Chicago Booth Review Podcast Would You Call Out a Microaggression?

George Wu: Most people felt that there was a need to do something immediately. It’s easy for us in this moment when we're in our office to recognize that that's something that we should do. It takes a lot of courage to actually do it. So it may be something that people want themselves to do in the best moments, but it may be something that they actually have a hard time carrying out.

Hal Weitzman: Would you speak up at work if one colleague said something that unintentionally discriminated against another colleague? And if you did, what would you actually say, and when and how would you say it?

Welcome to the Chicago Booth Review Podcast, where we bring you groundbreaking academic research in a clear and straightforward way. I’m Hal Weitzman.

Today, the second episode in our Business Practice miniseries, in which we asked people to script what they would say in a challenging workplace scenario, submit their responses, and rate each other’s contributions. Then we bring in Chicago Booth behavioral science professor George Wu to analyze the results.

Today, George is talking about microaggressions, and how to minimize the damage they can do to workplace relationships. First, let’s hear the scenario.

Reader: You work as a product manager at Omnitech. Once a quarter, the product managers for the different technology teams meet together to set goals, problem solve, and coordinate their work moving forward. Omnitech is a fairly flat organization. However, Ryan Miller, the most senior product manager, ends up being a defacto leader because his opinion generally carries the most weight. Greg Brooks, the manager who has been at Omnitech second longest, runs the meetings. In addition to you, Ryan and Greg, there are six other team leaders, Michael, Steve, Yong, Becky, Ishaan, and David. As Greg is getting ready to start the meeting, he turns to Becky and asks, "Will you take notes during the meeting and then send them to everyone afterwards. I know you did it last time, but you're good at this sort of thing. Most of the team leaders are better at focusing on the big picture issues." Greg's question was not directed to you, but you may nevertheless want to respond in some way, either in the moment or later. Would you respond to this event? If so, who would you approach, when, and what would you say?

Hal Weitzman: George, what's difficult about this scenario?

George Wu: This is an example of what sometimes people call microaggressions. In this particular case, it's a situation where women, very competent women, women who are just as able to do other things, are asked to do the administrative housekeeping stuff, taking notes and things like that, which is oftentimes demeaning. So I think that one thing that makes it difficult is that it's pervasive and that people don't necessarily recognize that it's a problem. They oftentimes recognize as a problem when it's pointed out. I think another thing that makes it hard for an outsider who is observing this is that just conflict is difficult, and nobody likes to call somebody out, partly because they may be defensive, they may be angry, they're uncertain of how they will react. And I think the other thing about this is that there are lots of ambiguities about what to do. So should you act now? Should you act later? Should you do both? Who should you talk to? What should the tone be? Et cetera, et cetera.

Hal Weitzman: George, in these business practice columns, you asked people to vote on what they thought was the most effective response. So what did that vote lead to?

George Wu: Well, I'll tell you a little bit about the vote, but one of the things that is fun to do is that we get all the responses. And that what we do is we think a little bit about some of the characteristics of the responses and tie the characteristics to the actual votes or the evaluation. So one thing that we saw was that the tone of the message varied. Sometimes it was direct, sometimes it was subtle, sometimes it was a little bit of both. The timing of the message also varies. So oftentimes, it was immediate. Sometimes it was delayed, sometimes it was a little bit of both. And I think the final thing is that-

Hal Weitzman: Let's just clarify, George. What do we mean by timing?

George Wu: Well, I could see you act in a certain way to somebody and I could intervene, so to speak in the moment, by saying something subtle or saying something I see.

Hal Weitzman: As opposed to saying something afterwards?

George Wu: Right. As opposed to finding you in your office and saying how we should have a conversation.

Hal Weitzman: That's not cool. Right.

George Wu: And the final thing that we noticed is that there were lots of goals in the message. So some of the messages were directed at changing Greg, who was the one who committed this microaggression. Some were trying to ally with Becky, who was the victim of this microaggression. Some were trying to change organizational norms, and some were just trying to diffuse tension.

Hal Weitzman: So those are the general characteristics, the kind of the criteria, that people used according to your analysis for judging whether these were effective or not. Can you tell us what they thought was effective?

George Wu: Yeah, so probably not surprisingly, direct was not as appreciated as indirect or subtle.

Hal Weitzman: What would be an example of direct language, just so we get a sense of that?

George Wu: So an example of a direct language was, "I thought that was very patronizing." And something that was more subtle say was to say, "You know what? I'll take notes." And you could imagine that there are examples where they do a little bit of both, is that they might say that, "That was patronizing", or they might say, "I'll start and I'll take notes, but I should let you know that I thought that that was not cool for what you did." And it turns out that subtle was rated more positively than direct, and actually people thought that the mixture of direct and subtle usually was better. It wasn't used very frequently. So I think that it was hard for people to get exactly that mix of direct and subtle together. But those who did it effectively actually had some of the-

Hal Weitzman: So what would be an example of that? If in the moment I said, "You know what? I'll take notes." And then later on I said, "Hey, that was not cool."

George Wu: And sometimes it is also mixed with timing, which is that in the moment, it makes sense to be more subtle. I think nobody wants to be confronted and called out in front of everybody else. But maybe also in private, you can be a little bit more direct. Also, you may give somebody the opportunity to think and reflect on what it means when I said, "I'll take notes." And maybe they'll think about it or maybe they'll not. But I think that the direct message was likely to be more effective after they softened up a bit.

Hal Weitzman: Okay. So subtle is preferred to direct. What else did we find that the voters voted for?

George Wu: I think most people felt that there was a need to do something immediately. Now, I think one of the interesting things about recognizing that you should do something in the moment is it is easy for us in this moment when we're in our office to recognize that that's something that we should do. It takes a lot of courage to actually do it. So it may be something that people want themselves to do in the best moments, but it may be something that they actually have a hard time carrying out. So something immediate, like usually something subtle like, "I'll take notes", or intervening and saying something that might diffuse a little bit of the tension. And then something delayed, which oftentimes is the more direct thing of trying to have a conversation, or we'll talk a little bit about some of the goals of the messages in a second.

Hal Weitzman: What else, George? What else did our voters think was most effective?

George Wu: Well, one thing is there were lots of differences in goals of whatever the conversation was. So some things were about changing Greg's behavior. Some things were about allying or supporting Becky. Some were about changing group norms and some were just diffusing tension. So I think volunteering to take notes is probably something that you could think of as diffusing tension. But something that is doing something similar but really changing norms is, "Well, I think that we should actually all rotate taking notes. And I'll do it first today."

Hal Weitzman: Right, trying to change the rules of the game completely.

George Wu: Absolutely. And those were actually infrequently used. So about 10% of the people who participated in this used that, but that was by far the most effectively or the most effectively rated kind of message.

Hal Weitzman: So something that's indirect, something that's timely, and something that attempts to change the rules of the game, might be the ingredients for the most effective response to this scenario. Tell us, give us an example of a response that we got that ticks those boxes.

George Wu: So I'm going to actually read the most highly rated response. I should note that this was rated on average 4.9 out of seven. So it's not exactly the most awesomely endorsed response ever. But I think it has a lot-

Hal Weitzman: Well, there's no right or wrong to these scenarios?

George Wu: That's right. And I think part of it is this just reflects the fact that these are really hard situations in which you can say the thing that is in some ways probably as good as you can do, but there are risks and it's going to be awkward and sometimes not successful. So here's his response. "At that exact moment, I will tell Greg that the task of taking notes in these meetings should be the responsibility of a different leader each time. So everyone can have the opportunity to be more focused on the meeting and thus have more diverse thinking. Then I will ask Ryan for a reassurance of my proposal and offer myself to be the one taking notes in this meeting."

So I think it's clearly something about changing norms. It also justifies the changing norms in something that is presumably productive for the group. And they talked about the ideas that we can get more diverse thinking and we can also give everybody an opportunity to be focused over time. And then I like this idea of looking to somebody, this person just picked Ryan. But presumably, you'd pick the person who would be more sympathetic with this and also somebody who'd likely have influence in that group. And, "So Ryan, what do you think about that?"

Hal Weitzman: So George, that's an example of a response that was rated as very effective. Give us an example of one that was rated ineffective or less effective.

George Wu: Well, it turns out that about 18% of people say that they would do nothing. And not surprisingly, doing nothing is evaluated among the worst. There's actually one answer that's worse than doing nothing. I don't know what it was. I could look it up, but I don't remember what it was. But those obviously aren't viewed very favorably.

Hal Weitzman: So George, I know you fed this scenario into ChatGPT just to see what it would respond. What did you get?

George Wu: How do you think it did?

Hal Weitzman: I want to hear the response first.

George Wu: All right. Okay. So it's interesting. It broke it up into three conversations. So one is in the moment, one is later and one is approaching others. And that's what the taglines were. So in the moment, "Hey Greg, I appreciate Becky's great note-taking skills, but I was wondering if we could rotate this responsibility among the team leaders. It might give us a chance to capture different perspectives and ensure everyone is actively involved. What do you think about that idea?" So later, "Hey Greg, I've been thinking about this note-taking responsibility during the meetings. Well, Becky does a great job. But I believe it might be beneficial to rotate this task among the team leaders. This way, we can ensure a diverse set of perspectives that are captured and everyone feels engaged in the process. What are your thoughts?" And then approaching others. Basically it's the same thing.

I think one thing that I would say is in the moment, it captures what I think is the best of all the responses. It doesn't differentiate very much about ... It's really saying the same thing in the moment and later on, which I think is probably a weakness. I think you would probably say something different to Greg if you've said that already in the meeting. You might actually be a little bit more direct. And certainly, I think if you're approaching others, you're trying to get bigger buy-in on the changing of group norms. And you probably say something that reflected that a little bit more strongly.

Hal Weitzman: But it's pretty good.

George Wu: It's pretty good. And I think that one thing, it's fun. And ChatGPT isn't always responsive, but sometimes it is, is to give it a little bit of a different cue, so to say. Let's suppose that Greg is not defensive. Let's suppose he is defensive. How would you be a little bit more direct? What might you say later on? And to give it something that's a little bit more leading. I think part of what I think is useful about this is just essentially crowdsourcing in some way lots of different ideas that you may dismiss, but some of them are ideas and words that you might find useful. And the thing is to essentially use ChatGPT and to be adept at that in a way of getting lots of different ideas.

Hal Weitzman: George, you are a behavioral scientist. So what are the lessons from the research in behavioral science that bear on this particular scenario?

George Wu: I think one of the things that comes out most clearly is that a lot of these responses that people come up with are really good responses. My worry is that they may be good responses, but they may be things that people don't actually execute. And so there's a line of research in behavioral science that talks about the difference between actions and intentions. And not surprisingly, our intentions to do lots of things, like to eat well and exercise and to study more, and go to sleep on time and all that kind of stuff, oftentimes outstrips our actions. So we go to bed late, we eat too much, we drink too much, all that kind of stuff. And those are things that we see in the realm of self-control. But also in situations where there's a lot of interpersonal conflict or there's a lot of reasons why we might not act, there are reasons that some of these kinds of things which sound really good, are you really going to actually say that in the moment? And if you don't say it in the moment, then it's a lot harder to say later on.

Hal Weitzman: Does having a plan, does having talked about this, make it more likely that people will act?

George Wu: Well, there's one bit of research I actually want to talk about before, which is that there's a proposal that this is what's oftentimes called a stage gate process, which is that there are really four things that are needed in order for you to act. So first of all, you have to have the right interpretation of this particular incident. You need to view immediate action as necessary. You need to think that you have a responsibility for acting, and you have to know what to do. And actually, if you think about what makes these situations difficult is there's a lot of ambiguity at each level.

So was that really a microaggression? Or maybe I'm forgetting and Becky didn't take notes the last time. Do I need to act right now? Well, you can talk yourself out of that. Do I have unique responsibility? There's lots of other people here we're looking around to see. And then I actually have to know what to do. So at the very least, I think what this particular column does is it helps people to know what ideally to do in a situation, so that at least hopefully it's top of mind. So when they are in this uncomfortable situation, boom, they have that particular idea and that if all those other things are in place, they're ready to execute.

Hal Weitzman: And just to reiterate, so it would be something that's not direct. We're not trying to humiliate the other person. Something that's timely, and then think about something that might change the rules of the game.

George Wu: Absolutely.

Hal Weitzman: Well, George, talking about timeliness, unfortunately our time is up for this episode of the Chicago Booth Review Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

George Wu: I hope to do this again soon.

Hal Weitzman: That’s it for this episode of the Chicago Booth Review Podcast. You can find the rest of the Business Practice series on our website, chicagobooth.edu/review/business-practice. When you’re there, sign up for our weekly newsletter so you never miss the latest in business-focused academic research. This episode was produced by Josh Stunkel, and the scenario was read by Madeline Bunke. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and please do leave us a 5-star review.

I’m Hal Weitzman. Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week.