Opinion piece time. I leave my political hat at home. Or, at least I try to. I leave my belief systems about policy and voting to conversations with friends, Twitter (if I can’t help myself), and the local networking events where local politicians from town hang out- that way it’s just contextual. I’m friends with the local school board. I’m on a first name basis with the mayor of my town. I catch up and chat with the local councilmembers. I have a political life which is just as strong as my professional life. It’s not easy to split the two. More often than not, me deliberating on a choice at work does hit on several pieces of what makes my moral compass orient the way it does. I believe in compassion. I am a behavior analyst- it’s from the behaviorist tradition. It is observational, data-driven, research-based. I don’t allow personal opinion impact what happens with decisions with clients. Thankfully, data does that for me. Is this effective? Yes or no. Why? Well, the data suggests…
I can’t just put up a phase change line on a client’s progress graph because my opinion about a far-reaching political event somehow relates. It’s unfair. It’s my lens getting shifted which impacts more than me if it’s not reined in. The clients are individuals, deserving of individual care. Outside of that, it also means that I have people working with that client which report to me- RBT’s (Registered Behavior Technicians). They worked hard to get that credential. They’ve passed their tests and went through their supervised hours. They are professionals. Would it be fair for me to walk into work with a political or ideological idea in my head and try to bring it up to them? Of course not. That’s not their job. Their responsibility is to the client, based on the real world observable responses and data they see and collect. They depend on my unclouded experience and judgment. Even if they were to be outspoken about a political view (which happens), I can’t let that color my opinion of them or how I treat their judgment. It could. It easily could. But that’s my professional line drawn in the sand.
Here’s a common counter I’ve heard: Things are getting bad here. We need to speak out. We need to take a political stance in our personal and professional lives.
If it involves the vaccine pseudoscience? I’ll bite. I can justify that because the evidence is there and it relates to my work.
But here’s the pickle. The people who bring up that counter argument assume something. They assume that just because we share a job title, and do the same thing, and care about the same pursuits that we have the same political opinion, and I’d be an addition to their circle. Now, when those political views have already been expressed, I can be pretty sure whether I agree or not- and it’s a mixed bag, but surprisingly to some- I don’t share the expected viewpoints. Were they looking for differing viewpoints? I can’t be sure, but it doesn’t feel like it. Is it worth turning a workplace contentious? Is the workplace the place, and the time, to deal with these issues?
“But Chris, surely you don’t support _____.”
“You work with kids though. How could you ____?”
“If you’re not ____ then you’re ____.”
“_____ did something terrible. You can’t support ____ could you?”
I have nuanced viewpoints. They don’t follow a single ideology, or politician. That potentially makes it even worse. My political stance might not align with anyone who is unipolar in their support or views. The world is a big place. The United States is a big place. Pennsylvania is a big place. There are a lot of different people with valid but different views. In my personal life, I can vote with my conscience. I can even refuse to vote if it aligns with my conscience. I can protest who I want to protest. I can talk to local politicians from both parties. I can talk with local third-party candidates. I’m outspoken on education in these settings and with these people. But they don’t report to me. They aren’t my professional peers either. It’s the context that makes sense to me. If I meet someone from work, off the clock, and they want to talk about these issues; then I would be perfectly fine putting my thoughts out there. Discuss. Change my mind. Sure. I’d have to draw a line somewhere though. It can’t get heated. Even the small stuff would have to be calm and rational and most importantly; wouldn’t be evident at work the next day.
In my profession as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, the board (BACB) that governs how supervisors treat supervisees are pretty clear in many respects. Dual relationships, abuses of power, conflicts of interest- they all have some clear delineation. Politics isn’t mentioned specifically, but imagine a case where there was an outspoken supervisor who did espouse their views and acted on perceived implications of those views at work. Would that affect the people directly reporting to them? How sure could we be that it wasn’t? I stepped into work on November 9th, 2016. I felt it. Whatever it was, it was there. Putting that into the supervisory relationship is a dangerous game, in my opinion. I’m not saying other people can’t do it, but it’s not something I’d feel comfortable with given the potential to go bitter.
I believe that if something needs changing, it can be done with every opportunity that a citizen has. That goes for maintaining a high held value or traditional ideal. People are free to do both. Bringing that explicitly to the workplace, with a position of influence and supervision responsibility, has risks. I’d much prefer to leave that particular hat at home.
References:
Just me.
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I’m enjoying the website but I also (as a BCBA myself) am a little confused on some of the side-stepping here. There are several places were data strongly intersects with political views. For example, several of my clients are BIPoC or immigrants. Data driven research shows me that when we are in the community, my response to treatment must take into account additional dangers for them that may not be present for my white clients or white presenting clients (for example, if they aggress, I typically handle it myself rather than call law enforcement and actively dissuade bystanders from doing so as well). Now there might be an assumption that this is just a “politically led” idea, but my family worked in the military and with law enforcement. For me there is too much data on rates of harm, limited replacement behaviors, limited training, over staffing, the knowledge that punishment procedures reinforce officers, and a variety of other factors that contribute to that decision.
This isn’t to say that I charge into every client or staff meeting with an agenda for people to agree with me. It would, however, be rather obtuse of me to ignore that various “political” debates do in fact have high rates of data and research which are what is (in a variety of cases) leading the charge on attempting to make changes in the overarching social constructs we’ve all agreed to.
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Great point. I think your makes complete sense because you are basing it off of data, client need, and real world situations on how a topic that could be called political should not be ignored.
This post was written in a time where there was pressure between practitioners, especially on supervisor-supervisee relationships to “pick a side” or otherwise influence someone that could potentially create a dual relationship all its own. The concern then was that by letting political opinions influence the workplace, it could actually harm professional relationships. When real world issues and client safety are paramount, expressing truth is never wrong.
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