Lessons from the Court: An Eye-Opening Experience
By: Jen O’Meara, Ph.D
Racquetballs have historically been blue in color. Nowadays they come in a variety of additional colors as well — green, purple, black, red, and pink, to name a few. A number of years ago, I ended up with two cases of pink racquetballs that were left over from a tournament. It took me weeks to share all 288 of them. I gave some to anyone and everyone who wanted them, and then stuck more handfuls of them into peoples’ racquet bags when they weren’t paying attention.
One of the younger guys I played with at the time balked at the pink balls. He refused to take them and he always objected to using them. After several weeks, I finally asked him why. His answer genuinely surprised me, and I have never forgotten it.
He said he couldn’t use the pink balls because he was color blind.
This, I had not considered. He explained to me that the pink color did not contrast highly enough against the white wall, and as a result he had trouble actually seeing the pink ball in the court.
Our conversation was a great reminder of the iceberg of diversity.
The iceberg metaphor is as follows. Imagine that all of the things that make us different are like a big iceberg. We can only see a small percentage of those differences, as only 10% of the iceberg is above the waterline. The vast majority of our differences are below the waterline and therefore not readily observable. Skin color, for example, is above the waterline. Color blindness, on the other hand, is below the waterline. We typically do not know if someone is color blind unless they disclose that information to us.
There is a very good leadership lesson here.
I thought I was helping everyone by giving away those pink racquetballs. As it turned out, I was helping most people — but certainly not him. The pink balls were useless to him for warm-up or practice, and I had essentially flooded the local racquetball scene with them. Everywhere he went, there they were.
One takeaway here is that we all have the potential to inadvertently make things difficult for others. Leaders need to be aware of this potential, as our job is to remove rather than create obstacles for our teams. Leaders can heighten their emotional intelligence by expanding their knowledge of below-the-waterline differences and developing a sense of what sorts of decisions, policies, or actions could create difficulties for individuals with those differences. A more emotionally intelligent leader is ultimately a more effective leader.
Another takeaway here — and one that still influences me today — deals specifically with color blindness. We know that about 8% of the population, or approximately 1 out of every 12 people, has some sort of color vision deficiency. I always remind my communication students to be aware of this fact when choosing colors for a presentation or a data chart.
Red-green color blindness, for example, is the most common form of color deficiency. If you use both red and green in data charts that you present to a room full of clients or colleagues, there is a good possibility that someone in your audience might have trouble interpreting your chart. The same thing goes for presentations. A good rule of thumb is to avoid choosing templates or color schemes that use both red and green, as that’s a quick way to alienate part of your audience.
If you have full color vision but would like to learn more about how the world looks to people who have color vision deficiencies, check out the Coblis color blindness simulator. The simulator was certainly an eye-opening experience for me. It could be an eye-opening experience for you too.
Jen O’Meara is an Associate Professor of Business Communications and a 3-time US Open national racquetball champion.
