Ask a Manager: should I write a list of rules so a colleague treats me decently?

[minoanmiss]

(The lede is 6 feet down here. Contains: volunteering, sexism in practice regardless of what is in anyone's heart, autism.)



This is a community organizing issue, but it is ultimately about working closely with someone where there’s conflict, and one where I think a professional approach might be most useful.

I (they/them) am a leader in a social justice-oriented community organization along with someone I’ll call Paul (he/they). We have the same type of leadership position, and we’re both quite active so we communicate daily and are in meetings at least once a week. We’ve been in conflict for four months, since I told Paul that the way Paul interrupts, criticizes, corrects, scolds, and dismisses me and other folks who were assigned female at birth feels sexist. Paul’s response? They didn’t really understand how that could be, because they aren’t “that attached to masculinity,” but they would take my word for it.

However, Paul’s behavior hasn’t changed, and I have subsequently found out that two people have stepped away from the organization because of what they also perceived as sexism from Paul. Regularly — sometimes multiple times in a week — I have to be really direct saying “don’t interrupt me” or “I just answered that question,” etc. At times, this disrespectful behavior impacts the group’s work, such as when Paul speaks for me on an issue where they don’t have correct information or when Paul goes behind my back and gives instructions to someone I’m assigned to work with that are in tension with what I’m telling that person. In these situations, I have been telling Paul that this is frustrating/unacceptable/etc., admittedly sometimes with annoyance. Paul often responds that they are confused and don’t understand what they did. Sometimes, I also get long rants with expletives, personal remarks, and accusations. It’s inappropriate behavior, even if I am communicating very unclearly, which is what Paul believes is the problem. Paul has recently been pursuing a diagnosis of autism, and it feels to me that they are weaponizing this new diagnosis, which is not fair to other autistic people in our organization, who don’t behave this way.

There’s no “boss” or HR in this situation, but there are a few people we both trust and who have the cultural capital to potentially help us try to move toward a better way of working together. One of them has heard us each out and feels that we need to make a written agreement about how we will interact so that Paul has clear rules to follow. My concern is that I have repeatedly communicated what isn’t acceptable to me, and Paul hasn’t changed their behavior. I’m struggling to figure out how I would write up a list of rules that Paul would respect. Moreover, this really isn’t an issue just between Paul and me; it’s more about Paul’s behavior in general. Other options include me leaving the group, which is possible though not ideal, and another option is that I continue to just hold boundaries with Paul (trying to always communicate extremely clearly!), which is also not ideal but is something I could do. Paul is certainly not the first person I’ve worked with who has treated me in a way I experience as sexist! I know Paul doesn’t want either of these options; they want a list of rules. I’m wondering what guidance you would offer on how to proceed. Is it worth trying the written agreement to see if it helps? What would I even put in such a list? What options haven’t I considered?

I wrote back and asked, “Does anyone have the authority to fire Paul or otherwise remove him from the group?” The answer:

As far as I know, there is no process in our org for removing someone for this level of problematic behavior.

The biggest problem here is that there’s no mechanism for removing someone who’s driven off multiple people.

You’ve already lost two people because of Paul. Is the organization willing to continue losing people just to avoid getting rid of him?

I think that’s the bigger issue, even though it’s not the one you’re writing to me about. As a leader in the organization, you have the standing to bring that to the rest of the leadership and argue that the org needs to be willing to remove volunteers who won’t follow a basic code of conduct or are otherwise disruptive or harmful to the organization.

As for the idea of a written list of rules for Paul … eh. You’ve already told him what needs to change — he needs to stop interrupting, criticizing, scolding, and dismissing other members of the group — and he claims not to understand. I’m skeptical that putting it in writing is going to suddenly open his eyes. But sure, if this idea of a written list is being pushed by others in your leadership, you might as well write up the list so that you can say you’ve done it and there’s no question that Paul has been clearly told what needs to change. (And if autism is in play, the list could genuinely be helpful.) In addition to covering the interrupting, criticizing, scolding, and dismissing other members of the group, you should also include that Paul can’t send ranting emails with expletives and personal insults.

But I think you also need to be thinking about what’s going to happen if/when he continues to be an ass despite receiving the list. Right now your org can’t figure out how to resolve this because it’s denying itself an essential tool in running a healthy organization (the willingness to part ways with someone) and this is unlikely to be solved until that changes.

To be clear, that doesn’t even mean you’ll definitely need to cut Paul loose (although I suspect you will). Sometimes just making it clear that’s an option on the table will get the person to change their behavior. Either way, though, being willing to do that is an absolutely crucial part of running an effective organization that people won’t keep fleeing from.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

This is the kind of situation where I feel, for lack of a better term, hopelessly neurotypical. My first reaction is, "I have deal with a half dozen Pauls before; he's a sexist jerk, maybe even a missing stair, and no one has time for this bullshit". Which is exactly why I posted this here: I hope I can get some perspectives that crack my first reaction open and let me see this situation in a more productive way for any other Pauls I might have to work with.

[otter]

I'm autistic, and sole-proprietor of a sewing business. I have "fired" people like Paul from my work life more than once. One of whom was clearly also autistic, but that was irrelevant. A sexist jerk who is unwilling to listen and change their problematic behavior is just that. Writing out a letter that states clearly why I'm firing them is a satisfying activity.

[minoanmiss]

That makes a lot of sense.

[ysobel]

Speaking as a neurospicy dork, I agree with your reaction.

How Paul reacts is part of the key. There's two types of "confused and don’t understand what they did", broadly speaking. One kind is 'neurospicy fish in neurotypical waters' confused, where they don't know the rule in advance but can adjust once explicitly told. (random made-up example "Our meetings begin with ten minutes of chitchat, partly to allow for late arrivals and partly to break the ice; please don't launch immediately into business" may not be inherently obvious but once stated, the rule can be followed.) The other type is just stonewalling. It might be somewhat genuine, if the reasoning behind the behavior (e.g. women are irrelevant) is so fundamental to their worldview that they aren't consciously aware of it, but regardless, they don't want to change. They want to sidetrack into other issues ("I can't be sexist because I'm not attached to masculinity" or "maybe I'm autistic"), they want examples they can nitpick away, they want to bluff.

Neurospicy wiring isn't the issue -- being unwilling or unable to change harmful behavior is.

[dissectionist]

As an autistic person that has interacted with many other autistic people in social justice spaces, I agree 100% with everything you said.

[minoanmiss]

Thank you a lot for doublechecking my reaction, as it were.

[melannen]

I think that is a little bit unfair as there's definitely a middle ground of "would like to adjust but has honest and serious difficulty understanding what they need to change, or finds it far more difficult to make the change than a neurotypical person, and may or may not get defensive about being asked to change because of a history of being told it's simple and easy when it's not". (see: me and not being either an hour early or 1-5 minutes late to everything.)

Like, "wait ten minutes before launching into business" is a pretty reasonable thing that most people can understand, and anyone who is willing to try can probably do pretty immediately. "You look cranky and impatient during the first ten minutes, you need to participate in the socializing, and don't be grumpy or awkward about it! Or nonverbally imply that you'd rather get down to business!" can be a much bigger ask, and some people have had the first one suddenly turn into the second one, while everybody is pretending it's still the first one, enough times that they immediately respond badly to the first one too.

LW has an honestly pretty socially complex ask; "completely change your interaction style including following a new set of rules about conversational turn-taking" is a lot even for most neurotypical people. It's reasonable, valid, and probably necessary! But not simple or easy actually.

(It was also notable to me that LW focuses on sexism in Paul's interactions but doesn't actually mention how they interact with amab and/or male-passing people; usually in these kinds of letters LW is careful to point out that there's an obvious difference but this one didn't and given my experience of volunteer social justice groups, I wonder if LW's actually seen Paul interact with any cis white men that don't outrank them. It can be wildly frustrating, and very difficult to correct, to be repeatedly told you're treating a certain group differently when in fact you're treating everybody the same, it's just that certain groups of people read "rude as fuck" differently, but it's hard to figure that out when you're still struggling with "but what you're describing isn't what I'm doing so I don't know what you want changed!" This seems to come up pretty often with nd trans/gnc people too, who may not have a good handle on social gender dynamics even before they start to constantly shift position in them.)

Like, for the record, Paul just sounds like an asshole, and the problems LW and boss are putting front and center are almost a red herring compared to the long rants full of expletives and insults, going behind people's backs, and choosing to speak for the group on topics they aren't qualified or asked to speak on. Those are all very concrete things that they need to be told they should stop immediately and if they can't they need to leave the group, and if it's really disability related, work with some kind of therapist on it before returning to leadership roles. But if they can't even manage that, "work on your conversational turn-taking with afab people" probably *is* well beyond their level to comprehend.

[cimorene]

Not really helping the LW here, but this missing stair driving away other volunteers issue is soooooooo widespread in volunteer spaces. Everybody cannot be so equal that nobody has the right to get rid of someone who is literally sabotaging you! If they are driving away multiple other volunteers, they are sabotaging you!

[princessofgeeks]

Hard agree.

I laughed and laughed when I saw this letter because I just resigned from a group that has this exact problem with one middle aged asshole who can't understand what his problem is and one middle aged narcissist woman who feels people who don't want her projecting all over them are lacking in empathy and are shutting down communication. I have lost count of the number of people the two of them have run off but no one in charge seems to want to do a thing about it. That's not why I left but it's what I observed before I did.

People like this are exhausting.

I think the only way to go, if you have the power to end their work for the group, is to be extremely specific about what behaviors they must stop doing. They will argue and refuse to be convinced but if they are told they must stop or leave they might stop.

Or they might enjoy the flounce and then badmouth the organization. Probably more likely.

[cimorene]

I mean they probably will do that, but at least you won't be steadily leaking volunteers anymore!

[liv]

I have experienced this problem so many times, especially in very loose social justice oriented communities. You get a missing stair who is autistic and non-binary, but they can't possibly be sexist or oppressive because they're not a man, and they can't accept criticism (even if you carefully avoid mentioning the sexism angle) because they're autistic and they got bullied as a child and criticism is basically bullying. I accept that as a cis, neurotypical person I am privileged in some ways compared to a non-binary, autistic person, but I don't accept that only men can be sexist and oppressive.

[minoanmiss]

The "I can't be sexist because I'm not a man" thing is hilarious in its invalidity.

[conuly]

It's not even true for AFAB people and it's sure not true for him.

[jadelennox]

In college I got "I can't be sexist, I'm gay" from multiple young repub type guys.

[minoanmiss]

O ho ho that was good for hilarity, as was "I can't be racist because I'm gay, so I Know Better Thank You DO What It Means To Be Oppressed." good times good times.

[full_metal_ox]

O ho ho that was good for hilarity, as was "I can't be racist because I'm gay, so I Know Better Thank You DO What It Means To Be Oppressed." good times good times.

Bonus points if they’re also in touch with their Inner Black Woman™ (inevitably a sassy eye-rolling diva), who’s a far more reliable Black People Consultant than you are.

[minoanmiss]

Ugh, how could I ever orget.

[firecat]

Some SFF cons have developed processes for dealing with this sort of thing, which is adjacent to harassment regardless of the attitudes and motives behind it. In my limited experience, the processes help prevent situations where one person drives away a large portion of competent volunteers, but implementing them is messy even when the guidelines are clear and most of the organization is on board with them.

Too bad we Americans don’t get better teaching on how to run organizations democratically or via consensus.

[laurajv]

I agree that Alison is correct: they need a process for firing volunteers. They also need a code of conduct that anyone in a leadership position has to agree to, with a signature, kept on file, so that it can be used in that process.

Yes, I _have_ had to remove a Board of Directors member for violations of code of conduct, and having a signed CoC made it MUCH easier.