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In 1990, I traveled to South Africa
as part of my work with Outward Bound.

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That was life-changing for me.

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Nelson Mandela had just been released
from prison a few months before,

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and apartheid was being dismantled.

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I worked with mining groups
and banks and other businesses

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facilitating interracial
team-building courses,

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each lasting eight days.

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The mining guys all worked
on the same shifts together,

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and yet,

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on the same shifts across race,

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they never ate meals together,

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they never shared the same dorm rooms,

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and they never drank beer together.

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One white miner’s wife told him,

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“If you sleep in the same room
as a black man, I will divorce you.”

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We started intensive team activities
minutes after they arrived.

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At first, I was inspired and connected

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with the black miners
from different tribal groups,

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who would always spontaneously sing
and dance around the campfire.

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Over time, I found that I had a lot
in common with the white men as well.

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They were good guys one on one,

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and yet, they were part of a system
that was oppressive.

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They were in power,
and others conformed to their system.

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I found over time

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that I had more in common
with the white men

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than I was comfortable with.

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I looked into their eyes and I saw myself.

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I felt compelled to come back to the US
and work with people like me,

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other white men.

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Back in the US, I spent
seven years researching:

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How do white men learn about diversity?

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What triggers our awareness

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and our movement towards being
advocates for diversity?

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In my dissertation research,

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I found the white men I studied

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learn almost everything
from women and people of color.

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They didn’t turn to other white men,

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and in fact disconnected
from other white men

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and were angry at them.

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I was presenting these results
at a national conference

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and a black woman stood up,

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and she said,

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“If that’s the pathway to diversity
for white men, I’m exhausted.”

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(Laughter)

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“I don’t have the energy
to educate all of you.”

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(Laughter)

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And she was right!

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Another colleague of mine,
also with an Outward Bound background,

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Bill Proudman,

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had an idea to break that pattern.

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He said, “Let’s get in the room
with a group of white guys

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and spend four days examining ourselves.

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What does it mean to be white
and to be male,

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and for many of us, heterosexual?"

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We called it a white men’s caucus.

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The first white men’s caucus
we did was 20 years ago.

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Since then, we’ve done hundreds of them,
with thousands of white men.

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Over time, we found that white men
don’t know three things.

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One, we don’t know
that we’re part of a group,

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and that we have a culture.

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Two, we don’t know that others

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are having a different experience
in the world than us.

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And three, we don’t know

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that the process of learning this
is actually life-changing for us,

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and we gain so much in the process.

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Just to be clear,

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white men are not the only people
in the world that don’t know things.

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(Laughter)

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All of us have learning and work to do

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around how to partner
more effectively with each other.

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I’m just talking today
about the white-male part of the equation,

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which is often not articulated.

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So let’s go back to the first thing
that white men don’t know.

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We don’t know that we’re part of a group,
and that we have a culture.

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When I look in the mirror, I see Michael.

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I don’t see myself as a white male.

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Others, women and people of color,
may see a white male,

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but I just see Michael.

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This is partly a result
of how diversity is framed.

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When we look at race, for example,
we often focus on people of color.

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When we look at gender,
who do we usually talk about?

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Women.

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When we look at sexual orientation,

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we often focus on gay,
lesbian and bisexual.

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We don’t examine being white,
or being male, or being heterosexual.

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It’s like an invisible part of myself.

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I once worked with a SWAT team commander

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who came back and said he applied
what he learned the first day on the job.

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He was in a situation that usually ends
in a fight or an arrest,

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and he was able to avoid both.

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Seeing himself and recognizing himself
now as a white male, he realized,

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“This stranger does not
know me personally.”

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And he didn’t have
to take anything personally.

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He shifted from defensiveness to inquiry,

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and he was able to take
an explosive moment

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and turn it into a moment of partnership.

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So white men, we don’t know
we’re part of a group.

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We also don’t know
that we have a culture.

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We’re like a fish in water.

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We rarely have to leave
our cultural waters,

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and so we have the least
awareness of them.

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The culture, our culture,
permeates our schools, our institutions,

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Church, businesses, most places we go.

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So we have the least awareness of it.

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I love my culture,

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and I’ve also come to see
that when I overuse its strengths,

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those strengths can become weaknesses.

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So what are some of the traits
of white male culture?

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One is rugged individualism.

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And I love that part of me.

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I love that I pull myself up
by my bootstraps,

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put my head down and work hard.

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It has served me really well.

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And I know I can overuse that,
as others can too.

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Any of you ever know of white guys

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who get lost and refuse
to ask for directions?

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Audience member: My dad!

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And that happened recently?

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(Laughter)

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Just so, I’m modeling white guys.

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You can actually read directions here.

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So, also, I love the action orientation.

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That’s another aspect of our culture.

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And that action orientation
is about doing and getting things done.

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I like to fix things,
I like to solve problems.

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I can also overuse
that problem-solving mindset.

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Any of you ever have
to tell your white male spouse,

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“I don’t want you to fix this,
I just want you to listen”?

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(Laughter)

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Anybody hear that? As white guys,
have you ever heard that before?

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Also, our culture teaches us

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that we can’t be rational
and emotional at the same time.

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So we leave our emotionality behind.

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Other cultures don’t do that.

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When I live in this -
invisible to me - cultural box,

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I don’t even think of it as a culture.

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I just think of it as being a good human,

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or a good American.

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And I judge others
by this invisible cultural box,

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and that puts them in a place
where they feel judged.

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Unconscious bias,
that’s what it is for me,

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which is that it’s like a background
operating system on autopilot,

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that I didn’t even know
was running in myself.

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I might say I’m culture-blind
or I might say I’m gender-blind,

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and that I just treat everybody the same.

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I don’t realize that others hear that
as having to fit into my cultural box.

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And I don’t even know that I’m causing
that assimilation in others.

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Others can be frustrated

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because they know they have to leave
part of themselves at the door.

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And what’s even more interesting
is we do that to ourselves as white men.

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We also fit into the cultural box,

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and when we do that, we leave
some of our humanness behind.

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The second thing
that most white men don’t know

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is we don’t know that others are having
a different experience in the world.

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Most of us just naturally connect
on sameness and commonality.

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In fact, intercultural research shows
that when you engage difference,

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most people either deny
or minimize those differences,

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and that pattern shows up
for younger generations as well.

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And yet, women, people of color and others
have different experiences,

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and if I’m only connecting on sameness,

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I’m not seeing another part
of their reality.

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It’s not that my view
of the world is wrong;

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more likely, it’s incomplete.

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So, for instance, I don’t have
to think about my own safety.

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If I go jogging at night,
most of the time I’m pretty comfortable,

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even going alone.

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I travel on business a lot.

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I arrive late into airports,
and I drive to the hotel.

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Sometimes I get lost.

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And I’m not too worried about that.


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It’s just not easy,

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but it’s not unsafe for me,
for most of the time.

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Many women would want
to arrive in the hotel before dark,

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and would want your hotel room
to be off the ground floor

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and not near an exit.

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I was traveling with
my business colleague, Bill,

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to Kalamazoo, Michigan,

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to work with an executive team.

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Well, right after I flew
into O'Hare Airport,

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thunderstorms closed the airport.

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Soon, I found out there were
no more flights to Kalamazoo,

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and there were no more rental cars.

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Bill’s rugged individualism kicked in,

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and he propositioned a taxi to take us
all the way to Kalamazoo.

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We got there 2:30 in the morning,
and by 8 a.m. that morning,

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we are standing in front
of the executive team, proud,

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and talking about how our adventure was
and we were going to get there.

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Failure wasn’t an option
in that rugged individualism.

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Well, there was one woman on that team.

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She raised her hand, and she said,

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“I would have never gotten into that taxi
and driven across rural America at night

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with a stranger as a taxi driver.

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And I would have made up an excuse

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so you wouldn’t think
I wasn’t a team player.”

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I looked at her, and I looked at Bill,
and I looked at the group,

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and I said, “I teach this stuff,
and I’m blind to it at the same time.”

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The word “privilege”
is a hard word for us as white men

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because we don’t feel privileged.

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We actually feel like
we’ve worked incredibly hard

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for everything we have.

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And I would say
a deeper perspective is, yes,

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we have worked incredibly hard,

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and there are things that we haven’t had
to navigate or negotiate or think about

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that other groups are.

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For instance, more examples
of how my life might be different

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being heterosexual.

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At work, I can have a picture
of a loved one on my desk

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and not worry about
what other people think about,

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or not worry that it might hinder
my next promotion or get me fired.

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As a cisgendered person,

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I can go out on the spur
of the moment with friends

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and know that I can find
a bathroom that I can use

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without being harassed or beat up.

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As a white person, at work
people don’t look at me

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and think I got my job
because of affirmative action,

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and therefore have me feeling
like I’ve got to work twice as hard

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to prove I’m qualified.

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Or I can easily find mentors
of my race at all levels

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in most organizations.

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Or I can buy pictures,
postcards, greeting cards

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featuring people of my race, easily.

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Or I don’t have to have the talk
with my white kids

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about how to literally stay alive
if stopped by the police.

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So for me, the layers
of privilege go on and on.

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Being able-bodied or, I might say,
temporarily able-bodied,

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I didn’t have to figure out

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how to negotiate my way
through this facility to give this talk.

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Being Christian, people know my holidays,
and they align with time off.

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So privilege is stuff
that I don’t have to deal with.

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It’s not having to navigate
or deal with some of those things.

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It’s not something I chose.

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And what happens is others assume

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we, as white men,
know about our privilege,

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and that we see it.

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And they assume we just don’t care
or want to hoard our privilege.

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So they attribute negative intent
on to that privilege.

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When we start to see our privilege
and own our privilege,

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it removes the burden from others

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to have to educate and prove to us
their different realities are real.

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I can use my privilege honorably.

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For instance, if I’m in a meeting,

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and a woman shares an idea
and it’s ignored,

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and a few minutes later
a man repeats that,

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I can use my privilege to point out
to my male colleagues

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that, hey, that was originally her idea.

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If she was to do that, she might be seen
as having a chip on her shoulder

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around men.

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When we acknowledge
other people's experiences as valid

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and let our hearts be impacted
by their experience,

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we create more trust and more openness.

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I saw this happen in South Africa,
and I've seen it happen around the world.

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It's a shift from a partnership
that's based partly on fear

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to a partnership based more on love.

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Which brings me to the third thing
that most white men don't know.

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We think diversity is about
helping other people with their issues.

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We don't realize the process
of learning about our culture

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and that others are having
a different experience

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actually is life-changing for us
and gives us many insights.

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For instance, when I discover
my cultural box,

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I can continue to use
the strengths of that culture

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and I have the choice
to step out of that culture

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when it would serve me and others more.

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For instance, maybe I want to be
in my head and my heart at the same time.

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Maybe I want to be able
to ask for directions,

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or ask for help or say, "I don't know."

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Maybe I want to be able to slow down

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and not try to fix something
I don't understand.

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When I show that I'm willing to validate
other people's experiences,

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it opens up space for new partnership.

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One white man went back
to a black man at work

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and shared his learning.

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Initially, the black man wasn't open,

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but a week later, the black man
came at to the white man,

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closed the door, talked for two hours,

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and he said,

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"In 20 years, no white man
has ever asked me

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what it's like to be black
in this corporation."

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Another white man went back
to his son and apologized.

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The week before the caucus,

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his son had come from school bullied,

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and he'd told his son,
"Don't cry and suck it up."

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Well, during the caucus,

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the white man learned
he was just training his son

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to be in that white male box.

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So he came home and he said,

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00:14:44,655 --> 00:14:47,277
"I'm sorry I told you
to suck it up and [not] cry.

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It's okay to feel what you feel,
and you don't have to do it alone.

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You can come to me
and I'll be there for you."

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We can have other kinds
of partnerships at work too.

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If I offend somebody,
which is going to happen eventually,

291
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I don't to spend time defending
that I'm a good guy.

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I can shift, using humility
and inquiry, and say,

293
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"How did I just impact you?"

294
00:15:08,743 --> 00:15:11,988
That shifts me from a stance
of "it's not my fault"

295
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to a stance of "I'm responsible."

296
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So white men, what can you do
when you leave here today?

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One, you can remember and realize
that you have a culture,

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and you can start to see it.

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00:15:25,494 --> 00:15:28,159
You can step outside of it
when that serves you,

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and you can notice more
when you impose it on others.

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Second, remember that others are having
a different experience than you.

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So use inquiry and curiosity

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to get their world
and broaden your perspective.

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00:15:42,522 --> 00:15:46,836
Three years before Nelson Mandela died,
I wrote him a letter.

305
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In it, I said,

306
00:15:49,127 --> 00:15:54,382
"I was astonished to see you
emerge from 27 years in prison

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00:15:54,382 --> 00:15:59,802
and embrace, from a place of love,
the white men who imprisoned you.

308
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You showed that love
is the greatest force for change,

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00:16:03,511 --> 00:16:05,059
and I want you to know

310
00:16:05,059 --> 00:16:07,515
that it's the same thread
of love that I carry

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00:16:07,515 --> 00:16:10,431
that you passed on
to the white men in South Africa."

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I ask all of us today
to carry that same thread to others

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as you create extraordinary partnerships
with people around the planet.

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Thank you.

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00:16:20,964 --> 00:16:23,655
(Applause) (Cheering)