Microaggressions in the workplace continue to be hard to understand. I was involved in an investigation a while back alleging microaggressions and I was uncertain. So when I had the opportunity to clarify I did.
I spoke with Sara Taylor who has been a DEI expert for a long time. She started her company, deepSEE Consulting in 2002. She has authored two books including, recently, 'Thinking at the Speed of Bias'. She has been a Chief Diversity Officer. She was on my panel discussion around DEI and it was wonderful to talk to her about this because I am a lot more clear now.
😳 Microaggressions are unintentional.
😔 We often apologize for hurting people unintentionally. Why not also apologize for a thoughtless assumption?
🧑🏽 Microaggressions are based on someone's identity (race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc)
😇 Microaggressions are not about bad people doing mean things.
👿 If someone is deliberately mean based on any of those areas, it's bullying and harassment.
I'm so much clearer now and it makes sense. There was so much to learn about from Sara's perspective and if you've been wondering, you won't after this discussion. Or at least you will wonder less.
Find Sara Taylor at https://www.deepseeconsulting.com/ or on LinkedIn. You can find her books wherever you buy them starting with the most recent: Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift our Unconscious Filters Filter Shift: How Effective People See the World Find me, Andrea Adams, for small and medium business consulting and HR project management at https:/thehrhub.ca