This email did not find me well
by Bobbi Braaten
A year ago, I was drafting a message and began with….“I hope this email finds you well.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, paralyzed. Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but my body has a visceral, physical reaction to that sentence. It didn’t make sense - I’ve typed this sentence a million times. I’m no stranger to professional etiquette. In fact, I used to pride myself on my ability to write “grown-up” emails.
Then it hit me. I imagined myself walking up to someone to say, “I hope this conversation finds you well.”
It just seemed so ridiculous, so insincere. So contrary to how I want to present myself to others.
It wasn’t me, but I’d been writing it for years.
Over the last decade, I’ve developed a complex language conversion system to translate my thoughts and feelings into something acceptable for the workplace. All those years of college, internships, and early work experiences conditioned me to believe that something about me was innately unprofessional; that I had to change my way of communicating; … of being, to make it in this world. I internalized that to my core, believing that the only way I could be successful was to put on the facade of a grown-up.
This was compounded by the fact that throughout my career, I’ve had bosses (yes, plural) sit next to me and revise my emails. Not revising the content, but revising how I present the content. Telling me: “Get rid of the exclamation point,” “You don’t need to ask how everyone is doing,” “No emojis,” “This feels like jazz hands.”
Essentially, editing the ME out of my emails. This only reinforced my belief that it’s not acceptable to show up as myself at work.
I felt all this tension inside my body, all the time. I’m not sure if it’s a result of the pandemic, our political landscape, or the endless bombardment of world-ending news at every corner of the internet. Maybe something is shifting in the stars? Whatever it is, I started questioning these standards, asking myself: How many ways have I self-edited to fit a mold? Who decided what that mold looks like? When will I be able to show up as myself?
Why are we doing things this way?
When I started drafting this blog post, I thought that the answer was simple. Be yourself! Write emails the way you want! Talk to your coworkers like you would any other human! There are no rules! Easy peasy, right?
Of course it’s not that simple. I should be the first to know - I work at an organization that radically accepts and celebrates individuals as they are. Even though I have support and positive modeling all around me, I still struggle. Why is that?
The roots of our organizational culture
What is professionalism, anyway? Who decides?
The very nature of our society, and therefore our organizations, are built on patriarchal and oppressive systems. This isn’t a new idea, especially those of us in the nonprofit sector - nonprofit leaders have been developing research and calling out outdated and harmful practices for decades.
Our model for what works and what doesn’t, what it means to be a productive organization, was developed by white men, often behind closed doors while exploiting the labor of under-paid workers. Although nonprofits have made commitments to creating more diverse and inclusive environments at all levels of leadership, 87% of nonprofit CEOs and 78% of board members are white.
No matter how progressive or new-aged your workplace may be, white supremacy is baked into organizational culture. If you’re asking yourself what that looks like in practice, I highly recommend Tema Okun’s piece defining 15 characteristics of white supremacy that show up in the workplace, several of which stand out to me as it relates to the ways I internalized professionalism:
Only one right way: The belief there is one right way to do things and once people are introduced to the right way, they will see the light and adopt it.
Paternalism: Decision-making is clear to those with power and unclear to those without it.
Either/or thinking: Things are either/or - good/bad, right/wrong, with us/against us.
I’m the only one: The belief that if something is going to get done right, ‘I’ have to do it.
Essentially, those in power hold the answers which have been passed down from those before them. Now it’s the responsibility of our present leaders to guide the emerging workforce into that same mold or the entire world may come crashing down at the hands of an inappropriately placed emoji.
Spoiler alert: the world is already burning to the ground, literally. The joke is on us.
This leads me to my next question: What happens when we have to abide by these standards?
The cost of hiding ourselves
The Deloitte University Leadership Center for Inclusion report, Uncovering Talent, found that “sixty-one percent of respondents reported covering” some part of their lives at work. Covering is described as shielding parts of yourself and your identity.
Let that sink in. Nearly two-thirds of us consciously and unconsciously hide our truest selves at work. Which, I might add, is where we spend a majority of our lives. It’s messed up and it has serious consequences for our wellbeing.
Respondents in that study reported that covering at work was significantly detrimental to their sense of self. This isn’t surprising to me in the least. We live in a culture that tells us there are “shameful” qualities, traits, lifestyles, beliefs, behaviors, etc. We’re told those parts of ourselves are so shameful that we must hide them from others, at least at work. What does that do to a person’s self-image?
Earlier, I mentioned that I was feeling a lot of tension as I began questioning these professional standards. As cognitive dissonance set in, I lost trust in myself. It impaired my decision-making. I was expending so much energy to perform this role that was counterintuitive to my way of being, energy that I could have been using to actually do my job. I don’t think I’m alone in this experience.
So, where do we go from here?
I would love to offer tips and tricks on how to embrace your authentic self, but that just doesn’t go far enough. Yes, there are things we can do to grow more comfortable showing up as ourselves, like building your network of supportive colleagues, calling out censorship when you see it (and learning to feel comfortable doing so), and modeling the behavior you want to see from others.
Unfortunately, these norms have been upheld as long as our organizations have existed, and it goes way beyond email etiquette. For some people, this is all they’ve ever known; they likely received the same conditioning we did. For others, it’s a way to hoard power, to keep it out of the hands of those who would dare to do things differently. Either way, there isn’t an easy, one-size-fits-all answer to these problems.
This is my proposition to you: Question everything that doesn’t feel right. Trust your gut. Do what you can to dismantle these systems, in whatever way feels powerful to you. If that means small changes here and there, do it. If you can lead a revolution in your org, I applaud you - do it! If you just aren’t in an environment where that feels safe, do what you need to do to make it through. If these molds feel right for you, that’s fantastic! Just don’t force them on other people.
As frustrating as our current realities are, there are wildly brilliant humans in our nonprofit community (and beyond!) who are challenging these systems. I’m fortunate to know and work with some of them, and they have shown me how to strengthen the quality of my work without diminishing my personality. They have taught me what it means to act with integrity; to be unwavering in your values; and to love and embrace fellow humans as they are.
I’ll leave you with this: We can’t do this work alone. I have an amazing colleague who often says that if we want to unlearn ways of doing and being, we need to do that in community. In relationship. Collectively. If we can do that, we just might begin to see a world in which people feel confident sharing their beautiful, messy, imperfect, whole selves.
- Bobbi Braaten -
