3 ways to support & amplify your colleagues

None of us, or our organizations, are immune to bias. Even if we thoroughly educate ourselves, actively grow our awareness of our privileges, listen actively, and promote inclusive mindsets & practices within ourselves and our teams (and we should definitely be doing all of the above), the reality is we will never be 100% in the clear.

Wait! Don’t go!

This isn’t a defeatist proclamation or an excuse to throw up our hands and give up on the critical work of active allyship, people! There’s always more work to do to make our organizations & communities the best, most inclusive and equitable versions of themselves, and it’s work worth doing. So, let’s take a second to focus on some of the ways we can practice sharing power instead of just leveraging it, because despite the fact that most of our organizations, institutions, and societies as a whole have built up some serious walls designed to maintain power within a select group, we can do the slow work of dismantling those walls while simultaneously showing up with a handful of everyday allyship practices (and maybe a ladder) to lift each other up and over in the meantime.

pictured: obvious metaphorical ladder of collective power designed to scale the equally metaphorical walls of systemic power imbalance

Lately, I’ve been spending some extra time reading about strategies for amplification and allyship at work from lots of exceptionally smart people (see sources at the end of this post), and I wanted to share just three simple-but-subversive tactics I learned that any of us can adopt to help combat unconscious bias and act in solidarity with our colleagues, especially those whose voices have been marginalized or silenced in our organizations:

1. Amplify through repetition

What to do: When someone who is marginalized or underrepresented makes a key point in a meeting, and they are not acknowledged, repeat the point with credit.

What to say: “As Olivia just noted, the budget for this project doesn’t account for the increased staffing requirements…”

If the phrasing example above feels too obvious or risky for your specific workplace, a similar tactic is to frame the repetition as a question, e.g. “Excuse me, but Olivia, you were saying something about the budget, and I didn’t quite catch it. Can you please repeat that?”

A Washington Post article about female staffers in the Obama Whitehouse who used this strategy in meetings made the rounds a few years ago, and this Vox write up highlights the amplification strategy along with several examples of the types of gender biases that can prevent teams from benefiting from the ideas of their underrepresented members. What I love about this tactic is that it’s so simple. It still takes courage to speak up in order to amplify someone, but ultimately, making it a habit to repeat someone else’s point (always with credit to them), is pretty easy to do, and it’s a great way to prevent that all-too-common occurrence when an undervalued team member shares an idea, gets ignored, and then a more powerful team member claims the idea as their own to great acclaim (see: bropropriation).

To get even more mileage out of this tactic, try banding together with a few others and being really intentional about doing it in every meeting. Make it noticeable. Don’t let any unacknowledged point slip by without at least one repetition. If someone comments on what you’re doing, use it as an opportunity to encourage everyone to pay attention to statements that aren’t acknowledged by the rest of the team and to join in the amplification “so we don’t miss out on any good ideas that could accidentally get lost in the shuffle.”

2. Pass the mic

What to do: Look for opportunities to share the floor (and your power) with others who may have a more difficult time being heard in a meeting.

What to say: “I have some thoughts about the tech. implementation plan, but Eva, you have the most IT experience here, so would you like to share anything before we continue?”

Sometimes it may be easier for you to get attention in a given meeting than it is for others, because of your role, privileged status, relationships with the other folks in the room, undeniable charisma, etc. So, if you find yourself in that position, and you have a platform, use the opportunity to lift someone else up with you, especially if you’ve noticed that they’ve been ignored, haven’t been engaged in the conversation, or if their role/experience/demographics are underrepresented in the discussion.

3. Introduce a "no interruptions" rule

What to do: Introduce a no-interruptions ground rule for your meetings.

What to say: “One of our ground rules for this meeting is zero interruptions. If you think of a question or point to share when someone else is speaking, please write it down, and share it when they indicate they are finished.”

If you have the ability to lead a meeting, manage up to someone who does, or take on any role that allows you to influence a group discussion (project manager, facilitator, note-taker, etc.), try introducing this simple, global rule to avoid the common problem of underrepresented folks and introverts of all kinds being talked over and interrupted.

There’s decades of research out there that shows women and others with lower social power in a given situation tend to be interrupted, talked over, and undervalued for speaking, which ultimately silences many valuable perspectives, so introducing a universal rule like this can be helpful for curbing those (often unconscious) behaviors and ensuring everyone has a chance to contribute.

Cool. What else, though?

Obviously, this is just a list of a few small ways I think we can all practice sharing power and showing up for our colleagues as amplifiers, but there are TONS more, especially for those who already hold positions of leadership or authority. Personally, I would love to learn more, because when everyone can exercise their voices freely, we all benefit, so please share your own amplification tactics & ideas in the Cultivators Community!

More Info

See the original post on the Cultivate blog

Sources:

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