reinventing professionalism

Perhaps you've heard of the american workplace? Success in that world is all about fitting in. Some of the ways I've fit in include dressing the part by matching the clothing standards of my peers. I've also practiced code switching, or altering my speech to sound more like my coworkers. Most of us are familiar with the ways that our jobs encourages conforming to the norms around us. The same is true to a huge extent in the society around us. Even being a noncomformist is conforming, as my dad liked to tell me in my rebellious teenage years. But I think that the value of code switching is also a symptom of a larger problem. Professionalism, and fitting in, puts many of us in a box that doesn't fit.

I started my own company in part because it gave me the freedom to choose the peers and clients I worked with. I find myself code switching less often. When I do code switch, it's by choice. It can make my work easier at times without feeling like it's necessary to succeed. I've written about professionalism on here before. Using "y'all" in client emails and writing my name in lowercase aren't affects I do for my job. Instead, they're things I do all the time that I also have the freedom to do at work. I have a septum piercing and still manage to get all my work done. If you didn't know I had a septum piercing, that's my sign to update my headshots (and we should work together again soon!). But at many workplaces, visible piercings don't fit their standards of professionalism. Even if it doesn't have an impact on the work I can do, it does impact how people perceive my adherence to company norms.

what professionalism serves

Professionalism is how an organization communicates the norms that exist within a group. It's how they express in-group culture, whether it's suits and ties or industry jargon. What many organizations define as professional is often rooted in white dominant culture. American workplaces often put strict emphasis on these and other norms:

• Dress codes that enforce gender roles
• Dress codes that communicate wealth or status
• Grooming standards that exclude natural hairstyles like dreadlocks, twists, and braids
• Punctuality and timeliness
• English dominance and speaking without an accent or noticeable dialect
• Conflict avoidance
• Indirect or passive communication styles
• Deference to people in positions of authority
• Adherence to Christian holidays and principles of faith

People who understand these unspoken norms or rules use this knowledge as a way "in" to the group. Unspoken norms put people who don't know these norms into an out-group, making them an "other" in the org. People in the out-group will face rejection for poor "culture fit." They often feel pressure to conform or lose out on advancement opportunities.

Professionalism standards don't typically apply to people in power in the same ways. There are often no consequences for violating company norms. Imagine a manager who abuses or harasses their employees. Or a boss who is free to come in late but penalizes staff when they do. Violating norms as a person in hierarchy doesn't even guarantee that they will change. Instead, it maintains a system of selective standards, an in-group within an in-group.

Conforming to these norms, as an other, is its own catch-22. When we conform to these harmful norms, practices, and policies, we makes them harder to change. In this way, marginalized people help uphold the status quo. Through our actions we show these standards can and should be upheld even when they harm us. We imply that there's nothing wrong with these norms and that there's no need to question them. But many times in my career someone has changed a preexisting process or norm just by asking, "why?"

Steven Thrasher is the author of The Overseer Class, my next beach read. He writes that people from marginalized groups often enforce norms against others in their own group. He asks us to think of Black cops and Latine ICE agents as examples of this. People who uphold the oppression of people who look like them. People who may feel like they have something to prove. In his words, this juxtaposition is intentional. It helps us rein in "our imagination about the scope of what's possible." The same is true when we code switch or take similar actions that seem harmless or unavoidable. When we accept the norms of what is professional, we justify excluding people who can't or don't go along with them.

what could professionalism mean without white dominant culture?

Professionalism itself doesn't have to be a bad thing. We don't need a homogenous culture to do great work together. Here are a few ideas:

• Showing respect to peers who deserve it, in ways they recognize as respect
• Being kind to people who deserve it
• Being transparent about motives or desired outcomes
• Doing what we say we’ll do
• Leaving space for other people to fill
• Sharing the values that motivate us as individuals, not the values an in-group says we should have

The norms of modern professionalism don't serve us. They deserve our reevaluation and replacement. Let's focus on creating norms that actually matter to how we live and work and relate to each other.