There is, I am happy to report, a growing backlash to that; I'm part of it. Michael Lopp, aka "Rands", is an ubergeek and manager of geeks; he's currently VP Engineering at Slack, the company that makes the eponymous enterprise-grade multi-chat-room tool that's becoming ubiquitous among tech companies... his side gig is teaching people to become leaders of diverse, empowered teams free from assholery. He started this by writing "Rands in Repose", a blog, going on to a couple of books, and he's now the head moderator of a Slack called Leadership, which is a community that has a lot in common with this place, and is the _first_ place I've felt comfortable being _me_ with the name attached to my passport and my professional identity... I suspect this isn't the only place that's doing it either... AND this one has some folk pretty high up in geekery in it... including one chap I remember from the 80s who spent 17 years at a fruit-flavoured outfit before hanging it up and going birding for a while...
Yes, people are assholes. Us weirdoes have realised there are enough of us now, and ways to connect us, to do something about that... and we are. Yes, it's a long slog, but every time I see someone light up when an intentional asshole is dispatched, when a clue-bat hits home and the light bulb comes on and the apologies and the fixing starts? WORTH IT. *So* worth it.
>> his side gig is teaching people to become leaders of diverse, empowered teams free from assholery. <<
That's nice to hear. I think we'd do a lot better if we had more people teaching the skills needed to make diversity an asset instead of a pain in the ass. But most schools or leadership programs just throw people together and expect them to figure it out on their own somehow.
When I teach diversity, I do things like encouraging people to compile and correlate. Here are several different color magic systems; look at the similarities and differences. That makes it easy to see that each system is good at different things, and you can talk about why the same color has opposite meanings to different people.
Once people have done a number of exercises like that, they learn that the basic skills of diversity boil down to looking at what you have and asking if anyone else has a solution to the problem you can't see. That's what you need to get the goodies out of it.
Minimizing the friction is harder. People won't do it if they don't see a benefit so you have to teach the other stuff first. From there it's just tolerance -- learning to take perspectives as options rather than absolutes, being respectful to each other and trying not to rub each other the wrong way, etc.
Remembering getting some "you couldn't have" type flack from a my FORTRAN prof in 1979, which I dealt with by challenging him to give me a programming assignment that I could write in front of him. He did, and I did - long hand, on a legal pad, sitting in his office. Didn't even bother to move to the table, though he suggested it. He looked at it for a long minute, said something along the lines of not having written it in so few lines in so short a time himself (it had taken me about 10 minutes, tops), and changed my course grade from a C to an A. The whole thing wasn't all that surprising *for 1979*.
What is heartbreaking is that the same damn thing is still happening, near 40 years on.
yep. I went to an all-girls' high school so my first experience of this kind of shit wasn't until university where in my frosh calculus class anytime I did boardwork some guy would try to "correct" it (& more often than not, I was right & he was not... or at the very least, we were both wrong. But also, even if I'm wrong.... by not getting a specific correction on my work, I'm losing out & not learning from my own mistakes!!)
Also oof the pressure into management point is too real. I know it seems idk, shitty? to complain about getting a "promotion" - but often it's a lateral move w/ a lower ceiling? And yeah, based on assumptions/expectations of you being "nurturing"
I think companies would do better if they'd actually test for the aptitudes they want in a certain job. The person with the most nurturing qualities may not have boobs. Especially in a field like engineering that doesn't tend to attract the most feminine people to begin with.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-17 10:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-17 11:04 am (UTC)Leadership
Date: 2018-10-17 01:12 pm (UTC)Yes, people are assholes. Us weirdoes have realised there are enough of us now, and ways to connect us, to do something about that... and we are. Yes, it's a long slog, but every time I see someone light up when an intentional asshole is dispatched, when a clue-bat hits home and the light bulb comes on and the apologies and the fixing starts? WORTH IT. *So* worth it.
Re: Leadership
Date: 2018-10-17 07:07 pm (UTC)That's nice to hear. I think we'd do a lot better if we had more people teaching the skills needed to make diversity an asset instead of a pain in the ass. But most schools or leadership programs just throw people together and expect them to figure it out on their own somehow.
Re: Leadership
Date: 2018-10-17 09:21 pm (UTC)AND yes we need a LOT more.
Re: Leadership
Date: 2018-10-17 09:55 pm (UTC)Once people have done a number of exercises like that, they learn that the basic skills of diversity boil down to looking at what you have and asking if anyone else has a solution to the problem you can't see. That's what you need to get the goodies out of it.
Minimizing the friction is harder. People won't do it if they don't see a benefit so you have to teach the other stuff first. From there it's just tolerance -- learning to take perspectives as options rather than absolutes, being respectful to each other and trying not to rub each other the wrong way, etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-18 02:17 am (UTC)What is heartbreaking is that the same damn thing is still happening, near 40 years on.
Well ...
Date: 2018-10-18 02:27 am (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-10-18 02:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-18 03:03 am (UTC)Also oof the pressure into management point is too real. I know it seems idk, shitty? to complain about getting a "promotion" - but often it's a lateral move w/ a lower ceiling? And yeah, based on assumptions/expectations of you being "nurturing"
Well ...
Date: 2018-10-18 03:12 am (UTC)