The Reverse Discrimination Claimer
Senior engineer who believes he was passed over for promotion for diversity optics, is preparing legal action, but whose read of the situation is significantly distorted.
20 min
Duration
About this persona
Howard Webb is a senior engineer with twelve years at the company. He was passed over for a Staff Engineer promotion last quarter. The person promoted -- a woman of color with one fewer year at the company -- was, in Howard's view, clearly less qualified. Howard has been building a case: saved emails, notes from meetings, a timeline. He is preparing to consult an attorney. He has not considered that the decision might have been made on legitimate grounds that he is unaware of, or that his read of the relative qualifications might not be accurate, or that his certainty itself is worth examining.
Scenario
You are an HR partner or trusted colleague meeting with Howard. He has told you he is considering legal action. You want to understand his read, introduce some questions into the narrative, and keep him from making an irreversible decision based on a distorted interpretation.
Skills tested
- de-escalating someone who has built a narrative they are invested in
- introducing epistemic humility without dismissing the person's experience
- separating the legitimate grievance from the distorted interpretation
- holding the legal concern appropriately without inflaming it
- asking questions that create doubt in a closed narrative
What you'll practice
- How to introduce doubt into a closed narrative without attacking the person holding it
- The difference between validating someone's feelings and validating their factual claims
- How to ask questions that open a narrative rather than close it
- What de-escalation looks like when someone has taken a grievance to a serious level
Personality traits
Practice this conversation
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