The Lesson 0

When I was a corporate trainer, one of the courses we offered was EEO training, which included topics related to sex discrimination (of which sexual harassment is a subset). The course was not intended to change attitudes–that is generally a fruitless effort unless persons already want to change their attitudes. Furthermore, attitudes are neither quantifiable nor observable; behavior is.

Rather, the course was designed to teach supervisors how not to get themselves or the company in trouble, to put it bluntly. That is, it was directed at how persons behaved in the workplace, not at what they believed or at what they did or said off-duty or off the property.

I found that the persons who most often questioned whether they could continue doing this or that reprehensible behavior generally already knew that the behavior was reprehensible. (If, for example, I take my clothes off before others in my workplace, I can make no argument that doing so is businesslike behavior or an honest misunderstanding. Zilch, nada, none.)

Those questioners wanted to keep on doing whatever they were doing because they liked doing it.

Image via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.