On Being Right vs Being Effective
On Being Right vs Being Effective
I thought I knew my argument, then I started writing this post...
Friends, I’ve had a jam packed week. Alhamdulilah.
In the space of five days, I hopped from New York to Baltimore to Philly to Providence, seeing old friends, gracing stages, editing copy in cafes, listening to the experts on Sudan. A week absorbing, learning, in rapture and awe.
It’s been one of these weeks where I revel in the opportunities and freedom of the freelance life, while also constantly chiding myself for needing a little more sleep than I’d scheduled for. Days on the road require a touch more resilience than they used to. I’ve been a traveling worker my entire adult life but these days, dawn starts and red eye flights linger. Age comes for us all.
(Yes, I will be wearing those compression socks on the plane, thank you very much, my ankles have already begun to swell at the thought of JFK).
Alhamdulilah.
One of the events I had the fortune to speak at this week was the Grace Hopper Celebration, a conference dedicated to women in computing. It was an enormous production - nobody does conferences like North Americans - and one of the best line ups I’d ever seen. Most of the hundreds of presenters were women, or trans/non-binary/gender queer folks, and many were from historically marginalised and racialised communities - Black and brown, Indigenous, Jewish, etc. I’d not seen such a genuinely diverse line up at a STEM event in my life, and felt excited to be part of it, glad to play a small role in an important gathering.
The allotted time for my talk - on bias in hiring - only allowed for a handful of questions, so as is often the case after an event like this, I hung around after the keynote to continue the conversation. A sizeable group gathered, and in the end I probably spent as much time ‘post-talk’ as I did on stage - we got moved along twice by the organisers! But I was happy to make the time. It’s always instructive to chat to folk afterwards - in a more intimate setting, people become comfortable enough to reveal what’s on their minds, share what resonated and what didn’t, and often, seek advice for the challenges they are facing.
In some ways, things aren’t so different in the tech/engineering spaces today as they were 15 years ago, when I started in the sector. Women and other genders remain largely marginalised, companies are trying but often unable to retain them in large numbers, the needle is shifting, but not fast enough. On the other hand, the world is starkly different to the late 2000s. We’ve had mass cultural movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, we’ve had seismic political shifts like Brexit and the election of Mr Trump, we’ve seen a resurgence and legitimisation of the far-right that would still have been beyond the pale when I was in the field. The problems might be the same, but the landscape in which people are navigating them has shifted.
Which brings me to one of the questions posed to me in the post-talk huddle, one that I’ve chewed over, wondering if I could have answered differently. Forgive me, as I cannot remember the exact wording, but it was something to the effect of:
‘Sometimes, I see someone - a leader in my organisation - doing or saying something inappropriate, and I call it out - publicly, in front of everyone else. Do you think I’m doing the wrong thing?’
I presume this question was sparked by my giving an example - while on stage - of correcting a leader who had made a mistake. I had pulled them aside and spoken to them privately, let them know how they’d had a negative impact on others, suggested alternative behaviours, all while assuming good intentions and working from there.
‘Why do you feel it’s important to call them out publicly?’ I asked, wanting to make sure I understood before I responded.
‘Well, so everyone else watching knows that this behaviour isn’t okay. But then, you said that might be shaming them… so what is the right thing to do?’
I gave an answer that I think was fine, but I don’t think it did a good enough job of communicating the core of my message.
‘It’s not whether it’s right or wrong,’ I began… but then I babbled a bit, digressing.
On reflection, what I wanted to say was this:
When we’re thinking about changing behaviour in the workplace, the behaviour that informs culture, that underpins systems and structures, it is not a question of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Rather, it is - for me - a question of what is effective, and what isn’t. It is a question of strategy.
Now - not everyone will agree with this. Many of you might not. You might be thinking, Yassmin! There is a moral right and wrong, and it is important to always call it out, lest we allow damaging behaviours to go unchallenged, making way for workplace injustice to fester.
I hear you. I do. And I don’t completely disagree. However, sometimes I wonder: who is ‘calling it out’ in the workplace for? Is it truly for ‘everyone else’? Or is it for ourselves? Is it to make ourselves feel better? To be like, yup, I’ve done the ‘right thing’, boom boom, job done, consequences be damned?
It’s a nice feeling, choosing to damn the consequences. There’s a decadent comfort in it, a luxurious sense of moral superiority. I’m saying this because I’ve been there, I’ve chosen it, I felt that feeling many a time.
But in my experience, my self-righteousness has never changed someone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. And this is where I have to be honest with myself. Am I in this work to feel good about myself, or to shift the behaviour - of others - towards a more just outcome? No matter how ‘perfect’ my own moral compass, how useful is it if I’m the only one marching in that direction?
Even as I write this, I can feel myself cringing. This line of thinking sounds too close to ‘the ends justifies the means’ - but that is categorically not what I’m talking about. I’m not even wholly obsessed with behaviour - structural change is more than just social norms. I guess I’m pushing back against the idea that there is any ‘right’ way to work towards change, and more just different strategies. Some are more effective than others, but ultimately, we all have to choose what works for us in any given moment. If calling things out publicly is what works best for you, is what feels like the most effective for you, then by all means - have at it! But for me, for my sensibility and from my experience, what I think is most effective looks different. I think it’s also important we are honest about the impacts of our chosen strategies, understand and accept the critiques and continue to move forward as best as we can.
Or do I?
Gosh, I equivocate so!
I feel like I am driven towards making an argument, but instead of driving the stake into the ground to mark my territory, I am instead poking a shallow hole and then saying, yeh, here works, but so does anywhere else…
It’s kinda like writing, in a way. There’s no real ‘right’ way, but there are ‘effective’ ways - ways to use language to achieve your intended aim. Maybe that’s a better analogy for how I think about change. Considering how I best use the tools at my disposal to achieve the outcome I’m looking for…
I’m not sure I’m done with this thought yet, but it’s a start.
Over to you, folks. What do you think? Do I sound too much like ‘the ends justifies the means’, or are you picking up what I’m putting down?
Read: Seeing the World Through Sudan
I was incredibly honoured - beyond honoured - to be part of an academic conference at Brown University this week, titled ‘Seeing the World Through Sudan’. I’ll link the videos as soon as they’re available, but in the meantime, it’s worth checking out this powerful reading list collated by the organiser Bayan Abubakr, full of resources and in depth analysis of the conflict. You might want to start with ‘Failing Palestine by failing the Sudanese Revolution’, a long read by Muzan Alneel.
Watch: Social Studies
I haven’t had a chance to finish this docuseries yet, but the reviews seem to indicate that this is a time-capsule worth paying attention to. In five parts, documentarian Lauren Greenfield follows a group of Los Angeles teenagers around, examining the effects of social media on the lives of the first generation who’ve grown up with it their whole lives. And here I thought being a millennial was hard.
Listen: Sudan Tapes Archive
Haneen Sidahmed is a communications specialist at a university by day. But by night, she’s busy archiving and digitizing tapes of Sudanese music in a project dubbed the Sudan Tapes Archive. The project aims to “preserve Sudan’s sonic imprint.” - The World
You simply have to check out this SoundCloud page - a sonic archive of Sudan’s soul…
Thanks as always for reading, folks. I appreciate every one of you. A reminder to share, or subscribe, if you feel so inclined, and may you have a blessed week, inshallah. Amidst all the pain and calamity, may you find ease, inshallah.
Until next week,
Yassmin
My husband likes to ask people who have strong feelings about something, "Would you rather be right or rather be effective?" He goes on to say that being right can make you feel momentarily better but won't change anything. Being effective is figuring out how to deal with the upsetting event strategically so you are effective. Ex: "I am so angry I quit!" vs. "Let's figure out if we can achieve that same goal collaboratively."
In my work when we're talking about co-creating a culture within a group (in a week-long training, say) we talk about calling "out" versus calling "in", which I think speaks to the tension you're talking about! As a facilitator I will present these options just like how you were saying, as two different strategies for different situations where harm might be occurring, depending on a variety of factors... but what's most interesting is that in some groups people will lean towards one strategy more than the other and then collectively decide that we're only going to deploy that (i.e. a group of rowdy anarchists who are like "we are just gonna call out harm every time, doesn't matter if its disruptive"). I've never *ever* seen it work effectively. My sense is you always need to have both strategies working in tandem for harm to effectively be named and dealt with accordingly.