Coach's Corner – Time for Two Tipping Points?

J.D. “Jim” Fox, Head Coach, Next Act CoachingHave you noticed that conversations about Harvey Weinstein often include a woman saying: “The problem is so much bigger than you know.”?We’ve already seen hundreds of thousands of women coming forward on social media, so I believe it.I’ve also heard speculation that it’s time for a tipping point on sexual harassment in the workplace. The cynic in me (with two journalism degrees) discounts that, thinking this will fade as big stories usually do.But there’s this, and it sticks in my head: Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner (EEOC) Chai Feldblum thinks a double tipping point is already at the halfway mark.In an interview on “Matter of Fact,” the TV show I work on in addition to being a coach, she said the first tipping point is a national conversation. Check; that’s now happening. The second is real change in the workplace.MONEY is the powerful motivation Feldblum cites for the second tipping point. She references credible research indicating companies save money when they change tactics — right now, they usually get rid of the accuser while saying nothing, aided by C-Suite arrogance, arbitration clauses and non-disclosure agreements.  Looking forward, Feldblum foresees a day when companies THANK victims for complaining, because it offers an opportunity to improve the internal culture while retaining valuable employees.I hope she’s right, because the other survey statistics Feldblum cites are truly depressing:  eighty-five percent of the people (mostly women) who feel they’ve been harassed don’t report it to the EEOC, and 70 percent won’t report internally -- they don’t trust their HR departments and company leadership.  Within the current climate, why would they?   They’ve seen colleagues disappear, with the lame “She no longer works for the company” as the only official explanation.As a business coach, I’d like to put my journalistic cynicism aside, and hope our collective professional culture can pull its embarrassing numbers out of the basement. I’m not sure how that’ll happen, but I can’t imagine that all the victims now standing up are going to be willing to sit back down.