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Let me tell you a story,
where you'll meet the characters
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who I'll call Bilal and Brenda.
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I was working in a most
remarkable part of the world.
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And one unremarkable morning,
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a colleague came to see me.
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She told me that Bilal,
one of our senior executives,
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had been telling everyone
I was being removed
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because I'd been messing
with the wrong people.
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And now, I was going to
face the consequences.
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I wasn't alarmed,
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because I knew I had done
what I'd been hired to do:
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my job,
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dealing with thorny issues head on
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and leaving no stone unturned.
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In fact, in the months prior to this,
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we'd overturned more
than just a few stones.
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Those details are for another time.
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I called my husband, James,
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to tell him about
this bizarre conversation,
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and with what proved
to be great foresight,
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he said, "Angelique, pack your things
and call Brenda, in not order."
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I called Brenda.
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I'd worked with her for a number of years,
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and I trusted her.
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She was the person who'd
recommended me for that job.
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I cut to the chase,
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because my husband's reaction
made me realize
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this was more than just the usual stuff
I'd encountered before.
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And I say usual,
but in that moment of clarity,
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it dawned on me what James
had already recognized:
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none of this was usual.
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These irregularities,
part of a pattern I'd failed to notice,
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were what I now know as open secrets
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living beneath those proverbial stones
I'd had the audacity to overturn.
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To my shock, I learned
that this was happening
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because I hadn't tried hard enough
to operate in the "gray space."
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I didn't seem to know when
to kick things into the long grass.
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And I didn't understand
that this was how the system worked.
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The message, the implied threat,
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was clear.
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Over the next few weeks,
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I was replaced by a convenient yes-man
while I was still there.
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I suffered from terrible gastritis,
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and I pretended
to our two young daughters
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that I still had that job.
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Leaving home every morning,
dressed up as if for work,
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to drop them to school, for six months.
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I did not submit,
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but I won't pretend
that it was easy to speak up
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or beneficial in any way to me,
to my family or to my career.
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When we speak up in the workplace
despite policies to the contrary,
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whilst we may not lose our jobs,
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we are likely to lose
the comradery of our coworkers.
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Disbelieved, ostracized,
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faced with under-the-radar bullying.
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You know the kind when you walk
into a room and everyone stops talking?
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We think: It's not my
responsibility to say anything.
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So why did I choose to act
despite the risks to my family and to me?
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The sin of omission is a failure
to do what you knew is right.
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When you stay quiet,
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even though you're not guilty
of wrongdoing yourself,
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what will you have to live with
if you don't take action?
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So who are you in this lineup of actors?
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The bad actor, the wrongdoer,
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the bad stander who benefits
directly or indirectly
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and acts as a puppet for the bad actor?
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The bystander, aware of the open secrets,
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but not actually doing anything
wrong or the upstander?
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This is the person we want to see
when we look in the mirror.
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I've learned three things:
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One, don't second guess yourself.
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When you see something
amiss, ask questions,
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because it is okay
to challenge those in authority.
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Two, don't be complicit.
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You always have the power to say no
in the face of wrongdoing.
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And three, be an upstander.
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Speaking up is not about being brave.
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It's not about not feeling scared.
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But when you do what you know is right,
you can be at peace with yourself.
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Yes, it is hard to see
what you feel in the moment.
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Do it anyway. Be fearless.
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Martin Luther King said,
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"In the end, we will remember
not the words of our enemies,
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but the silence of our friends."
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So when you look in the mirror,
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who will you see?
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A bystander, keeper of open secrets?
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Or will the person looking
back at you be an upstander.
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I know who I see.
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I know who my daughters see.
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The choice is yours.