Greetings!
THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING CIVILITY IN CHECK
So much of my consulting work focuses on the need for individuals to keep in mind the importance of civility, respect, kindness and relationship building. Generally speaking you see that most people share this desire and it is highly effective when applied to any interpersonal relationships, especially in the workplace as it reduces the likelihood of discrimination, lawsuits and a discontent workforce not to mention the improved quality of work that is a direct result of focusing on positive relationships.
When we see discord in any relationship, personal or work related, and we drill down to the cause, it is often unresolved conflict and inadequate attention to the importance of resolving such conflict. We need to spend the time to resolve conflict. For whatever reason most of us ignore it and hope it will go away...if we all really think about it... it doesn't. Actually quite the contrary, generally the building of the unresolved conflict increases the intensity of the already, strained relationship(s).
We know that most people are inherently good. As people we all want the same types of things out of each other, respect, kindness, a voice and fairness.. among other things. Sounds simple, but at times this gets lost. Those that do not practice civility, I have learned are often struggling and trying to protect their inadequacies and/or discontent . They often use harsh words about someone else to somehow make them feel better about themselves, but does it really?
We all have something to teach but we all have something to learn as well.
I am blessed to be in a profession that focuses on the importance of people and our role in the workplace in particular. I value people tremendously. I am particularly interested and see value in everyone's voice. I learn from each and every experience I have dealing with people. We are all different and all of us have something to give.
My work brings me to hundreds of people in different organizations on a regular basis. What concerns me is when our freedom to express ourselves turns into a conflict simply due to how the "message" was delivered. The message ends up resulting in something that lacks credibility and possibly even hurting others.As with any interpersonal communications, all people deserve respect! I am big on speaking one's mind and have strong opinions about a lot of things, so I appreciate that ability to express myself in a direct manner. What I have learned is that "it is not what you say but how you say it". No one should sit in silence when they have an opinion and feel passionate about a topic. But just remember that you owe it to fellow human beings to keep in check your approach to stressing your point.
All of this is also true of all of our interactions in our workplace. We can speak up and should identify our areas of concern, but be sure that we are focused on facts, situations and examples of why we feel as we do. We need to learn to effectively work through our differences and we know that there are possible legal liabilities when we say or do things to intentionally hurt another person (s) or entity.
We need to be free to say what we feel but we need to just keep in check our sole purpose as decent human beings...to be respectful, kind, honest and fair.
