One of my most important values is that I need to make choices to be kinder to others. I must somewhat shamefully admit that I'm not always great at this. I'm busy and tired, and I don't always stop to take the time to perform those kind acts for others. But that is definitely part of choosing the appropriate course on which I'm working. The place where I have the hardest time being especially kind is at work. I'm there to get a job done and so is everyone else, so I expect high performance from me and everyone around me. However, we're all human beings, and I certainly mess up sometimes. One thing that I do feel like I'm pretty good at is admitting when I made a mistake, apologizing for said mistake, and communicating a plan so that it doesn't happen again. I'm still not perfect, so sometimes the mistake does happen again and I do all three things again with a modification to the plan.
Some of the people who I work with aren't as good at the mea culpa piece. I've frequently seen communications after an error with no apology and no real explanation. So it makes me wonder if there's any self-reflection occurring and/or if the mistake is just going to happen again the next time. This is where I need to work on my kindness. Whether or not someone else chooses to handle a mistake the same way I do, they're still a human being who probably doesn't feel very good about the mistake. A human being who can use some kindness, even if they don't normally show much kindness in return.
Last week I decided that even though someone I worked with did make a mistake, that I wouldn't add to the negative responses she was getting. I figured she felt bad enough since some of the other people in the office were being pretty unkind about it. I also remembered a management class I'd taken one time where I was told we only have control over two things. I was a bit taken aback by that since I'd always figured we only had control over one thing: How we choose to react to a situation. But the trainer said we also have control over how we choose to frame a situation in our mind. So I thought about the person being particularly unkind about the error and decided to think that maybe she had some plans that had been derailed, rather than thinking she's just mean and selfish and is going to get a big bite in the rear end by karma soon. (Yes, I know I'm misusing karma here as that's not really how it works, but it is a saying, so that's what I'm going with.) Then I didn't feel so angry at that person any longer. I also stopped and reminded myself that the person who made the error has a great deal on her plate right now and something just got missed, so I didn't feel angry at her any longer.
I found that when I reframed the situation like this, my anger went away and we were able to just determine a solution and move on. This is healthier for me and I was able to extend some kindness to others. We could argue about whether or not two people who had reacted so negatively to each other deserved the kindness, but I decided it really didn't matter. I have a value to be kind, and I shouldn't let anyone change that, particularly since it made me feel so much better.
No comments:
Post a Comment