Worth Reading Last Week: 6/28

Last updated on: June 28, 2015 at 12:59 pm by Sarah Conrad Sours

Worth Reading Last Week: 6/28 2015-06-28T12:59:08-06:00 Sarah Conrad Sours

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These articles probably didn’t show up on your “trending” sidebar on Twitter or Facebook, but are among the most thoughtful things I’ve read this week. If you missed them, now’s your chance.

A note of caution really must be sounded among the jubilant chorus of celebration from this past week, and Willie Jennings sounds it loud and clear:

We’ve been doing this racism thing for awhile now, and it still hasn’t gone away.

It’s longer than your average leadership advice column (because it isn’t one of those), but if you’re in the habit of reading leadership advice, you should read this. Because the money quote, so to speak, comes at the end.

We need to end this war by unmasking whiteness, challenging our religious faith in competition, and dealing with the long painful history of white (especially male) frustration in a system which awards a very limited number of medals for achieving whiteness.

If you are not up on race and cultural theory, you may not quite grasp what Jennings is talking about by “whiteness” here, but you know exactly what he means by “our religious faith in competition.” If your organization is driven by competition, you will probably know it. You probably run on the ethics of scarcity–keeping rewards scarce so that people will work harder for them.

If you are in a leadership position in your organization, and all your motivational tools rely on competition for scarce rewards, you’re doing it wrong.

Find better tools, more resources. Generosity and gentleness are not inimical to effective leadership, and they are probably more productive of true workplace justice than all the “sensitivity training” in the world.

And if you do happen to be in the midst of sensitivity training and have trouble explaining “micro-aggressions” to someone, try showing them this:

“South Carolina Orders Black Worker to Raise Confederate Flag Ahead of White Supremacist Rally.”

First of all, it’s worth noting the phrasing of the title.

If you are in a position of leadership in your organization, please do not be satisfied with “mistakes were made” language. Whenever you talk about a mistake, put it in the active voice and make yourself the subject. “I did this wrong.”

South Carolina did this wrong. As a whole. Through one of its representatives, who had authority over at least one black man and who chose to exercise it thusly.

The closing paragraphs mention “optics,” and suggest that a little more thought about how things “sound and look” is in order. That was the only false note of this article.

Because “how things look” has been the dominant concern for far too long.

If you are in a position of leadership in your organization, please consider privileging “what is good” and “what is true” and “how things ought to be” over “how it will look.”

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