Mike Domitrz explains how to address workplace boundary violations without fear of harassment accusations. The key: keep conversations about organizational values, not personal, and ask what a healthy workplace relationship looks like rather than making it about either person involved.
If you're afraid that, well, if I say this wrong, somebody's going to accuse me of sexual harassment, then call it out right away so you address that. The worst thing you can do is run from it because then it looks like you're having this dodgy conversation that lacks alignment of values. So we don't want to run away from that. I get the same thing in the military. They're like, I'll be written up if I have these conversations. No, there's 2 ways you get written up. You make it personal about you or you make it personal about them. Then we're in trouble. What does that mean? If you come up to somebody and personally go, hey, when it comes to you, what does a mutually amazing situation look like? They're gonna be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean by that? 'Cause it wasn't specific. But I say, in the workplace, what would it look like for a really healthy, mutually wonderful workplace relationship? What does that look like? Now we're in a safer zone.
