The Jewish New Year and high holidays began last week. Despite not being religious, this time of year has me look back, take stock of the past and identify areas of improvement for the coming year. Many of the holiday messages I’ve received included wishes for peace. And it got me thinking more deeply about what peace means to me, especially as we are experiencing a surge of intolerance, and intense divisions. In my line of work I help clients form effective strategies to respond to different kinds and layers of conflict on the job. It’s part of the nature of work that contention and discord occur. As a career coach, a working professional, and a social human being, I know the feeling of distress when things don’t go well. When conflict arises, we typically expect to be given the benefit of the doubt while we fail to extend the same courtesy to others.
As an old mentor used to say “life is short, but there’s always enough time for courtesy.” Courtesy means treating others with respect and being gentle and kind in our communications. It doesn’t mean keeping quiet and not sharing our perspective. It’s about looking for a way to bring people together rather than cause ill will and divisiveness. Another of my mentor’s nuggets of wisdom is adopting the “Most Respectful Interpretation” (MRI) approach in a time of controversy. As a first step, always be asking “what might be a more positive interpretation of the person’s actions or words?” Get curious about what might have prompted a particular behavior trying to interpret it in a new way assuming the best of intentions.
We tend to make a lot of assumptions about other people’s behavior. It’s human nature. For example, if someone makes a rude comment in a meeting, our go-to response is to take it personally and assume that the person is deliberately insensitive and disrespectful and thus we react with anger and frustration. However, what if we change the story assuming there’s a good reason for the behavior, e.g. the person is having a really bad day? Since we don’t know the real story, why not change our interpretation to a more favorable and compassionate opinion? And in thinking about peace, conflict and competing propositions, it occurred to me that this phenomenon may explain why achieving idea meritocracy in the workplace is so difficult. Open debate and directness can create a very stressful work environment.
It is easy to promote sharing of ideas and theoretical discussions as an intellectual exercise; however, it is much more challenging in pursuing practical application and when people have an emotional interest in the outcome. High stakes bring high emotions. I think the worst career advice I ever got was from an old boss telling our team to always check our emotions at the door coming into the office. Whenever he said or did something inconsiderate he’d preface the insult with “it’s not personal, it’s business.” I believe the idea of “strictly business” is a fallacy. To build a work environment of sincerity and trust in business interactions, we must first acknowledge the fact that interpersonal relationships are inherently emotional, and disagreements are a stressful experience. Since we work with people, and not robots, to “get stuff done” we need to take the time to build rapport and trust. This can only be done when we care about other people, show respect to who they are, and try to understand their motivations.
Effective discussions and decision-making require attunement to our own emotions as well as those of others. To show good judgment and make good decisions, we need to be able to address emotions and channel them in the right direction. Make no mistake; the workplace is an emotional warzone where warring tribes compete for scarce resources such as territory (advancing up the proverbial totem pole), recognition, and rewards. Everyone wants the bigger piece of the pie. And thus to have a real idea meritocracy is complicated and complex. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physical safety comes first, but as we progress to higher level growth needs, we seek psychological security such as status, prestige, and respect from others. This is when things get tricky. We tend to feel “safe” around people who are similar to us. Differences often trigger complex emotions and reactions. To create a culture where the best ideas always win, we need to be willing to get uncomfortable, to embrace the notion that we are a part of a whole working towards best possible outcomes.
Diversity and inclusion are integral to outstanding performance. But for teams to thrive and best ideas to win, we need to overcome our defensive instincts when we encounter the unknown and the unfamiliar and learn to embrace different perspectives. This is easier to do when we assume that people want to do the right thing and are doing the best they can. It is really as simple as taking the time to listen and putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We do not need to like the person or want to be his or her best friend to adopt the mindset of generous and respectful assumption of intentions, especially when things don’t make sense to us or are in conflict with what we believe to be true. When we assume positive intent and don’t get distracted trying to guess other people’s motives, we become free to focus on the work and the merit of ideas.
My (Jewish) New Year’s resolution is to get better at choosing the Most Respectful Interpretation (MRI). I will strive to keep my mind open to different perspectives and explore them with an open heart.
