It’s amazing no one drowned in the torrent of water that splashed from the pool. As I think back, it must have been amusing to watch this scrawny adolescent plow across that watery expanse in frenzy, arms flailing. No wonder the other swimmers dog paddled madly toward the edge for safety.

That adolescent was I and all that splashing occurred on the occasion of my final examination from swimming class. This was not just any swimming class, mind you; it consisted of ten weeks of private lessons. That’s right, ten weeks focused solely on giving Sondra Thiederman the tools to fit into a very “beachy” and “pool-side” southern California culture. I learned a lot during those ten weeks. I learned to execute each stroke perfectly, mastered the breathing technique, and, as I recall, was praised for my ability to kick with precision and power.

There was, however, something crucial that I did not learn despite the investment of time and money: I never learned to overcome my fear of water.  This became painfully obvious to the instructor – and my parents – as they watched me end my swimming career by crossing that pool on sheer panic power.

The Power of Fear

All that knowledge, all that technique, you see, did me no good when faced with the real life task of navigating across 14 feet of what felt like fathoms-deep liquid. What, on the other hand, would have happened if that instructor had taken the time to identify my fear and work with it? Maybe then I would have been able to use the skills that he so skillfully supplied.

Most of us have learned the hard way that fear has the power to compromise our performance in many areas of life. Take awkward conversations about diversity for example. I’m talking here about those dreadful and often unexpected moments when we realize we have said something inappropriate but don’t know what to do about it, overheard an offensive remark and felt we must respond but don’t know how, or, more generally, find ourselves faced with a delicate diversity-related topic of conversation.

For many of us, situations like these call up so much emotion that our effectiveness is severely hampered in one or more of these ways.

• Fear interferes with our willingness to enter into the conversation in the first place. In extreme cases, we are so anxious that we just walk away.
• Anxiety prevents us from being able to think on our feet and find the words that best address the situation.
• Agitation blocks our ability to interpret accurately what is going on. We become so distracted by coping with our emotion that we loose sight of the other party’s motivations, intent, and even the meaning of his or her words.
• Fear pulls us out of the moment by tempting us to focus on painful experiences of the past or imagined disasters of the future rather than on the realities of the present.

Just as my fear of water prevented me from swimming efficiently, the discomfort we feel when faced with conversations about diversity interferes with the success of those conversations.

Naming the Fear

This, however, is where the similarity between swimming and talking ends. For me to join my grandson in the pool and frolic at his pace not mine, I need, not only to identify my fear of water, but to overcome it. For me, on the other hand, to have a successful conversation around diversity, merely identifying the discomfort just might be enough. In fact, one of the cornerstones of emotional intelligence posits that naming an emotion can, miraculously, diminish that emotion’s impact on our ability to function.

Here’s an example of just the sort of situation that might have been turned around had either party been able to identify the emotions involved. It was a classic awkward diversity moment that involved myself and a new acquaintance who had recently moved to San Diego. Here’s the scene:

My dinner companion was a black woman named Candace, who had just moved to town and whom I was anxious to welcome into the community. We met at a local restaurant and proceeded to have a great time indulging in “girl talk,” being silly, comparing notes on the best shopping malls in town, and, most fun, trying to figure out how we were going to get her involved in the San Diego dating scene.

After about an hour of light conversation, we began to talk about my work and that led to what promised to be an interesting discussion about various types of diversity. Unfortunately, that promise was an empty one. Once the subject turned to race, there was a subtle shift in atmosphere. We were transformed into different people. Gone were the play and shared interests; we became, instead, a pair of women who were too self-conscious to carry on any kind of honest conversation. And the worst of it was that neither of us so much as commented on what was happening between us.

Looking back, I realize that two stumbling blocks contributed to the broken promise of that evening—stumbling blocks that neither of us was able and/or willing to overcome. The first block was that we were clearly uncomfortable discussing the subject of race. Some say that it requires more intimacy to talk honestly about race than to have sex. That may be overstating it a bit, but talking about race sure is a heck of a lot scarier than chatting about shopping malls and clothes.

The second problem was actually the bigger one: the fact that neither of us was willing to mention that we were uncomfortable. Because of our reluctance to state the obvious, we missed out on a prime opportunity to learn more about the complexities of human difference and how to make them work.

Why didn’t at least one of us speak up? Why did we both begin to swim madly across the pool splashing everyone in sight? I wager it was because, although we knew we were uncomfortable, we didn’t know why. In other words, we were unable to name the fear that was paralyzing our otherwise good communication skills. If I had known that answer, at least from my end, I would have been able to explore the emotion and reduce its power.

Practice Makes Perfect

Here’s some practice in identifying the kind of emotions that can get in our way. Put yourself in my place or in Candace’s—whichever role is most familiar to you (or both)—and try to identify what emotions kept each of us from talking honestly and productively about what was going on. In addition to speculating on the emotions that Candace and I may have felt, ask yourself what fears you might possess that could block your ability to dialogue in a similar situation. Take a moment to do the task before reading on.

Here are some of the feelings and fears that might have been responsible for that ruined dinner conversation. Did you identify any of them?

• One emotion might have been fear of the intimacy (read honesty) and commitment that goes along with healthy conversation about diversity related issues.
• There might also have been a concern that our own biases would be revealed if we carried the conversation forward. Perhaps Candace was concerned that, if we got into a really honest conversation, her bias toward white people would show through and damage a potential friendship. Perhaps I was worried that biases of which I was barely aware might make an inopportune appearance in the form of a misspoken word or poorly chosen phrase.
• Maybe one or both of us was afraid that the other person might become angry. Sadly, where there is diversity, there is always the possibility that old angers are festering just beneath the surface. Alternatively, we might have been worried that our own anger would leak through our reserve and spill out, ruining both the evening and the budding friendship.
• We might have been concerned about appearing uptight, judgmental, or overly serious. Often when a diversity-related subject come up, we run away from it for fear that if we bring up the heavy subject of diversity tension or bias, someone will hurl back at us that most patronizing of all phrases, “Lighten up!”
• Perhaps we were apprehensive that, if we said anything, we would give the impression of not being “nice people.” Maybe neither of us wanted to be negative or confrontational in any way. Perhaps we feared that we would no longer be liked if we mentioned the harsh reality that our new friendship was not developing as smoothly as we had first expected and hoped.

As you live and work in a diverse environment, you will no doubt come up against fears and discomforts and other excuses to hesitate that are not on this list. The more experience you have in encountering, naming, and diffusing your fears, the easier the process will become.

Back to the Pool

If I had confronted my fear of water oh-so-many years ago, I could have worked with it, but because it was never faced, I never made it across a pool again. The same applies to difficult diversity conversations. If we don’t confront the fear we will be in danger of walking away or, worse, slipping into auto responder mode, spouting glib denials and politically correct nonsense, and splashing everyone around us into soggy oblivion.

Sondra Thiederman is a speaker and author on bias-reduction, diversity, and cross-cultural issues. Her latest book, Making Diversity Work: Seven Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace (New York: Kaplan Publishing, Revised second edition, 2008), provides practical tools for defeating bias and bias-related conflicts in the workplace. She can be contacted for Webinars and in-person presentations at: www.Thiederman.com, STPhD@Thiederman.com, 800-858-4478.