Show everyone respect
If the employees of a company do not show respect to each other, it becomes a very toxic place to work. This is my #1 value and core belief: show everyone respect.
You should show respect to your customers, your subordinates, peers and supervisors. You should show respect to people who work in your building who do not work for your company. In or out of the office, if you are representing a company, you should be seen showing respect to others. The taxi cab driver, servers in a restaurant, someone takes your luggage, someone who opens a door for you, someone who drops an ink pen in your presence should all see respect from you.
You should double and triple check that you are being respectful so they feel that you are making an effort.
We are all volunteers
I tell my people a good way to easily show respect to people is to think of everyone as volunteers. In truth, nobody must work with you and nobody has to buy a product from you. Those are choices. They are volunteering to do so, so treat them that way. Nobody shouts at a volunteer because they are volunteering. The architects and developers that work directly under me are never commanded to do anything. I ask if they would not mind doing something for me. I phrase it in a way where they feel like I’m asking for a favor and they are a volunteer. Any successful professional person will know that if I am your supervisor, and I ask you for a favor, it is not a favor. You are being paid. I just don’t have to treat you poorly, you deserve respect and that’s how I show it: I ask you to do things, I don’t tell you to do things.
4 year olds
Side note: You can not ask a 4 year old to do things. They do think it’s an option. I ask my son to do things and he thinks about it and denies my requests. It made me laugh a few times because he is so literal. So now instead of “Son, would you mind picking up your toys?” I say “Okay son, now It is time to pick up your toys”. To which he responds: “No, it’s not time yet”. So as I am on my hands and knees picking up toys as he rides on my back I think about ways to rephrase requests of my son. Any ideas are welcome.
Finally I would like to point out that this section is entitled Show everyone respect and not Respect everyone. You do not have to actually, deeply respect everyone. I am not sure that is even possible.
Buddhism, respect and you
One of my good friends is a Buhdist Monk. Anytime I spend time with her she gives me these amazing pearls of wisdom. The last time I saw her we were talking about behaviour. She told me that in her monastery they take in a lot of students who think they want to be monks. She spends a lot of time with these gentle souls and has confided in me that a lot of them do not have much structure in their lives so she gives them structure through a rigid work schedule and teaches them self care. She’s one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Anyway we were talking about these students and she said eventually they all learn that there is absolutely no point in trying to control their emotions.
Yeah, that’s right. Don’t even TRY to control your emotions. This is antithetical to every instinct I have. She went on to say there’s no point in trying to control your emotions because they are too powerful. You can not control them, don’t even try. Accept that your emotions are going to be there whether you try to control them or not
Instead: control your behaviour.
The point was that you have control over how you act, how you feel is not within your control. Accept that and be free. That hit me like a ton of bricks that night. Part of the buddhist way is to learn to separate the thinker from the thoughts.
Showing someone respect is not the same as respecting them. When you work alongside someone you do not respect, you still need to show them respect. Otherwise the social contract of the office deteriorates and can become split into two camps or more. Disrespect breeds toxicity.
We are not a family
I find it distasteful to call a business a family. It’s misleading and often is a way to pressure someone into working long hours without compensation.
Businesses who do this are deceiving themselves into thinking they are making a job offer more attractive. They are saying ‘you can be yourself here’ or ‘this is a comfortable place to work’. I don’t like those things either.
First of all, I don’t want people to be themselves too much. I want them to be a professional. I am not myself at work, I’m a buttoned up version of myself. I think that is a good thing. It shows that we respect each other and the workplace by monitoring our behavior and acting with dignity.
Regarding comfort, I am not talking about clothes. I think people should probably be able to wear business casual clothes every day to work. Management should dress like management. If you lined up everyone in an office and you can not tell who is who, you are doing it wrong.
What I mean by I don’t want people to be too comfortable at work is that work is not a place to prioritize comfort. Work is a place to get work done. I think supervisors should be casual and direct with their subordinates. I think people should be encouraging and polite and even have smalltalk, but deep personal conversations in the workplace? Nah. That’s for your real family. Work is where we work.
Business ethics
I tend to think of ethics as a top down culture. I may be in agreement with only myself here, but, it seems to me that when it comes to ethics the fish really does rot from the head. I also think when we talk about ethics and ethical behavior we should discuss what we are doing positively to encourage ethical behavior.
I will typically frame ethical discussions in a positive light. What to do instead of what not to do. What is a good way to conduct yourself instead of what is the wrong way to conduct yourself. If you encourage and (more to the point) model ethical behavior, it will permeate through the entire company. So much so that our customers will feel it. That’s nirvana.
If customers sense (even subconsciously) that we are being consistently ethical with them they will trust us fully and a customer that trusts us fully is a lifelong customer.
Also: There is something very rewarding about working in a business that is transparently ethical. It bolsters the soul. It’s one of these unwritten benefits of working for a good company. It can strengthen your character, even outside of work.
Equality of opportunity
I have had a lot of opportunities in my life and although not all of them turned out for the best, I never felt I was judged by things I could not control; my physical attributes.
I think a business should give people equal opportunity. I believe in hiring from within and giving people chances to advance in their careers and grow with the company.
Operational responsibility
I think about operational responsibility in two separate silos, one for management and one for staff.
Management: Make decisions.
If you are in a leadership position, you should be making only hard decisions. Easy decisions are not a decision at all and should be delegated. My job as a business owner, part of the management team or even a director in a company is to make hard decisions.
I have the ability and the opportunity to influence the direction of the business at my level, I should be using that to better the business. One of the ways I know it is time to delegate part of my responsibility is: The decisions are easy. Staffers: Stay in your own lane. If you do not have any direct reports in a company, your job is to do your job and nothing else. It sounds harsh, but do not get in the way of another coworker (for good or bad) because that is not your job.
Even if you can see someone is about to go off a cliff, do not interfere. There is almost nothing good that happens from interfering with someone who is struggling. If someone asks you for help, then you can decide to help or not, but don’t interfere. Here’s how I look at it. If your peer is rocketing through the ranks at a corporation, do you get any credit for that? Do you get any benefit for that? No. Your job is enough for you, do it to the best of your ability and leave others to do the same. Profit One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. – Milton Friedman
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with the experiment, it’s wrong. – Richard P. Feynman
Companies get lost in the mire of the fun way to do things or they have done it one way before so we are doing it that way forever or we only know how to use a hammer so the whole world is our nail. The truth is if you are not making a profit you are not, by definition, a business.
We can do all the good in the world that we want to do, once we are making a profit. Sweat equity is fine, but sweat equity does not pay the bills.