​3 Ways to Open Up a Conversation about Cultural Identity

Client:
I love my team. Swati is the creative lead and Pascal is on logistics. They work really well together but there are communication challenges I don’t know how to fix.

Madhu: Sounds like you have a lot of confidence in Swati and Pascal. What’s going on with communication?

Client: Communication with Pascal can be really hard. He has an awkward style and that can put people off. I’m scared to address it.

Madhu: What are you afraid of?

Client: I just don’t know how to talk about it without offending him. It’s delicate.

Madhu: What about it is delicate?

Client: I don’t want to alienate Pascal. We want to retain diverse staff and I’m afraid of saying something wrong.

Madhu: What do you mean by diverse staff?

Client: (silence and a nervous smile)
 
For very good reasons, we are often afraid to plainly name people’s cultural identities for fear of alienating them or at worst, giving them cause for discrimination complaints.
 
I understand this better than most. As a former HR professional, it’s been drilled into my very soul NOT to talk about legally protected personal characteristics. In the era of inclusion and belonging, it is essential that we learn how to engage with each other plainly and lovingly as whole people.
 
Focusing too much on the potential legal pitfalls of exploring identity has led to a terrible phenomenon: calling people “diverse” instead of saying who they really are. If we cannot name a person’s identities, how are diversity, equity and inclusion efforts supposed to work?

3 ideas for opening up culturally full conversations:

1. Name, claim and share your own identities. I love to share that I’m an only child, a child of immigrants from India, a HinJew (Hindu married to a Jewish man), a mom, a Detroiter turned New Yorker, a person who grew up as the only person of color in my neighborhood and school.  Sharing my own identities allows others to open up and share theirs.
2. Check power dynamics. If you are in a power position, tread carefully. Don’t start interviewing everyone on your team to ask about their cultural identities. Look for natural openings, do tip #1 first and let others reveal parts of themselves as they are.
3. Ask others how they identify. This is easier than it sounds. “I’ve heard you talk about growing up in Nebraska and traveling to Morocco to visit family as a child. What else is important to how you define yourself?” ​

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