Who gets to talk first? How to take Gender and Power out of the equation.

Today I have bias, gender and power on my mind. Gender and Power are elements I work hard to mitigate in the workshops I design and facilitate. But lately it’s been clear to me that I need to be more clear on why. Why is it critical to me that all voices get actually heard and considered?

So here are some of my (white, male) thoughts on why *I* want *all* voices to be heard and considered when I’m hosting a workshop.

this post was originally a letter on my email newsletter, but I was encouraged to share it more widely. So, here it is.

Thinking out Loud

I like to think out loud. It might be part of my male privilege, or it might just be part of my habits….my mom thinks out loud too! But when a group of people come together to discuss an issue…who speaks first?

The most Powerful person?
The most Extroverted person?
The most “Male” person?

or someone who is *all* three?!

I’ve been teaching facilitation for years and have run countless design thinking sprints, innovation days and workshops. And I can confirm that it’s far more common for dudes to speak up and to feel empowered to do so.

So…What’s the big deal? Someone’s gotta speak first, right? Why does it matter?

Bias keeps us *all* from making good decisions

When we speak, we shift other people’s thoughts, however imperceptibly. Whatever is said *after* the first person speaks is considered in *relation* to the first ideas, no matter how hard we try to avoid it.

When I run off at the mouth, I deny myself the opportunity to hear other people’s unadulterated thoughts and opinions.

This is a huge loss…

To ME!

Maybe this a controversial way to think about it…We might consider that non-males and introverts are the most damaged by extroverted male privilege. But I think it’s the other way around. As a former user researcher, I died a little inside when I would ask my next question right when my interviewee was about to take a breath to say something else. They would stop talking and then I would ask “what were you about to say?”

They couldn’t remember. It was gone. Forever! That’s the cost of being careless with who speaks first in a meeting. Valuable ideas and perspectives are lost forever.

This lovely article from Hannah du Plessis sums up this point of view. If we don’t listen, we can’t learn.

I don’t know how to convince other people of priveleige that learning from other people is an enlarging experience. All I know is that the opportunity to learn from others is rare and fleeting if we’re not careful!

We can’t afford to NOT hear all the ideas

This is maybe the best way to frame it? We can’t afford to not hear all the ideas in the room. The life of our teams, our organizations and nations utterly depend on making sure we get all the ideas on the table and given the respect and consideration they deserve.

What are the options to transform bias into democratic conversations?

How can we design conversations so that Introverts and Extroverts, men and women, can hear what’s going on before we try to hash things out?

That, my friends, is where facilitation ends and conversation design begins.
There are a lot of ways to mitigate these effects or to redirect them. Pairing people up before sharing in a group (what I call Think, Pair, Share) is a good way. So is what I could call Pair and Declare: When we’re asked to take responsibility to speak *for* our partner. This makes the costs of neglecting voices clear and accountable. Another is Amplification, a tool used in the Obama administration. Running a Sketch Sprint can help, too.

Write everything down first and go slowly

My go to method is dead-simple. Don’t let anyone talk first. Write it all down. Put it on a chair. Pick up a note that’s not yours. Put it all up on the wall and read it. Make sure everyone’s sticky note is considered by everyone. Be aware of what’s “in” vs what’s “out”. Step back from the wall.

This process of careful capture and intentional affinity clustering at the wall is my parachute, my safety valve for equalizing power and bias in a room, as far as I can.

(If you have a powerful way of making gender, power and bias a non-issue in group conversations, please reply and send me your thoughts…I’d love to open this topic wide!)

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