So the obvious question for us white-guys running the team is "what the heck am I doing wrong?"
I mean, if there's a complaint - I should tackle that. If I hear something, I should say something. But half the posts here are discussing nebulous feelings of "unbelonging", and I have zero idea what to do about that. So now I'm wondering what I might be doing that's creating that feeling of "unbelonging" among my team.
Frankly, the person this article is most relevant to is not white guys with power. And that's a good thing. For everyone who has been in a similar situation to the author, this sort of experience hopefully can help them figure out what they want, what they value, and where they belong.
But there are some clear things you shouldn't do, just from the text:
- Group outings that exclude specific individuals, because of personal preference, religion, race, etc. If that means someone doesn't drink, make sure drinking isn't the only way to socialize.
- Avoid people because their otherness makes you uncomfortable. This frankly just sucks, and there's not really anything the other person can do about it.
- Conversely, treat people as fragile. You may not understand someone, and that's OK. It doesn't mean they'll be offended because you give them challenging tasks, it doesn't mean they should be held back from "dangerous" situations.
The list goes on, but the other thing you can do, is actually listen to your reports. Ask them what they want in life. Ask them what their goals are, how their family is, what they feel best doing, when they feel most stressed out. And work to actually resolve what you can, with their help (i.e. don't just fire someone because they're avoiding someone else. That would likely be overkill, and scare the crap out of the person you were trying to "protect").
Just wondering about it is a small but positive first step.
The next step: seek out more knowledge. Do a bunch of reading about privilege, and racism, and sexism, and unconscious bias, and micro-aggressions, and lots of other things. There are many resources on the web for this that you can seek out, but if you want a place to start, http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Feminism_101 is one I've found useful. (If starting with a resource that's seemingly just about feminism feels too narrow, don't worry; you'll soon learn about "intersectionality" -- there's stuff about it on that very page I've linked -- and the ideas get much broader.) Follow the links, read some more, follow the links, read some more.
You'll quickly see that, like all topics of interest, this one has some jargon that will sound strange at first. You'll get used to it soon enough and realize that it's useful; that these strange-sounding terms have specific meanings that encapsulate concepts helpfully.
Engage your mind critically with what you read, including articles like this, and the subsequent comment threads. Empathize; put yourself in the shoes of the author as best you can. Think about which responses are reasonable, and which are unreasonable.
Do this for long enough and you'll start to see patterns. You'll start to realize that certain behaviours which seem benign at first are actually problematic. You'll start to get a feeling for what might be causing the "unbelonging". I won't give you examples because (a) you can find plenty if you do some reading, and (b) it's often more effective to work them out yourself than by having them given to you.
Talking with members of minorities can also be extremely helpful, but it's probably better to do some reading first. You'll likely get more out of any such discussion once you have a decent foundation of understanding.
All this is doable, but it'll take some time and effort and thought. Good luck.
I mean, if there's a complaint - I should tackle that. If I hear something, I should say something. But half the posts here are discussing nebulous feelings of "unbelonging", and I have zero idea what to do about that. So now I'm wondering what I might be doing that's creating that feeling of "unbelonging" among my team.