Arny Mindell is the founder of the Process Work Institute in Portland, Oregon. He's an amazing teacher. He has many really valuable insights. This past Friday he talked a bit more about rank in a group. Everyone has a certain rank in a group; some of which is conscious, such as the person with the title president or manager, and some of which is unconscious, such as the person with more degrees or more money. The most dangerous aspect of rank is the unconscious part. Most people, he says, have more rank than they think they have. As a culture we like to identify with the underdog; we do not like to admit our own power. People with unconscious rank can be unconsciously hurtful to others. One student talked about a person at work with a lot of rank who was a bully. The student said that the person thought they didn't have any power, when in fact they did.
I remember getting together with a woman who was quite poor to plan a church event. Her truck needed a brick behind the tires to park because she didn't have any money for new parking brakes. As we scoured my yard for a suitable brick, I remember feeling really uncomfortable. I felt powerful next to her and it made me feel embarrassed. If I knew then what I know now, I would have talked about it with her. I would want to make this disparity of power really conscious both to me and to her. As it was, we got together that one time and then she dropped out of the project. I felt bad, but I didn't know why.
I suspect she had felt shame looking for that brick. She couldn't talk about it either. Instead she just avoided feeling shame again by dropping out. I had a lot of rank in that relationship and simply by not being able to talk about it and acknowledge her feelings, I hurt her.
In any group, even a volunteer group made up of equals, rank shows up in terms of the more powerful gender, the number of degrees, how long the person has been in the group, race, style of clothes, profession, car driven, number of family members in the area and their status in the larger community, beauty, health, age, ability to articulate ideas, intelligence, and so on. We can easily see rank in others, but it's not so easy to see it in ourselves.
I'm curious. What would you have said to put her at ease?
ReplyDeleteI would have shared my discomfort and why, and then asked her if she felt uncomfortable and a lack of equality. Perhaps she might have felt comfortable enough to discuss our obvious difference in economics and if that impacted our communication. I honestly do not know if it would put her at ease. Anymore than I could be sure that a room full of men would put me more at ease by acknowledging my lesser rank as a woman. But if the men seemed to truly care about my discomfort, well maybe I would be more at ease. I'd like the fact that at least they admitted the power discrepancy and were trying to be aware of it.
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