Kim Scott
speaker
322 appearances
5 recordings
3 series
first heard Jul 2018
last heard Jun 2025
Kim Scott’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
started talking that's often how bias shows up by the way just who sits next to whom or across from whom so she started talking undeterred and when the other side had questions they didn't direct them at her they directed them at her two colleagues who were met it happened once it happened twice finally the third time it happened he stood up and he said i think we should switch seats
That is all he had to do to totally change the dynamic in the room, because as soon as he did that, the other side realized what they were doing and they knocked it off. They started engaging her. Now, why did he decide to be an upstander in the moment? First of all, there's a practical reason. He just wanted to win the deal. Second of all, there's an emotional reason.
He liked his colleague and he didn't like seeing her get ignored. Third of all, he had some compassion for the people who were making this mistake, for the people who were demonstrating this bias. He knew that we all have bias. He had different biases. And he knew that it would be easier for them to hear it from him than from her. It wasn't that he thought she couldn't stand up for herself.
But if he had a little compassion for the people who were making this mistake, it would make it easier for them to correct their mistake. And fourth, there's a self-interested reason for him to do this, because I know that everyone listening to us talk has had a moment probably in the last two weeks where someone said or did something that was so outrageous, it left them just speechless.
And then you wake up at three in the morning thinking, why didn't I say anything? So it was a self-protective thing. He didn't want, because if you are a silent bystander, you wind up suffering what's called a moral injury. You didn't do anything wrong, but you didn't also intervene. And so you feel slimed by this other person's behavior.
So that's an example of using an I statement to be an upstander and using it pretty directly. However, there's plenty of times in a situation where you can't think of what to say or you feel like you might make things worse for the person who's on the receiving end of the bias if you intervene directly. So another thing you can do is you can delay your response.
You can just check in with the person who was on the receiving end. So if you didn't feel like it was right to challenge the manager in the meeting, you can check in with that Indian woman afterwards and just say, I'm really sorry this kept happening to you. I noticed. And that may not feel like much, but it can be really impactful to check in with a person. I'll give you an example.
I one time was giving a presentation to a big team, like 5,000 people. And the leader of this organization was introducing me and a colleague. And he introduced this colleague first. My colleague stuck his hand out. The guy shook it. Then he introduced me. I stuck my hand out for the leader to shake. And instead of shaking it, he grabbed it and he kissed it. left spit on the back of my hand.
And that was, I mean, that was not the end of the world, but it was a cringe moment. But what was even worse than his doing that was the fact that not a single one of those 5,000 people came up to me later and said, that was weird. Do you want some hand sanitizer or anything like that? And then I started to gaslight myself.
I was like, maybe I'm overreacting, which is easy to do in those situations. So it can be A big deal to talk to the person afterwards. You can also just create a distraction. Spill your coffee in the meeting. See if that helps, especially if you feel like it's not just bias, but maybe this person is bullying. Like you want to change the dynamics. You can delegate.
If you don't feel like you're the right person to intervene directly, catch someone else's eye, say, and they'll know what you're talking about when you catch their eye and see if they will intervene. And last but not least, you can document what happened. You can write it down. We all have these sort of movie cameras in our pockets.
But remember, if you document what happened, you don't own that documentation. The person harmed gets to decide what to do with it. So those are some thoughts on how to be an upstander.
I love that example. It's a great way of using that I statement. I love what you're saying. I want to hear more. And you were the leader. So people were going to, if they weren't going to listen to him, they were going to listen to you and you were telling them to listen to him. I love that.
Okay.
So I think that an it statement is, it does risk escalating the situation a little bit. So I think that at the same time, you can use an it statement to make a nice. So here's what I mean. An it statement draws a boundary between one person's freedom to believe whatever they want. And it sounds like this joke had some belief. It wasn't just a biased joke.
So one person can believe whatever they want, but they can't impose that belief on others. And its statement can appeal to a law, it can appeal to an HR policy, or it can appeal to common sense. So one thing that a leader could say is, it's not okay to tell that kind of joke and then move on. I'll give you an example. And then I think I would pull that person aside and say more.
I'll give you an example of an it statement that I wish I had used. I don't think I really did it as well as I'm about to describe in real life. But this happened to me right after I returned to work from maternity leave. And so I'd been gone for five months. I just had these twins and this is my second day back in the office. So I'm having all the feelings that one has at this moment.
And I was chit chatting with a guy before meeting. And he said to me, uh,
my wife doesn't work because it's bad for the children and for me at this moment in time that was like a punch in the gut and but i didn't think he meant it i actually didn't think it was prejudice i thought it was biased and so i said oh i decided to show up at work today because i wanted to neglect my children and i was expecting him to laugh and we would apologize and we would move on but that's not what happened he doubled down and he said oh no kim
it's really not good that you're back at work it's bad for your kids i'm going to send you some research and so now i know this is not unconscious bias it's actually prejudice And so I decided to use an it statement. And the first one I used was going to hurt the good vibes of our chit chat. And that was intentional. I felt like I had to be willing to do that.
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