Civility At Work, Part I
Civility seems to have gone out of style in the U.S. It didn’t happen overnight, but over time incivility appears to have slowly edged its way into our everyday world.
I don’t think this lack of decorum is doing us any favors. In fact, I’m concerned with what it says about us as people and the long-term damage to us as a society.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s noticed this rise in incivility. The folks at the Greater Akron Civility Center have noticed it too. Their goal is to counter the rise in incivility by “building relationships between and among diverse individuals, institutions and organizations.”
As with many other things, I have found that the work being done by the Center applies equally to the world of business, as incivility has found its way into companies of all sizes.
When things are going well in business, we’re more likely to be civil to each other, even if it’s just superficial. But when things aren’t going well—when sales or profits are down, cash flow is lean, employees are calling off too often, or customers aren’t calling in often enough—stress goes up and civility seems to go out the window. Tempers flare; words are spoken that can’t be retrieved; relationships are damaged.
Dr. J. Cherie Strachan, Director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron that hosts the Center, states that civility is grounded in respecting the other person’s autonomy [regardless of our title] rather than trying to overpower them.
Keep in mind that being civil doesn’t mean being silent or passive or weak. After all, we must still feel empowered to stand up for what we believe, to point out injustices or when things just aren’t right, and to speak our minds.
The Center has tips on how to counter the rise in incivility. Below are two of them and we’ll cover more in Part II of this series. Because I feel these suggestions apply to business as well, I’ve offered my comments in italics after each.
Listen. As we’ve all heard before, we should listen with the intent to understand rather than to respond. This involves shutting down the chatter in our head when someone else is speaking and not assuming that we know what they’re trying to say or what they’ll be saying next.
Seek truth. This seems so obvious that we may not think it’s worth mentioning, but in the haze of social media, 24/7 news coverage, and rampant digital extremism it’s more and more difficult to sort out what’s truth and what’s not. And outside sources aren’t the only ones at fault. Internally, it’s easy to get caught up in the lure of the truth-bending triplets: rumor, innuendo, and gossip. So, rather than authenticating our information through reliable sources, we often default to the seductiveness of the easy answer, even when someone’s job or career might be on the line.
Being civil isn’t always easy, especially when we’re angry or upset. But it is always the right path to take, as it’s up to each of us to do our part to mend America, one civil conversation at a time.
