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growing up i always valued
fairness
equity
and things just being just
i remember when i was five years old i
was at a halloween party
and i'm dressed up in my trademarked
ninja costume
and i say trademark because let my mom
tell it i was a ninja like five or six
times throughout childhood
and i remember i was eavesdropping
well that's what ninjas do
and as i'm eavesdropping i overhear that
my mother had some unpaid parking
tickets
so me with my
strong values
i had the bright idea to call the police
on my own mother
so i pick up the phone
nine
one
i think i like hung up and got scared or
something but
the police arrived
and it gets kind of confusing at this
point because it's a halloween party so
people basically thought they were just
trying to get in the party
you can imagine
everybody's face when they found out
that i was the person that called the
police
my mama still tells this story to this
day
so
i hope you realize
values are important to me
so important i call the cops on my own
mother
they became a research interest and i
started studying values both personal
and organizational especially facade
creation where we adopt values that we
don't believe in
for profit and privilege
so
as children we only wear masks on
halloween
but when we grow up and enter the
workplace
we become masters of manipulating how we
show up
whether that's through mimicry
or facade creation
adopting values we don't believe in
wearing the mask
as i grew
i've coached thousands of employees and
leaders in various organizations and one
thing that really stuck with me was the
notion
of people having to adopt values that
they didn't believe in and i just saw
the pain and the strife that they had to
go through
so you know me and hr i'm like you know
why does that matter
you're getting a paycheck
remember need better work-life balance
but what i forgot was that very same
experience
happened to me in my first job out of
college
so i got my degree
the whole world's in front of me right
i go to my first job and
i'm thinking you know i'm led to believe
my knowledge skills and abilities
i'd be able to help the customer and
improve the customer's experience
but when i got there
the only thing that mattered
was profit
that's what i was being indoctrinated in
that mask was too heavy to wear
i lasted two weeks
so that experience brought me to study
this construct and start working on
something i call the workplace
masquerade
and today i want to kind of talk to you
about what to look for to let you know
if you're in it or not
these hallmarks to look for are called
the four horsemen of fakeness
that first horseman is diversity over
inclusion
let me be clear diversity over inclusion
is different than diversity and
inclusion
can i say that again diversity over
inclusion is different than diversity
and
inclusion what happens in these spaces
is yeah we're diverse we got all the
numbers look at our demographics look at
our pretty photos on the wall looks like
the united nations in here
but what tends to happen is
we're only inclusive
if you think
and act like us
so i ask you
some may think that whole notion of fit
is easier to work in
but i question
easier for who
the second horseman to look out for is
something called cultural theater
so you've all heard about organizational
culture you know the importance we've
all heard that song and dance
but what tends to happen is
we're putting on a facade ourselves as
an organization
and we engage in what's called cultural
theater the act of leading people to
believe
you're changing the culture
so it's february 29th leap year right
plenty of uh companies celebrated black
history month
oh look out in june we're gonna adopt
our pride logos
but we're not going to be inclusive
where it really counts
think about who's getting promoted
who has that seat at the table
whose voices are being lifted up
how do they operate during times of
descent
the third horseman
is courage
so courage and vulnerability are
essential to have in any workplace
and i would argue in this masquerade
it's actually needed the most
but it seldom occurs
what tends to happen is you probably all
had an experience where
you had that bright idea
you wanted to be different and you
voiced your opinion
you probably remember the frowns
the eye rolling
and even the overt invalidation
that only needs to happen one or two
times
for you to know
that the status quo
is the way to go
the fourth and final horseman is
avoidance
this masquerade is characterized by an
undercurrent avoidance avoidance of
conflict so we got this thing called
toxic niceness
avoidance of truth
we then in turn avoid to do the work to
truly operate as ourselves
so these horsemen really impact the
organization
but i want to share with you what it
could do to you as an individual
so
corn ferry is a management consulting
company and through work they found that
76 percent of respondents related to
stress indicated that their workplace
stress manifested in their personal
relationships back home
that alone seems dire
on top of that
66 reported that they had a lack of
sleep
as a result
so you're telling me you got
projection of stress to those that are
closest to you and sleep loss
i don't want to work with that person
adding into that 16
reported that they don't think they quit
their jobs
so i know many of you in the audience
are like well yeah i'll deal with the
stress i'm not going to quit my job
let me tell you what you're getting
yourself into
so
the next outcome to think about is
something called burnout
burnout has been recognized by the world
health organization and the
international classification of diseases
burnout is listed as a special
work-related stress
that manifests in our physical and
emotional exhaustion that leads to a
reduced of personal accomplishment
and a loss
of personal identity
burnout has been linked to numerous
psychological impact and if i just
isolated depression and anxiety alone
the world health organization estimates
that that'll cost about a trillion
dollars in lost productivity in the
united states
per year
these statistics sound scary
but
most of you are not going to do anything
about it
let me tell you why
so if you've ever seen the mask
with jim carrey
you probably remember
that even though the mask provided him
with power and protection
he still tried to get rid of it
like the movie
the masks we all wear
are hard to get rid of
and i want to talk about two reasons why
the first is something called social
mobility
there's research that indicates that we
don this mass this facade
for social career and financial success
we profit from privilege
what this mask does is it erroneously
sends us the false narrative
that whoever is under your mask
is not worthy of reward
there's a lot of research related to
social media and i'm sure you remember
if you're scrolling through instagram
a lot of people are beating themselves
up
they're scrolling
they're comparing themselves
to others but what we don't realize is
we are comparing ourselves our true
selves what's under our mask to everyone
else wearing theirs
wearing a mask is not the concept of
fake it to make it think about this
the moment
you make it
you're already bought in
the mask has conditioned you to further
engage in the facade
so think about the external factors and
these external factors serve as the glue
that holds your mask in place think
about those factors and why you wear
your mask
financial
psychological safety
or something else
the next factor to explore
is an internal emotion that i'm sure
we're all familiar with
fear
some of us are afraid to reveal who we
truly are
for fear of being too different
for fear of not being accepted
for fear
of being alone
social acceptance theory even examines
the notion that ultimately we want to be
a part of the group
we want to be like others and the
research even pegs out that we sometimes
talk and act like people just to be a
long part of that group
i'm sure you all have plenty of photos
you can look at
and you can see like wow
i'm following trends i absolutely
absolutely hated just to be liked just
to be part of the group
you can look at me today and
you probably won't believe this i used
to wear like super baggy pants
like extremely baggy where i would walk
on them and it would eat the bottoms up
and
and dress shirts
oh well not dress shirts these were like
dress shirts they were like 6x t-shirts
i need to burn all those photos by the
way
so think about those internal
glue that holds your mask in place
because like i said before
this is not the concept to fake it to
make it
this may very well be
fake it to break it
and the it that you're breaking
is the tie
to your sense of self
so i know you're probably thinking kevin
what do we do with these insurmountable
challenges
well today i want to talk to you about
one thing we can walk away with and
for me
loosening the grips of the mask required
awareness
everybody take out their cell phones
right now and take a selfie
seriously i can see you take take
yourself out
let's all take a selfie
take your selfies yes
don't take a picture of me
now
now take a look at your
what are the what are the top three
things that come to mind when you're
looking at yourself
think about that
for me
this awareness required me to evaluate
who i am based on what i think
and who i am based on what others think
and believe me there was a difference
so again look at your photo
what perspective are you taking
what point of view
are you taking
so you saw my tedx photo
i looked at my tedx photo and i was like
oh my god that guy's a nerd with those
glasses on like uh
i don't know if that's an extra internal
extern i don't know where that comes
from but that's what i thought
ultimately
we we manage impressions
we manage impressions
to be like others to fit in with others
your mask
didn't just appear yesterday
i like to think that the mask is
comprised of many different experiences
and events that we go through you should
look this way
get this degree
talk this way dressed this way
and on top of that it's backed by some
pretty sticky glue
as you walk away and reflect
i hope you join me on this journey of
authenticity
is the mask
you wear today
the person you want to be
tomorrow
thank you