I’ve never considered myself exceptionally Brave.
And yet there is a special kind of bravery I see in the midst of COVID that goes beyond the frontline health workers and those calling the shots, however well intentioned. And while I’m not entertaining a debate about the vaxxed vs. the unvaxxed, I am calling out those folks who challenge those who are exempt from vaccinations, who driven by fear, cause those in the community to feel like second class citizens.
It’s time for an ethical and verbal stocktake of our behaviour towards one another after I accompanied a family member today to a retail outlet where the customer service agent misguidedly tried to embarrass her by asking to see her medical exemption for not wearing a face mask.
I am proud of my family member for boldly standing up for herself and stating, “You can’t ask me that. It is against the privacy act”. The sales lady waved a piece of paper in front of her and my relative walked out.
I understood both perspectives but even so, there are better ways to communicate and engage even through the challenges of navigating the COVID curve.
Here’s what I think we could all think about doing better in our businesses and community:
- Check your SARS information and government requirements, roles and responsibilities, and check it again, before you sneer or speak out to customer or colleague
- Check your own unconscious bias and think about what you’re about to say BEFORE you speak. You don’t even know that other person!
My own admission
Here’s what I mean, early 2020 when COVID first ‘broke’ and media outlets were starting with the mass broadcast of doom and gloom, fear and dread began to creep into our psyche’s and I for one found myself looking at tourists in our holiday community, thinking, “they’re too close! Why are they walking so closely?” Even as I passed them in my car. Suddenly I self identified as policing a stranger. Now two years on shopkeepers, hospitality and employees are pseudo-policing their peers and customers.
Same thing happened in the Warsaw Ghetto’s. Different enemy then but a similar human trait when it encounters fear. React, shame, polarise.
Your fear, my fear, safe hygiene practices and individual responsibility does not give people permission to lord it over others or diminish their worth.
Let’s continue:
- Be quick to apologise when you’ve spoken out of turn – not to a random third party but to the person you directly impacted, affronted or falsely accused
- Be diligent with your own thought life, keeping a close check on perception vs. reality. After all real relationships are fact finding and perception can be like FEAR:
F-alse
E-vidence
A-ppearing
R-eal - Keep a mixed group of friends and colleagues that bring diverse perspectives to the conversations if you’re committed to genuine inclusion.
The last two years it’s been about COVID. The next 12 months might introduce other global factors.
If we lift our gaze above the current pressures and are genuinely committed to ethical, inclusive, values-based business then let’s be better human beings.
Oh and my relative, well she boldly called the manager of that retail outlet who agreed with her; they had no right to ask for it. The manager then spent time with her team member who’d made the scene.
I came back into the store that same afternoon, spending $900. It’s almost a sale they missed out on and their reputation could have been damaged. The team member recognised me and apologised, tearing up, stating she “didn’t have the right information” and she “has an elderly Dad” and “some other customers were in who’d been really rude.” I empathised saying, “COVID’s been hard on all of us and each of us are going through something we know nothing about. Thank you for your apology.”
Let’s remember, long after COVID leaves us, the community we live in belongs to ALL of us and we each have the right to privacy and dignity.
Let’s trust each other and believe the best of people because we’ll all need time, grace and an extra shot of BRAVERY to get through the change curve.
@TARRANDEANE is a leading change and engagement specialist who’s focusing on BOLDLeadership during 2022. Learn more about Tarran when you visit her LinkedIn Profile.