Can we spot if our friends are our sword or our shield?
Q: A friend and colleague often advises me to “speak up” more in meetings. I am not especially reticent to share my ideas, though I do find it frustrating to do so. Often, and I mean often, I’ll say something only to be ignored, and the same exact idea is supported when it comes out of the mouth of a senior executive. Or, months later, after my idea is beyond successful, it’s credited to someone else entirely. I generally blow this stuff off and focus on doing good work, not worrying about who gets the credit.
But, I don’t know what to do with this advice to speak up more. Do I do as he says, and hope something will shift? Or do I say something to this friend/colleague, as I’m sure he means well? I just don’t know anymore.
Dear Don’t Know,
You said you don’t know what to say or do. That hurts to hear. The worst part of living in a work world that denies us our own worth? It’s when we embrace their oppression as our own.
So, let me remind you of what you wrote, of your own lived experiences. That you do speak up, and are ignored. And that when you have spoken up, your ideas are stolen. You propose ideas that matter, but get no credit for them.
These are non-friendly acts. You are made to feel small by those ignoring you. You are robbed by your colleagues. And when you are shown that your ideas will be used, you are told you won’t be asked to lead those ideas.
I want you to see that this is how they benefit from your participation at the table, while denying you your ideas. This is onlyness denied.
So when you write to say you “focus” on getting things done and not worrying about the credit, I want you to see this as the coping mechanism that it is, not a solution or strategy.
So, Don’t Know, let me aim to be the kind of friend you deserve. You do so know. You know what is happening. By you. To you. Around you. So, please, don’t gaslight yourself. Please, don’t question your own experience, your own truth.
Because that will keep you from being fully alive at work.
HELP AND GET HEARD
Of course, this is far easier said than done.
You did not invent this behavior of internalizing the oppression that others are doing to you, you inherited it.
Yet, if things are to change, you must learn to spot it, to name it.
Which is why I’ll share a personal story. It will seem innocuous, even innocent at first. Until we look closer.
Not that long ago, I participated in a meeting with folks from around the world, on the theme of prosperity. One participant, Adam, moved from his assigned seat to sit next to me, whispering in my ear that he wanted to kibitz. It felt good, like we were about to drop some secret knowledge.
Then, as the guy who had curated us all together took the floor, Adam whispered some advice. “Help Roger with his idea. It’ll let you show the room your expertise in this area.”
I remember it like a slowed-down sequence from The Matrix, as I turned to look quizzically at Adam . . . and then back at Roger who had started a soliloquy . . . and then back at my notepad as I processed this advice. All sorts of questions ran through my mind. Would Roger value or even heed any advice I had to offer? Who in the room did I need to convince of my value? Could I actually convince anyone of my expertise, if my pedigree didn’t already? Finally, how would any more the time spent on this topic affect our common agenda (of prosperity)?
It was that last question — would our common notion benefit by me saying anything at all — that informed my next actions.
I wrote a note, and passed it to Adam: “I doubt that Roger himself cares about what he himself is talking about, let alone the room. Give him 20 minutes to hear himself talk, and we’ll likely all move on.” At 23 minutes, the subject changed. Adam and I never even spoke of his advice. Not because I was avoiding it, but because it was just so . . . ordinary.
People say stuff like this “to help” folks like you and I. All. The. Time.
ACTUAL FRIENDS HAVE OUR BACK
But as I read your note, I thought of it.
Because of how your friend likely believes he’s encouraging you, helping you. And how you want to believe that he is.
But, really?!
It is in these moments — when our interests are not being protected, when we can’t contribute that which only we can, when we just want to add our bit — that we want and need our friends to be on our side.
We not only want friends we can depend on, we need them to get new things done.
We not only want a squad to have our backs, we need the squad to take risks.
If any of us are going to create any kind of change, we not only want to join together to face the world, we need to join together to build what comes next.
But, that’s not what you’re getting. Instead, you are getting all kinds of other advice, saying you need to do more. While not acknowledging all that you already are doing. Which is, can I just say to you, more than enough.
This is exhausting, not encouraging, despite best intentions.
IMAGINING A BETTER WAY
Not only is your friend denying what you already do, he’s denying the role he could play.
Instead of asking you to speak up, we could be asking him to speak up. He could speak up to those asshats you work with and say, “Hey, actually that idea (that was about to be stolen) originated from . . . ” you.
Does that seem awkward? To ask him to speak up for you? If it does, that’s our collective socialization, our conditioning — the way our culture tells those who get stolen from and ignored to accept things as they are.
That we should “get along” with those in power, if we want to get ahead.
That’s why so many of us want to believe in our “friends,” even as they give us really crappy advice.
Let’s analyze the advice I got from Adam: Help Roger with his idea. It’ll let you show the room your expertise in this area.
What was he actually saying to me, about me?
- He assumed that I needed to prove my worth to the room. (Did he give that advice to the mostly white men at the table? Likely not.)
- He advocated that I spend my energy/time on someone else’s agenda.
- He didn’t seem to notice (or care?) that the topic had little relation to why we were all supposedly spending our day together.
As he advocated for me to serve the most powerful person in the room (who didn’t need any help getting his ideas across), he was asking me, effectively, to squander my time, submerge my own thinking.
Which is to say, Adam tokenized me. He perpetuated the very harm he says he hopes to change. And he felt good doing it. Your friend is prodding you to take on a kamikaze mission instead of helping your organization benefit from your ideas. And he smiles as he does it.
Well, excuse my language, Don’t Know, but FUCK THAT.
These are not friendly acts. These are things that harm, that deny onlyness. Those who surround us affect us, because power is not simply personal, but profoundly social. They also harm organizations. It’s how new ideas born of onlyness get squashed, or squished, or killed. So newness, creativity, and new leadership is denied.
Ask that Friend To ACTUALLY Be A Friend
Don’t Know, forward this to your colleague and say, “Hey, I could really use your friendship.”
Ask for him to see the other choices available. To stop asking you, the one being suppressed, to hurl yourself into workplace dynamics as if hurling yourself at an electric fence. Point out the obvious: That it hurts. Ask him, instead, to work to change the room, so it works for all of us, each of us.
Colleagues can be a shield so we can do our best work, or they can be a sword, harming us as they defend the status quo.
That’s the paradox of onlyness denied. We all know we’re missing something. We all know that something more is possible. We all need this to change. And yet, we keep asking the wrong people to do that work.
Let’s fix that, shall we? By saying, hey buddy, speak up.
