Today we are talking about holding abusers accountable in the workplace. This is something that vexes a lot of us, you know, we encounter a behavior that we really wish we had not encountered, we get into a situation that does not represent how he wanted it to be. And now it is time, it is time to try to figure out what to do. And so here comes the idea of accountability. How do we hold other people to a vision of the thing that represents what we wanted to have happen when it is clearly kind of off track. So I'm very excited to get to dig even more into this idea of accountability today and to zero in on how we can think about it in the workplace. This is one of the biggest topics that I feel like we all agree is missing, like we know that this is a missing piece in our leadership dialogue. But where did I really want to drill in today to how you see accountability? Specifically, how you utilize it in a workplace, both from kind of like your legal training and your coaching perspective. And then what kind of mental models we can put in for accountability that allow us to deal with abuses or really aggressive behaviors when they show up? So
yeah, I mean, I think the topic of accountability is really important. And honestly, when I'm working on the legal side, you know, when I've represented employees who have been fired for an illegal reason, or harassed at work or discriminated against at work, almost universally what they say, you know, no employee wants to sue their employer, no employer wants to be sued, right. So there's like this shared pain around this issue. But what employees say to me universally is I don't want this to happen to somebody else, they want to protect the next person coming forward. And in order to protect the next person coming forward, or the next vulnerable person in this situation. What they say is this harasser this abuser, this discriminatory person needs to be held accountable. But I think that in that we don't have a great or specific idea of what that means. And for a lot of people in that position, it feels like they're going to be on a TV show. And there's going to be a judge who says, Yes, you were this harasser was wrong, and you were right. And now you're going to be safe. And I'm going to keep everybody safe. And in real life, that's just not really how the legal system works at all. And so it can feel really defeating and really punishing for people who really just want to keep other people safe, and really just want to make a positive difference, to be seeking accountability and feel like it's a moving target that they can never get. So this is how I sort of started thinking about accountability and why I think it's important to a little bit to make some small shifts in how we even describe accountability and think about it and be a little more precise about it. And to me, I think we've described this in the past. But accountability comes from the word to count in Latin, and it just is math, it is the math of I took this action and got this result, or I didn't take this action and got this result, this other person took an action and got this result, or they didn't take it and they got a different result. So when when we're thinking about holding other people accountable, holding abusers accountable, a lot of times what we're asking for is for the abuser to agree that they engaged in certain behaviors, and then they got certain result, or we want the broader public, we want to judge we want a jury. We want social media to agree that this person took this action and got this result. A lot of times we also want other people to agree that it was bad. We want other people to agree. They took this
or something. What did you say? Like social validation? Or here's the other people agreeing that does feel important?
Yeah, yeah. And so. So I think that it's if we're looking for accountability for abusers, if we want to hold them accountable, I think it's important to really get clear on why. What are we looking for? And how is that going to change our reality and contribute to our reality. And that's not to say it's a bad goal, or anyone shouldn't have that goal. Honestly, I was telling you this before we started recording, but I was watching I was rewatching Ted lasso last night. And there's this scene where Rebecca and Kaylee are in the bathroom and Rebecca basically says, But what about thinking about your boyfriend's accountability? Is he able to be accountable? Because that's really the most attractive thing In a man, and I think like, when we're wanting to hold abusers accountable, sometimes that's actually a gift to the abuser, we're wanting them to be a better person, and we're wanting society to contribute to them being a better person and growing. And sometimes we do want to make that contribution. And other times, we want to let abusers face whatever karma is going to bring to them and let it be in their box. But I don't think that there's anything bad about wanting to hold abusers accountable, I think that it can be like a very generous, very, like a way to contribute.
Yeah, I get a lot of good intentions for contribution,
and like a way to really contribute to our communities like it really can be motivating to want our communities to be safer and better places. Yeah.
So basically, when it comes down to accountability, sometimes it sounds like sometimes what we want when we're seeking accountability is some idea of justice, socialized, individualized, inter personalized, whichever kind of way. But you're kind of saying, you know, although that can be well intentioned and aspirational, we also really want to like hone in on like a specific objective, that actually serves us in the reality of how things go, that because, you know, we've all wanted to make somebody else's life better. Boy, they really if you stop being late, if this, if this friend of mine stops being late, when we get together, like their life would be better, they would be getting all these skills, my life would be better boy, would that fix everything. But then we run into all this stuff, it's like, you really can't change other people. And so if you try past the point where it's actually not happening, you can end up burning yourself out, the other person doesn't change. There's all this other stuff that gets created. So instead of trying to change people, you want us to be more specific. I think potentially,
I, I think that we can change people, honestly, I think people can change. And I think that we can contribute to their change. So I think that it can be valuable to sort of track back to ourselves and say, Do I want to contribute to this other person's change, because like, the research shows, that the way people like the best way to help people change is to reward them for behavior that you do like. And that can be tough to do when you're dealing with an abuser, because it's not really appropriate for somebody who is experiencing boundary violations. So like, if an abuser is attacking someone at work, if the person being attacked isn't necessarily the right person to then reward the abuser for behavior that they do like, like the person being attacked. Like it really is more appropriate for them to enforce their boundaries set a really safe space for themselves take care of themselves. First. However, I will say that in I did was in a workplace where I did want to improve the way that people were talking to each other. Because people were very critical. And people were very brutal, and, and pretty cruel, honestly. And like just, you know, leveling insults or making criticisms that were totally off base. And in that workplace, I had a jar of chocolate, and I just said, every time somebody came into my office for chocolate, they had to say something nice to me. And they started improving the way that they communicated. So like there are simple things like that, that I think can help people who are being abusive start to improve their communication. And is this the right space? Like you have to know why you want to do that. And if it's worth it to you to do it, because sometimes what we're doing what I see happen is we do want that sense of justice. And so we're saying I'm not allowed to feel justice, I'm not allowed to feel that my reality is valid until a judge says it's valid until a jury says it's valid until an attorney says it's valid, until my friend says it's like we're we're delegating our the validity of our reality and saying, once that I went a lawsuit, once everybody agrees that I was being harassed, then it's valid, that I was being harassed. And I think it's okay for us to say, I know my reality is valid. I know this is not behavior I want to tolerate, and protect ourselves in that space.
So basically, one of the possibilities in there is that people don't need to wait for a judge and a jury to validate that they have experienced harm, as the only way that somebody can be held accountable. That's part of what you're saying here is that there are other besides a boss,
a supervisor HR agreeing with you like it's okay to go into these spaces and no, like, even know, I don't know if this is sexist, I don't know if this is racist probably don't say that if you want to bring a claim but like, but you can know in your heart of hearts like I'm not sure if this if that's the motivation for this behavior, but I believe it is. And it's enough that I believe it is, for me to say something for me to enforce my boundaries for me to, like, know that this is what happened.
One of the things you talk about when we really zero in on accountability, it comes down to what behaviors people are choosing, and how somebody's behaviors map to their results. And I think one of the things that we get stuck in, in the workplace is that when somebody is choosing behaviors that make our workforce, or our working experience, hostile, it's like, sometimes we feel like we can't say something because the result is we feel awful. But it doesn't really feel like a business like conversation to be like, you keep doing this action, you keep putting your hand on my shoulder or interrupting me and no one else in the meetings, when we are having a conversation. And then the result feels like I don't like it. And I don't want to work here anymore. But like that doesn't really feel like a procedural thing. And like it doesn't feel like a consequence that the business will necessarily care about, depending on our training. I wonder how you see that in terms of like behaviors in the workplace that demoralize or demotivate or disempower us, and how we can think about holding people accountable. You know, when it when some of the impacts is our own feeling or experience of the workplace?
Yeah, so I mean, the first thought that I have is, it's not always our job, like we've been saying to hold other people accountable. Sometimes that is energy that we're taking away from ourselves and putting towards someone else's evolution, someone else becoming a better person. And, and a lot of times, women particularly like black and indigenous people, particularly have been trained to do a lot of emotional work to improve the experience of white men and and help them evolve and teach them. And so sometimes, the concept of holding people accountable really is just a mask over the concept of, please do a lot of emotional labor to help this person grow up. And we're not their parents, we're not an abuser, in the workplace, as parents unless you literally are but like, most of us are not, it's not our job to evolve them and to parent them. So I think we have to take a step back about that. But if we have decided I do want to identify this behavior. And I do want to ask for a change, and it's not contributing to the results that I want in my workplace. The next step can be to remember that every business, every public organization, every nonprofit, has goals. And if your workplace is being if people are engaging in behavior that makes your workplace abusive or, or is behavior that you don't want to tolerate in your workplace. Often, that is a theft from the goals of the organization. Sometimes, boss, sometimes, you know, supervisors need to be serious about people accomplishing their goals and knowing their roles. And sometimes employees can feel like a supervisor getting intense about someone needing to learn a role or take responsibility for their job. Sometimes that can feel hostile. And that may be something that does contribute towards the goals in the supervisors mind that doesn't contribute toward the goal in the employees mind. So we don't necessarily always agree does that example makes sense when I'm saying it?
Yeah, you're saying like the maybe the supervisor wants to get all the work done two weeks early. And the employees are like, Oh, my God, I'm trying to have a decent life and kind of figure out what I'm doing and not make mistakes. And I don't know why we need to have this done early. So there can be misalignment in the goals at different levels. But you're kind of saying every workplace has goals, right? And everyone in the workplace, even if they're not totally like all written on the wall, every workplaces operate in the context of goals period, right? So if I'm not feeling great in the workplace, I can locate the impact of that on the goals either I'm committed to or the goals that my supervisor is committed to for me, example. I'm gonna try this out because I don't know if this is right at all. Example is okay. Craig has been interrupting me and each of our meetings the last six weeks others do not seem to be the same priority for Craig to cut off in the middle of their sentence. So but I am having this issue. And this is occurring for me in meetings when I am speaking up around Craig, this is an issue for me, because my inability to complete my thought is getting in the way of me driving results for our team, I am very committed that our team meets our goals. And in order to do that, we need to have conversations that further the action. And when the first half of my sentence gets out, and the second half of my sentence does not get out. We are I am cut short and 50% of the thinking I can do that is actually moving this ball forward, can you help me navigate this situation with Craig? Or Craig, you help sure that the way we are interacting is furthering the goal in this situation? What does that like for you to hear? Exactly. And
I think another way, like another framing of that is, unfortunately, you are not getting a number of creative ideas, because Craig is not willing to allow other people to speak in the meeting. And so I'm concerned that the company is missing out on some creative options here. I'm concerned about Craig's behavior. So the only reframing There is to be clear it is in the organization's interest in the organization is missing out because of Craig's behavior. It's not just and it's not just me that is suffering from this, it's not just me like I could, I could plan on going into a meeting and only saying half sentences for the rest of my life. And I could survive that, like it would be weird. But the person who is missing out is the person who's not hearing the second part of the sentence, really, because I still have that sentences in my mind. And in order to do that, sometimes we have to be fully in our self worth and know that the next part of this sentence is valuable to the organization, which is true, because we are hired, we are working to bring our brilliance to our careers we we are there to offer our brains and our not in like a work captive kind of way. But like, why are they paying you? Yeah,
did you know you went to the interview, they picked you, the people who don't have those don't need to finish their sentences in order to contribute and they chose you instead. And that was a big factor. I think that piece of holding ourselves in self worth, and how that can kind of get negotiated away by circumstances over time that are quite subconscious is a main feature here. I'm like, Ah, okay, so in order to do this in a workplace, I would need to step back and actually have a nice thing for myself about how I'm able to contribute to the organization's goals, when I am well resourced, and I think, yeah, the process.
Yeah. And another example of it is like, a woman says, an idea, and a man repeats the idea, and then the man gets praised for the idea. Like, that's just a common example. Right? In that situation, I think that you can be like, I noticed in meetings, we're often having to repeat ideas, because my supervisor is struggling to hear women speak. I, I think this is harming the organization, because it's making meetings take double the amount of time that they should take, because he can only hear men speak. How can we help this person with his processing issue? You know,
if there's a sense stem in there, it's like I am having a recurring experience. Around a I noticed I'm having a recurrent experience about a and I am noticing some impact around this hampering our joint account or joint ability to accomplish B. Yeah. If we are able to see that will set me up to do all I can so that our team accomplishes this goal.
Yeah. And so So when this sort of raised another thought that I commonly have. So a lot of times we're taught to use AI language and I think AI language can be really good and really effective when we have trusting relationships. Most commonly when there's a an abuser involved i language can can either be very unclear to people listening, or it can sound like I'm the problem here pretty easily. And we're sort of trained to see someone who is identifying a problem as the problem. And so in these spaces if we do want to hold people who are being abusive accountable. And by abusive I mean somebody who is misusing a situation like,
or their stature or whatever, sure, or even
their their relationships. Someone who's misusing if we want to hold them accountable, we do have to engage in pretty clear language that is makes it clear that it's about their behavior, that my feelings are not a problem, I might have feelings in this situation. They're not a problem. But I'm identifying behavior that is contributing to a shared problem that's contributing to a result that we do not want to get that we need to adjust for
Lisa, let's say that you and I've been having meetings in the workplace, and I am the data analyst on your project. So I have specialized knowledge that is required to everything forward. But during our last four meetings, I had been gambling on my laptop during the meeting, when you were asking me for data. And it first, nobody really knew what's happening within the little notification sounds are happening. And so not everyone's clear that that is what it is. And now you're going to talk to me and what you're what you're not going to say is Megan, I noticed, I feel uncomfortable when I hear gambling sounds coming from your computer during our meeting, like you could have that so that you can have a conversation with certain colleagues in the workforce. But you are going to say something different to me. Now, that is not necessarily an if statement. How, how might you or somebody like you in this role approach somebody like me who has been gambling?
Yeah. So I would say? Do you understand that our shared goal is to have this data information given to me? Do you understand that in order to do that, I need to have you focused on on that data when we're talking to each other. And if the person doesn't understand that, then I educate them about the expectation about it and say, here's why this is important to the overall goal of the project. Can I get you to commit to focus on the data while we're on these calls? I don't even for me in that kind of scenario, I don't ask somebody to be accountable that they did engage in behavior in the past. Sometimes we can ask for that. But what I want them to agree to is a commitment, a mutual agreement about how we're going to get the results going forward, then I might say, it seems like an obstacle. When when I hear you, when I hear gambling sounds like I'm familiar with this app, and I, I've heard gambling sounds coming from your computer, that seems like an obstacle to this shared result. Would you agree about that? And the person might not agree. And I would just let them not agree. I think that a lot of times, what we want to do is have people share our reality in order for our reality to be valid. And like I said before, our reality can be valid, whether or not they share it. But also it might be new information. For me, if I'm asking you to agree to behavior going forward, it might be new information to me that you may not be able to be truthful, right? I don't necessarily need you to agree with me that that's untruthful, I still have the experience that that was untruthful, and then I need to know going forward, I need to accept that reality about you. If that's the way that you handle it, you know.
So here's what I'm seeing from the outside here is that you would let me get away with quote, unquote, having been gambling in the data meetings, you'd be like, That is not my fish to fry. I am getting the data in the future. That is what Meredith is holding Meredith accountable for. And then the the holding Megan accountable, is basically actually accountable for the future, for how we're going to direct your attention in the future. You actually wouldn't chase me down and be like, were you or were you not gambling? You cannot gamble anymore. You're not going to fight me on that. You're just saying there have been some obstacles. This is what the goal is going forward, do you agree and you will get me kind of registered into that new goal, and you let the past go so that you can get the future? You focus on what needs to happen next that you're talking about.
And that that to me is how I would handle that particular situation. Now, there's a different situation where you're looking at child pornography. And then I handle that by saying, I have concerns that you were committing a felony at work time, and the fact that I have that concern means I can't go forward working with you. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, this employment relationship is at an end. I'm not gonna go into To get that one, you can protest it, but because that, to me is a possibility that may have happened, even the possibility of it, I'm like, I clearly don't trust you. And I need to be able to trust you to work with you.
And you might not have that conversation directly. Or you could imagine a client might not necessarily go to that person directly, depending on the the dynamics and just say that right to their face, they all you also might quit your job, you might go to your supervisor, you might go to their supervisor or some other entity, it isn't this time,
not the person in charge. If I'm not the person in charge, if I'm not the person that makes that decision, I would go and then I could see. So for example, in a lot of public spaces, people have due process rights. And so if I'm talking to you, and you were like, we both work for a city, for example, and I'm like, I have a lot of concerns that this person was committing a felony on worktime. I can't, I might go and say, I can prove it, I have a picture of it. I might go and say, I can't prove it. But I have a lot of concerns about this person, how do you want me to move forward. But I'm still saying the fact that I think that this is possible, makes me very concerned about this person, if it's not my job, to take an employment action related to it, if it's not my, if that's not my authority, then my authority is to make me safe. So then I might make a boundary enforcing plan around me being safe. And that might mean, I don't meet with this person with a door closed, that might mean I don't meet with this person, if they open their laptop, I leave the room, that might mean I always have a third person in any meetings, whatever is going to make me safe. That might also mean that I continue to report this person and ask people to take action to make the workplace safe. But I'm not necessarily going to, I'm not going to take responsibility for the ultimate result. That is intentionally outside of my control, I'm gonna do what I can to make me safe to make the people around me safe and to enforce my boundaries.
And this is all inside of the reminder that it is not our job to evolve people, it is not our job to evolve toxic workplaces, if that is not working for us. If this is not your workplace, go live your best life like all of those things are this conversation is for those moments where we are in the muck of it, we're in the weeds, we have made the calculation and determined this is the environment where I am choosing to succeed and overcome to the best of my ability, you know, stopping short of wandering into a job that somebody else is actually responsible for, you know, so I love that very much. I think what it boils down to is that we need to really practice is, we need to be sure if we want to make it through the situations that we remember to take seriously what we're committed to in terms of the results for the organization. And remember to value that and not let that value get depleted. But circumstances we're in. And then second, spend that time to refresh our memory about how much we can contribute at work, when we have our needs met. So that the conversations that we guide around this, or getting people focused on the future that's going to happen next. And we're not making sacrifices because of how things got off the rails. In the past. That was never what we wanted, or what we consented to.
Yeah, and I think the other important thing to me is that, you know, I have a lot of clients that I've worked with who, for example, are black women, and I've seen them take a lot of steps to say, Hey, you're too white people say, Hey, you're being racist right now, hey, what you just said is racist, this behavior is racist. And I see this with women too. Like, it's sexist to interrupt me and meeting. And that can be really important, helpful, contributing work. But when we take it on ourselves, that we have to change our work environment, in order for us to be safe, that things outside of our control, need to change for us to be safe. We create a dangerous work environment for ourselves. And I don't think that that's necessary, I think that we can focus on our safety first, and then make the contribution that we want that may be beautiful on really impactful
nuanced issues, many, many layers, hard to put language on this stuff, because we have spent so little time collectively discussing it. But if this conversation resonates with you and what you are dealing with, I hope that you will write and tell us how we did. This is a podcast where we are trying our best to slay the silence about these sticky situations. Oh, that was some alliteration. And so we would love to hear from you. What lands what Lean sideways. Where do you want us to evolve? Or is that not your job at all that you're taking on right now? What results are you committed to? We will have to be in this dialogue together. Meredith how can people write to us to share their stories or their experiences?
They can go to Aris resolution er ay s resolution.com/story.
We would love to hear from you. We appreciate your time and your participation in these conversations which we hope will empower all of us to move forward toward the results we are committed to, and we look forward to seeing you next time on Empower communication.
