Ep 33: Recovering from mistakes and recovering trust

April and Tracie unpack the idea that "publicly addressing an organization's mistakes does more harm than good." Though there are some who would advise against drawing attention to past mistakes, April and Tracie argue that accountability and honesty are the only way to create and maintain trust.

Heads Up! We are taking some time off in the month of May 2021. You'll be able to enjoy reprises of our favorite episodes every Thursday in May. New content will resume in June.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, along with USAFA leadership, addressed the entire Cadet Wing and USAFA Preparatory School on 9/28/17.

Transcript

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- [Tracie] What should you do when you realize your organization has made a mistake? In our opinion, you don't sweep it under the rug.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- The birds are chirping. Good to be here with you, Tracie.- Yeah, happy spring.- Yeah, happy spring. Okay, let's continue with this flipping the script work. This is fun.(laughs) Flip the script. So -tt the scripT. I thought it was "flip the scrip," anyway so, okay. So the one that I was interested in covering is do you remember the precise-- Yes.- Heading?- Yes, it's number seven,"publicly addressing an organization's mistakes does more harm than good." That's the statement we wanna flip.- Right, and like first of all I kind of wanna expand the statement a little bit'cause to me this... Well do you have any preliminary thoughts you wanna share first before going on this?- I mean, I feel like this I have heard versions of this throughout my career and it's not just organizations though. It's sort of this idea that like, if you admit a mistake, you're admitting weakness which we saw from our former commander in chief I think on the regular.- The former occupant.- The former occupant of the White House, yes.- Yeah, and so, right. And so that's a really great example'cause I wasn't in stark relief then for a number of people, but maybe not everyone entirely. Right, but so for me, I think with this, there's like one way of approaching it and there's a different way that I wanna go take that different route, which is that to me I'm kind of thinking of it. Like you have two options you can be a multicultural, you can be or start to live into a multicultural, visionary, courageous leading edge, institution, individual, family, whatever the unit is, or you can be stuck in the past because what's interesting, I think is that in some ways people think it's pulling them back but I actually think it can propel you forward at times depending. And part of this also really depends on the circumstances here but what I'm specifically thinking of when this comes up is around issues that matter to certain people in your community where harm has been done. And there hasn't been repair done whether it was a specific individual who was hurt and/or often repeated incidents, for instance say people of color, Jews of color experiencing racism on the part of your, from members of an organization's staff team or at one of their program sites like a farm or a camp or something like that. And that it's just better to get better. And to pretend that didn't happen.- Right.- Oh right, but that alone right there, right?'Cause that's what's said, and that is so dehumanizing and disrespectful to the people who were harmed.- That is the SOP though, that's exactly it. That is the Standard Operating Procedure for so many of us. We like, if we see the mistake, we're like,"Oh, we shouldn't have done that." But let's just do better in the future and ignore the fact that we did that.- Gloss over it, right? Except for those family. But when you're in an organization those individuals have friends, they have families they have their local communities and this might be in a local community. It might be a bigger, like, it depends on there's all kinds of ways this can play out, right? And those things matter and word gets around. So I'm specifically thinking about this although this is not the only implication around organizations who have made racialized mistakes normally not on purpose, but they did them and now they know better or they're starting to know better. And then they wanna just gloss over it and move on. But then for some reason,(laughs) people of color aren't showing up to their programs. And I say that to be a little silly and light-hearted, not to mock, right? But to me and for emphasis, for educational emphasis, right? To make it kind of obvious, right? And a huge part of what can make a difference is being accountable and repairing the harm that was done. And also acknowledging because when multiple people in a community have been repeatedly hurt and or articles have been written and or memos have gone out to certain people, just because you wrote one well received perhaps I'm mostly white people. Op-ed about this conversation doesn't mean when that person walks into your gym, when another person walks into your gym visits your summer camp, goes to your writing program whatever the thing may be, that they aren't still holding in their minds, that they could still be hurt which is why a lot of them don't show up. I mean, there's also a number of other reasons like you haven't done enough work that has helped your community integrate more. And honestly, part of that takes time and really effective courageous work. And what I see repeatedly most institutions go to is they hire a person of color and or a DEI a DEI expert who is often a person of color but not exclusively that DEI person if they're qualified them precisely what they need to do. And still being entrenched in white supremacy culture or delusion or white dominant culture or delusion, only do like 10% of what that person says. And so it takes them a lot longer because there were things that were within their... Hypothetically, were within their reach because most a number of professionals, particularly those who were doing that long design strategies that are tailored to a group's developmental level. But because some of these persnickety oppressor patterns are still in their minds, there's still the thought of,"Oh well, I know better even though we're failing at this generally." I have this one person on our board, right? You know the people that whatever reason they kind of default to, well actually I know what's best, even though almost all the evidence says to the contrary that, "Ya don't." And so that's also a variable to here, right? Is that you haven't taken enough affective action over a long enough period of time. Even if people don't know you're sordid or a parts of what might be elements'cause you might have parts of your past even around this issue, that might be wonderful but that does not overshadow, but there's still a lingering thing that may or may not be true. But I think it may be more true than people may be conscious of, of an underlying assumption of disposability, of people of color who don't fit into the norm that you're used to. And what you don't realize is that those stories carry. And so the sooner you can take accountability and also living into that institutional self-awareness and honesty and courage the more rapidly you may start to see meaningful shifts and changes to say something along the lines of we are really doubling down and committing around this issue. And it's also worth noting and naming that in recent years or in years past we were not equipped to do this work well. And unfortunately, as a result there were a number of good people who were hurt or humiliated or whatever the, you know who were hurt by actions that members of our team took. And often those members didn't mean to do that harm but that does not negate the fact that hurt and harm was done. And we are sorry... that I think what people fail to realize is that so like what I'm trying to say and then it seems like you might have some thoughts, right? Is that part of that to me is about the specific action but it's this and this is why I started here but it's more important of how do you see yourself? Because I think with a bit of deeper work other areas of my life, this isn't intuitive I have to get there. But as I just shared a sampling of that like the bigger, stronger more sophisticated stance is clearly for the most part to me to own it. And in fact, by owning it, it also you aren't owned by it. It looks like it's like individual trauma. Like the more you can start to create distance from it while also acknowledging it that it happened. It further cements that that's not where you are now. And so, and I know at times like this can be complex as someone who's been a senior executive, right? That there potentially can be legal liabilities and you need to be thoughtful about those things but there should be away and you should be able to find legal counsel who can support your institution in being legally safe and also being ethical and doing what is right. Quite honestly, according to Jewish law in terms of Teshuva and accountability and acknowledging past harm.- Yeah, I think even bigger than the legal potential legal ramifications my sense of what at least in my experience the thing that slows people down is sort of we don't want to draw attention to the mistake. If most people didn't see it. It's kind of like when I was running a marketing department and we sent out an email and then after the email was sent, we found a typo. And like I had one like very conscientious staff member who was like,"We should send out another one to correct it." And I was like, "No, we're not gonna to do that."'Cause the people who noticed the typo like feel good about themselves, that they noticed the typo but most people didn't even notice it. We're not talking about typos here, right? I think that's an important, that is the impulse is like, don't draw more attention'cause maybe some people didn't notice it. But the thing is that we're not talking about typos we're talking about harm. And as we've said before, and I need to say like I don't know who said this to me first or where I heard it first. And so I'm gonna say this on attributed and I apologize,'cause I need to look up who said it first but relationship moves at the speed of trust. And by not naming that harm, you are hurting trust and therefore hurting relationship.- Deeply.- If trust is a doorway, as I heard at a recent SURJ meeting, if trust is a doorway, then by not acknowledging mistake, you are closing that door for the people who know about it and who were harmed that they will not walk through it. Regardless of whether you change your behavior or not, the door's closed.- And I think here's the distinction, right? Because I'm not saying, and we're not saying I don't think that every time a mistake is made but often a number of organizations have histories now have track records around multiple people who have been harmed. Like if there's one person, even just one singular person even if all of your staff was trained and you just missed one person if that one person was a registrar or whatever it might be that one person could potentially interact with hundreds or thousands of people and hurt any number of them in meaningful ways that could interfere with a person's ability to attend your programming that in the context specifically of the Jewish community and also in any other field like these are important things with substantial ramifications that hurt people and shift individual trajectories and family histories depending upon what happened and what a person in a key moment was turned away from receiving.- Right.- Right? And so, I don't mean to say everything needs to be...-Right. But when it matters and or when people are asking for this and here's another thing that came to me is I've noticed in my experience that if it's men, if it's donors, if it's people who are respected within the community that corrective happens with lightening speed. So part of this to me is also about power dynamics. And I think naming that explicitly is important here is to hold a holistic view and be honest with yourself as an organizational leader about the people who do get these things at times almost instantaneously, before they even have a chance to name it sometimes, or they name it. And then it is treated with top priority and it is clear. So part of this to me is about a double standard because when it is a group of people who are an element in your community and your constituency to whom you feel profoundly and unequivocally accountable you then take that course of action. And so, but yet if it is people of color or young girls or people who have less structural or positional power then this stuff comes up around... What was the phrase again about that we don't want to...- We don't want to draw attention to it for those who maybe didn't notice.- We don't want to draw attention to this. Right, well and also part of that too is because it doesn't have to necessarily always be like sometimes it's a public thing. And sometimes it's also, honestly, it's even more powerful for it to not be public and to go directly to the person or the group, and be as specific as possible in acknowledging the wrongs and saying here is what we are doing, and here's the commitment we are making, and here's what we are going to say publicly just as you would do with other groups to whom you are accountable.- Right.- Right? Like you don't necessarily announce that there was a donor mistake to the whole community but yet still I know that that mistake got corrected.- Right- Right?- And apologized for.- And apologized for and adjusted and measures were put in place to make sure that that thing didn't happen again. And so what is it right like that? So I think it's worth noticing in a way where it's not about shaming you or your team but noticing how the oppression is operating that for some reason that it actually is circumstantial and that most organizations do have the capacity and do it regularly, correct things when the pertinent person is important enough. And so I think part of what I would say a little bit sternly is you get to decide how important this constituency is to you. And if you do in fact care about diversity as you are learning to, and as you were leaning into that over time, hopefully you will function with a level of integrity and professionalism that your institution likely already has. Otherwise you wouldn't be in existence. And it is about over time, expanding your organization's extending the skills that you already have for the people for your VIPs, two parts of the community that have been historically oppressed by society and also by your organization and correcting that. And why, besides the obvious- Go ahead, Tracie.- Well, the other piece of it is like the drawing attention sort of objection. When you think about the people who are aligned with your values like I'm not a Jew of color, And it's very important to me that the Jewish institutions that I support are not causing harm to Jews of color. So actually, if I saw one of my beloved institutions apologizing for harm caused to Jews of color, that would make me wanna support them more because I see them as acknowledging and to making a way.- Advancing and growing, evolving.- And opening that trust doorway. And so, I don't want folks to underestimate the power of your constituents seeing you do the right thing, even if it's not directly "for" them, I'm putting air quotes around for.- Right, so I think it's worth noting that it doesn't always have to be super public. And if it is right, that the positive benefits that can come from this and also that it begins to be part of your leadership, it's a leadership stance as it would be with anything else that you might do where you might need to publicly acknowledge and apologize for something and doing it from a place that we consistently talk about for the people involved and also for the institution as a whole of still honoring all that is great. It's not either/or I think that's, I mean, that's the other thing that's at the root of this it's either/or and this is both/and this is both acknowledging that something went wrong. And like this is what I was trying to say, and to me, in some ways conversely it actually further elevates you because institutions that have the competence and wherewithal and integrity to do that to me are also saying, and we're stating this because this is clearly not in alignment with who we are and who we are striving to be. And so we want to eradicate this thing and be very clear. We want to be unequivocal in our articulation of our organizational values and where we have faltered from them and where we are further evolving them. And it is not easy but we are committed to this because it is important. It's just like yeah, Like when I hear organizations say things like that like to me, one of my favorite examples of this, I can't remember if I talked about this on the podcast or not. Is that a general-- I was just thinking of that.- Yes.- You haven't talked about it on the podcast, but you should (indistinct)- I've watched that so many times, some of the executives, especially the white executive males I work with. I love that video is what the Air Force, right?- I can't remember what branch.- He's just a general in the Air Force, right? And there was racism that showed up, right? And he owned. And when you own it, actually to me I felt like there was less racism because he named it and he was so clear that this has no place here.- And if you don't like it get out, yeah.- Yeah, and we would be naive to think that we are immune. Right, so he also provided a systemic view, right? So there was a way in which it both had compassion and clarity and I didn't even know this guy before. And I am like in love with this dude now. There are probably thinks he's done that I totally don't agree with but because of this action, right. Him naming it, that is courage. It's integrity. It models for other institutions for the people on your staff. Because here's the other thing about it is that if you do not do this for your staff for your broader community, for a subset of the community it conveys, it's sort of like what Elie Wiesel says. Like when you're silent in the face of oppression you are aligning with when not speak about this I want you to be really clear that whether passively or intentionally your colluding with the original harm.- Yeah.- By not saying either explicitly about that incident or at times I get it, I get it again. I get it, I understand this or if you're talking about it more generally and saying there have been moments where we have lapsed and we are handling the specifics of these incidents but it's really important as a team. And either when post-mortem or outset we are still assessing what is happening but here's what we are clear about. And here's where we are fundamentally sorry. If any of these sorts of things happened on our watch, this is not something we were aware of, but we now are and we are going to do everything we can to correct this.- I will put a link to the video in the show notes.- Oh please do it, it's glorious.- One of the things that this fella this general does, that is so nice. He has all of his, the people under his command if one of them-- The whole crew, everyone at the Academy, everyone who's onsite.- And to the point about like not drawing attention to it, he actually says like"Get your phones out and record what I'm about to say." So I feel like that's one of the pieces of it is that like he's not embarrassed to apologize and to sort of say to name what happened and to say what the response is from him and from the organization.- Sorry, and I feel like I'm still not saying it well but by naming it like that, he acknowledged it but he also actually distanced himself that by naming it explicitly and being clear about it that to me, it actually created a distance between him and that you see what like that it elevates.- He takes away its power. It's sort of like Voldemort where you don't say his name like that gives him more power. And so by saying the name of that, which may not be named but actually sort of calling it by its name calling a spade, a spade, like it demystifies it a little bit and then allows us to actually decide what we're going to do about it.'Cause if we're not willing to actually name the poison or the wound or the whatever it is that needs to be addressed, how can we come up with a plan to address it if we can't even name it.- Right, and that by having a plan, but it gets clear around who we are as institution and we're dealing with this is that it becomes more manageable. So to me, it's just, and again, like there are all kinds of things minutia we can get into in specific things, but in general with a number of institutions with whom I've worked there is a history that it doesn't have to be specific. There's a history of repeated breaches of trust, repeated moments that lacked integrity, repeated moments of incidents of explicit racism that weren't managed well, right? So to acknowledge that opens up a door for healing for a few to potentially dozens or hundreds of people who have been hurt by your institution who would still love to be involved but ethically cannot so long as they have never received an apology, a meaningful apology a sincere apology for the harms that were done. I have members of my family who may never be involved in Jewish life again from the hurtful things that were done to them for the humiliation they endured. And that doesn't have to be that way. And there are leaders who are still associated with those institutions who could take actions now and speak about these things such that my family members either would either hear it, or if at any point they ever visited back and saw something that indicated this could create a new possibility for them. Right? And so that's my hope for our community and for our society in general, is that as individuals and as institutions, we start to understand that mistakes and trauma with proper support lose their power when we start to move through them and face them head on. And that by doing that all kinds of new possibilities and progress is possible in ways that we expected and possibly in ways that we didn't.- [Tracie] Friends, we wanted to give you a quick heads up April and I will be taking some time off in the month of May, 2021. We will be re-releasing our favorite episodes of Jews Talk Racial Justice every Thursday in that month.- [April] Thanks for tuning in our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @elliothammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation visit, jewstalkracialjustice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.