Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity

by Kim Scott

Overview

From Kim Scott, author of the revolutionary New York Times bestseller Radical Candor, comes Just Work—how we can recognize, attack, and eliminate workplace injustice—and transform our careers and organizations in the process.

We—all of us—consistently exclude, underestimate, and underutilize huge numbers of people in the workforce even as we include, overestimate, and promote others, often beyond their level of competence. Not only is this immoral and unjust, it's bad for business. Just Work is the solution.

Just Work is Kim Scott's new book, revealing a practical framework for both respecting everyone’s individuality and collaborating effectively. This is the essential guide leaders and their employees need to create more just workplaces and establish new norms of collaboration and respect.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250270740
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	888,222
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

KIM SCOTT is the co-founder of an executive education firm and workplace comedy series, The Feedback Loop, based on her perennially bestselling book, Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss without Losing your Humanity. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led operations teams for AdSense, YouTube, and Doubleclick at Google. Kim was a senior policy advisor at the FCC, managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo, started a diamond cutting factory in Moscow, and was an analyst on the Soviet Companies Fund. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.
Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and Radical Respect: How to Work Together Better. She co-founded an executive education company that helps people put the ideas in her books into practice. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. Earlier in her career she managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.

Table of Contents

Introduction We Can't Fix Problems We Refuse to Notice 1

Part 1 The Root Causes of Workplace in Justice 19

Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying 19

1 Roles and Responsibilities Who is Responsible for Fixing These Problems? Everyone 23

2 For People Harmed What to Say When You Don't Know What to Say 29

3 For Observers How to Be an Upstander 73

4 For People Who Cause Harm Be Part of the Solution, Not Part of the Problem 91

5 For Leaders Create Bias Interruptions, a Code of Conduct, and Consequences for Bullying 121

Part 2 Discrimination, Harassment, and Physical Violations 155

6 A Leader's Role in Preventing Discrimination and Verbal Harassment Apply Checks and Balances; Quantify Bias 159

7 For People Harmed and Upstanders How to Fight Discrimination and Harassment Without Blowing Up Your Career 215

8 Touch How to Create a Culture of Consent and the Cost of Failing to Do So 239

Part 3 Systemic Justice and Injustice 295

9 Two Bad Dynamics 299

10 Recognizing Different Systems of Injustice 313

11 Just Work A Moment for Optimism 349

Acknowledgments 361

Notes 367

Index 387

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/11/2021

It’s possible to create a workplace environment in which “everyone can collaborate and respect one another’s individuality,” advises CEO coach Scott (Radical Candor) in this timely guide for leaders struggling to address workplace inequity. Workplace injustice, Scott writes, “is actually six different problems: bias, prejudice, bullying, discrimination, verbal harassment, and physical violations.” In explaining each, she uses examples of bad experiences (her own and others’) and lays out the steps for building toward “just work,” a play on words meaning the space to focus on business, and an equitable environment. Scott explains the difference between bias, prejudice, and bullying, and offers appropriate responses for each: one effective way to deal with to bias, she writes, is to “use an ‘I’ statement to invite the person to see things from your perspective.” Scott includes success stories of organizations doing it right, such as OpenTable, whose CEO “made improving gender diversity a priority.” Scott refuses to let readers off the hook: “It’s simple, even if it’s not easy,” she insists, and “we can’t afford to screw around.” Urgent and actionable, this passionate manifesto will be a welcome addition to any leader’s desk. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Urgent and actionable, this passionate manifesto will be a welcome addition to any leader’s desk." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Just Work [is] presented with thoughtful clarity and sensitivity. … Scott’s advice is rooted firmly in common sense, with a nod to the realities of human nature.” — Booklist

"If you've been wringing your hands or hiding your head in the sand about the issues of injustice in your workplace (yes, yours!), this is the book to read. You will learn how to recognize and eradicate the bias, bad behavior and discrimination that is holding back your team and company from succeeding at the highest levels possible." —Sarah Kunst, Managing Director of Cleo Capital

"It's about time someone tackled this thorny subject. Bravo! Many workplaces get tangled up or ignore the issues when dealing with bias and difference. Thank goodness for Kim Scott and her dose of candor, offering us not just the words, but the courage and compassion required to deal with conflicting points of view. Just Work holds our hands, kicks our butts and shows us how." —Beth Comstock, author, Imagine It Forward, and former Vice Chair, GE

"Just Work left me optimistic that we can create just workplaces. Kim Scott carefully explains how bias, prejudice and bullying undermine all organizations—even those with the best of intentions—and provides an actionable system for countering each. Her acknowledgment that none of us—herself included—are free of this behavior marks an important starting point for a difficult but necessary conversation." —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University

"Packed with stories from Scott’s career, Just Work offers a solutions-focused perspective on #MeToo, acknowledging that gender injustice doesn’t exist in a vacuum and broadening the frame to consider diversity and inclusion writ large. Each of us has an important role in creating a fair and reasonable workplace. When we play that role and create the conditions for others to do the same, we can create real change today in the place where most of us spend most of our time—at work." —Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation

"Many books describe how to create a better workplace. What makes Just Work exceptionally interesting and valuable is that Kim Scott vividly describes specific situations: experiences she went through herself or saw happen to people around her; actions she did—or didn’t—take, both as an employee and as a boss; and conversations she regrets having or not having. From lessons she learned the hard way, Kim Scott presents a practical framework for how to make work more just." —Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project

"In this powerful and perceptive book, Kim Scott offers a bold vision — a workplace where respect and collaboration prevail over domination and conformity. Just Work is a sparkling combination of moral courage and practical solutions. It belongs on the shelves — and in the hearts and minds — of leaders everywhere.”
—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of When and Drive

"In debates over workplace inequality, we don’t talk enough about the 'how' — how to respond to a boss or coworker who acts unfairly, how exactly that person should change their behavior. Just Work helps answer the how. Kim Scott provides actionable, effective ways for fighting discrimination and harassment with engagement, collaboration, and respect." —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org

From the Publisher