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Boundaries, Inattention, and Negotiations.

In Boundaries, Truth-tellingTags boundaries, tactful inattentionApril 11, 2019 Wade Mullen at
http://wademullen.xyz/2019/04/11/tactfulinattention/

A man sits down next to you in a coffee shop while you are reading a book and begins watching
a movie without earphones. Those, including yourself, who can hear the movie and would like to
say something choose instead to ignore the behavior in order to maintain order. Perhaps you fear
a negative response from the movie-watcher. Maybe you do not want to create a scene. So you
and all the others in the coffee shop act as if you cannot hear the movie or are not bothered by it.

You find yourself back in the coffee shop a few weeks later and the same man walks in and sits
next to you. He begins watching his earbuds-free movie, but this time you notice the volume is
louder than before.  What has happened? Since nobody said anything during prior visits, the
movie-watcher has created a buffer around himself as he has learned what he can get away with.
He can now cite past precedent if someone objects to his behavior. Everyone has worked
together, knowingly or not, to redefine boundaries that communicate which behaviors are
tolerated and which are confronted.
You whisper your frustration to someone who looks similarly perturbed and are informed of the
movie-watcher’s identity: a well-respected and powerful leader in the community. The people’s
agreement to allow the behavior is undoubtedly influenced by the identity of the movie-watcher.
You now realize that speaking up will probably incur rejection from the movie-watcher’s
followers.

You engage others in hushed conversation and slowly come to the realization that confronting
the rude movie-watching will not only be viewed as a threat to the movie-watcher’s freedom, but
as a threat to the community’s values, values that have been inculcated over the years until
people believe their goodness is measured by their compliance.  The community has implicitly
granted the movie-watcher the right to cross boundaries while implicitly removing from you the
freedom to object to his boundary-crossing behavior.

Since the coffee shop customers have been conditioned to remain silent, you decide to appeal to
the staff and management, only to discover the coffee shop is owned and operated by the movie-
watcher! It becomes immediately clear to you they will avoid doing anything that could threaten
their own position.

The Problem of Tactful Inattention

The late sociologist Erving Goffman used the term tactful inattention to describe a phenomenon
in which everyone works together to maintain order despite the existence of questionable
behaviors knowing that speaking up about the violations will likely cause a disruption.

Consider this when applied to abusive situations.

Abusive people, like the rude movie-watcher, will test boundaries to discover what can be done
without objection. They often use tactics of manipulation (excessive gifts, helps, favors, special
attention, etc.) to win people’s favor and trust.  They then exploit that trust by crossing
boundaries that would ordinarily be met with resistance if trust was not present.  Others who
observe, hear about, or suspect these violations might choose tactful inattention to protect
themselves.
We are also more likely to ignore boundary-crossing when the person engaging in the behavior
has been iconized to any degree by the community. Choosing tactful inattention is easier than
considering that someone you respect and admire, perhaps even model your own life after, is
potentially abusive.

Boundaries can easily be crossed by those who hold positional power. Those with less positional
power might fear some kind of loss or retaliation if they address the abusive leader’s behavior,
even from the community itself. The person who chooses to cross into the buffer protecting the
abuser will be seen as a threat to the abuser, and can be rejected by those who want to maintain
those buffers because they benefit in some way from the abuser’s life and work.

The Importance of Boundaries and Enforcers

My primary work and experience is with those in leadership. Such roles are often governed in
part by policies – boundaries that communicated what is not permitted. These policies should be
enforced by those who have the authority to check to make sure they are being followed. But
many who owe it to their stakeholders to monitor leadership behavior stop doing so in the name
of “trust.” They fail to realize that what matters most is the trust the organization is forming with
its members, members who expect that the board is doing its job, and one of their principle
functions is to keep watch on boundaries.

The abusive leader demands loyalty and trust. The trust is granted. Then exploited. Boundaries
are crossed. Tactful inattention creeps into the board. New boundaries are negotiated. Again and
again until they are caught in a cycle that simultaneously enables freedom to cross boundaries
while disabling freedom to speak truth. Knowing this motivates them to reject any who cross into
the buffer that protects the abusive leader.
In other words: the abusive leader slowly wins trust and crosses boundaries while the board
slowly grants trust and renegotiates boundaries to accommodate the abusive leaders’ wishes.
Simultaneously, victims of the abusive leader’s harmful behavior or concerned advocates face an
increasingly fortressed protection around the abuser that prevents them from speaking out.
Sadly, that fortress is often a compromised and compliant board.

Organizations and communities must change the broken systems that have allowed for abusive
situations if they are to be a fortress of truth, not lies, and a shield to its members, not a threat.
This usually only happens with new leadership that is able and willing to establish or reestablish
appropriate boundaries and change the culture so that boundary-crossing is not permitted and
truth-telling is invited.