White guy gets owned in leadership workshop

[00:00:00]As a white cisgendered male, being left-handed is my claim to being outgroup. It helps me understand other outroups a little better. And I said, I've given this example in a workshop before. It was wellreceived by most. The one guy who tried to argue but got obliterated by everyone else who understood it. He was a senior leader who was a notorious ass and it was his own fault. Story time. For context, how I'm interpreting this person's comment is not that they are saying they are a minority, but that they are using it to understand what privilege is like. Let me walk you through. I made this video last week and posted it on my video platforms and that's why I received this comment. If you don't know me, I'm Dr. Anna Khman. I'm an industrial organizational psychologist and I research the unwritten rules of work. I was explaining unwritten rules and how they benefit some groups over others a few years ago during a workshop using this cultural cycles framework from Dr. Hazel Marcus at Stanford in the Spark Lab. Talked about it several times on here. You can get more information on this from my culture frameworks playlist on my platforms. I was using this framework with the example of being left-handed because it was a majority white organization and majority male to a group that's going to have a hard time understanding privilege. But hey, I'm a white woman, so I get it. It also took me a long time, which is why I came up with this example. How things become considered normal in culture is that there is an overall idea overall idea there's my arm that is then reinforced in institutions our interactions with people and changes beliefs about ourselves. The only way to change that idea is to push back through these cycles. Changing how we think about ourselves changing how we interact with other people demanding changes in our policies and that shifts the overall idea. This is why seemingly small things people can get upset about an idea because it is threatening this idea. I gave the example of how historically people who are left-handed were demonized. Not calling them a marginalized identity, but if you do like if you look in history, some religious texts refer to it being left-handed as evil. I visited a schoolhouse, like a one room schoolhouse in uh Miami once, and they told us like kids who were left-handed, they used to bind their hand to their side to force them to write with their right hand because it was seen as wrong. That's an idea. It was then shaping things like school policy. And this influences how people treat each other and the things that are institutionalized. So, I asked people when I gave the workshop who was left-handed. There were like two people and I asked them to tell me what are things moments that can make it difficult for you as a left-handed person. And of course they were all like, "Okay, you know, it's it's not the end of the world, but things like I can't find scissors that work with for left hand, so I have to learn how to do with my right, which is not the end of the world." Like they understood it's not a marginalized identity, okay? Or I don't have desks that are for me, so I have to find something else or prop my hand up with a book or just go without.

[00:02:47]And for some people who worked with more advanced machinery, they're like it can be a bigger problem if the machinery itself isn't very versatile. Even our interactions with other people, we tend to shake with the right hand. And if you wanted to internalize beliefs about it, like maybe those school children back in the day with binding their arms to their side, maybe you would think less of yourself. And over time, we have adjusted to push back on this to be like, okay, people who are left-handed aren't evil. It's just a different way to write or to use your hand. We sometimes have desks that are more versatile or scissors that go both ways.

[00:03:17]Now, there was this one man who was a senior leader who literally everyone knew was a problem. I mean, not just marginalized people, like he was always worse to marginalized people, but even other white dudes were sick of his He thought he was so smart and he fought everything. So, when this example got brought up, because he insisted going to all of these things, even though he hated them, he was like, "Well, actually, being uh right-handed was about uh showing that you didn't have a weapon back in the day, you know, a well actually, bro." And I was like, "Yeah, uh-huh." So, sounds like it is about handshaking then. Cuz he was like, "Yeah, well, people used to shake hands to show that they weren't going to discharge their weapon." Okay. So, like I said, hand shaking with the right hand.

[00:04:07]I was like, "Yes, thank you." Okay. And then I went through this example and I'm talking to the left-handed people and the other people who are right-handed in the workshop like, "Okay, I see where this is going. I see how it's something that I would notice cuz I've never thought about which scissors. I've never thought about which desk to use. I just go through life not having to think about it." Well, left-hand people, it's just something they have to think about.

[00:04:26]And he tried to make such a stink about this and everybody else called him out on it. He was like, "Oh, so what are we supposed to do? Just only have left-handed desks?" And I didn't even have to say anything. Other people in the workshop were like, "No, you just have versatile desk or you have both." "Oh, so we're supposed to spend thousands of dollars on something you're going to use once.

[00:04:46]We use desks every day, do we not?

[00:04:50]Do you know if left-handed desks are more expensive than right-handed desk?"

[00:04:55]And he he was just trying to cause a sting. And it was so funny cuz I didn't even have to do anything which meant I was doing my job as the facilitator. It was so clear to everyone else in the room who was again male and pale that everyone else was like, "Bro, what is your problem?" And th this is what happens when you're a senior leader who literally everyone hates because you're so toxic and only out for yourself. This man also tried to challenge me over psychometrics and data analysis in a meeting with senior executives about data I had collected. And you can imagine how that went for him was professional. I wasn't playing any games or being defensive and while I was at my job doing what I do, but he really just ran himself into his own problems. It was honestly very entertaining.