We’re All Bad Headline Writers

On Wednesday, England beat Denmark at the European soccer championship, aided by a controversial penalty call in extra time. A headline on ESPN.com read: “Denmark coach rips penalty call: ‘It annoys me.’”

I was tickled by the juxtaposition of the aggressive “rips” and the muted “annoys.”

“Rips” made me imagine the coach saying something like, “That was the worst call in history. A blind turtle could have done better. And in closing, I have the following disparaging comments about the referee’s wife, kids, and family lineage…”

However, his actual quote in the article was much more understated:

"It was a penalty that shouldn't have been a penalty, and that annoys me right now. We're disappointed, we're very disappointed.”

On one level, adding “rips” to the headline is just a tactic to get more people to click. (It worked on me.) It’s trivial in that sense. 

But the headline also reminded me of something a Black woman said in a leadership group discussion recently. Her comment was essentially, “If I express even slight annoyance at something at work, it’s heard by people as if I’m screaming at them.”

Her point was that regardless of the actual content of her feedback, it’s passed through a lens that distorts it. The headline sometimes reads “rips” even if the quote doesn’t justify it.

The most obvious implication is that we should try to be more aware of the cultural norms and biases in our own minds that distort the information coming in. 

Even with the headline example above, how I interpreted “rips” was based on a cultural lens and my personal bias about what counts as a “real” conflict.

But maybe that’s wrong in this case. Perhaps in the Danish cultural context, expressing disappointment and annoyance is a very strong sentiment, making the headline appropriate. 

Second, for those from historically excluded groups, it’s risky to leave their communication up for interpretation. More words help.

For example, in What Works for Women at Work, Joan Williams and Rachel Dempsey suggest that while anger is an inevitable human emotion in organizations, their message for women is: “you need to make sure you’re intentional about how you show your anger.”

They explain: “According to business professors Victoria Brescoll and Eric Luis Uhlmann, it’s particularly important for women to offer a concrete external attribution for their anger. Explaining why a situation makes you angry subverts stereotypes by tying your anger to an external cause. Instead of being cast as an ‘angry woman,’ you become a woman who is angry.” 

And while those from historically excluded groups are more likely to be on the harsh end of distorted lenses, this notion applies to everyone. 

In No Rules Rules, Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer describe how the cultural norms that Netflix believed were core to its success were strained when the company expanded globally. For example, norms around giving ad hoc feedback didn’t translate in places where “direct negative feedback is less comfortable and less common.” 

Hastings and Meyer write: “The overarching lesson we’ve learned is that—no matter where you come from—when it comes to working across cultural differences, talk, talk, talk.”

That talk, talk, talk is what helps us get past the immediate reaction—the headline, if you will—and opens up space to see people as they really are.