“I don’t know if I did it right,“ Louisa told me. She said she’d overheard her son calling it the “Chinese virus” to a group of friends. She’d pulled him aside and told him, “We don’t call the disease by its country of origin. It could come off as racist. We refer to...
When someone is in crisis or the whole world is exploding in pandemics and protests what do you do? Studies show most of us respond by minimizing our differences trying to rationalize the crisis down to nothing, invalidating (often infuriating) the person(s) in...
Why is Covid-19 hitting some communities harder than others? Who exactly has been hit the hardest? These are the questions my daughter Abby Narishkin, a reporter for Business Insider, was looking into for her research for, “The Real Reasons Coronavirus Hits Some...
The other day, my friend James stopped in at the gas station he frequents. He overheard another customer say, “I can’t stand Chinese people. I hate this foreign virus.” “What?!” James said. The customer responded, “Why do you think we’re in this mess? We have this...
In developing my own cultural intelligence, I’ve realized it’s easier to connect with other people authentically if I’m aware of my own default cultural habits.
Russ: “Can I tell you what happened?” I nodded so he pulled me aside and said, “I’m only telling you because I know the work you’re in.” Amy: “What happened?” Russ: “I was at a fast food restaurant in town. My wife and I went in for dinner and all the employees—they...
Darline said she didn’t know what to do about the lady’s problem either but she did know the lady would know what to do if we showed compassion and understanding. Darline reminded me that neither she nor I were going to save the lady; the answer was always within her.
“So, does this mean you don’t report people who are breaking the rules?” a CEO asked. The question was prompted by an NBC News report: ”An author reported a Metro worker for eating on a train. Now she might lose her book deal.” The author in the headline, Natasha...
“Should I make myself Director of Design on the robotics team? Am I qualified?” asked my youngest daughter who is in high school. It was so cool to be able to share some of the research with her. Did you know men typically apply for jobs if their skills...
Meryl Streep, in her 2010 commencement address to the graduating class of Barnard College, explained that in high school, a different form of acting took hold. She wanted to learn how to be appealing to boys. She recalled, “I adjusted my natural temperament, which...