Put yourself in the shoes of a male colleague

You are a male manager in a company. You are sitting in your office and a reminder pops up on your PC that you have a meeting about an upcoming project in 5 minutes.

A female co-worker enters your office and you start the meeting. While discussing the project details, she insists on doing all the tasks by herself. You cautiously offer your help since it’s a type of project you have experience with. But she rejects it and claims she has the proper knowledge to handle things.

A month has passed and the project has been evaluated by the board of directors. You receive a complaint by the board members that the project is badly executed and whoever has done it should either be fired or warned for a lack of knowledge.

You pass the message onto your female co-worker and she gets outraged, storming out of your office and threatening to take this to HR.

You’re both present in the HR meeting. Your female co-worker starts crying and defending herself that you “manhandled” her, claiming she was forced to do a project she has no knowledge of. Furthermore, she continues complaining that you never want to hear or respect her opinion due to being a female.

If you don’t find a way to prove the truth and what really happened, you will lose your job.

At the end of this training, you should understand what it would be like to be in a male’s shoes, to get empathy for diversity and reflect on your own or your female’s co-worker’s behavior.