My Daughters

I prefer to be alone. I value people. I respect people. I can appreciate people. I don’t necessarily like people.

I am doubly task-oriented. That means I have significantly more task orientation than people orientation. I don’t want bad things to happen to people. I don’t want people to be harmed. I just prefer to be alone and working than with people and interacting. Even relational activities tend to become tasks in my mind.

Some people will read this post (roughly 65% of all people are more people-oriented than task-oriented) and feel that I am a little bit rude and inconsiderate.

Other people (the other 35%) will read this post and think that they finally found someone who “gets” their perspective.

Potential conflict looms in that difference of perspective.

Here’s a story to illustrate my point.

Several years ago, my wife and I began taking our daughters to school on most mornings to have time to connect with them for a few minutes in the morning. One morning about 18 months ago, I came almost entirely unglued with them as we were leaving because we were “behind schedule.”

For clarity sake, let me explain the situation. If we leave home before 7:40 am, we get ahead of the school buses, and I get back home at about 8:10-8:15. If we leave home after 7:40 am, we travel behind the school buses, and I get back home at about 8:30-8:45. So, a 2 or 3 minute variation in departure time can make a roughly 30 minute difference in my total drive time. Either way, the girls get to school on time. The only issue is when I return home.

On the morning in question, I had no appointments or specific time commitments that would be impacted by the extra drive time. Still, I was ready to kill my daughters because they were making me “late” for appointments that I didn’t have.

Looking back, it’s really pretty funny. I chose to do something for a relational purpose and, for me, it became a task. I completely forgot the relationship side of the “drive the kids to school” plan, and I started to focus only on the task component (the time invested in it).

Fortunately, I realized my misplaced focus, and I apologized to my daughters that evening. We all learned from the experience, and we moved on to a higher level of mutual understanding.

Conflict can come from many different things. In my experience, a large number of workplace conflicts come from a difference in these perspectives. Task-oriented people viewing relational activities as tasks and people-oriented people viewing tasks as a chance to interact with people. When the two perspectives collide, sparks can fly.

In my case, I have to force myself to see the importance of investing time in building relationships with others. I have to quite the voice in my head that constantly asks me what I am accomplishing every waking minute. I have to accept that building a relationship can actually be “doing something productive.”

I have learned that one of the keys to effectively resolving conflict is the ability to see both the people AND the task side of an issue instead of taking a people OR a task perspective. Both are important. Both bring value.

Which way do you naturally lean? What do you need to do to be more in balance? When you are in balance, you can be the catalyst for resolving many workplace conflicts.

A few months ago, I came across a quote that has become a big part of what I teach in the realm of resolving conflict, leadership skills, and the DISC model of human behavior. I think that it came from one of the books written by the folks over at Vital Smarts. I don’t remember for sure, and I was unable to track it down today. Anyway, here’s the quote:

“You are on the wrong side of your eyeballs to be objective about you.”

In my blog reading this week, I came across this post by Kevin Eikenberry: Five Great Benefits to Leadership or Executive Coaching, and I was once again reminded of the quote above.

If you want to continue learning and growing as a leader, teacher, parent, or just generally as a person, find someone you trust to give you the objective perspective you need to make the changes necessary to become the person that you want to be.

In my experience, failure to accept outside perspective on issues where emotional intelligence is the driving factor in personal growth is a leading indicator for lack of progress in those areas.

Seek wise counsel. Look for objective, trustworthy, experienced mentors and teachers. Get on the other side of your eyeballs so that you can learn and grow.

If everyone that you work with is an idiot, I have a suggestion for you:

Check your attitude.

Or, as I heard a speaker say one time, “Give your head a shake.”

In Winning with People, John Maxwell defines what he calls the Bob Principle: “If Bob has a problem with everyone, then Bob is the problem.”

We all have days when we struggle in our communication and relationship with others. I have them, my friends and colleagues have them, and I’m pretty sure that you have them too.

It doesn’t happen often, but I do have days when nearly everyone around me is an “idiot.” On those days, virtually everyone frustrates me, and, if I am honest, I find that I am the real problem. I am tired, hungry, distracted, or stressed. Something is usually going on in my life that reduces my ability to interact calmly, sanely, and professionally. On those days, I am Bob.

So, when you have a day where everyone is an “idiot,” I suggest that you check your attitude and “give your head a shake.” Step back, figure out what is really bothering you, and deal with that. When you do, other people will cease to be “idiots.”

Image from www.sxc.hu.

We have two outdoor cats at our home named Hobbes and Merlin. They have a house, a food bowl and a litter box in our garage. During the day, we open the garage door and let them run free. At night, we close them in the garage to protect them from larger predators they might encounter after dark.

We feed them. We give them fresh water. We give them a warm, dry place to sleep. We scratch their heads. We brush their fur. We play with them.

They have no fence or other physical constraints to keep them at our home.

When we open the door in the morning, they run quickly out of the garage into our yard. They rarely stray far from our home, and they almost always come back to the garage at night.

They have complete freedom to leave if they choose, and yet they always return because we meet their needs.

On occasion, one or the other of them will fail to return to the garage. The first time one of them stayed out for the night, we were concerned that he had left permanently. When we opened the garage door the next morning, he came running in to greet us.

This scenario has happened a few other times since the first event, and they have always returned.

They return for food. They return for our attention. They return for clean water. They return for a dry bed. Sometimes they exercise their freedom, and yet they return.

They return because they get their needs met with us. We do not have to force them to stay. They choose to stay with us to get their needs met.

Observing Hobbes and Merlin has taught me a valuable lesson about working with people. Give them freedom, meet their needs, and they return when you let them go. When they return under these conditions, they do so gladly and without reservation.

In my blog reading this weekend, I read this great post by Kare Anderson over at Say It Better. Check this post on Getting Others to Stop Arguing: What We Can Learn From Obama’s Cairo Speech.

A few weeks ago, a situation developed between me and another person where they felt the need to apologize. In all honesty, I was a bit irritated with the person and their behavior prior to receiving their call asking if they could come to see me in person.

However, they did come see me in person. They did sincerely apologize. And they genuinely felt sorry for their actions.

During the conversation, they said: “I don’t know why I did what I did.” I said: “I guess it’s because you’re human.” I then reminded them of the scene in the Disney movie The Lion King when Rafiki hit Simba on the head. After receiving a whack on the head, Simba said: “Hey, why did you do that!” Rafiki replied: “It don’t matta’. It’s in the past.”

When I told the story, I smiled and the other person smiled. The tension broke, and we moved forward with our relationship.

In this case, the other person really did do something that required an apology. And, they genuinely apologized.

They apologized. I accepted. We moved on together. We have now been in several meetings since then where we have worked productively and positively together.

When people apologize, there is nothing to be gained by attempting to humiliate them further. Accept the apology. Honor their sincerity, and move on. Remember, “It don’t matta’. It’s in the past.”