Her big brown eyes shown with loving softness as she grabbed her seat belt and looked at me. She didn’t say “Thanks, mom, for picking me up in the rain.” (She would normally have to walk home from school the four blocks to home.) But her eyes said it all. I see a board member at a cocktail party this past week and she says, “You know, you are really great at boardsmanship, I was telling a friend how well you handle our meetings…” Someone interrupts us and we move on to talking about other things. This morning I step out into the crisp Fall air after a good overnight rain. The air is damp with the smoky smell from my neighbor’s chimney. All my Autumn plantings have gotten a good soak so I won’t have to drag out the hoses. It is Thanksgiving week and I am reminded of all of the ways I feel gratitude. In a book by life coach, Martha Beck she talks about the importance in those moments to acknowledge those feelings with “Just This.”
I realize my life and probably everyone’s lives are filled with those “Just This” moments – a smile, a kind word, a sunset, a flower, a cloudless sky, the touch of a hand, an “I love you mom” hug. We probably miss as many of those moments as we get – maybe more, worrying about the future, worrying about the past, living in the fear we are not enough or sometimes, too much.
I have been there, clouded by what’s on my to-do list. Sometimes it’s because I am too focused on what I want to happen instead of being in the moment, absorbing and being grateful for what does happen. Holidays are like that. In my head as I make up the menu and shop for groceries I think about what I want our Thanksgiving day and dinner to be. It probably won’t be anything like what I imagine, but it might be better. If I can stay present to the day, acknowledging and being totally in the moment, there will probably be so many more “Just This” opportunities. So this Thanksgiving week, I give thanks for all the little things and some bigger ones: a great place to work, a community of people who believe the world can be a better place and work toward that end, a dedicated and fun staff, beautiful daughters, loving family and friends. I remind myself today and this week to find all of those “Just This” moments that are born of total presence.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Many Faces of Terror
In 1886, novelist Joseph Conrad wrote: “Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, capabilities and audacities are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.”
Consider these numbers: 1 in 3 females will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year. Children who witness violence are more likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and were at greater risk than their peers of having allergies, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, headaches and flu.
The commemoration of the attacks of 9/11 reverberated on the airwaves all weekend. Somber and solemn sitting in my living room watching television, I was grateful to be an American citizen proud of my country and the community we created post 9/11. It also reminded me of all the victims of family violence that I worked with for the first 15 years of my career, and survived myself. I couldn’t help but think of the women and children, day in and day out who live with terror.
I watched as firemen, police and emergency workers shared their stories on the front lines of the days and weeks following the attacks looking for survivors and then bodies. I listened while some of the first responders recounted their sleepless nights, restless days and struggles with finding inner peace long after they left Ground Zero. I went inside the Trade Center with the cameramen who were following the life of a probationary fireman at the time of the attacks and how incredibly hard it was for all of them to get back to a normal life after 9/11.
And I kept coming back to the child with the phone cord bruises around his neck and the countless faces of women with broken noses and teeth, arms, fingers and legs. I remembered the days and nights I would lie awake thinking about someone I had just met in the shelter, wondering if they would make it out for good from a relationship that was an everyday nightmare. I recalled the woman who couldn’t stand to hear the door bell ring and the child who couldn’t hear loud noises.
Terror is terror. A plane, a fist, a closet, a no way out. It is awful, horrible, catastrophic, sick and more. It makes us afraid, angry, sad, confused, and terrorized. It is violence; violence that makes our world shrink as we come face to face with the expression of our belief in the safety of our surroundings. If Conrad is right, no wonder women struggle to feel more than the world’s reflection of who they are would have them believe.
9/11 introduced terror to those of us who had not been intimately acquainted with it. In our new understanding perhaps can come compassion and commitment to help one another, to remember what being a neighbor means. The first flight I took after the tragedy the pilot spoke over the loudspeaker and asked us to introduce ourselves to each other. Maybe if we could do that everywhere, we might interrupt the terror that still hides in our homes.
Consider these numbers: 1 in 3 females will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year. Children who witness violence are more likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and were at greater risk than their peers of having allergies, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, headaches and flu.
The commemoration of the attacks of 9/11 reverberated on the airwaves all weekend. Somber and solemn sitting in my living room watching television, I was grateful to be an American citizen proud of my country and the community we created post 9/11. It also reminded me of all the victims of family violence that I worked with for the first 15 years of my career, and survived myself. I couldn’t help but think of the women and children, day in and day out who live with terror.
I watched as firemen, police and emergency workers shared their stories on the front lines of the days and weeks following the attacks looking for survivors and then bodies. I listened while some of the first responders recounted their sleepless nights, restless days and struggles with finding inner peace long after they left Ground Zero. I went inside the Trade Center with the cameramen who were following the life of a probationary fireman at the time of the attacks and how incredibly hard it was for all of them to get back to a normal life after 9/11.
And I kept coming back to the child with the phone cord bruises around his neck and the countless faces of women with broken noses and teeth, arms, fingers and legs. I remembered the days and nights I would lie awake thinking about someone I had just met in the shelter, wondering if they would make it out for good from a relationship that was an everyday nightmare. I recalled the woman who couldn’t stand to hear the door bell ring and the child who couldn’t hear loud noises.
Terror is terror. A plane, a fist, a closet, a no way out. It is awful, horrible, catastrophic, sick and more. It makes us afraid, angry, sad, confused, and terrorized. It is violence; violence that makes our world shrink as we come face to face with the expression of our belief in the safety of our surroundings. If Conrad is right, no wonder women struggle to feel more than the world’s reflection of who they are would have them believe.
9/11 introduced terror to those of us who had not been intimately acquainted with it. In our new understanding perhaps can come compassion and commitment to help one another, to remember what being a neighbor means. The first flight I took after the tragedy the pilot spoke over the loudspeaker and asked us to introduce ourselves to each other. Maybe if we could do that everywhere, we might interrupt the terror that still hides in our homes.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Good Intentions: Eliminating Terror with Terror
“So they killed that guy?” My 13 yr. old said to me as we drove to school with National Public Radio playing in the background on the morning after learning of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Before I could answer she said, “Cause, like, he was in another country. Is it OK to just go into another country and kill someone?”
“Ah, well, yeah, I wondered that too, honey. That is a really great question because it doesn’t seem right does it? What I understand is that the US Military went there to capture him and he fired on them and they fired back and killed him.”
“Is it like normal to have world wars that last this long?” my youngest said with thoughtfulness. “Because don’t wars just like usually end in a couple of years? Is this normal?”
“Yes, this has been a long bunch of war-like conflicts. But there is a lot to it.” (I could feel them both slipping away from the conversation now and I found myself drifting, too.)
At 12 and 13 years the Iraq presence and really all of the Middle East presence, is all they have ever known. They were watching the Lion King video the morning of September 11th. The conflicts have been a part of their whole lives, much like the Viet Nam war was for me growing up; always in the backdrop of whatever was on the world stage until I was old enough to have an opinion about it. Of course, there were other domestic conflicts too: civil rights, women’s rights, the murder of JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Bobbie Kennedy among many others that lost their lives fighting for voting rights or protesting the war on college campuses. I remember how afraid I was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, asking my father from my six year old view of the conflict, if we were all going to die.
My daughters’ questions point to their way of seeing the world, not with bravado but with some sense of order or justice. I feel the fears in them that our actions bring up—the randomness that it implies. If we can go somewhere and shoot someone, can’t someone else do that to us? Sure this guy isn’t sanctioned by any vote of the people, he isn’t elected, but might another group of people see the actions of a President of the United States as invasive and come here to do the same?
My sister was working in the World Trade Center on September 11 and she made it out that day. Would I be unable to hear the angst and fears of my daughters if my baby sister had been killed? I have mixed feelings today. I believe in our system of justice that calls a person innocent until they have been proven guilty. In a world of terrorism, perhaps that is naïve to hold on to that standard. What is acceptable I wonder then and what just furthers the energy of terror so rampant now in our world? My daughters’ questions remind me how fear begets fear. When is it OK to break the law, even international law and what ultimately will it bring us?
“Ah, well, yeah, I wondered that too, honey. That is a really great question because it doesn’t seem right does it? What I understand is that the US Military went there to capture him and he fired on them and they fired back and killed him.”
“Is it like normal to have world wars that last this long?” my youngest said with thoughtfulness. “Because don’t wars just like usually end in a couple of years? Is this normal?”
“Yes, this has been a long bunch of war-like conflicts. But there is a lot to it.” (I could feel them both slipping away from the conversation now and I found myself drifting, too.)
At 12 and 13 years the Iraq presence and really all of the Middle East presence, is all they have ever known. They were watching the Lion King video the morning of September 11th. The conflicts have been a part of their whole lives, much like the Viet Nam war was for me growing up; always in the backdrop of whatever was on the world stage until I was old enough to have an opinion about it. Of course, there were other domestic conflicts too: civil rights, women’s rights, the murder of JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Bobbie Kennedy among many others that lost their lives fighting for voting rights or protesting the war on college campuses. I remember how afraid I was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, asking my father from my six year old view of the conflict, if we were all going to die.
My daughters’ questions point to their way of seeing the world, not with bravado but with some sense of order or justice. I feel the fears in them that our actions bring up—the randomness that it implies. If we can go somewhere and shoot someone, can’t someone else do that to us? Sure this guy isn’t sanctioned by any vote of the people, he isn’t elected, but might another group of people see the actions of a President of the United States as invasive and come here to do the same?
My sister was working in the World Trade Center on September 11 and she made it out that day. Would I be unable to hear the angst and fears of my daughters if my baby sister had been killed? I have mixed feelings today. I believe in our system of justice that calls a person innocent until they have been proven guilty. In a world of terrorism, perhaps that is naïve to hold on to that standard. What is acceptable I wonder then and what just furthers the energy of terror so rampant now in our world? My daughters’ questions remind me how fear begets fear. When is it OK to break the law, even international law and what ultimately will it bring us?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
A Tribute to Those Who Nurture
Longing for the child she abandoned at 14, Annette Bening’s character in the movie “Mother and Child” lives a grouchy life. The scene opens to her reluctantly caring for her ailing mother and her own dour spirit. The grief of releasing her baby when she herself was still a child turns into the wall we all know a little bit about, any of us who have ever longed for something we lost or something that never was.
Checking on my sleeping daughters I flash back to the days as toddlers when they came to me and the long nights of pain and sadness they endured when they had been moved around from group home to my home. Safety brought with it the remembering of trauma endured and our first year was marked by both great joy and deep sorrow. Once, after a solid two weeks of interrupted sleep, I was stunningly awake as I had never been to this god of nurturing and loving two helpless human beings.
“As the world goes by, all I know is I want to be wide awake/Seekers of status quo, I say let them go, I want to be wide awake/fear for all of its fury can’t hold a flame to any soul that cries, I want to be wide awake, awake.” (Christine Kane, Wide Awake)
Awake. Like jumping into an icy pond. So at times I have fallen asleep. Nurturing while sleepwalking changes my creativity and my parenting, I see that now. My mind wanders to my mother’s obsession with feeding the seven of us. It was/is her creativity – her deep joy channeled into the thing she had to do. And anyone who nurtures others 24-7 knows the drain of energy that comes with outer focused nurturing. And yet, it is our creativity, our soul’s joy channeled into caring that feeds the life force. I bake bread weekly; make soups, have learned Indian, Chinese and Thai cooking. I make cookies and scones; tend a garden in the summer. How many artists: painters, potters, songwriters, writers and sculptors works are channeled into people who were fed well in childhood? Am I my mother’s novel?
Elizabeth Layton raised five kids, battled depression for 35 years and became a published painter in her 70’s. Her depression went away.
Watching the movie Secretariat the other night with my daughters who are now 12 and 13, one comments and the other agrees that it is “wrong for that mom to abandon her children for the sake of that horse.” I breathe in deeply that sentiment, knowing I might be my mother’s great works and they might be mine.
Checking on my sleeping daughters I flash back to the days as toddlers when they came to me and the long nights of pain and sadness they endured when they had been moved around from group home to my home. Safety brought with it the remembering of trauma endured and our first year was marked by both great joy and deep sorrow. Once, after a solid two weeks of interrupted sleep, I was stunningly awake as I had never been to this god of nurturing and loving two helpless human beings.
“As the world goes by, all I know is I want to be wide awake/Seekers of status quo, I say let them go, I want to be wide awake/fear for all of its fury can’t hold a flame to any soul that cries, I want to be wide awake, awake.” (Christine Kane, Wide Awake)
Awake. Like jumping into an icy pond. So at times I have fallen asleep. Nurturing while sleepwalking changes my creativity and my parenting, I see that now. My mind wanders to my mother’s obsession with feeding the seven of us. It was/is her creativity – her deep joy channeled into the thing she had to do. And anyone who nurtures others 24-7 knows the drain of energy that comes with outer focused nurturing. And yet, it is our creativity, our soul’s joy channeled into caring that feeds the life force. I bake bread weekly; make soups, have learned Indian, Chinese and Thai cooking. I make cookies and scones; tend a garden in the summer. How many artists: painters, potters, songwriters, writers and sculptors works are channeled into people who were fed well in childhood? Am I my mother’s novel?
Elizabeth Layton raised five kids, battled depression for 35 years and became a published painter in her 70’s. Her depression went away.
Watching the movie Secretariat the other night with my daughters who are now 12 and 13, one comments and the other agrees that it is “wrong for that mom to abandon her children for the sake of that horse.” I breathe in deeply that sentiment, knowing I might be my mother’s great works and they might be mine.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Re-Construction
I count myself in the middle to the tail end of the baby boomers. We are re-constructionists. I and many of my friends bought houses in which we replaced original windows and doors, heating units and installed central air conditioning units. Some of us eventually re-did the house altogether, opening up kitchens to living areas and replacing countertops and cabinets. Some of us replaced these items because there were more energy efficient iterations of them on the market. Some of us tore down walls to collaborate and communicate more effectively.
We look for houses with good bones, we value what is there, but we are eager to make it better to fit the needs of our families. I saw an article about house design not too long ago that tracked the opening up of the kitchen to other living spaces side by side with the burgeoning women’s movement of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. While there had been a small spurt of new construction with a more closed kitchen recently, most of us are not going back there.
Good bones. We’re not about throwing everything out. In a way, we are bridge builders, working to connect the dots between our parents’ generation and the offspring we have. My daughters roll their eyes, but occasionally they are humming to a Joni Mitchell tune. They asked to have a couple of Earth, Wind and Fire songs put on their iPods. My peeps are zumba-ing to Lady Gaga and Usher.
Good values. Community, connection, collaboration. These are probably the re-building blocks of my generation. Call it what you will: decentralized management styles, emotional intelligence, new value propositions, I call it “women in the workplace.” Women couldn’t help but bring their authentic selves to the table. This “let’s make sure everyone is connected” mentality permeates the new work environment. We couldn’t help it.
Technology has helped the employed mom and dad juggle work and family. As a tool, it has increased our ability to connect with one another. A snow day turns into a conference call/on-line meeting day. With Microsoft Communicator on my desk top, the geographic size of my responsibility shrinks to my desktop, less time traveling means more time on task.
My grandparents’ generation forged new territory, continued settling the west, built around the outer loops made possible by interstate highway legislation passed during the Eisenhower administration. My generation, and those who come after us, will re-build, holding on to values and physical spaces but seeing them just a little bit differently. Perhaps because of the increasing scarcity of land or the valuing of that land and the earth’s resources, we are not as willing to keep stretching and making a new outer ring. The future belongs to those who are bridge builders, who can challenge all of us to see the good in what was, and stand on the shoulders of those ideas and take them another collaborative step closer to a more perfect community.
We look for houses with good bones, we value what is there, but we are eager to make it better to fit the needs of our families. I saw an article about house design not too long ago that tracked the opening up of the kitchen to other living spaces side by side with the burgeoning women’s movement of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. While there had been a small spurt of new construction with a more closed kitchen recently, most of us are not going back there.
Good bones. We’re not about throwing everything out. In a way, we are bridge builders, working to connect the dots between our parents’ generation and the offspring we have. My daughters roll their eyes, but occasionally they are humming to a Joni Mitchell tune. They asked to have a couple of Earth, Wind and Fire songs put on their iPods. My peeps are zumba-ing to Lady Gaga and Usher.
Good values. Community, connection, collaboration. These are probably the re-building blocks of my generation. Call it what you will: decentralized management styles, emotional intelligence, new value propositions, I call it “women in the workplace.” Women couldn’t help but bring their authentic selves to the table. This “let’s make sure everyone is connected” mentality permeates the new work environment. We couldn’t help it.
Technology has helped the employed mom and dad juggle work and family. As a tool, it has increased our ability to connect with one another. A snow day turns into a conference call/on-line meeting day. With Microsoft Communicator on my desk top, the geographic size of my responsibility shrinks to my desktop, less time traveling means more time on task.
My grandparents’ generation forged new territory, continued settling the west, built around the outer loops made possible by interstate highway legislation passed during the Eisenhower administration. My generation, and those who come after us, will re-build, holding on to values and physical spaces but seeing them just a little bit differently. Perhaps because of the increasing scarcity of land or the valuing of that land and the earth’s resources, we are not as willing to keep stretching and making a new outer ring. The future belongs to those who are bridge builders, who can challenge all of us to see the good in what was, and stand on the shoulders of those ideas and take them another collaborative step closer to a more perfect community.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Music Is Not a Four Letter Word
A couple of days ago I sat down with the list that my daughters made for me to download music to their iPods. While I can’t stop what they listen to on the radio, I can have some control over what I pay for and what ends up on their iPods. I downloaded a few to listen to before I purchased the whole list. From Ludacris: (From My Chick Bad)“Now your girls might be sick, but my girl sicker/She rides that d**k and she handles her liquor/I knock a bitch out and fight/comin out swingin like Tiger Woods’ wife…a chick so bad the whole crew want to bone her.”
And from Ke$sha: (From We R What We R) “We’re dancing like we’re dumb/our bodies go numb/we’ll be forever young…I’m just taking truth/I’m tellin you bout the s**t we do/we’re sellin’ our clothes/sleepin in cars/dressing it down/hitting on dudes.”
These words took my breath away. As a parent, I feel a bit panicked and shocked. I know these songs exist, but in my mind they were the exception. Now, I realize, they are more of the rule. Leonard Sax, an M.D. who wrote Why Gender Matters, points out that girls and boys don’t date anymore, they “hook up” at the end of the night after being out in large groups. These “hook ups” are just for sex, most often girls servicing boys without intercourse.
The songs on the radio reflect that – there is no romance, no connection. Girls to themselves and to boys are objects to be used, bodies numb to sex and to violence. As a parent, I know I have to teach my daughters discernment in the face of this much bombardment. But how? Not even the Supreme Court can define whether or not this is an infringement on women’s rights. But clearly, girls need a conversation.
There are many important messages that need to be part of this conversation. Among them is the idea that in a free society, artists create work that reflects their environment, personality, lives, beliefs and imaginations. It is their story to tell in whatever form that takes – music, dance, theater, poetry, etc. Understanding that their story isn’t your story is a big epiphany. And just as artists have the freedom to express their thoughts, it is our responsibility to accept or reject it, to set the guidelines for each family on what is acceptable for our own daughters, and then following our own personal convictions. It’s not about burning books or smashing CDs in protest, it’s about looking at art with your own eyes and values.
Our conversations about music are reminiscent of my mother’s conversation with me as a teen. My daughters and I looked at our mothers’ as un-cool, not up with the times and just old fashioned. The music my mother objected to had more to do with tone (too much screaming) and not necessarily the message.
Sometimes, time and perspective makes a difference and as adults, we can see that perspective. Kids haven’t developed that yet and maybe discernment is what we need to encourage. If we ask ourselves what would our reaction be if these songs were about a particular race or religion as they were in the days leading up to the Holocaust in pre-war Germany? Would we at least talk about it and try to get our kids to understand the concept of bigotry? Really, this is the same conversation.
I know that I am setting a role model that is different from the music the girls hear. And as a parent, I have to take solace in that. But it still worries me that our children are listening to music that demeans and degrades women, that reduces relationships to violence and random sex. While this used to be the music on the edges, it is now the music in the center. Sometimes I wonder what the motivation would be to create a different standard. What would it take for the content to shift? And, what is our role in all that? We have seen the standard change over the years in regards to a lot of behaviors that have become acceptable and not acceptable in art. While women have made a lot of progress in regards to our status in society, it seems that the music of another generation continues to dictate a place that continues to seem undesirable for women and girls. How do we encourage the conversation?
And from Ke$sha: (From We R What We R) “We’re dancing like we’re dumb/our bodies go numb/we’ll be forever young…I’m just taking truth/I’m tellin you bout the s**t we do/we’re sellin’ our clothes/sleepin in cars/dressing it down/hitting on dudes.”
These words took my breath away. As a parent, I feel a bit panicked and shocked. I know these songs exist, but in my mind they were the exception. Now, I realize, they are more of the rule. Leonard Sax, an M.D. who wrote Why Gender Matters, points out that girls and boys don’t date anymore, they “hook up” at the end of the night after being out in large groups. These “hook ups” are just for sex, most often girls servicing boys without intercourse.
The songs on the radio reflect that – there is no romance, no connection. Girls to themselves and to boys are objects to be used, bodies numb to sex and to violence. As a parent, I know I have to teach my daughters discernment in the face of this much bombardment. But how? Not even the Supreme Court can define whether or not this is an infringement on women’s rights. But clearly, girls need a conversation.
There are many important messages that need to be part of this conversation. Among them is the idea that in a free society, artists create work that reflects their environment, personality, lives, beliefs and imaginations. It is their story to tell in whatever form that takes – music, dance, theater, poetry, etc. Understanding that their story isn’t your story is a big epiphany. And just as artists have the freedom to express their thoughts, it is our responsibility to accept or reject it, to set the guidelines for each family on what is acceptable for our own daughters, and then following our own personal convictions. It’s not about burning books or smashing CDs in protest, it’s about looking at art with your own eyes and values.
Our conversations about music are reminiscent of my mother’s conversation with me as a teen. My daughters and I looked at our mothers’ as un-cool, not up with the times and just old fashioned. The music my mother objected to had more to do with tone (too much screaming) and not necessarily the message.
Sometimes, time and perspective makes a difference and as adults, we can see that perspective. Kids haven’t developed that yet and maybe discernment is what we need to encourage. If we ask ourselves what would our reaction be if these songs were about a particular race or religion as they were in the days leading up to the Holocaust in pre-war Germany? Would we at least talk about it and try to get our kids to understand the concept of bigotry? Really, this is the same conversation.
I know that I am setting a role model that is different from the music the girls hear. And as a parent, I have to take solace in that. But it still worries me that our children are listening to music that demeans and degrades women, that reduces relationships to violence and random sex. While this used to be the music on the edges, it is now the music in the center. Sometimes I wonder what the motivation would be to create a different standard. What would it take for the content to shift? And, what is our role in all that? We have seen the standard change over the years in regards to a lot of behaviors that have become acceptable and not acceptable in art. While women have made a lot of progress in regards to our status in society, it seems that the music of another generation continues to dictate a place that continues to seem undesirable for women and girls. How do we encourage the conversation?
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Taking "Middle School Behavior" Out of the Workplace
At dinner the other night, I heard about how some of the girls at my daughter’s middle school were talking about another girl behind her back. The collective group didn’t like this girl and so instead of telling her to her face the behaviors they were upset with, they just talked about her. They don’t have a Facebook page, or I think they might end up with some of this naughtiness on their pages.
Seizing a teachable moment, I felt compelled to ask them to think about how the “other girl” must feel – being the subject of personal attacks by the group. They were unwilling to look at it too closely, but they did begin to see the importance of what we have talked about in Girl Scouting as being a “sister to every Girl Scout.”
When it gets to the workplace this same type of interpersonal “bullying” has been called by some management gurus as “middle school behavior.” Even though men do more of the overt bullying in the workplace, women target each other 70% of the time for the covert, behind the back kind of talking about someone which can be just as stressful and damaging in the workplace. The under the radar behavior by women to other women includes sabotage and the abuse of authority.
The secret weapon of all bullies is an enabling environment. This use of a relationship to hurt someone else is something women do without thought sometimes. If we are talking about someone with another co-worker, you can bet that the other co-worker will eventually talk about you. Thus we keep the enabling environment fertile.
To stop personal attacks, gossiping and name calling behind or (in the case of Facebook) in front of our co-workers and friends, we need to remember to practice three simple behaviors. 1) When someone talks about another in front of you – Disrupt It. Sometimes people are not being malicious and are drawn into conversations before they realize they are perpetuating a hostile environment; 2) Co-create new rules of engagement – by disrupting or challenging others to address specific issues and not personal attacks, we create new ways for all of us to interact with one another. It models a new way of behaving that is more in integrity. 3) Maintain consistent standards of behavior with everyone. Managers, directors, CEO’s, and other volunteers all are made from the same things. No one has a thicker skin or is made of unbreakable stuff. Everyone who is a target of personal attacks feels the pain of those attacks, no matter whether you feel you have power in the organization or not.
Creating a collaborative community, a place where everyone feels safe, is something I know that we all aspire to do. The world at large can sometimes be a somewhat hostile place; it would be nice to know that the places in which we volunteer, work and live would be safe places. Only you can make that so.
Seizing a teachable moment, I felt compelled to ask them to think about how the “other girl” must feel – being the subject of personal attacks by the group. They were unwilling to look at it too closely, but they did begin to see the importance of what we have talked about in Girl Scouting as being a “sister to every Girl Scout.”
When it gets to the workplace this same type of interpersonal “bullying” has been called by some management gurus as “middle school behavior.” Even though men do more of the overt bullying in the workplace, women target each other 70% of the time for the covert, behind the back kind of talking about someone which can be just as stressful and damaging in the workplace. The under the radar behavior by women to other women includes sabotage and the abuse of authority.
The secret weapon of all bullies is an enabling environment. This use of a relationship to hurt someone else is something women do without thought sometimes. If we are talking about someone with another co-worker, you can bet that the other co-worker will eventually talk about you. Thus we keep the enabling environment fertile.
To stop personal attacks, gossiping and name calling behind or (in the case of Facebook) in front of our co-workers and friends, we need to remember to practice three simple behaviors. 1) When someone talks about another in front of you – Disrupt It. Sometimes people are not being malicious and are drawn into conversations before they realize they are perpetuating a hostile environment; 2) Co-create new rules of engagement – by disrupting or challenging others to address specific issues and not personal attacks, we create new ways for all of us to interact with one another. It models a new way of behaving that is more in integrity. 3) Maintain consistent standards of behavior with everyone. Managers, directors, CEO’s, and other volunteers all are made from the same things. No one has a thicker skin or is made of unbreakable stuff. Everyone who is a target of personal attacks feels the pain of those attacks, no matter whether you feel you have power in the organization or not.
Creating a collaborative community, a place where everyone feels safe, is something I know that we all aspire to do. The world at large can sometimes be a somewhat hostile place; it would be nice to know that the places in which we volunteer, work and live would be safe places. Only you can make that so.
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