Ted Audio Collective

collective.

I can't tell you the number of times

I've been mistaken for another black woman in my own workplace and I've been here for 15 years.

It's a lot of times.

So many times that I always assumed I would never make that mistake myself with colleagues or

students confusing them with each other on the basis of ethnicity. But lo and

behold I must admit that I have and in those moments those cringe worthy moments I

decided not to just sweep it out of the rug but to call out what happened. I

didn't want the burden to be on the students

to have to either suffer in silence or correct me.

This way we could just acknowledge it and move on.

It was awkward for sure, but feeling awkward isn't the end of the world, is it?

I'm Madupakinola. This is Ted Business from the Ted Audio Collective.

Our speaker today is Henna Pryor.

She's a workplace performance expert who believes that creating better workplaces

means we all have to learn to push past the

cringe chasm that exists within us. Then after the talk I'll discuss how we work up

some nerve.

But first, a quick break.

And now, Hannah Pryor takes the TED stage.

I was in my first job at a college, a shiny, prestigious big four public accounting firm.

...