27 September 2023

Challenging the minority label

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Being labeled as a minority member at work can be stressful, but “nice Chinese girl” May Busch* has strategies to overcome this and even use it to advantage.


Recently, I was asked to advise people who may feel out of place in the workplace because they’re a minority.

Being in the minority can arise from any number of ways, such as colour, gender, age, religious beliefs, and physical ability, to name a few.

When you’re in the minority group, it’s easy to feel misunderstood and excluded. To feel like you don’t really belong, no matter how hard you try to fit in.

You’re constantly having to prove yourself. You’re not in the ‘inner circle’ where a lot of important context gets shared.

You’re having to self-manage all the time to try to fit in. It’s exhausting.

It also leads to self-doubt which can easily blossom into imposter syndrome, feeling like you don’t belong or deserve to be where you are.

For most of my career I’ve been in the minority group so here are three strategies that worked for me when I felt out of place at work.

Be incredibly kind to yourself

It takes an emotional toll to be constantly on alert and trying to fit in.

In my experience, the number one antidote to all this stress is to be incredibly kind to yourself.

This starts with self-care like meditation, breathing or exercise to manage your mental state.

Then nurture yourself, whether it’s splurging on high-end bedding, scented candles at home, nutritious food, music system, top notch exercise gear, getting enough sleep and so forth.

You don’t have to do it all on your own. You can also tap into your community of support and advocates.

These are people who know what you’re like at your best and are happy to remind you. Gather strength from those who know, love and respect you.

For me, it was my family and a couple of trusted colleagues. For you, it could include your team and close friends.

You can also learn to remind yourself of what you’re like at your best for an instant dose of confidence when you need it.

For example, creating a mantra — a few sentences you find reaffirming — that you can repeat to yourself when you need to regain your confidence.

Assume positive intent

When someone says something that could be construed as negative, the natural human instinct is to take offense.

Stress hormones get released, you go into fight-or-flight mode and your emotions take over.

This is not only draining but also keeps you from thinking clearly and performing at your best. So it’s ideal to prevent the cycle from starting in the first place.

What I learned from my mother was to adopt the default position of assuming the other person has positive intentions.

She would remind me that, “maybe they are having a bad day” or my favourite, “maybe they lack a nerve.”

This meant they lacked a sensory perception of how they are coming across.

The reason to assume positive intent is first and foremost for your benefit. It’s not about ‘forgiving’ the other person or ‘letting them off the hook’.

It’s all about making it a better experience for you by preventing other people from influencing your mental state.

When you assume positive intent, your brain won’t need to release the cortisol and adrenalin stress chemicals.

This can be done simply by saying “thank you” when you’re not sure if a colleague’s comment was meant as a criticism or a compliment.

Just assume it’s a compliment and embrace it as such.

When you’re relentlessly positive, constructive and calm, people can’t hurt you. In my experience, they’ll probably start to live up to the behaviour you’re role-modelling.

Be a person, not a label

People can’t help but form impressions and make assumptions about each other.

We attach mental labels to each other, which in my case might be, “she’s Chinese” or “she’s a short person”.

If someone hasn’t met you or experienced you personally before, they have less to go on.

That means they’re even more likely to fall back on stereotypes or what they hear from others.

The key is to become known to people so they can see beyond the stereotypes and assumptions.

Ideally, do this by having them experience you at your best.

For me, that was when I was winning over sceptical clients. For a team member, it was being amazing at synthesising reams of data into three actionable points.

For a colleague, it was having her managers discover that she was a singer who had performed in sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall.

When you give people a chance to experience you and see you as a three-dimensional human being, it dispels the stereotypes and puts you into your own unique category.

In my case, I was able to get my colleagues to see beyond the initial impression of me as a “nice Chinese girl” and see me first and foremost as May Busch.

However, there are going to be times when the workplace you’re in is not the right place for you.

If you really can’t be yourself and it’s affecting your wellbeing, you owe it to yourself to find somewhere better.

Just make sure you’ve done what you can to try to make it work before you move on.

Every downside has an upside and as a Chinese woman in investment banking, I discovered that clients and senior managers noticed and remembered me.

So feeling out of place at work also had the upside of helping me distinguish myself in a good way.

*May Busch works with smart entrepreneurs and top managements to build their businesses. She can be contacted at [email protected].

This article first appeared at maybusch.com.

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