"Try to see the good in people (especially those with whom we disagree): People who prefer to believe the worst of others will breed war and persecutions while the world lasts" (Dorothy L. Sayers)

"Our opinions of the world and others are confessions of our characters." (adapted, Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Today see if you can simply see others as people; not as objects who are an obstacle, or a vehicle or as irrelevant. Just people with the same hopes, needs, fears & anxieties you have.

Today focus on one person who you've been having difficulty with and see if you can find a way to help him or her.

Let us know how you do.

You can be kind, compassionate, helpful, collaborative, and thankful - but if you do these things and you do not have a regard for the "other" as a person you have nothing. All virtues can be corrupted if you regard the "other" as a challenge, a vehicle or as irrelevant!

Work on your Way of Being first!

There have been many times I have been compassionate - not because I cared about the "other" but because I wanted to "be seen as" a compassionate person. I has caused me to understand how deeply self-absorbed I am!

One of the most common questions I am asked with respect to this material goes something like this, "But what if the other person continues to disrespect me, belittle me, be rude to me? Doesn't that make this whole concept invalid? Doesn't that mean that this doesn't work?" I'd like to present the concept of "forgoing":

"Forgoing the taking of offense is an achievement of the one who forgoes; he or she extends it to all, including those nearest by. It cannot depend upon what others do, or else it is not genuine forgoing. Unless we change our hearts toward the people we struggle with here and now, we are condemned to struggle with whomever we may find ourselves associating with." (Bonds That Make Us Free).

"We can't feel justified in witholding kindness from others unless we find, or invent, some reason why they deserve it - some deficiency or despicable characteristic that requires us to ignore or correct or chasten or punish them." (Bonds That Make Us Free)

"We seek this diminishment of others and our own elevation not because of any wrongs they many be doing to us. We do it because of the wrongs we are doing to them. Our demeaning, judgmental, and cruel ways grow out of our own self-betrayal and not, as we almost always suppose, from any need to defend ourselves." (Bonds That Make Us Free)

Answer:

Do the Collaboration Diagram. What is your impact on others?

We now offer an implementation process that can be used once you've had the training.

1. To take up a hard, resentful attitude toward others is to have to live in a resented world, a world full of people who oppose and threaten us. How they are in our eyes is reflective of how we are.

2. The punishment for self-betrayal is having to live, in this resented world, a life that's far more difficult than it needs to be.

"When we are caught up in it, we accuse others so as to excuse ourselves, and that makes it a judgmental way of being. We grasp at evidence that others are wrong and we are right, and that makes it a comparative way of being. We're certain that if they get what they want, we can't have what we want, so it is an assertive & competitive way of being. And we believe we suffer our setbacks and failures because of other people and achieve our successes in spite of them, making it also a combative & controlling way of being." (Bonds That Make Us Free)

Where's your focus:
1. On others impact on you? or
2. Your impact on others?

Think in the 4 directions of your work - Customer, Co-worker, Employee & Manager.

If we are going to move the needle on becoming a more collaborative culture there is only one answer:

How does my work impact others?

"Don't give up on anybody ... or leave anybody out ... My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight." (Eudora Welty)

"Sometimes we might be forced to defend ourselves, you're exactly right. But that is a different thing than saying that we are forced to despise, to rage, to denigrate, to belittle. No one can force a warring heart upon us. When our hearts go to war, we ourselves have chosen it." (The Anatomy of Peace)

"So if we are going to find lasting solutions to difficult conflicts or external wars we find ourselves in we first need to find our way out of the internal wars that are poisoning our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward others. If we can't put an end to the violence within us, there is no hope for putting an end to the violence without." (The Anatomy of Peace)

"Your organizations are filled with people whose energies are largely spent on sustaining conflict - and who therefore are not fully focused on achieving the productive goals of the organization." (The Anatomy of Peace)

I'm beginning to see that we can come at a problem from an "out-of-the-box" way of being, but if we have a problem statement that frames the problem from an "in-the-box" perspective we wind up solving the wrong problem.

Question: What happens when you start a sentence with, "I'm sorry"?

Answer: Peace

"If we start seeing each other as objects, we'll get to the point where we'll need to see each other as disagreeable rather than as simply disagreeing. Once that happens, we'll end up provoking each other. Let's not fall into the very trap we're seeking to understand and avoid." (The Anatomy of Peace)

Jumped in the box yesterday & turned a co-worker into an object. I did this by seeing him as challenging my authority/getting in the way of running my Departments the way I want.

I had a choice when confronted - to respond to him as a person or ...

I chose badly.

Time to help things go right - this is hard!

The Box & how we get out of it:

1. We get out of the box not by focusing on ourselves but by responding to others - that is, by receiving the humanity of those we have been resisting.

2. Responsive relationships and memories give us leverage to get out of the box in other areas of our lives.

3. Once out of the box, we say out of the box by doing for others what we feel we need to do.

When I feel stuck in any given relationship, the key to getting out is to find the out-of-the-box vantage points within me from where I can think and feel clearly - out-of-the-box places that I have by virtue of present and past out-of-the-box relationships, experiences, and memories.