Thank you to everyone who pre-ordered Radical Respect and helped make it a #1 new release on Amazon as well as top new releases on Audible and Amazon Kindle! Your support means everything to me. Many thanks to P&T Knitwear for hosting my launch party and conversation with Davis, Dawn. If you haven’t yet bought your copy, you can get it now wherever books are sold to be part of the revolution to change the way we work!
Replacing Dread With Delight
Creating a kick-ass work environment where you can take a step in the direction of your dreams and love the people around you need not be tedious. It can be joyful. There is no need to approach this work with dread. In fact, the work can’t be approached with dread if it is to thrive.
As the poet Toi Derricotte wrote, “Joy is an act of resistance.” If they are to succeed, leaders must resist an unjust status quo and design systems that ensure a working environment where everyone can do the best work of their lives and build the best relationships of their careers. When leaders approach this design with joy, they’re far likelier to succeed.
I believe we do our best work when we love our work, the results of our work, and the people with whom we work. I do not believe that work must be drudgery we are forced to do.
We can look forward to the work we do to create more radically respectful workplaces with excitement instead of the deep dread too many people bring to this task.
We can laugh at our own biases when they are disrupted, rather than getting defensive. We can relish the new clarity of our thinking when our prejudices are challenged. We can enjoy kinder, gentler relationships when we learn to stop bullying and start caring for one another.
This doesn’t have to be a food fight. It can be a delicious smorgasbord.
It’s Simple, Even if It’s Not Easy
When the problems seem insurmountable, return to these two core ideas: First, honor the individuality of each of your colleagues. Don’t demand that they conform to some preconceived idea you might have of who they “ought” to be.
Second, collaborate with your colleagues. Don’t try to dominate or coerce them. Honor individuality, don’t demand conformity. Optimize for collaboration, not coercion. That’s all it takes to create Radical Respect!
Once You’ve Got It, You Have to Work to Keep It
Here is the key thing to remember about Radical Respect. It’s a process, not a destination. There’s no natural stopping point. You have to keep striving to achieve it — monthly, weekly, even daily, hourly.
Think of your workplace as being at the top of a steep hill. You have a spectacular view, but you have to climb that hill every day to enjoy it.
Or think of it as a building. If you hire good engineers and workers, use quality materials, and build a strong foundation, your building will last longer than if you don’t. But even a well-made building can quickly become uninhabitable if you don’t clean and maintain it.
Life is change. If you don’t revisit and buttress the safeguards in place to make sure that coercion and conformity aren’t creeping into the way people work together, then workplace injustice and the inefficiency that accompanies it will take over your culture.
Prioritize Being Proactive
The aspects of human nature we are least proud of will always be pulling us away from efforts to collaborate and toward the instinct to coerce; away from respecting individuality and toward demanding conformity. Daily attention is needed to resist these forces and keep your workplace just.
And as organizations grow, the efforts to safeguard against bias, prejudice, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and physical violations need to get more and more robust. If you are a leader in a workplace, it’s your job to do the same. If you are an upstander, it’s your job to intervene in some way when you notice workplace injustice.
In an ideal world, which this is not, your intervention speaks truth to power and holds leaders accountable.
If you are harmed in your workplace, it’s your job to choose the response that protects you first and foremost, and helps others if you can. And if you’ve caused harm, it’s your job to acknowledge what you’ve done and make amends.
Ignorance is no excuse. Good intentions are better than bad intentions, but not enough. We all need to get proactive about intending not to harm others.
Radical Respect is a weekly newsletter I am publishing on LinkedIn to highlight some of the things that get in the way of creating a collaborative, respectful working environment. A healthy organization is not merely an absence of unpleasant symptoms. Creating a just working environment is about eliminating bad behavior and reinforcing collaborative, respectful behavior. Each week I’ll offer tips on how to do that so you can create a workplace where everyone feels supported and respected.
