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Just Work summary

Name: Just Work
Rating: 3.5 (145 reviews)
Author: Kim Scott

Kim Scott

How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-ass Culture of Inclusivity

3.5 (145 ratings)

28 mins

Brief summary

Just Work by Kim Scott is a management guide that offers practical and inclusive approaches to building a more equitable workplace. It emphasizes communication, feedback, and creating a culture of respect for all employees.

Topics

Diversity & Inclusion Work Culture Leadership

Table of Contents

Just Work
Summary of 10 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? Create a more respectful, collaborative work environment so you can do your best work and enjoy working together.

What is Just Work?

Just Work happens when we optimize for collaboration and respect.

What gets in the way?

It seems like Just Work would happen naturally. Most people want to work in organizations that encourage collaboration; hardly anyone wants to feel coerced at work. And who wants to work in an environment where everyone is marching in lock-step? A 1984-style organization that demands conformity rather than respecting individuality is unlikely to foster innovation–or to be a fun place to work.

And yet, all too often, we experience the opposite of Just Work. Have you ever felt uncomfortable because of a colleague’s offensive jokes? Or been passed over for a promotion even though you have more experience than your overrepresented colleagues? Did you wonder how to name what was happening?

Often bias or prejudice move us towards conformity. Bullying moves us towards coercion. Layer power on top of that and there’s discrimination, harassment, or physical violations. We wind up with brutally ineffective workplaces.

Brutal ineffectiveness may feel monolithic, but when we break the problem down into its component parts and name them, we can find solutions that help us build the Just Work kind of respectful, collaborative environment we long for.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

The hidden costs of staying silent
How to tell the difference between bias, prejudice and bullying
What to say when you don’t know what to say
How to confront your own biases
How Upstanders play a vital role in creating just workplaces.
How Leaders can be proactive in preventing bias, prejudice and bullying
What happens when power enters the equation
How to make sure power doesn’t corrupt your team
How to put checks and balances in place so power doesn’t corrupt your team

If you want to learn more, please read Part One of Just Work. You can get a copy here or anywhere books are sold...

Staying silent has hidden costs.

The author Kim Scott was preparing to give a talk about “Radical Candor” to a group of Silicon Valley executives. As she was about to step on stage, a man ran up to her shouting that he needed a safety pin for his shirt which was missing a button.

Why was this her problem to solve for him? Evidently, he’d mistaken her for one of the event staff. Scott didn’t know how to respond. Was he exhibiting unconscious bias, and assuming that because she was a woman she must be on the staff? Or was it evidence of deeper prejudice? Or was he just bullying her, trying to put her in her place and show her that he didn’t respect her as a speaker?

Unsure how to approach the situation and fearing a conflict, Scott remained silent. This was bad for everyone. It was bad for her – she felt a loss of agency. It was bad for the man who’d asked her for a safety pin – he didn’t learn about his bias, if that was indeed what was behind his demands. It was bad for the staff, since the man felt he’d gotten poor service from Kim, who did not fetch him the safety pin he wanted.

There are many reasons to stay quiet instead of responding to such a situation. You may have valid fears that speaking out will land you in trouble. Or the very same attitude you’re experiencing might make it harder to be heard. Some people aren’t “allowed” to express feelings in the way that others are – they’re constantly stereotyped as being “over-sensitive” or “angry.”

But keeping quiet has its costs as well. You’re left to deal with the resentment and no way to express it. Your relationships with your colleagues may suffer, too. And the person demonstrating the problematic attitude will have no opportunity to recognize and change their behavior.

To learn more, please read Chapter 2 in Just Work. Click here to buy the book.

What to say when you don’t know what to say

So, how can you react quickly the next time you hear someone spouting some harmful stereotype?

First, some simple definitions are in order. When we can describe a problem, it’s much easier to find a solution. Bias is “not meaning it,” usually reflecting some unconscious stereotype that the person doesn’t really believe if they stop to think. Prejudice is “meaning it,” reflecting a consciously held belief. And bullying is simply “being mean.”

Confront your biases and become part of the solution.

Bart routinely misgendered his colleague, Avery. He kept referring to her using pronouns “he” and “him,” even though he knew Avery used “she” and “her.” After pointing this out several times, she became understandably angry.

Instead of getting defensive, Bart acknowledged his bias and took concrete steps to combat it. He asked his whole team to jump in when he messed up so that Avery wasn’t in the position of always having to correct him. Then he went further: together with the management team, he developed a training program for the whole company designed to support every colleague in expressing their true selves at work. Bart was able to tackle his personal bias and turn it into a growth opportunity for the whole company.

Upstanders play a vital role in creating just workplaces.

Aileen Lee, a partner at a venture capital firm, attended an important meeting along with two partners who were men. When the senior executives they were meeting took a seat at the conference table, they chose to sit opposite Lee’s male partners, so that she was facing an empty chair. They then directed all their comments to her partners, rather than to her, even though she was the person in the room who had the expertise.

Then one of her colleagues said, “I think Aileen and I should switch places.” Lee moved to his seat facing the executives. Instantly, the dynamic in the room changed. She was automatically included in the conversation. By using an “I” statement, her colleague made everyone aware of the way that unconscious bias was causing them to exclude her.

Leaders need to be proactive in preventing bias, prejudice and bullying.

What would you do if you were the CEO of a company and you noticed one of your staff members being abusive to their colleague? Although many of us would like to think we’d take steps to prevent that sort of thing from happening at our own company, the truth is that many leaders fail to respond in a way that prevents it from happening again

How can leaders tackle bias, prejudice and bullying in the workplace? Many CEOs enroll their staff in a workshop and call it a day. Or they outsource the problem to HR. But this won’t work. Leaders need to do three things.

Make sure power doesn’t corrupt your team.

When you layer power on top of bias, prejudice and bullying things go from bad to worse. The result is illegal behavior: discrimination, harassment, and physical violations.

When a person has enough power to put their biases or prejudices into practice, especially when they have unilateral decision-making power over pay, hiring, promotion, or firing, the result is discrimination.

Quantify your bias to fix the homogeneity bug.

Imagine a CEO reporting to shareholders that the company isn’t doing that well in sales that year. But instead of investigating why and outlining a strategy to improve performance, they just shrug their shoulders and say they don’t know what to do about that problem. The shareholders would revolt!

How do you quantify your bias so you can improve the diversity on your team? You have data on hiring, pay, promotion. You can cut that data by gender, by race, and by other important factors. Look for trends. Are women on average getting hired less often? Are your Black employees not getting promoted as quickly as your White employees? Work to understand those trends. Ask why they are happening.

Checks and balances can help prevent harassment

Unchecked power creates the conditions for harassment. When people have too much power, they’re more likely to engage in bullying that crosses a line and becomes harassment. Managers who have too much power over their employees are prone to abuse it.

If one person has unilateral decision-making power to hire, promote or fire you, you’re naturally reluctant to speak up when that person bullies or harasses you. Therefore, it’s easier for that person to get away with that kind of behavior, and more likely to happen.

A Culture of Consent Can prevent Physical Violations

A culture of consent is not complicated. It is the responsibility of the toucher to be aware of how the other person feels about being touched. If the other person doesn’t want to be touched, don’t touch. If you’re not sure, don’t touch. Unwanted touching is grounds for dismissal. Dating in your chain of command, even when consensual, is also grounds for dismissal. The power dynamic can make it hard to express consent.

During Covid many people were working remotely. As we start working in person again, we have a real opportunity to reinforce a culture of consent around the handshake. Some people are comfortable shaking hands again. Others want to change to a wave or an elbow bump. If we can train ourselves not to stick our hand out simply assuming the other person wants to touch it, but rather greet each other with a question about what is comfortable, we can reinforce a culture of consent.

Love and Joy

When we learn to recognize how the dynamics of bias, prejudice, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and physical violations operate in similar ways for different people, we can unite in interrupting them and make the workplace – and, indeed, the world – more just. This growing understanding of our interconnectedness is reason for optimism.

In a commencement address to Wellesley’s class of 2018, Tracy K. Smith, the 22nd poet laureate of the United States, offered a beautiful reminder that to achieve our ideals, we need to bring love and joy to the work. She said:

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What is Just Work about?

Just Work (2021) reveals just how damaging unchecked bias and discrimination are in the workplace. Everyone has unconscious biases and prejudices that they bring with them to work. But if these aren’t confronted head-on they can create a toxic work environment with unhappy employees who can’t do their best. Tackling bias is a win for everyone.

Best quote from Just Work

Challenging injustice is so important – if we dont challenge it, we often start to internalize it.

—Kim Scott

Who should read Just Work?

CEOs wanting to create thriving workplaces
Anyone who’s experienced workplace harassment, and wants tools to address it
Workplace bullies who want to confront their prejudices

About the Author

Kim Scott is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller Radical Candor and cofounder of the company of the same name. She was a senior executive at Google for many years and has worked as a CEO coach at Dropbox and Twitter. She was also part of the faculty at Apple University.

Categories with Just Work

Management & Leadership Corporate Culture

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