It is not unusual to hear that if “that” person changed their behavior, there wouldn’t be a problem. Of course, the problem is that the only behavior we can change is our own. And the secret is that changing our behavior changes that of those around us. We have a dog that whines for attention. In the early years, of course, we wanted to relieve his anxiety so we pet him and soothed him. (He was a very cute puppy!) And he continued to whine. We continued to respond. Years later, we saw that when we didn’t respond, he stopped whining. He had trained us. He still whines, and when we perceive a stressor, we comfort him; otherwise, we ignore him. Our behaviors formed his behaviors and vice versa.
The same holds true for people. Have you ever seen someone tell an upset person to “calm down”? Does it work? Why doesn’t it work? I think it doesn’t work because the speaker has become just as upset, so they feed each other’s distress. Consider the quiet voice that addresses the stressors while modeling a calm, composed demeanor. That works more often. Again, we see an interchange and an exchange. The person who can mold the behavior of the other by modeling will have the better outcome. Not because they are manipulating, or in charge, or better, but perhaps at least partly because they are more present and therefore, more aware of the ways in which they can effectively address the issues.
When we are confronted with another person’s anxiety, anger, frustration, it is absurd to think we won’t be affected. We have to make a decision about how we respond and making decisions changes us and those around us. One of the great benefits of seeing conflict through is that it gives us an opportunity to grow and change. Conflict invites us into relationship, though that may sound ironic. Being right undermines that opportunity entirely. Somewhere, I heard this quote: “You can be right, or you can be in relationship.” Richard Rohr, philosopher and theologian says that you can either be right or you can be happy. Conflict invites us to change together. Being right can be costly, and lonely.
To be honest, I have a long history of being convinced that I’m right. I have a (sometimes, rigid) love of reason and logic, and because humans are emotional beings as well as logical beings, I have found myself responding to the illogic of a thing rather than the emotional underpinnings—so I can be both right and wrong simultaneously, and sometimes I’m just wrong because memory is a funny thing. Many of us have had those conversations between people close to us where we believe the other person said something and that person has a completely different memory (not just interpretation) of what was said. We can be sure we’ve remembered a conversation or an incident and we can be proven entirely wrong about that memory. That is a fact that has been tested repeatedly. We’re often wrong about that memory. It’s part of confirmation bias. We remember things in a way that makes us look better, seem saner, more logical, etc. The truth is that humility is better than rightness, though it is often less satisfying and less pleasant.
Perspective is also revealing, but of little else than our own worldview. It doesn’t give us information about what actually happened. More than once, I have had two people retell the same events with radically different interpretations of those events. Two people in a large van full of other employees are trying to manage an event that they have to get to. One person thinks that the person in the back in the van is yelling in frustration and anger, that person thinks they’re trying to convey directions to the driver in the front and is wondering why the person in the front is being proactive in managing things. Same events, yet each person’s perspective serves their own set of assumptions.
I am suggesting that humility gets us further than conviction. We often don’t know what we don’t know, and this is especially true in our interactions with others. I recently talked with someone who complained about the touchiness of their colleague. Would it have mattered if they had known that their colleague with two small children was undergoing cancer treatment? I hope so. Isn’t this true though in most every encounter we have with others—that we don’t know what’s in the background for them? And yet, we have background noise too in our lives and sometimes when both parties are struggling, the conversation becomes mired down with things that neither has a full view of. Humility, gentleness must also apply to ourselves. We won’t always be right or perfect or present and we won’t even be able to always do our best. Failure is the opportunity to try again, to learn more, to do better next time. And it has to go both ways—if you don’t treat yourself well, it will be that much harder to treat others well.
Maybe the most important thing I learned in graduate school is the value of kindness. In an environment where being smart was everything (it was a very competitive school, filled with very competitive [and smart] people), I had an advisor who was not the most famous but very smart and very kind. When I talked to him about my insecurity about not being smart enough, he described me as having an unusual mind. As I came to know him it became clear that he too was a different kind of academic—he had a creative and playful mind that was honed by a very sharp wit. And when he said, “unusual” I knew that it fit me. If the world were flooded with gold, it would have little value. Its rareness gives it value. So, in an environment where almost everyone was very smart, I learned its value. And in contrast, where kindness seemed rare, I also learned its value. It seems ironic to go to graduate school to learn that being smart isn’t everything, and yet it revealed to me as well that being right isn’t everything. I urge you to set aside your “rightness” and instead, to try to make kindness unremarkable because you can find it anywhere and everywhere.
By: Nellie Haddad, Ph.D, Certified Organizational Ombuds Practitioner, Senior Associate Ombudsperson at US Patent and Trademark Office