Emotional Intelligence Blog

By Guest Author, Bob Crowley

Diane Stafford had a thought-provoking article in the Kansas City Star discussing the need for civility in the workplace. She related stories of deals gone bad due to rude or offensive behavior. She also noted the crude and nasty voice mails she received from readers who didn’t care for her coverage of certain issues or events. Her point about how talk show hosts and television networks have accelerated polarization is one of the biggest challenges we all face today. It’s tough to feel like I’m above the debate, because I’ll watch and listen to commentators on television and find myself reacting with my own nasty diatribe in response to their insane pseudo-punditry.

The real problem is that we have been sorted and pulled apart, at a time when we need to be looking for common ground. It’s as if we all are expected to find some specific abstract principle and dogmatically view every action in the world through that lens alone. To do less is a sign of weakness and letting the different-thinking lunatics win. The logical extension is to dig in and lob grenades into the enemy camp. My beliefs can only win if yours lose. At a minimum, the mind set requires me to be vigilant and defensive at all times. The fact that I am justified in treating other people as scum, well, that’s really just a beneficial byproduct of self-righteousness.

It’s tough to keep peace, when there isn’t any to keep. I can identify with UN observers going into a gang fight between Somali warlords. The only thing the gang chieftains agree on is that the UN is not on their side and therefore is one of their many enemies.

In business, you know it’s really bad when people will leave money on the table rather than deal with a person or team that disrespects them.

After reading the article, I decided to Google a book that I found back in the early 90’s in the Psychic Eye Book Store in Sherman Oaks, CA. The title was an eye-catcher. It was called A**hole No More. Purportedly written by Dr. F. X. Crement, it claimed to be the first self-help book for people who realized they were a**holes. It was kind of a twelve-step program, which Crement developed when he realized that he behaved like one. After seeking expertise in treatment, he found that there was no cure. As someone told him, “You just are one.”

One statement on the back of the book stood out. It said that if you don’t know at least a dozen people who need to read this book, then you probably shouldn’t buy it. Someone will probably give it to you. Over the years, I have given copies of the book to people who I felt would appreciate the humor. It’s kind of like the way many of us love to read Dilbert. We never see ourselves in the dysfunctional characters. A quick Google search showed the book is available on Amazon. The cover actually showed the title with the actual word for A**hole. The fact is that over the years since this book was published, our society has devolved to the point where you don’t need any asterisks on the cover of the book any more. That says something about civility on a language level. It’s all Clark Gable’s fault, for uttering the first “damn” bad word in a major motion picture.

I think our tolerance of uncivil behavior has accelerated for all the reasons cited in the article. I would contend that in our drive to “get ‘er done”, Americans have always focused on results, much less concerned about how the results are achieved. There were always new lands and new challenges and new horizons. In the flat, crowded, interconnected world we live in today, leaders need to find ways to continue living with people after the military objectives of domination are achieved. If there is any lesson for the US in Iraq, it should be the recognition that we have a military that can achieve virtually any military objective in a confrontation. A war was always an event or series of events that had a beginning and an end. Today, after the battle plan is accomplished, you are still enmeshed in a tangled, on-going web of interdependent relationships.

In the language of general systems theory, you cannot not communicate on a relationship level. Whatever you do or say…and what you don’t do or say…you send a message about your relationship. Just because a wife stops talking to her husband doesn’t mean that she is not sending him a message. They are still in a relationship.

Think of how frustrating it is for China to have amassed trillions of American dollars. They have the power and capital to destroy the American economy if they wanted to take it down. The problem is, if they take us down, everything they’ve worked for goes with us. We are partners, living with the economic equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction, which we vaguely remember from the Cold War, and how nuclear devastation of the planet made no sense to anyone. Many of the television celebrity commentators talk as if they would be willing to push the button if they don’t get their way.

In business, civility doesn’t find its way into leadership competency models, so hearing that emotional intelligence may become part of the typical leadership success profile is a positive step. The Catch-22 of the situation is that truly clueless leaders would then set a development objective of getting that competency, attacking EI as a separate skill, as if it isn’t an integral part of every requisite cognitive leadership skill.

This mind set reflects the fact that, in the past, civil behavior has been a quality which was nice to have…but certainly no deal breaker in business. Unless someone crosses the line and physically assaults a shell-shocked subordinate, a la George Patton, or several NCAA football coaches, it’s easily tolerated, as long as the target results are achieved. The people who are upset over leaders being removed based on politically incorrect statements, generally related to legally protected groups, do have a point when they note that the fired broadcaster or celebrity in question disrespects everyone, or is clueless about others, regardless of sex, race or creed. The critics of political correctness can point to other personalities who are more self-centered, egotistical jerks, completely oblivious to the emotional turmoil and destruction they create among everyone they touch. They stay in key roles, while an inappropriate reference to a gender stereotype will go off like an improvised explosive device.

I was surprised to find a number of listings in the Amazon section where the Crement book was listed. People are beginning to recognize the need to address civility issues in the workplace. Here is one.

Sutton, Robert I. The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t

I’m willing to bet that Sutton is trying to help people deal with managers and associates who fail to engage in basic behaviors that your Mama should have taught you:

• Acknowledge and pay attention to people around you
• Assume good intentions
• Listen empathically
• Speak kindly
• Respect others’ opinions, time and personal space
• Accept and give constructive criticism
• Take personal responsibility and apologize earnestly

Sutton’s book is very close to something a friend in HR suggested twenty years ago. He said that the company needed a policy, called AH-1. You should be able to terminate someone for being an a**hole. Crement’s book may disagree, citing the designation as a disease entity, worthy of a twelve-step program. I think we have all have a touch of it from time to time. It would help if we had the self-awareness to take personal responsibility for those times. The starting point for civility is within…and we can do something about it. You don’t have to be one.

It seems that a good place to start would be to inoculate ourselves against incivility by developing our emotional intelligence skills. Not only would that help us manage the behavior of others, it would keep us from jumping on the “jerk” bandwagon when it comes around.

About Our Guest Author Bob Crowley:
With nearly three decades of Organizational Development and Human Resource experience, Bob Crowley shares his humorous and thought-provoking insights. We are delighted to have him as a guest author on our emotional intelligence blog. For more, be sure to read Bob’s article “Leaders Wield Emotional Intelligence Light Sabers!”