Disrupt Thoughtfully
Many moons ago I was dating a woman that we’ll call Liberal Lizzie. She was brilliant, engaging, and charismatic. She was thankful for Barack Obama and all the work he was doing during his presidency, but she loved Michelle Obama because her empathy-driven leadership & communication was something that truly resonated with Lizzie.
One day Liberal Lizzie and I were walking back to her place and she started discussing unemployment insurance. She was talking about how great it was because it saved her when she got fired from a job and was getting evicted. Her friend had been able to use it while she was working to get a Master’s degree to pivot into a new career. Lizzie also knew that I had been on it before, and mentioned that too. She was frustrated because a woman at work had said that people who were on unemployment were disincentivized to find work, and that was a racist, unempathetic attitude.
I took a brief moment to think about my time on unemployment. Then without skipping a beat, I uttered my disruptive perspective,
“I don’t think that it is racist to say that our unemployment system disincentivizes people to find work.”
Lizzie stopped dead in her tracks and stared at me in disbelief. She very seriously asked me one single question,
“What did you think of the money you got while you were on unemployment?”
Confused as to what that had to do with my perspective, I replied,
“I think there are other ways I could have made the amount of money that I received.”
Her facial expression doubled-down on her disbelief of what she had just heard. She looked at me and said,
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Then she turned and walked up the stairs to her place laughing. No, Lizzie and I are not still dating.
Being Disruptive
What Lizzie didn’t know at that time was that I had been on unemployment insurance multiple times in my life. I was on it one time when I didn’t need it, and it was amazing. There’s nothing like getting “free” money deposited into your account every week when you don’t even need it! I had also been on it when I really needed financial support. The experience, in that case, was one of the most miserable periods of my life.
To better understand the context of how I came to my disruptive perspective:
- Approximately 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck
- Unemployment insurance is roughly half or less of your old paycheck
- Any money you make in a part-time job gets deducted from your unemployment check
What do you think happens to the 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck when all of a sudden they are only getting half or less of their income?
It’s a stressful, gruesome process, but it follows a downward spiral that looks like this:
- You lose your car
- You lose your utilities
- You lose your home
What’s even more disconcerting, if you can’t find a job that pays more than your unemployment check, then you are incentivized to sit at home alone and wait for the above three things to happen to you. This is because any money you make gets deducted from your unemployment check. The job has to pay more than your unemployment check so that working will be worth it.
To me, a solution that leaves the people most vulnerable to the problem in a place where they’re losing their cars and their homes is not a solution at all. I hated our solution. Liberal Lizzie thought I didn’t care about the problem.
If Liberal Lizzie had asked the right questions, the two of us would have had a pretty magical conversation about how to redesign unemployment insurance in a way that creates confidence, soothes fears, and provides the critical support needed for the most vulnerable of our friends and neighbors. Instead, she dismissed the perspective and didn’t get to hear the insights from my personal experience that would have enlightened her own perspective.
Being Thoughtful
It’s tempting for me to write off the above situation as being Liberal Lizzie’s fault for being dismissive. The reality of the situation is that it is more complicated than that. Yes, she was dismissive, but I didn’t do everything I could to create an environment where she would be receptive to a disruptive perspective. In short, I led with the disruption without being thoughtful. To her, this felt like I was being dismissive of something she truly cared about.
If I had been more thoughtful about how I was being disruptive, then we would have had an entirely different and far more positive conversation and outcome. Below are four steps that you can start taking today to be more thoughtful when being disruptive:
- Start with empathy for your audience and the people they empathize with
- Communicate where your values are aligned with theirs
- Demonstrate the need for disruption with a scenario that triggers empathy
- Shift the conversation towards creating a more empathetic solution
If we take the conversation about unemployment and try to apply the steps in that context it might look something like:
“I think it’s great that you care so much about people who unfortunately end up unemployed.”
“I agree that people who lose their jobs should be provided a form of support to relieve all the stress and fear that comes with losing your job.”
“I’m not sure if you knew this, but almost 80% of US citizens are living paycheck to paycheck, so when those people end up on unemployment they’re still struggling to not lose their homes because of how much less they’re paid.”
“I was thinking a good first step to resolve that might be changing the rules about unemployment paying less if you’re working a part-time job. What do you think?”
Being thoughtful in how we communicate disruptive ideas is so critical to every relationship that we have in life. This is why it is one of our core leadership principles of how we lead in Black@ Sprout.
Click to read about the rest of our Black@ Sprout Social Leadership Principles.
