Life

“Say the Right Thing”

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I love learning new things and certainly have spent the last several years reading, watching and listening to anything I can get my hands on about diversity, equity, inclusion, bias and belonging. So I recently picked up, “Say the Right Thing” by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow. The premise of the book is to learn how to talk about identity, diversity and justice.

The authors suggest a framework called A.D.D.A. which stands for avoid, deflect, deny and attack. The authors contend these are conversational traps that one needs to be aware of and prepare for as one tries to have conversations around identity, diversity and justice issues. I thought this framework really did capture how conversations derail, sometimes before they even start!

One line in the book really captured the issue for me:

As excruciating as it can feel to have conversation about identity, it’s important to remember people from nondominant groups have always experienced emotional turmoil in these dialogues from being ignored, mocked, tone policed, or subjected to retaliation. When you find yourself wondering, “Why am I so uncomfortable? You might instead ask, “Why have I been comfortable until now?” You might then hear the answer: “I’ve been comfortable because until today, the other person has carried all the discomfort on their own.”

The authors suggest some strategies to deal with the emotional discomfort of these types of conversations such as a growth mindset by treating mistakes as opportunities to learn, self-affirm by reminding yourself what is most important and right-size feedback by remembering claims about privilege are often not as extreme as you perceive them. Reframing the situation can make you more open to the conversation in an objective way.

There are lots of helpful nuggets in this book. The authors share stories, examples and suggestions. One of the ending notes I think was helpful, “Don’t ignore people’s group identity, but also don’t reduce them to their group identity.” And finally, educate yourself! It is your responsibility to do so. Be curious, humble and ask for help but don’t expect someone else to educate you. Check out this book and let me know what you learned.

Bias in the Workplace

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Next week, I am co-presenting a session to a group of women new in their careers. Our topic is how obstacles can hinder women’s careers in the workplace. We all know bias exists and it certainly is a challenge for women…all women. I have witnessed it. I have experienced it. And I don’t want my daughters (or any other woman) to have to deal with it.

I have created some pre-work to set the stage for the face-to-face training, which I have shared below.

Individual Reflection: 

1.  What is my first memory of seeing or experiencing someone different from me? 

2.  When was there a time in my life that I felt different from others? 

3.  How did you deal with the situations above? 

Read This:

Bias Holds Women Back (forbes.com)

Individual Reflection: 

1.  What was your reaction to this article? 

2.  Have you ever experienced or witnessed any of the bias the article discusses? 

3.  How did you deal with the situations above? 

During the live session, we will walk through what bias looks like, how we all have bias and some things we can do when we see or experience bias. I know that women new in their careers might not be willing to speak up, but my hope is to share some tools that will help them address bias in a thoughtful, intentional, empowering way.

My First Podcast Interview

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I had such a great time being interviewed by Michael Hingson from Unstoppable Mindset. We spoke about a variety of topics. Driving the conversation and taking a proactive role is the crux of my conversation. Michael has such an interesting story and perspective, himself. Listen on and contact me with questions, comments and feedback!

Career Barriers and Bias

Posted on by Seniye Groff

“It’s easy to stand with a crowd.  It takes courage to stand alone.”  Mahatma Gandi

Besides my consulting work, I have signed on for two speaking engagements in April. One session is focused on early career women and how to overcome barriers in their careers. The second presentation is an HR/Benefits one day conference. I will be presenting on how to jumpstart DEI efforts at organizations. This audience is mainly HR and CFO folks.

I love presenting, sharing ideas and hearing stories from audiences. For the barriers presentation, this article provides a nice overview and some much-needed pre-work for audience self-reflection. I think back to my career and how I put up with so much “wrong” stuff early in my career due to fear, lack of knowledge on what to do and just overall naivete. Even in present day, the barriers are pretty much the same…women hold little power and are subject to so much bias. And then couple that with being a women within another marginalized group and imagine the obstacles, doubled or tripled!

I remember being told that you must “ask for what you want” yet even as recent as five years ago, when I did that, I was told, “Leadership will decide when you are ready…not you.” Unbelievable and yet, as women, we are forced to comply or start over. In this example, it was the beginning of me realizing exactly the environment I was working in and fortunately, I had options so didn’t need to stay.

But most women don’t have options or fear sticking their neck out and saying something. How do we teach women to move beyond this fear? First, we talk openly about it! If we normalize behavior that holds women back is acceptable, it will continue. I think we also need to make women aware of bias and what it looks like and actions they can take against it.

Bias “is a human trait resulting from our tendency and need to classify individuals into categories as we strive to quickly process information and make sense of the world.” There are two types of bias:

  • Explicit Bias
  • Implicit or Unconscious Bias

Explicit cognitive bias includes overt racism and racist comments; “individuals are aware of their prejudices and attitudes toward certain groups.”

Implicit cognitive bias “involves all of the subconscious feelings, perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes that have developed as a result of prior influences and imprints.” Implicit cognitive bias “involves all of the subconscious feelings, perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes that have developed as a result of prior influences and imprints.” Implicit cognitive bias involves “automatic, unconscious mental processes based on implicit attitudes or implicit stereotypes that are formed by one’s life experience and lurk behind the surface of the conscious.” Implicit biases are necessary for us to survive since our brains cannot possibly process every piece of information coming at it in real time for us to make decisions. Our brains learn to categorize similar things so we can react.  EVERYONE has Implicit Bias. A preference for a group (positive or negative) often operating outside our awareness and based on stereotypes and attitudes we hold that tend to develop early in life and tend to strengthen over time.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”  Mark Twain

Individual Reflection: 

1.  What is my first memory of seeing or experiencing someone different from me? 

2.  When was there a time in my life that I felt different from others? 

3.  How did you deal with the situations above? 

Bias

Conscious Bias

  • Expressed directly
  • We have it and we are aware of it.

Unconscious Bias

  • Expressed indirectly
  • We are not aware of the bias.

Bias in Action

  • Age
  • Color
  • Education level
  • Expertise
  • Family status
  • Gender
  • National origin
  • Personality
  • Physical ability
  • Physical appearance
  • Political views
  • Race/Ethnicity
  • Religion
  • Sexual orientation/Identity
  • Socioeconomic status

Bias effects

  • Confidence
  • Creativity
  • Decision making
  • Emotional health
  • Employment
  • Engagement
  • Opportunity
  • Performance
  • Personal freedom
  • Physical health
  • Relationships
  • Risk taking
  • Safety
  • Self-esteem

Q:  When have you experienced or witnessed bias?  What happened?  What was done about it?  What was the end result?

Who are you?

  • I am not biased.  I view things objectively.

Or

  • Bias exists in everyone, including me.  I actively STOP and think about how bias effects the choices I make.

Q:  Which one are you?  Provide an example.

Sources of your bias:

  • Your own experiences.
  • Information you read such as news, social media, stories, books, movies etc.
  • Your education including school you attend and what you study.
  • Your context-family, friends, work, where you live, what you do and who you spend time with.
  • Culture-spoken and unspoken rules in your community and society.
  • Innate characteristics you are born with.

All of these create your identity.  Your identity can be sources of positive and negative bias.  Some of our identifiers cause us to be biased to others and others to be biased towards us.

Q:  What is your identity?  Note if any create bias towards others.

How to Disrupt Bias (within yourself)

  • Create connections with folks different from yourself.
  • Move from “autopilot” to questioning your thoughts and behaviors.
  • Be curious.
  • Be empathetic.
  • Ask questions.  Even if uncomfortable.  You can say you are uncomfortable!

Q:  Think about who you connect with, hang out with, spend time with, ask advice from…do they look different or similar to you?  Why?

Broaden your viewpoint by:

  • Joining different groups
  • Reading different viewpoints, following different influencers
  • Joining different community groups
  • Try new experiences
  • Change your routines

Take Action

Ways to Act with Courage

  • Notice bias happening
  • Confront bias
  • Help others with bias
  • Address bias

Q:  What are specific ways you can act with courage as described above?

  • Pause and question actions, thoughts and outcomes.
  • Seek to understand.
  • Check assumptions.
  • Learn.  Educate yourself and others.
  • Share your story.
  • Bring people together.
  • Be a coach or mentor.
  • Amplify others’ voices.
  • Speak up.
  • Organize groups.

Your perspectives are incomplete.  You are an expert on your identity…be willing to learn about others.

Types of Bias

  1. Confirmation bias-get information that supports our existing beliefs.  Ex.  News from a single source. 

Take action:  What could we do differently?

  • Anchoring bias-rely on first piece of information we see.  Ex.  Misdiagnose an illness by paying too much attention to the first symptom we see.

Take action:  What could we do differently?

  • In-Group bias-we favor people we like and who are like us.  Ex.  Hiring a candidate that has our similar background, alma mater etc. 

Take action:  What could we do differently?

  • Negativity bias-we are more powerfully influenced by negative experience than positive or neutral experiences.  Ex.  Remembering bad customer service experience. 

Take action:  What could we do differently?

  • Attribution bias-we judge others on their action but we judge ourselves based on our intent.  Ex.  Thinking someone is ineffective because of a mistake. 

Take action:  What could we do differently?

  • Sunk-Cost bias-we continue things because we have already invested time, money resources.  Ex.  Keep reading a book even though you don’t like it. 

Take action:  What could we do differently?

“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.”  Martin Luther King

Share your experiences and ideas…and what you can do differently.

Fear and My Most Pivotal Moments

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Fear holds us back. Fear keeps us from welcoming difference. Fear also forces us out of our comfort zones. I think back on the most pivotal moments in my life and realize that fear held me back but also moved me forward. Some scenarios where fear moved me forward were:

-having a child

-leaving a job

-getting married

-traveling oversees the first time solo

-speaking up when no one else would

-getting divorced

-adopting a child

-saying “yes” to something that I had no idea how to do.

But I believe that if you keep doing things as you always do, things will be guaranteed to stay the same and do we really want a life of sameness??!! Yes there is an inherent risk to pushing your boundaries because you are being pushed into the unknown…and often the outcome turns out to be better than I could have possibly imagined. Hard…yes. Painful…sometimes. But ultimately…better. We have to believe that or we would never move forward and evolve.

Palm Springs in December is Perfect!

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Cold nights and semi-warm days is Palm Springs in December. This trip was the fifth December trip to Palm Springs and I was able to get out and hike, which was great. Managed four hikes including the Coachella Valley Preserve, which although in the middle of nowhere, was fascinating. It sits on the San Andreas fault line and the water that seeps through the earth creates enough water for these palm trees to grow in the middle of the sandy desert.

I’ve Got a Horn and I’m Not Afraid to Use It!

Posted on by Seniye Groff

On the complete opposite spectrum from Japan is Vietnam.  This was my second trip to Vietnam.  My first trip was ten years ago and I only visited Hanoi.  This trip I visited Hanoi, Da Nang, Hue, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City.  Covering so much of Vietnam meant a lot of plane rides as the roads make for slow travel in Vietnam.

Vietnam is chaotic, noisy and unorganized.  Although I noticed a lot more cars this time around, the motor bikes (and their honking) are ever present.  Crossing the road is an act of death-defying activity.  People use their horns as a second language.  But at the same time, their is a warmness to the country that makes the visit worthwhile.

Hanoi’s Old Quarter is vastly different from HCMC’s wide boulevards and colonial architecture.  I liked HCMC right away (if only because it was so different from Hanoi).  Hoi An was a little slower and amazingly well preserved given how old the town is.  Vietnam’s craftsmanship is evident in both Hanoi and Hoi An.  There is beautiful clothing, leather and wood items.  Life happens on the streets and a “restaurant” can be set up on pretty much any sidewalk.  It is amazing how anything and everything can be done on a motorbike, including a mid-day nap!

I felt like Vietnam is at a crossroad.  There is evidence of lots of development and the presence of more cars means wealth is being built (at least for some).  But there is still a lot of poverty and the need for infrastructure.  I do hope that Vietnam moving into modern times will not ruin the beauty of the country.

Two Weeks in Japan and Vietnam

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I just returned from a fabulous trip in Japan and Vietnam.  I am posting the two countries separately for easier reading.  The two countries could not be further apart in experiences.  Both countries are great and incredibly different.  Japan is orderly, polite, clean and very interesting.  I visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.  The trains are super efficient (and very reasonably priced).  They take their toilets pretty seriously (check out the photo of the control panel).  And although Japan has a reputation for being very expensive it is pretty easy to eat on a budget and most tourist attractions are no cost.  A week in Japan is certainly not enough time but was enough to whet my appetite for a return visit!

Balloon Fiesta in ABQ

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I had the good fortune to be in Albuquerque for work during the Balloon Fiesta.  It was a beautiful event.  The colorful balloons going up in the air with the blue sky as a backdrop was amazing.  It doesn’t look like it in the pictures, but there were thousands of people on the field and it was pretty cool that you could talk to the balloonists and see everything up close.

Two Amazing Weeks in Portugal

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Portugal is beautiful in its own ramshackle, unkempt way.  Accept her beauty as she gives it to you; even though she is unassuming and even unaware of what she offers visitors.  Each cobblestone street, each narrow passageway is similar to unwrapping a gift.  I perused these gifts during a two week, solo trip in September 2018.  This was my first solo trip; I was nervous and excited.  I recently read that Portugal has a 26% unemployment rate, but I only witnessed bustling streets with tons of European and British tourists, downright honesty and some unbelievable prices on food.

I landed in Lisbon on a early evening on Tuesday and had decided to stay in a shared apartment (a first for me).  The metro station is a walkway from the airport and the ticket machines are easy to navigate.  For $1.20 Euro I could go anywhere in the city!  Lisbon was my only pre-planned hotel and the rest of the trip would be spontaneous reservations based on where I landed for the day.

I will confess, I spent a lot of time lost.  It is easy to do when street names are not in English, not visible and windy, cobbled streets begin to all look the same.  When I got off the appointed station, I exited the wrong direction which left me wandering the Bairro Alto/Bica neighborhood for about an hour looking for my reserved apartment.  It was hot and roller bags (even small ones) coupled with cobblestone streets don’t make for easy travel.  I did finally find the apartment and fortunately it was in a great location.

I wandered all over Lisbon for the next two days seeing all the sites and even taking the streetcar to Belem.  On my third day, I made the day trip to Sintra.  I headed to the Rossio train station where a round trip ticket was $5.00 Euro.  It was an easy 20 minute train ride out and a quick walk from the station to town.

On my fourth day, I took the metro to the airport to pick up my rental car.  I am pretty sure I was the only person in the country that wanted an automatic, but I guess this distinction gave me a BMW, so it all worked out.  🙂  I headed to Obidos.  It was a quaint (dare I say fake) medieval town (but also the wedding capital apparently).  I walked through the main drag littered with trinket shops and cafes.  I climbed the wall of the castle to see the countryside.  Overall it was an easy in, easy out trip completed in one hour.

My plan was to head to Coimbra next but I saw the sign for Nazare and decided to take a detour!  Nazare was the quintessential fishing village.  It was clouded over with fog, but it had a wonderful, long, sandy beach.  I found a cafe (there were many to choose from) and had my first fish dish in Portugal.  The Dourada was good and came with salad and potatoes (a theme I would see in many of my meals).

Nine miles outside of Coimbra were Roman ruins that I stopped to see.  The mosaics were incredibly preserved and an interesting museum provided a little relief from the unrelenting heat.   Next stop was Coimbra.  It was crowded, traffic-filled and I never was able to find the location of my airbnb.  So after one and a half hours circling the city I gave up and decided to find a hotel in a town on the way to Porto.  I ended up in Aveiro (Portugal’s Venice) and sure enough there were gondolas and canal.

In the morning I made my way to Porto and since I had read that driving in Porto was not recommended, I decided to stay north of the city.  It ended up being an industrial area with little charm but the metro was easy to find and dropped me right in the downtown area.  While waiting on the platform, I met a man from Morocco.  He was doing some work in Porto so I asked him what he thought I should see.  He suggested an itinerary and even made sure I got off on the correct metro stop before releasing me to explore.

The metro stop put me in this amazing garden across from the city.  What an amazing way to be introduced to Porto.  I walked across the bridge and walked up and down the many hills.  The Ribiera walk was crowded and people watching was at its finest.  I also visited the most beautiful train station with tile work more impressive than anything else I had seen.

After spending the night in Porto, I head to the Douro Valley where a spent two nights in Pinhao.  This little town was the perfect central location to an amazing gorgeous area.  I stayed at the Hotel Douro, which was family run and the perfect refuge.  The hotel was smack in the middle of town and an easy walk to several Quintas and the river.  I immediately walked the bridge and did a port tasting at Quinta Das Carvalhas.  I had never had port before and also did not realize the variety.  White, rose and red ports exist!  Who knew?!

For $10 Euro I took a one hour boat ride down the Douro.   It was the perfect amount of time and blessed me with more amazing views of the rolling hills, vineyards and Quintas along the way.  I ended the day by watching the sunset from the veranda of my hotel…absolutely perfect.

I mentioned to the hotel owner that I wanted to do a hike and he suggested visiting the village of Provesende.  It was 10 Km and ALL uphill but the rewarding vistas were worth every bead of sweat down my forehead.  The stunning hills, valleys, and many Quintas made the time pass and I ended in a tiny town lost in time.  It was perfect.  I roamed the tiny, very quiet town, had a coffee and knew there was no way I was walking back down with the stifling heat.  Fortunately, this tiny town was not too small for a taxi.  !0 minutes later at $11 Euros (money well-spent!) I found myself back in Pinhao.

After two heavenly days in Pinhao it was time to head south with the ultimate destination of Evora.  But I was in no rush…and had identified four small towns that I wanted to see.  I stopped in Belmonte, Sortelha, Marvao and Castelo de Vide.  Each of these towns were smaller, with few tourists and even fewer touristy shops.  In other words, pure heaven.  Of course, each town had a church and a castle and all were beautiful.  Castelo de Vide was not on my list but I needed a hotel and just happened upon this town…what a find!  Small, quaint, full of character and beautiful.  I feel like I have used the word beautiful way to much, but pictures and words truly cannot describe the Portugal I discovered, wandered through and embraced.

The next day, I headed to Evora.  Again, a last minute hotel find ended up being perfect.  The location of the hotel coupled with its beautiful details made my visit even better.  Evora was a nice-sized town with a university, Roman ruins and of course, an amazing array of churches.  St. Francis church (Igreja de São Francisco) was spectacular and Bones Chapel, with it entrance saying, “We bones that are here, for yours we wait” created an eerie experience for $5 Euro.  A bonus of entry was the nativity display on the other side of the building,  2600 nativity sets were displayed from around the world and in many different mediums.  There was also a small art gallery.  This was definitely, overall, worth a visit.  I dined outside on a cobblestone, hidden street and truly enjoyed Evora’s vibe.

After spending the night, I headed down to the Algarve.  This was the one area that not having a hotel in advance worked against me.  Similar to Lisbon, the Algarve was overcrowded with tourists.  I ended up staying in Lagos and it was not my favorite.  I did a day trip to Salema, a quiet kind-of-fishing village.  It was small and the beach was empty.  Sagres, with its dramatic cliffs was a worthwhile day trip from Lagos.

Portugal was a gracious hostess.  She gave me beauty, history lessons, long lasting memories and the knowledge that I can travel alone.  Portugal is well worth the effort.  I will definitely return.