Respect For Opponents?
Respect can surprise us in interesting ways. How many of us would have the courage to deliberately lose an important race to an opponent who’d made a mistake? In December of 2012, in an extraordinary show of respectful sportsmanship, Ivan Fernandez Anay – a long-distance runner from the Basque region of Spain who was running in second place in an important race – deliberately...
You Don’t Have To Like Someone to Work With Them
There’s an old saying in business and it goes like this…”You don’t have to like someone to work with them.” I agree, there are many people that we work with who we don’t necessarily like, and we sure wouldn’t want to hang out with them on a personal basis. But, when we do work with these people, we usually get the job done; sometimes really well. So why is that? Some people would...
When Does Public Disrespect Deserve A Response?
I’m disturbed by some publicly disrespectful behavior we observed in a department store recently. While checking out, we noticed a little girl – perhaps 2 years old – running around behind the checkout lines while her mother, her aunt and grandmother, paid the cashier. The child ran right behind a store Associate – a girl maybe 18 years old – who was assisting at...
Disrespect or Bullying?
What’s the difference between disrespect and bullying? According to a recent post by the author and workplace bullying expert Valerie Cade, the difference appears to be about self-awareness and intention. Most of us who aren’t bullies have been unintentionally disrespectful toward a co-worker at one time or another (I know I have and I’m not proud of it). But most times we’ve been unaware...
The Introverted Manager’s Dilemma
Last year I was coaching a mid-level manager named “Ted” who admitted he was having trouble “making small talk” with his team. Some of them even said he was “unapproachable” in an anonymous employee survey. So, when I asked him about it Ted came clean, “I come in Monday mornings and head directly for my office. I’m not comfortable asking people how their weekends went, or talking about the big...
Practicing “Regular Respect” Is Easy Until It Isn’t
If you’re like most people, you’ll hold a door open for a stranger when entering or leaving a public space like an office building, coffee shop or retailer. And, if you’re like most people, you’ll say “excuse me” when you bump into someone in public. And, you’ll say “bless you” when someone sneezes. These are all typical examples of what I call “Regular Respect.” Others call it “common...
Keeping Politics at Bay in the Workplace
It’s fairly obvious the American political scene is red-hot right now. Many of the candidates are making statements about social issues that are designed as “red-meat” for their base voters, but which may be off-putting or even upsetting to those who don’t agree. But from a teamwork and collaboration point of view, keeping politics out of the workplace makes very good...