Lessons On Inclusion From Mean Girls High
I went to mean girls' high school. Literally, Mean Girls was shot in our high school. But it was worse, because it was real. Our real mean girls spotted fake mean girl Lindsay Lohan in the real hallway/fake set and reported, “She’s orange.” Fake-tanner real-girl burn.
The popular senior girls sat on “the wall”- a 7 ft brick wall surrounding the amphitheater, which all kids had to walk past to enter the building, “the walk.” The jock guys would stand around the wall, growling one-word insults to the kids on the walk, referring to last weekend’s rager’s planned-humiliation.
The guys got clout if it stuck. The more grotesque the indecency referred to, the more specific the call-back to it, the more likely it stuck. “TOOTHBRUSH HOLDER,” “basketballlllll,” “spoon!” Truly, they all stuck, for that kid, for decades, funding Jersey therapist Cape homes for generations. Like all white boy games, it comes back to the real estate market. Meanwhile, the girls flirted and talked sh*t- sex appeal and fodder being the currency.
I’d lost my middle school friends by freshman field hockey pre-season (first mistake: continuing to play soccer). A few days into wondering with faux aim-full-ness all lunch period (my tacit: fake an A-line to someone, pivot, A-line again. No one can tell you have no one to talk to), I got the gumption to join the senior girls on the wall.
Gumption! Pause impending childhood trauma for this freakin word. Gumption is the stubborn optimism to break rank, risking humiliation perchance to dream. Dumb guts. The dream may be a new role, a start-up, or, in my case, friends.
Like most 14-year-olds, I needed a clique more than I needed food (I was starving to be skinny and get one). And, when burned by the hierarchy of status, jumping to the top seems best-case scenario. “The wall” looks great from “the walk.”
And so, we come to the moment, my hand gripping the top of the brick wall, nearly pulling myself up, when Jenna, we’ll call her Jenna, looks down at me, and quoting Mean Girls verbatim, says, “You can’t sit with us.” I was friendless much of high school.
Cut to college, Sarah Lawrence, day one, determined to make these four years different from those four years. I spot the cool senior picnic table. Hugging and laughing and catching up, a diverse group of weirdos, just like the brochure told me. (SLC’s tagline being, “You’re different, so are we.”)
Gumption floods. Arms akimbo, I A-line to them, blurting, “Hi, I’m Lucia!” They look at me like a flat earther at a new moms stroller group, then continue their conversation. I wander to the freshman. Desperate and awkward, we get to know one another slowly.
I learned then about fast and slow community. These kids had had four years to develop a community. I couldn’t come on day one and be that close with them. And, I learned I never want to be the one giving the burn to the gumption. I want people on day one to feel they belong. I want to be an inviter in a community of inviters.
Cut to today, I facilitate communities of inviters through Success Circles. These communities are built both fast and slow. Last week, I got to see this in action.
Fast Community
In the morning, Penn State Success Circles ’23 (also known as Changing the Future or CTF) connected for a training session. Circles practiced offering positive reflections, asking for support, and encouraging action.
One of the most cited papers on networking is the 1970 Harvard publication, “The Strength of Weak Ties.” It details how quick connections with those on the periphery of our network hold the most potential for career development. In Success Circles training, we practice making loose ties as an invaluable leadership tool.
And, more recent research affirms that fast and deep are not mutually exclusive. High-quality connections (HQCs) are mutually affirmative micro-moments that have lasting impact.
Connecting a group both quickly and deeply is an essential capability for inclusive leaders today. It requires intentional, group commitment to smart practices. The stuff of Success Circles. In a few hours, these Circles developed friendships and the skills to continue to create them.
Slow Community
Cut to that night, our Success Circle alumnae happy hour, welcoming our fourth cohort. My heart floods to see the community built slowly. Women I’d coached towards their first leadership roles, now department heads and deans. While ’18 Circles exchange hugs and laughs, they welcome the newest cohort, many of whom they’d nominated. Peers, role models, and friends alike.
This feels different, because it is. One Circler’s a new hire in a STEM department led by Circle alumnae. An in-demand scientist, I ask why she chose here. Her answer; “The community.”
As we build inclusive cultures, inclusive people are called in. Gumption optional, never required. Today, I hope the only Mean Girls line every quoted verbatim is “On Fridays, we wear pink.”
Build an inclusive community in your organization with Success Circles.