When friends remembered actor Chadwick Boseman, mourning his recent death, his humility is what ... [+]
Breaking news: I’ve sometimes said the wrong thing. I’ve at best unintentionally, and at worst thoughtlessly forgotten someone’s name or made an insensitive remark, or simply made a statement that was wrong. I’ve been in the position where you say something, and then immediately plan to pack up and move to live under a rock. But you’ll be pleased to know that I am not writing this from under a rock. Thanks to colleagues and friends and others who have taken the time to gently (or sometimes not so gently) call out my mistake and set me on the path to course correction, I was able to avert living under a rock.
Learning from my mistakes wasn’t just about mustering the strength to acknowledge and admit fault, it took someone willing to explain to me why I misspoke or perhaps said the wrong thing. It took them giving me the benefit of the doubt that I had all the best intentions. Particularly in the workplace, where we are collaborating closely with others who may not share our backgrounds or lived experiences, we need to feel supported when working through mistakes. It’s not enough to say “we’re human, we all make mistakes”; we need to say “we’re human, we all make mistakes and we need to have the humility to learn from them, and the patience to support others to work through them.”
‘Forget the mistake, remember the lesson’
This acknowledgement and acceptance of human error in the form of unconscious bias is one of the major critiques of unconscious bias training, that somehow, because we all have biases, we are exempt from taking responsibility for them. Another hole in unconscious bias training is the premise that our biases are unconscious, when many of them are conscious. Not only do we need to be aware of our biases, both conscious and unconscious, we also need to be open to being wrong. And as several studies have shown that unconscious and diversity training alone does not work, we need to think about where we can fill in the gaps. While leaders must understand the importance of humility in running a successful and growth-orientated organisation, we can all stand to be a bit more humble, more open to our own fallibility in order to learn and better understand how our actions affect those around us.
Kamala Harris sharing condolences for the loss of Chadwick Boseman
When friends remembered actor Chadwick Boseman, mourning his recent death, his humility is what seemed to come up the most. The actor known for playing larger than life icons like Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown and of course King T’Challa in Black Panther, is most remembered for his quiet confidence, reserve and empathy, quickly finding common ground with his colleagues and fans. If the man responsible for bringing the king of Wakanda to life onscreen can exercise humility, perhaps we can do the same offscreen. Particularly for those seeking to be better allies, supporting a more anti-racist workplace, let’s be a bit more humble and open to how we can learn, improve and understand the experiences of others.
Frank Starling is Founder and CEO of Variety Pack, Diversity and Inclusion Consultants and a London Enterprise Advisor for the Mayor of London
