Dear Crucial Skills,
I’m a university instructor and I have a student who’s experiencing harassment from her roommate. Housing services won’t provide a room change despite available vacancies. The stress is affecting her performance in school. What can I do to help her?
Signed,
Professor
Dear Professor,
Seeing someone we care about struggle in a difficult situation is often harder than struggling ourselves. I commend you for wanting to help. My assumption is that your university has policies and procedures around reporting, investigating, and handling harassment. I would first encourage you to seek out and familiarize yourself with that process. There is likely a process through which you can report the harassment yourself, on behalf of your student, hopefully with her consent.
Now, there is some evidence in your question that the harassment your student is experiencing is either not documented sufficiently or not damaging enough to qualify as harassment under your university’s policies. Let me be clear and careful here. I do not imply that when a university student says she is being harassed we should do anything other than take her at her word. At the same time, two things strike me about your question:
- Housing services has declined to make a room change despite available vacancies. There could be several reasons for this. Perhaps your student has not provided sufficiently clear examples of harassment or advocated for herself. Perhaps the housing staff who evaluated her complaint is untrained or lacking knowledge in the area of harassment policies. Perhaps the roommate’s behavior is annoying and irritating but not harassing.
- You are asking advice from the authors of Crucial Conversations, not your university’s student counseling center, human resources department, or other university resource. You seem to believe the dialogue could be a helpful part of the solution here.
Again, let me be clear: harassment should be reported and addressed. Full stop.
And, in the spirit of Crucial Conversations, I offer this suggestion: teach your student to advocate for herself—with her roommate, with housing services, and with any others. Here are three tips she, and anyone, can use to better advocate for themselves.
Start with Facts
What are the specific behaviors of her roommate that are problematic? What is her roommate saying or doing that is causing the concern? Focusing on facts does not mean that the conclusion of harassment is inaccurate. It simply creates a powerful foundation for the conversation. She will likely get more traction with housing services if she explains the roommate’s behavior and then says something like, “Because these behaviors are ongoing and consistent, in my opinion they rise to the level of harassment.”
Seek to Understand
Often when we advocate for ourselves, we fail to consider other points of view. However, considering other viewpoints can help us reach resolution. Single-minded, self-interested advocacy is less effective than collaborative dialogue.
Yes, advocate for yourself with passion. But remember this rule of effective dialogue: you can advocate for yourself only to the same degree that you try to understand the other person’s perspective.
What is going on in the roommate’s life that may be contributing to the problematic behaviors? What about their culture or upbringing may lead them to believe these behaviors are acceptable? What are the policies that the student housing administrators are trying to follow?
Asking these questions doesn’t take anyone off the hook for bad behavior. It allows you (or more importantly your student) to see the other side, which will ultimately strengthen your advocacy and her advocacy.
Find Common Ground
Starting with facts (your perspective) and seeking to understand the other person (their perspective) are crucial because they lay the groundwork for the most important part of dialogue—finding common ground. We describe common ground or mutual purpose as the entrance condition to dialogue. Without it, there is no reason to engage in the conversation or hope for a resolution.
Your instinct to help is commendable. Respect her as an adult and help her by teaching her to advocate for herself.
Emily
I love your organization, and I applaud your generosity in helping the student in the spirit of “Crucial Conversations.” Your story also helped me.
This is a great example, but what if the situation was a coworker and director. The threat of losing a job if you do not concede with a cohort even though their tone and position is not professional. Feeling threatened or intimidated daily causes stress, sleepless nights, and physical/health issues. What would be your suggestion or advice in this situation. Keep in mind HR is probably going to take the director’s position in any matter.
tl;dr: if it’s already that bad and harming your health, maybe it’s worth the risk. It was for me!
Karen – I had a similar experience and found crucial conversations to be very effective. I had a boss that was discriminating and harassing against me, and, even worse, only doing it during 1:1s or other, hidden situations so that most of the team did not know. So, when I was stressed and reacting in meetings, it looked like I was the problem (making it even less likely that HR would ever take my side).
Similar to the article, I put together my facts and had a crucial conversation about the fact that this director treated me differently from others. Of course, it’s a risk, but so is driving your health into the ground. For me, I finally decided that my sanity was more important, and it worked out in the end. 3 years after that conversation, things are going well! To be clear, we still dislike each other, but a lot of the toxic behavior has stopped, and we have a passable working relationship.
Very important notes!
First: I got some peace and perspective with myself. Ultimately, it’s a job and another job can always be found. In my opinion, no job is worth my physical or mental health. The worst thing my boss could do is fire me, which would be terrible, but I would survive. I think it’s also important to think about what you want to do next if things can’t be improved (stay, leave, try again, etc.) and to take the effect on your mental health seriously. Ultimately, when I took accountability of the fact that I’m choosing to stay as well as the actions I took from there on out, I felt much less hopeless and victimized.
Second: I prepared a LOT! I wrote down notes, worked through potential scenarios, and even brought my notes to the meeting. I have notes because this is important to me, and I want to use the time effectively.
Third: I thought about what I did to contribute to the situation. In general, I’ve always found that I contribute in some way, even if it’s how I react, which ends up adding more fuel to a volatile situation. This isn’t about blame, but recognizing that the villain story I’m telling may not be completely accurate.
Fourth: I realized that, if I’m going to stay at this company, our relationship must be improved, so I came at it not from an angle of them being a bad person but asking how we can partner more effectively in the future. I worked very hard to leave an anger or judgement and to truly focus on improving the relationship.
I hope this can help!
Great reply. I have found when I stand back and look objectively I have always been contributing to the difficult relationship in some way, by my assumptions, attitude, and sometimes that I prioritize differently from my administrators.