Last month ago, I took my youngest son Matthew to Tucson to start his freshman year at the University of Arizona. The empty nest descended upon us.
Like Matthew, I attended college many states away from home. At freshman orientation, my father had a program of his own to attend. Georgia Tech gave parents a rundown of what to expect, including the fact that their straight-A high school students might bring home Cs, Ds, or Fs. After all, college is a different animal than high school, and Tech has always been a “weed-out” school for engineering students, especially the first year.
My experience in Tucson was quite different. There was no program for me to attend. Instead, I was relegated to being the driver, credit-card holder, and luggage carrier … which might be expected, I suppose. But during dorm check-in, I felt truly invisible. After years of check-ins for library storytimes, elementary-school homerooms, and lacrosse camps at which I was given instructions or asked to sign forms, now I was entirely unimportant to the process. No one interacted with me, looked at me, introduced themselves, or paid me any attention. It was a profoundly alienating experience.
Members of minority communities often speak of being unheard or unseen. My elderly family members often talk about feeling invisible in our youth-focused society. While I’ve empathized with the concept, it seems we must experience irrelevancy firsthand to truly understand what it’s like.
The same imbalances can arise in work settings requiring group collaboration. Sometimes certain voices (often the loudest though not necessarily the smartest or most thoughtful) dominate conversations. What’s more, on engineering teams, the oldest and most experienced engineers are often perceived as most valuable. So, the input of the youngest engineers can go ignored … even to the detriment of important projects.
In fact, diversity goes beyond race, gender, and orientation heterogeneity. Teams ideally consist of qualified people with a diversity of backgrounds, cultures, ages, and physical abilities.
Especially in engineering, diversity can also include divergent personalities. That’s why the leaders among us would be wise to keep an eye on that cloak of invisibility. Ensure each member on your team feels welcome. Ask the quiet ones for their opinions. Seek feedback from any colleagues who may feel afraid or awkward to speak up. Do this because at one point or another, we’ll all be that invisible one who could benefit from a champion.
