A Lesson Learned 

by Robert Hackman

Photograph from Issues.org

You would’ve thought that I’d have learnt this all by now
It seems that I’m here again, some way, somehow

Lyric from the song ‘Lesson Learnt’
By Aaron Taylor

As an executive coach and facilitator, I frequently think about the conversations my clients are not having. I do my best to consider the dialogue in which I do not engage in relationships with my wife, kids, friends, and colleagues too.  

Often, they are the most vital conversations yet risky, so we avoid them, preferring to maintain the status quo, even when it is not working. We like to be well-regarded and avoid conflict, so we keep our uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to ourselves.

This is especially true around hot-button issues such as race, ethnicity, and sex. 

To maintain robust and diverse workplaces, we must be inclusive. Without a culture of inclusion, ‘diverse’ people entering an organization do not stay because they don’t feel they belong. 

That is why diversity and inclusion experts will only engage leaders in diversifying their teams and organizations once they have a plan to develop a climate of inclusion.

Vulnerable dialogue is required to make organizations more inclusive. People need to feel safe enough to say what shall not be said to get their thoughts, feelings, and experiences into the collective thought pool in which they can be hashed out and trust built. These are not always pretty and necessitate soul-searching.

How can we commit ourselves to engage in difficult conversations more often? What do we need to challenge the validity of our beliefs in ways that grow us and advance our relationships? How can we better comprehend the experiences of others?

My story

It was a dark, rainy Friday evening in October 1986. I had several hundred dollars in my pocket and seven tickets to a college football game. I was going to State College for the weekend with college friends.

I lived in an almost exclusively white suburb and was driving home from work in a tough, mostly black section of Philadelphia. I did not consider these distinctions at the time. 

It was raining lightly at 6:00 PM. As I approached a traffic light, I heard a loud thud, and suddenly, my car was lurching to the right front. What the hell?

I exited my car to find that the Streets Department had skillfully left a large hole in the street, covered only by a light steel plate. My car’s right front axle rested on the hole’s edge. 

Despite having a rear-wheel drive car, I could not move it. Now what? 

Just then, a large group of young, black teenage boys walked around the corner. I felt vulnerable, particularly with the money and tickets in my pocket. What might they do? Would they harass or hurt me? Would I still get to the game?

In the boy’s midst was a short, middle-aged woman. She immediately saw my problem and told the boys to push my car from behind while I put my foot on the gas. The car popped out of the hole, and I was ready to go. 

Relieved on many fronts, they declined my offer of money.

In retrospect, I had not needed to be afraid of them. They were the solution to my predicament. I should have been glad to see them. They had helped get me out of the hole and back on the road more quickly than I could have imagined.

Ashamed of my thoughts and feelings, I admired the lesson the woman had taught the black boys AND the young white man.

There was my prejudice measure right in front of me. I would have been uneasy either way, but I could not help but wonder whether I would have felt less afraid if a large group of white boys had come around the corner in the same neighborhood. Shamefully, my answer was yes—evidence of prejudice within me.

I call the story ‘A Lesson Learned’ and not ‘The Lesson Learned’ because I could feel the same way today. 

I do not feel good about it. I have more work to do to recognize and acknowledge my prejudices and do my best to eliminate them. 

For various reasons, I am not sure they will ever go away completely. The best I can do is to remain aware, open, and vigilant.

Several years ago, I told the following story to a mixed Toastmasters audience, wondering how they would respond.

It was part of my commitment to sharing uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to make it safe for others to reveal theirs. Counterintuitively, speaking honestly and vulnerably is how high-trust, safe environments are created and maintained. 

Some may not have liked or appreciated my story, and they understood I was open to change and at least willing to put the issue on the table.

I get frustrated about the number of times I need to ‘learn’ lessons before change truly sinks in. I often find I can know something in my head, yet I do not integrate it into my body or heart and thus do not change my immediate reaction, fully accept it or change my behavior. I have to keep working on it.

I need help comprehending that 90% of what drives my thinking and action remains below my level of awareness. How can that be? It is part of my humanity, the trick of my subconscious, that genuinely runs the show.

While I can improve my degree of self-awareness and my awareness of others in the present moment, I cannot change the amount that lies below my level of consciousness. The best I can do is better inform my unconscious with more complete, accurate, and helpful information. 

I have spoken to my kids about race for decades. As teenagers, they called me racist for admitting that despite my best efforts, I knew I was prejudiced.

We are all biased in different ways and to varying degrees. To be accepting and inclusive, we need to challenge our preconceptions continually.

The best way to change our beliefs about people who differ from us is to seek out and build relationships with them. Only in this way can we understand their experiences and perspectives and seek to comprehend what life’s like in their shoes.

 Worthy Considerations:

1. What are your stories?
2. What vital conversations do you avoid? How does sidestepping them affect your relationships?
3. When and how do your biases show up? Do you recognize, acknowledge, and accept them when they do?
4. Are you open to questioning and challenging the validity of your preconceptions?
5. Are you willing to share vulnerably to help build extraordinarily high-trust environments? How do you believe doing so will impact your teams and organization?

Please connect with me to determine ways to facilitate uncommonly candid conversations about biases each of us holds to benefit you, your team, and your organization. I welcome the discussion. 

Robert Hackman, Principal, 4C Consulting and Coaching, helps people live and lead with fewer regrets. He grows and develops leaders through executive coaching consulting, facilitation, and training of individuals, teams, and organizations. He is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He facilitates trusting environments that promote uncommonly candid conversations. Rob is also passionate about the power of developing Legacy Mindsets and has conducted over 50 Legacy interviews with people to date.

A serious man with a dry sense of humor who loves absurdity can often be found hiking rocky elevations or making music playlists. His mixes, including Pandemic Playlists and Music About Men, can be found on Spotify.