with him because he was
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the one of the two I felt would get pressured
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: and do things for peer pressure. Right. Because the other
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: one was so much more like, I don't really care
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: what people say. Right. And so I think part of
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: that is exactly what Meredith Feynman was saying. It's like,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: there is a group norm. If I want to fit
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: in here, I have to do certain behavior. We don't
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: often tell or work with our children or help them
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: process the feelings that are going to come up when
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: we have to challenge the group norm.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: And if I can pull it back to the Cornell situation, Sandra,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: There was however many people were in the group chat.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: That is the group dynamic.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: That is the.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Equivalent of the first and the second boy in your
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: son's kindergarten class throwing the cotton balls and not getting caught.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: There's all these other people involved, but the group dynamic
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: says you don't say anything.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: You're safe. To go upstairs and check it out.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And they were using words like again. So this Jane Doe,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming very heavily is not the first and only.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Woman that this has happened to.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate that you are having these conversations with
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: your kids when they were little, still having them now
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that they're adults. And these are conversations that we could
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: have as leaders with our direct reports. We could have
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: these conversations as colleagues and peers. We could have these
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: conversations with our clients. It is okay to talk about
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: norms and what you need from people when you're going
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: into these situations. And it's okay to say, did you
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: mean to say that out loud? I can't believe you're
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that comfortable saying And we can call it out. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: then we are strong enough to deal with whatever social
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: consequence that delivers.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: We've often talked about, am I in the right place?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I think it's one of our guiding questions of these conversations.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: I think that if I don't feel comfortable raising, am
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I in the right place? Is this the culture that
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I want to continue to grow my career at? Is this...
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: the environment I want.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: To be in?
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Because I think there's another aspect of this that I've
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: been sitting with since all of this started and especially
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: since our conversation in episode 58 is there are ramifications
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: to us even if we were not part of this situation.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: So I'll give you an example. There are lots of
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: people who have graduated from Cornell. How do they feel
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: about this? their alma mater, that they spent a significant
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: amount of money at for their education being viewed this way.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that Cornell is the only one.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: We know this is happening everywhere. It's Cornell that's going
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: through the news right now. So how does that reflect
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: on me as a former student there? Yes. The same
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: can be true about an employer. how many people are
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: happy that they spent 20 years at Enron? How meaningful
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: is that work history? Because you get tainted by the
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: reputation of the place that you've already worked. You get
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: tainted by the reputation of the places that you have
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: grown up in. Maybe tainted is just a hard word,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: but the point is that they become a reflection of you,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: whether you want that or not.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: And there's my grandmother's voice again. Is that guilt by association?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And that's hard. That's something very heavy to carry.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about where we are right now, which is
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the guilt and the heaviness of being associated with an
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: institution or an organization, dare I say, that allows, that
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: permits this behavior to continue. And one of the things,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and I'm not sure I sent it to you, but
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: one of the stories that I saw, I did send
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: it to you, was that The fraternity at Cornell was
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: actually suspended by the national organization first. That was really
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the first piece of discipline that they experienced before the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: university acted, before the police acted, before the DA's office acted.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: They were suspended and their chapter closed. And so where
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: should the real moral authority come from? Because you already
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: said the law is the lowest bar we should be holding.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And what if it's such an unsafe situation that as
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: an individual, I can't stand up and say, this should
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: not be going on. What if I lived at that house?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And again, I am not excusing any behavior. I'm just
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: trying to think through how these things can happen so
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: we can avoid them in the future.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: But what if I live at that house and one
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of the perpetrators is my roommate?
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: That's why I said this particular story hits hard for
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: me because I've seen this with my own children. not
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: anything like this, but places where they have been in
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: situations where people they thought were their friends say things
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: and they're like, oh, no, and I don't feel comfortable
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: challenging it. Well, why don't you feel comfortable challenging it?
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Or a friend comes to them and says, so-and-so said
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: something really inappropriate and I don't think I can. And
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: so the whole point is, This doesn't go away simply
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: because we suddenly hit 30, right? This happens at work.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I was just in a meeting and so-and-so said something
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: that was deeply troubling and I didn't feel like I
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: could raise the issue at that particular point in time.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Or I was in a meeting and somebody said something
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: and I felt really uncomfortable. I can't understand why I
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: felt so triggered by what they said. Let's break it down.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: This happens all the time where we're trying to figure
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: out how do we approach it? And so what I
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: was trying, and you said it beautifully, I didn't say
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: it so well, was in all of these situations, it's
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: not just the people who are in the situation.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: That are harmed.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: There are lots of external people who are also harmed.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: And we all have to make that decision. Is this
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: the environment I want?
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: To be in.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: If I don't feel safe here, is this where I
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: want to be?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And Sandra, it is these situations, things like this, things
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: that feel as threatening as sexual harassment, sexual abuse, that
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: cause people to leave the workforce all the time. Their
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: boss is the unsafe person, the one that can't hear
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: what the person's trying to say, the one that says
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: inappropriate things. When I am helping women and men as
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: well through their career transition, it is normally a culture
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: problem that says I can't stay. And I could identify
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that culture problem endless number of ways, but it is
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: usually somebody's behavior. that is chronic, insulting, and if not abusive,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: borderline abusive.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: It is inconsistency. It is unfairness.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: It is the way in which policies are enforced for
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: others and ignored for others. And this is causing corporate America,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: another big cultural system, lots of really good people.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: And so I.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Need you as a if you're listening, to evaluate the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: last three people that left your team. And I want
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you to pinpoint the highest performer. And then I need
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you to do one of two things. I need you
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to look inward. Okay, I need you to do both
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: of these. I need you to look inward and reflect
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: on your behavior, the culture that you're upholding. And then
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I need you to look overall at the culture of
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the team and see... What was wrong to cause somebody
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that was so valuable to walk out your door and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: find something else? And if you don't think anybody was
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: so valuable that laughed out of your last three direct reports,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you are definitely the problem.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: What you just described is culture.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It is culture.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: What gets rewarded, what gets punished, what goes unpunished, that
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: is exactly culture. Who feels safe? saying something, who's going
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: to say something anyway.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Whether or not other people feel safe or whether they
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: feel safe. Yeah.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: You and I have both talked about, we've spoken up
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: even when we felt unsafe doing so, have felt the
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: consequences of having spoken up.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: And Sandra, I want to be so clear that there's
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: so many times I have not spoken up.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: So many times when I, and this is the phrase
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I always say to myself, that person is is not
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: worth it. And now I have to sit with that
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and I have to think about that question and I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: have to find a way to rephrase it and ask
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: myself something different because that person.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Is not the person I'm trying to protect. It's everybody else.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: It's me.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: It's the next person. It's the next person they're going
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to meet with. It's the next person that reports to them.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: It's the next client they have. And I have to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: really sit with that. I've been sitting with that a lot,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: but I haven't come up with a new, better question yet.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And what comes up for me as you say that
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: is how many times have I left an employer and
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: not really said why I was leaving? Because I didn't
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: want them to use that against me if anybody ever
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: called for a reference. Or I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: And we have this in our notes.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: This was something that we targeted to talk about.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: And I don't know that we actually did.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: But there's what one of the women, one of the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: authors on LinkedIn said. It was actually Megan Missiak who
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: said that there's two weights that you carry.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: The weight of what happened to you.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And we could be talking about the way your boss
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: treated you, the way the meeting went. the inappropriate client behavior,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: and the weight of learning what happens when you ask
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: for help. And I'm going to go out on a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: limb and say that when you leave an employer and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you are very clear.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: In an exit interview, or you go ahead and.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Meet with your boss or HR or somebody else, and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you say, this is what led to my leaving, that
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: you start to carry that burden of asking for help
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: because you're trying to do the right thing. You're trying
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to impact somebody that comes after you. But Is the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: harm to you too large? It's a very, I think
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: there's a balance.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Why in cases of trauma do we not say this
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: is what happened to me? And this is such a
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: complicated issue, especially when there are cultural morals associated with it, right?
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: A woman should behave.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: A particular way. Should dress a certain way.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Should not get so drunk. So in addition to I
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: was caused harm, now I'm also carrying the shame of
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: if I say something, I will be further judged.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: And the other reality is that sometimes we don't remember.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: And it's not because alcohol or drugs was at play,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: but because we physically dissociated from the experience because it
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: was so traumatic. Yes.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: And the trauma is saying, you don't need to deal
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: with that right now.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: We're going to put it in a neat little box
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: and put it away for right now.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: And the problem is the neat little box isn't so neat.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: It comes out in ways that, and that's what we
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: talked about in the other, in our episode 58. It
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: comes out when we least expect it. it comes out
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: in inappropriate ways. It continues to do harm to us
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: because if we managed a situation through dissociation, the next
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: time we're in that situation, we've already learned that dissociation
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: gets us through.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you for this conversation.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: And if there's a big thing I'm carrying out of it, Sandra,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: it's that culture is not an abstract thing around us.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It is everything around us.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: It's the accumulated result of what we make normal, that
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: joke we let pass, the person we keep inviting, even
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: though they act inappropriately. The woman we warn quietly instead
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: of challenging the behavior. Oh gosh, I've been guilty of
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that at work. You warn somebody, don't meet with this person.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: One-on-one. The disclosure we meet with curiosity or suspicion. Silence
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: is not nothing. It's part of our culture and it's
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a big part of our culture.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I think what you're also pointing out is it's a
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: decision to be active. about something, to say and challenge something,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: it's also a decision to not do something. Everything is
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: a decision. And we are choosing our decisions all the time,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: even when we think we are not. We are. Correct.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: So in our final episode, we want to turn from
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: all of this conversation around what happens and who holds
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: the blame and how to notice it, but towards responsibility.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: What does helpful actually look like when someone tells you
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: that something happened? How do we know as a bystander
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: to work with a situation before it actually becomes a crisis?
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: What are we teaching boys and girls around consent? but
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: also entitlement, boundaries, and power. And what can mentors and
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: leaders do to interrupt? And when is culture not enough?
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: What role does the law play? in correcting behavior before
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: it escalates or after it escalates. And yes, while we
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: will explore these questions in our next episode, there's something
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: important that we can all do right now. We know
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: that for some of our listeners, this isn't just a conversation.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Perhaps this is something that you've experienced personally or someone
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: that you love is actually going through this at this moment.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Knowing where to turn for support matters. And so we
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: want to share some resources with you that are available
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: and how to contact them.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: RAINN is America's largest anti-sexual violence nonprofit providing confidential, trauma-informed,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and 24-7 support services to survivors and.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Their loved ones. And you can get a hold of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: them at 1-800-656-HOPE. That's 1-800-656-4673.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: You can chat with them at rainn.org forward slash hotline
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Or you can text the word hope to 64673.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Annette.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: See you next week.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: See you.