Most male managers are afraid to have one-on-one meetings with female employees | Hacker News Reader

Most male managers are afraid to have one-on-one meetings with female employees

businessinsider.com

28 pointsturtlegrids32 comments

I've noticed a similar effect in the personal dating scene from speaking with males privately, that they are more likely to avoid many scenarios that otherwise would have been standard attempts at relationship progression or initiation. That is, after performing a very rough risk/benefit analysis, they decide it's easier just to do nothing and stay single indefinitely instead.

Women are known to be filters. That's why they occupy hr positions, and they're encouraged to behave like filters.

Recently got interviewed by a man who worked as a recruiter, and I felt more empathy, more calm, less uppity.

Maybe men are on the defensive, but maybe men are more capable to handle a potentially stressful discussion with a man because they have the same gender. Same dynamic might apply for women interviewing women.

If you play with fire, you get burned. When a simple accusation (not conviction, mind you) can end a man's career, why risk it?

A couple easy solutions.

1. Hire a female exec to be the liason to handle all 1:1 w/ women. 2. Record everything to ensure there can be no reporting as long as you're truly not being a dick. 3. Bring a woman into the room, and be open that you're wanting to be a safe space for women, then have an anonymous 'suggestion' tool where they can give feedback on how you behaved, and have the same tool have a spot where people could single out others for 'improvement', and the message will ONLY be read by that individual so as not to incite fear of retaliation - but sometimes people say things off the cuff and aren't aware it offends others.

I'm on the 'spectrum' and filtering is sometimes hard for us. If someone says woah buddy that's offensive, I feel shitty for a day or two about it and I don't do it again. I appreciate when people bring things to my attention where I can change/become better - even if it feels uncomfortable for a bit.

The problem, from what I can tell, is that many men only understand hard rules. It used to be that if you had good intentions, you could follow a clear set of (flawed) social rules and you were "safe". But there aren't clear rules to distinguish between flirting and minor harassment; the difference isn't based on exactly which words are said, but on understanding what another person is and isn't feeling. Navigating those lines requires emotional intelligence, and lots of men have underdeveloped emotional intelligence, and are used to relying on do's and don'ts in its place. In today's climate, those people are basically navigating a mine field without a metal detector. So it's understandable that they would just avoid the field altogether.

I think this is mostly a social problem - for a long time men simply weren't taught emotional intelligence while they were growing up. There's definitely been some progress made lately, but that doesn't help past generations. I don't know what the solution is for those people, but right now everyone's talking past each other and I think it's because this hasn't been articulated. Can emotional nuances even really scale to professional contexts? I don't know. Maybe. I sympathize with people who have had uncomfortable experiences within the existing set of social guidelines, but maybe what we need is a new set of rules for those settings. The fact is that there are men out there who want to do the right thing, but suddenly find its precise definition bewildering and hard to follow. If something can be done to alleviate that, it should be.

For the record: the above only covers men who find themselves under fire despite good intentions. There are absolutely others who consciously and systematically abuse women. Though Harvey Weinstein hasn't been officially convicted yet, the evidence is strong that he's one of the latter. The problem, though, is that the public conversation lumps the two categories together.

That's a good point but it's also that women tend to vary a lot when it comes to what's acceptable and what's not. Also the same woman may see things differently based on current mood.

> women tend to vary a lot when it comes to what's acceptable and what's not

In literal terms perhaps, but not in emotional terms. You can pick up on what a person is and isn't comfortable with, what is and isn't solicited, etc. The tricky thing, for some people, is that these usually aren't spelled out letter by letter. A stranger at a bar and a colleague in your workplace may have very different definitions of acceptable behavior, but the ways they communicate it are going to be more or less the same.

> the same woman may see things differently based on current mood

That seems inaccurate and honestly sexist. But more importantly, as above, the signals will still work the same way, even if the things being signaled change.

As I tell my children it doesn't matter what you actually do or intended your action to be. It is all in what is perceived and interpreted by the other person. This is the problem that everyone's perception and interpretation can be entirely different from each others.

That seems terribly misguided. Intent may not be the biggest factor in terms of outcomes, but it's certainly the most important factor in terms of morality and personal development. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant by "it doesn't matter", but it's a horrible idea to teach the literal interpretation of that message.

I don't think he means "your intentions don't matter at all." What he's saying is that yout intentions don't matter to the person you affected. They don't care if you were just tying your shoe or taking an upskirt picture. They feel violated and you caused it. Your intention is entirely irrelevant to that persons recollection of events.

Nevertheless it also matters when it comes to feelings of guilt. It's easy to feel guilty for things you didn't intend (or cause via negligence). Being self-aware enough to not put yourself through that emotional burden is important too.

It seems obvious to me that even the meToo moments that lived in gray areas were still the result of failed romantic connections or overt sexual comments or actions. No one is being fired or lambasted in the court of public opinion for being in the same private room and having adult conversations about work with a woman. This is not a nuanced issue - treat women professionally and like equals, don’t talk about politics or sex in the office and you’re golden. To make this more complicated than that let’s men off the hook and excuses unprofessional behavior in the workplace.

If you are a manager and "afraid of what it would look like" to have a 1:1 meeting with any of your employees, then you are a terrible manager. It is not a universal constant that all conversations gravitate towards sex. Just discuss what is relevant to the meeting, address the employee's concerns, rinse, repeat. Treat all employees as individuals and assets to your team, not as potential romantic interests. It's really not that hard to keep a professional demeanor in a 1:1 setting.

You could argue this is one benefit of open floor plan offices. Meet in the open with your employees.

can these meetings happen in room that can be recorded on camera? Seems like a simple solution.

Why not wear cameras 24/7? Seems like a simple solution?

I would think a simpler solution would be to maybe not be a creep?

Yes, because only the guilty ever get accused.

It’s a very very rare occurance. On par, or even less, than false accusations to other crimes according to the FBI

http://www.minnesotalawreview.org/2018/11/men-fear-false-all...

That does not show many people have been fired, denied promotions, or have had warnings etc. based on accusations.

Well given that 2% of all accusations are false, I'd say 98% of these fired for harassment had it coming.

Not a bad idea. It might help someone who is accused of something bad prove their innocence or a victim's story.

The counter issue is that legal might have a problem with this since there might now be video records of all meetings. I'm sure they would be ok in the scenario you mention above, but many meetings might come back to harm the company if brought up in discovery.

I think legal would say the cons outweigh the pros.

should start "almost as many male managers as female employees"

This is what #meetoo has come to. The genders being afraid of each other. Thanks, social media. Social media just removes any and all possibilities of nuance and makes people angry

Its not just social media that has this effect... I think thats the point of this article.

They can do what university professors are already told to do: make sure to leave the door open.

Makes it real hard to discuss career progression.

What? An open door doesn't mean you are shouting your conversation out of it.

People are a lot less candid with the door open. If a boss feels comfortable with the door closed with some employees and not others, the ones with the door closed will get more "insider" information and have an advantage.

Sometimes its about things you need to improve on and they don't want to embarrass you in front of others. Other-times you need to communicate that you are ineffective due to some personal issue. And still more are times when "unwritten" rules you didn't pick up on are being shared with you to help you navigate the bureaucracy.

Do you not have conference rooms with glass windows / doors? Everyone can see who's in the room and what is happening, without the door being open.

You're unlikely to hear the conversation, which is what most of this is about. We're talking about people who're upset about the mere accusation of impropriety in adition to groping or physical contact.

I’m getting pretty sick of repeats of this ersatz story.

Maybe they should use their brains? (Instead of “growing some balls” I mean)

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