In our Leading Organizations Course, we studied the book Leadership and Self-Deception, and learned about the idea of being “in the box’ and being “out of the box.” In a nutshell, being in the box in relationship to someone means that the attitude and intention I hold toward that person makes it easier for me to see that person as a problem for me. The person is more of an object to me–a means to an end–instead of a real person with a perspective and feelings and values. Now, being a problem for me doesn’t necessarily mean we are engaged in some dramatic conflict or that the person is doing something that is somehow explicitly in opposition to me. Most of the time, being in the box toward someone who is different by virtue of background, ethnicity, culture or gender just means being less inclined to want to spend a lot of time together, or sometimes just a feeling that we don’t “click” because we don’t have much in common.
For example, I remember my relationship with a grad school colleague when I was at Stanford. He was a nice enough guy, but being born and raised in Beijing, and only recently having come to the U.S. for his education, I found him a little difficult to understand. On one level, his accent made it tough to understand him verbally. But more importantly, we just had very different interests and perspectives. Now, I am certain I never carried any malice toward this person; no one could accuse me of being impolite toward him. But I never really paid much attention to him, even when we were in the same class. I knew he was there, but he wasn’t really on my radar; I never treated him as a person whose concerns or interests I really cared about.
A great deal of psychological research over the past two decades has identified a kind of bias that people often hold that is not virulent or obvious, but rather subtle and low-key. When it comes to race in the U.S. for example, we think of people who are racist as individuals with serious moral flaws who are likely to behave extremely antisocial ways, like turning fire hoses on defenseless people.
But these new streams of research are helping us to think about the much more ordinary reality of our lives when it comes to difference and bias. Most of us are not seriously morally flawed people full of hate who are willing to act on base impulses. Instead, we’re fundamentally decent people who are just trying to get along in life. And so when we come up against people who are very different from us (like my grad school colleague) and who say and do things that can challenge our view of how people should behave and of how the world is, we conclude that we just don’t click.
This is the state of being in the box and it one of the most subversive elements in cross-difference relationships at work at in our personal lives. Following the discussion in L&SD , we look at someone who is different, we (often habitually) decide that this person is so different that we just can’t relate to them as another person, certainly not as a person in the way that we are used defining people, people we know as family and community members growing up, or as we’ve come to know in our adults circles and communities. And we “choose” to treat them differently than we would if they were family or friends or new acquaintances who were more like the people we normally encounter—we just don’t get as close.
If this is what being in the box toward people who are different can look like, what is the alternative? How do we get “out of the box?” Being out of the box means I see the other person as more than an oddity, more than someone who is interesting and exotic. I see the person as a real human being. I can think of at least three ways to help get out of the box toward people who are very different from us:
- Think about who you are in a different way. Challenge your world view of yourself in such a way that you augment your identity. I have thought of my race and ethnicity over the bulk of my life as being African American. It’s the box I check on the form, and it’s the identity I embrace. I’m really proud of that. But it’s also not the only identity I carry. Ethnically, I’m fairly certain I’m also part Scottish and part Cherokee. And each of those ethnicities includes a cultural story that is part of my heritage. The first step for me in getting out of my box is to challenge who I see myself to be. Now for you, this may not be around race or ethnicity—each of us has deeply held identities that we feel distinguish us in the cultural contexts in which we live. I simply invite you to broaden your perspective by exploring your identity. How are you “different?
- Build Connections through difference instead of through similarity. When I want to get to know someone, I am habitually drawn to learning more about common experiences we may have had or people we may know. It feels good to connect with people in this way and this is how we commonly build rich and enduring bonds. But it is not the only way. I have also found it very rewarding to get to know people through our differences. I ask, for example, “Where are you from? “ “I’ve never been there before, what is it like?” This way of connecting is built not on identifying the familiar and the known, but rather on the unfamiliar and learning opportunity. This can be more challenging to do because we have to listen more carefully, ask more questions, and suspend judgments and assumptions. But it is a great tool for getting out of the box with people who are different.
- Embrace the Weird. The third tool for getting you out of the box is to practice paying attention to those people or qualities in people which you find all but unacceptable. This is a really tough tool to work with, but it is incredibly powerful. What we have come to learn through research on and practice with diversity and difference is that for many reasons, there seem to be people who we see as so special, people who add such value that we hold them in great esteem. We seek out their counsel and cherish their perspectives and insights. By the same token, there are always people we keep on the margin because we don’t believe they add much value. They are often difficult to deal with and in terms of costs and benefits; they invariably seem to be more trouble than they are worth. What would happen if instead of ignoring these people, we used our skills to try to connect with them? What would happen if even though we labeled them as “weird,” we approached and engaged them nonetheless? If we do it right, the reward is significant value that results in learning and innovation. And that’s really good. But perhaps the greatest value we derive is that we are freed from our own boxes toward those people. And if we do this enough, perhaps we may shed some of the most debilitating boxes we carry with us in our live.
Martin N. Davidson
Associate Dean & Chief Diversity Officer
See more of my posts at www.leveragingdifference.com
