A few weeks ago, I arrived on-site (yes, you read that correctly — IRL) to help a client lead a portion of their board retreat. The organization is led by a phenomenal black woman, with a mostly white/white-presenting Board of Directors.
Minutes before the start of the meeting, an older, white, male board member walked up to the CEO who had spent weeks planning this amazing retreat — and asked if he won any prizes for pointing out spelling mistakes or grammatical errors in the meeting materials. Apparently, at 8:30 am, he’d found a few in the board packet. Quelle horreur!!
The week prior, a new client warmed my team that her boss was fixated on spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and warned us to copy-edited documents to avoid derailing meetings. The boss leads the HR organization of a not-insignificant organization, i.e., she likely has better things to do with her time, but chooses to fixate on tiny errors.
These conversations took me back to another client that I worked with for 18 months, nay, nearly 20 months. Back when I had far less confidence, and struggle with anxiety — trying to make a case for diversity, equity, and inclusion with a group of older, mostly retired, mostly white members of a not-for-profit board.
No matter how hard I tried, there’d be a tiny error (or many tiny errors) in some document, or I’d phrase things in a way that made sense of my multi-lingual immigrant brain — but it wouldn’t land quite right with the client. I’d…
