I Was Wrong

It feels cathartic to let the title be the whole message; I could post this without writing another word and let my confession apply to whatever mistake the reader has witnessed me make.

I could take it one step further and cover the most common mistakes I recognize I make repeatedly:

• lashing out when my ego's hurt

• pursuing convenience at the expense of others

• making myself the center someone else's story

• acting entitled to another's nonconsensual emotional work

But there are still so many steps ahead of me on this path away from my internalized dominance and toward my own humanity.

Next step: name specific harms. I defended myself last night instead of listening to a woman of color who implied I was taking rash action where wise collaboration was needed. Last week, I took personally a misunderstanding between me and a Black trans colleague who then had to gently lead me back to connection. This morning, I made coffee from beans I'd had delivered from Walmart.

Your first reaction is your true reaction, and the truth of my behavior shows that I have a lot more work to do.

Here's what I'm doing about it:

• financially supporting the front lines of activists who speak from the authority of historically-oppressed identities

• seeking consensual support and wisdom from loved ones who call me out on my performative fluff

• committing not to give another dollar to Walmart from this day forward

• confessing publicly in the hopes that it will spur someone else to repair and stop the harm they're causing daily like I am

What does this have to do with operations? I'm not sure these confessions are as topical as that, but they're still deeply entangled with the work I do. The woman I was defensive toward last night is a brilliant strategic thinker I've recruited to partner with one of my operations clients. The misunderstanding with the colleague happened in operations emails. The Walmart delivery of coffee was paid for with operations money in support of operations alertness every morning. My vision for Spacious Works sustainable operations is a world where equity-centered leadership is the standard and visionary changemakers are fully supported by the systems they need to lead lasting, transformative change. And I won't serve that vision successfully if I undermine it with my behavior every day.

In operations, no matter how brilliant a system you create, that system is considered broken if it delivers counter-productive results, even as a byproduct. When the system is broken, my job is to isolate the problem and solve it. Sometimes, starting over and building a new system is the solution. More often, all the components are present to produce the results we want, but there's some element that needs to be dealt with in order to make the system work effectively.

I believe each person has all the components needed to be humane, compassionate, loving, and wise. I'm working on isolating the element in me that derails my humanity and produces harmful results. I can't do it alone, because I am not a self-contained system. I am entangled with "other" matter in ways I can't comprehend - but I can sense what grounds me, who anchors me, and where I thrive the most. And you are a part of that sensed dynamic, reader.

How can we grow more human, together?