As a part of our company’s culture building, we’ve developed a list of 21 Standards that define who we are, what we do and how we do it. Prominently displayed in the office, the standards are designed to be daily reminders for everyone of how our culture and ethos differentiates us from the competition. This year, one of Drew’s ides to help reinforce the standards at a personal level is to have everyone pick a standard or two and write a short essay on what the standard means to them. Here’s my 3rd standard:
Assume the Best
Work with the assumption that people are good and their intentions are positive. Set aside judgment and give people the benefit of the doubt.
My work commute often takes me down highway 280 during rush hour. I don’t know if you’ve spent much time in 280 traffic, but it’s about as bad as it gets in Birmingham, Alabama. More than once I’ve been cut off, honked at, blocked in or otherwise affronted by drivers who clearly shouldn’t be on the road. Depending on the perceived transgression, I’m instantly somewhere between irritated and apoplectic, plotting in my mind a just punishment… do I flip them off or just a ‘seriously’ hand gesture? Maybe I’ll go with the “pass and scowl” or if I’m particularly not wanting to get shot, maybe the passive aggressive “block them in between another car and pretend not to notice them” maneuver or better yet, the old “get in front and slow down.” Whichever way, they deserve it, right?
Whether it’s traffic, email, corporate meetings or the Facebook neighborhood group, there’s no shortage of opportunities to make assumptions about the intentions and motivations of others. I’m reminded of a quote by author Stephen Covey, best known for his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I heartily recommend. He claims that, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior” and I totally agree with him because I see how quick I am to do that in my own life. And I’d even qualify the statement a little more by saying, ‘our interpretation of their behavior.” Not only are we humans masters of feeling offended, but we also happen to live in a time where it’s particularly fashionable to be outraged by everyone and everything. Participate in any online discussion and soon enough Godwin’s Law will present itself.
Probably one of the slipperiest slopes for our tendency to assume the worst of others in a work environment is with email. Email as a medium of communication particularly lends itself to harshly judging the intentions of others and justifying our own behavior. Not only does email fail to convey tone and all the other non-verbal communication signals, but there’s also a degree of anonymity with email – even to people we know and see regularly – that tempts us to be careless and cavalier in what we say. Here’s the thing. Most people default to assuming the worst about others. And most of the time, they’re wrong.
Assuming the best, or said another way, giving people the benefit of the doubt, can be hard work. But the alternative doesn’t do us any favors. Think about it, what do we do when we’re offended by assuming the worst about someone? We get angry. We brood. We react by sending that snarky email reply and create conflict when maybe there wasn’t any there to begin with. We become passive aggressive. We write people off. Seriously, who wants to carry around all that baggage?
Next time someone raises your ire, here are a couple thoughts to consider.
First, we’re all carrying around a lot of baggage that the people around us don’t have a clue about. We’re facing disappointments, pressures, illnesses, fears and trials. A lot of the time, that stuff comes out even when we don’t mean it to. It’s the same for everyone else. Next time you’re tempted to take that email personally, don’t. Maybe it was, but chances are it wasn’t. We’ve all had bad days and we’ve all been guilty of being butt-heads. We need to have a little grace. Maybe a lot. Watch this video for a great reminder of this.
Communication rarely creates problems but often solves them. Are you offended by what someone said or did? A lot of good can come from a face to face, one to one conversation with a respectful and gracious tone. Be big, be vulnerable and take the initiative to talk to the person who offended you. Seek first to understand before trying to be understood. Does it work 100% of the time? No, but it does like 97% of the time.
Always remember the old saying, “What happens when we assume? We make an ASS out of U and ME.”
A final metaphor that I’ll leave you with is this. In relationships and dealing with others, we can either be the thermometer or thermostat in the room. When things heat up, we can get hot with them or we can be the one that cools everything down. The choice is always up to us.