Is the Golden Rule tarnished?

Is the Golden Rule tarnished?  Where has civility in America gone?

The Golden Rule (which can be considered a law of reciprocity in some religions) is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in many religions and cultures.  And for many centuries the idea has been influential among people of very diverse backgrounds…

Despite a daily barrage of partisan conflict, Americans from both political parties are generally united in the belief that uncivil behavior is rampant and having profound and negative effects on our democracy, according to a poll released in March by KRC Research.

The 8th installment of Civility in America by Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate conducted with KRC Research found large majorities of the public agreeing that incivility is a major societal problem that is getting worse, promoting political gridlock, causing people to disengage from politics, generating hate speech and crimes, increasing verbal and cyber bullying and leading to intolerance of free speech.

And over the last decade, we couple this with the concept of “free speech” to now (wrongly I would suggest) include personal attacks from Politicians/Celebrities/Sports Stars/Musicians (on both sides), and on and on and on…

Are you tired of this?  I am.  It comes from the right, the left, celebs, comedians, sports stars, news anchors, our neighbors, our friends – it is everywhere.  I used to call these folks “keyboard terrorists”, but it has now become not just commentary written on the inter webs of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., but it is also verbal on the news shows, talk shows, and sports shows. 

What has happened to civility in America?  I am embarrassed, are you?  We have come to a very dark place in America. Too many shootings, too many personal arguments from public opinions, too much disrespect for authority, too much disrespect from authority, racism, sexism, bullying, the list goes on.

We seem to think that we can disobey laws just for our self-worth and value. Privilege has become very relevant and also detrimental to our society. Facebook has become a social battleground where people believe that they can say whatever they want and not have consequences (see my earlier comment on keyboard terrorists). And by the way, since Facebook has evolved from catching up on friends, their kids growing up, vacation photos etc. to this online battleground where seemingly everyone has become political experts and have decided to run against each other, rather than being friends.  Sad.  Can we not have public debate on issues and not get personal?

So what has happened to the Golden Rule we all learned growing up?  It even evolved from “treat others as you want to be treated” to “treat others as THEY want to be treated”.  Somewhere in our evolution (and I use that term loosely for this discussion) this seems to have fallen off the radar of what is important.  It seems in the last few years all of the hatred and ignorance that we push towards one another has grown exponentially.  It now seems that if you are different and we do not understand you then you must be “bad”.  How can we work together to build patience, and understanding and mutual respect?   Together.  We.  Win. 

Let me say that again – Together.  We.  Win.  We are the melting pot of many great and rich cultures and histories.  This makes us the wonderfully diverse country that we are.  We will never be what we can be when we are divided and full of hatred.  Kindness is currency.  I am very quickly growing tired of our collective behavior.  I think it is time for our morals and values and collective goodness to speak up and overtake the current negativity and divisiveness in our society today.

I always try to be positive, but this week this issue has weighed heavily on me and I think it is time for the majority of Americans who live right and do right to stand up and stop the madness.  Maybe this is a rant or maybe we can do something, but I feel the need to speak up. We are the “United” States after all.

Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and Gannett Careers

Achieving Balance

I have written on this topic before.  It is the quest most of us face daily.  It is the lifelong battle to find the right equation which allows you to succeed at work, at home, with your friends, and with your personal passions (and your own ego quite frankly).

Can we win at this game, or just not lose?  This past holiday weekend reminded me that we all need to constantly course correct.  I spent time this weekend at a car show with my grandson, playing hoops with my grandson, working on projects with my grandson, and swimming with my grandson.  Was there anything more important?  Probably not.  Do I want to do that 24/7 – certainly.  Can I do that 24/7?  It would be challenging, but I can re-balance.

How do the most successful people find that balance?  And what is their definition of success?

Webster’s defines success as:  the accomplishment of an aim or purpose or the attainment of popularity or profit or a person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity.

What if success is not really material?  How about success being family first, then work?  What if Webster’s redirected success to mean: a person having the right priorities, commitment, respect, reasonableness and forgiveness to positively impact themselves and others.

The only person that can answer the question of what success is - is you. I do not think I can, or anyone else for that matter can, create the ultimate definition of success, as this is not possible. Each of us think differently about the meaning of success in life and we each define success in our own way, so there can’t exist a definition that is suitable for all. What is important is that you know exactly how to define success in YOUR life!

Make yourself aware of what accomplishment, success, and prosperity in general means to you in your life.  Some might define success as having luxurious cars and a huge mansion, whereas others consider a life full of joy and happiness with their family as the true meaning of success.  Once you have figured out what is important for you personally - you are able to focus on your visions and goals.

I would challenge that true success is the amount of people that are able to live a better and more advanced life because of what you have done.  Kindness is currency.  This is my meaning of success. Not the trophies people are collecting in their lives.  Media often pushes us to conclude that living a successful life means to be extraordinarily wealthy and have a lot of material “things”.  Society seems to be doing this as well.  My meaning of success is to live a happy life and to make this world a better place for everyone.  And yes, that is not always easy.  And yes, I am not always nice.  And yes, my views on this are changing the older I get.  But this is my goal.  I strive to be kind always (but I am not – just ask my kids).

I read a great quote about success in parenting from Dave Willis, he states that “There are no perfect parents, and there are no perfect children, but there are plenty of perfect moments along the way”.  My take from this quote is for all of us to understand we cannot achieve perfection and success is not 100%, but we have many little successes every day.  If you build success on material things you will always be on the chase for “more”.  If you build it on family, friends and relationships then you can win every day!

Success for me is looking back at my life, when I am in my final moments (as Bill Murray said in Caddyshack, “on my deathbed”), and having a tremendous amount of pride about my family,  my creations, my accomplishments, and my personal legacy (how did I treat others?), while possessing little to no regret about what I did not do or try to do.

How do you define success and are you tracking in that direction?

Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and Gannett Careers

Can you hear me now?

If you are an introvert, that is a compelling question.  If you are an extrovert – we know your answer (or you will tell us).   We were honored to have Susan Cain (Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking and Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts.) join us in a company-wide presentation sponsored by our Next Gen Forward employee resource group – focusing on the millennial workforce while encouraging cross-generational collaboration. Susan shared her thoughts on how organizations can “leverage all leadership styles to maximize the team’s full potential.”  For me, as an ambivert, having a balance of extrovert and introvert, leaning more toward the extrovert side – it was a very eye opening discussion and truly caused me to rethink: how our function communicates, how we operate together and how our work environment is physically set up. 

As Ben Dattner, of Dattner Consulting, and author of The Blame Game—a book on how organizations can harness the strengths of their introverted employees stated,  “The fantastic success of Susan Cain’s Quiet demonstrates that she has tapped into something very important in our culture and our society at this moment in history.  Inevitably, corporations and many other kinds of organizations will realize the implications of Susan Cain’s work for their practices and cultures. Here are some very preliminary suggestions of what organizations might do to better ‘hear’ introverts who may be ‘quiet’ but still have tremendous value that they bring to the workplace each day:

– Examine ‘competency models’ and performance appraisal systems criteria to ascertain whether there is a bias towards evaluating and rewarding extroverted behaviors over introverted behaviors.

– Write comprehensive job descriptions that inform people how much interaction, networking, collaboration, and advocacy is required in positions before candidates take the jobs. This will enable introverts to self-select out of jobs that they might not thrive in. ‘Realistic job previews’ in general are very useful.

– Utilize feedback mechanisms, such as online surveys or other kinds of anonymous ‘suggestion’ boxes, wherein introverts can feel comfortable sharing feedback and suggestions that they might not feel comfortable sharing in a public forum.

– Employ ‘polling’ or similar strategies to solicit, and consider the perspectives of all members of the team or organization so everyone has a voice, even if they are reluctant to fight for attention in a public setting.

– Ask members of a team if they would like time on a meeting agenda in advance of the meeting so that more introverted team members can influence the agenda in advance without feeling like they have to be ‘the squeaky wheel’ in a meeting or to compete for airtime.

– Structure debates so that members of a team have an opportunity to argue ‘pro’ or ‘con’ of any given issue or strategy in sub teams. While an introvert may not feel comfortable soliciting support and loudly advocating a point of view, he or she might be comfortable participating in a discussion in a smaller team.

The above suggestions are meant to be a point of departure, and not a point of arrival. Corporations and other kinds of organizations, of any size and in the US and abroad, can benefit from thoughtful consideration of Susan’s book and how much it is resonates with so many people.”

I walked away from my two hours with Susan Cain with a greater appreciation for a “hidden” diversity issue within our work environments AND a more open mind toward the issues facing introverts (30-50% of your work force Susan stated) each and every day in corporate America. 

In her talk and her book, Susan argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and she explains how much we lose in doing so. She discusses the rise of the “Extrovert Ideal” throughout the last century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture.

In our session, Susan spoke about successful introverted CEOs and how they adapted to achieve success.  One of the CEOs noted was John Lilly, the former CEO of Mozilla, “…I started noticing my interactions in the hallway. I’m an engineer by background and a bit of an introvert naturally. When I walk between meetings, I think about things. A lot of times I’ll be looking down [at] my phone or looking down at the floor while I think things through. It’s sort of a natural engineer behavior, but it’s pretty off-putting if your CEO walks by you and doesn’t look up and notice you. And so I forced myself to do things that aren’t natural for me.”

So where does this lead us?  I have spent the last few weeks trying to better understand the life of an introvert (My wife and two of my three boys are introverts).   They, in addition to at least one out of three people in Corporate America prefer to avoid the limelight, they tend to listen more than they speak, I know they can often feel alone in large groups, and they (especially my wife) require private time to restore their energy. They're introverts who seem to always be adapting strategies for successfully living in an extrovert world.

As introverts, they are hardwired from birth to focus inward, so outside stimulation, idle chitchat, phone calls, parties, office meetings – all can easily become "too much."  Introverts come in different stripes. One of the most fundamental aspects of introversion, I learned, is being recharged by alone time (or sometimes one-on-one time with someone you're very close to).

Another fundamental aspect is often that your natural tendency is to want to digest information before responding back. For example, an extrovert might read a blog article and want to leave a comment straight away, whereas an introvert likely wants to go away and process – and may come back with the better answer to your challenge (which, btw, they often do).

There is nothing “wrong” with them – we (the collective non-introverts) need to recognize their inner strength: their analytical skills, their ability to think outside the box, and their strong powers of concentration. As leaders, who are inclusive, we need to better understand how to take advantage of the introvert's special qualities to create a life that's just right for the introvert temperament, to discover new ways to expand their energy reserves, and even how, when necessary, to confidently help them shine in and amongst a team of extroverts.

As leaders, this is another diversity issue on our teams.  And, as I discovered, a bigger issue than I was aware of.  To get the best from everyone and to be more inclusive, we need to understand introversion is a gift for our teams filled with extroverts.  Whether you are an introvert, extrovert or ambivert, we all need to be flexible and understanding of others.  Sometimes, this may feel like going straight against our very nature, and it contradicts everything we stand for, but as Susan stated, a “little social chameleon-ism can, in fact, bring us all greater benefits in the office”.  In order to do this, we don’t need to change who we are or betray our principles.  We just need to show different parts of our personality to different people so that we can better relate to them.

The easiest way to think about this is to engage with others about things you know they are interested in. And that is really what adaptability in action is.  Being an introvert in an extrovert-dominated world is still, by no means, easy.  Striving for a successful career in such an environment built and maintained by extroverts is even more challenging.

The good news?  Public opinions and awareness are changing.  Research reinforces that introverts generally perform better and are more reliable and creative than their extroverted counterparts.  

Read that line again. 

Research reinforces that introverts generally perform better and are more reliable and creative than their extroverted counterparts.  So… can we hear them now?

 Watch Susan Cain's Ted Talk on the Power of Introverts Here

 Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and Gannett Careers