Behaviour and Intention

The allegations of racism in cricket, which first came to light in Yorkshire through Azim Raffique’s documented experience, have been pretty shocking. Cricket is a team sport and an inclusive culture is crucial to any team being effective. Whilst there was blatant racist behaviour, what has become clear through the responses of various people who played for Yorkshire is that some people have said and done things that they didn’t perceive as racist while the recipients have felt the pain of a racist attack. If someone knowingly says something that is racist then there is no gap between their intention and behaviour. However, in a lot of teams, the gap between behaviour and intention is often the cause of a lot of hurt and conflict.

The only way that this can be addressed in a team is by team members talking about their expectations of each other and then holding each other accountable to their agreed team behaviours. This is because when someone says something we don’t know their intention, and it is the behaviour that has the impact. In teams we have to ensure our behaviour does not hurt others irrespective of what our intentions are.

This becomes even more important when teams are made up of people from different cultural backgrounds where team members sense of personal safety and security is built on different factors. Here in the UK we operate in a multi-cultural environment and must do the hard work of understanding how people’s behaviour is perceived within a cultural framework that is different from our own.

In my (Andy's) experience of working in the Asian sub-continent as a young person I had to learn a whole range of new behaviours that were culturally appropriate. These ranged from small behaviours like enquiring about how a person’s family was doing ahead of discussing business to more nuanced behaviours like the appropriate way to challenge someone who was older than me.

The reason that someone may accuse another of racism while that person denies being so is because one person is basing their view on behaviour and the other on intention. In a team situation like Yorkshire cricket, it is behaviour that has to be agreed in order to avoid the hurt and pain that racism causes.