Confronting bias at work
What if your boss makes a racist joke at the company picnic? What do you do if you're copied in on an e-mail from a colleague who questions a fellow worker's abilities because she's a mom? Chances are, you are shocked and upset -- and do nothing.
It takes courage and awareness to react constructively to people who bring their private intolerances into their public lives at work. Fearing lawsuits, companies are doing more to combat harassment and discrimination, yet often ignore micro-inequalities -- from stereotyping to off-color jokes -- that can make a workplace toxic.
That's why three Boston-based diversity researchers are beginning to train employees on how to become ''active bystanders" -- people who can recognize and help diffuse an act of bias at the moment it occurs.
''It's like CPR for these issues. You have a way to respond," said Stacy Blake-Beard, associate professor at Simmons College School of Management, who is developing the techniques along with Tyra Sidberry of Third Sector New England, a management consulting firm for nonprofits, and Maureen Scully, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
While as yet little understood, micro-inequalities are an important challenge for companies seeking to diversify to become more innovative or better reflect their client base. Small wrongs help breed a hostile atmosphere and derail teamwork.
Stereotyping is the most common of such behaviors, with 54 percent of African-Americans, 52 percent of Latinos, and 39 percent of whites saying they'd experienced this at work within the year, according to 2003 surveys by the Level Playing Field Institute, a San Francisco nonprofit. Nearly 30 percent of whites and about 45 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics have heard unwanted racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural jokes.
One morning in late spring, about two dozen consultants, coaches, and trainers gathered at Simmons in Boston to learn about the bystander technique from Blake-Beard and Scully. Sidberry was also present.
There's been decades of research into bystander apathy, Scully told the group. In one 1969 laboratory experiment, people were put into a room where they heard someone behind a curtain moaning about a hurt leg. Seventy percent of those who were alone offered help, compared with just 40 percent of those who were with a stranger. ''We freeze because we're not sure what to do," said Scully. ''Is it up to me?"
Consultant Gina LaRoche told the group that if she hears something inappropriate in the workplace she questions herself. ''As a black woman, I wonder, 'Am I crazy?,' " said LaRoche, head of the Boston diversity consulting firm Inspiritas. She said she asks herself, ''What do I do in response to this conversation?"
Scully and Blake-Beard showed participants several videos made at MIT, where administrators a decade ago drew from psychology research to develop the active bystander idea. In the videos, students and professors act out scenarios based on true stories. In one film, a boss at a meeting doubts a worker's ability to lead a work trip because the worker -- who isn't there --has epilepsy. In one take of the film, those present back up the boss or do nothing. In another, a colleague speaks up, arguing for the absent worker's efficacy.
''It brings home to me how they have to be tenacious," Judy Tso, the president of Aha Solutions Unlimited in Boston, said of active bystanders as the group discussed the film.
Scully and Blake-Beard will present the videos later this month to workers at the headquarters of BBN Technologies in Cambridge to help nurture inclusion, said Carol Sabia, vice president of staff development at the maker of speech-to-text and other technologies.
''We're a high-tech company that's attracting a lot of diverse people," said Sabia. ''It's a high priority for us to make sure that everyone feels included in discussions."
In companies with a supportive leadership and an inclusive atmosphere, workers who are trained to be active bystanders will feel comfortable speaking out, said Freada Klein, cofounder of the Level Playing Field Institute. But in companies where bias is endemic and condoned by leaders, no one technique can be a quick fix, she warned.
As part of a study on corporate leavers, Klein is working with a New York law firm that is trying to retain more of its minority and women lawyers. She recently interviewed a Hispanic woman who had been a midlevel associate at the firm until this year. The turning point in her decision to quit came last summer, when the associate heard a senior partner tell a disparaging joke about Latinos at a company outing -- and other employees said nothing.
''The single most painful thing was that her colleagues -- especially another partner -- sat silent," said Klein, who also interviewed those who witnessed the incident. Those witnesses told Klein that they felt unable stand up to this boss, a big rainmaker for the firm. ''Those who were there said, ''we couldn't speak up. Do you know how powerful that partner is?"
Maggie Jackson's Balancing Acts column appears every other week. She can be reached at maggie.jackson@att.net. 
