When You Don’t Like People in the Office
You don’t like everyone you work with. Now what?
Relationships within organizations depend on your ability to tolerate weaknesses in others.
How many:
How many of the people in your office do things that rub you the wrong way? I think I know the answer. All of them!
You’re putting up with things about every person you work with. They don’t speak up when they should. Or, they speak up too much. They put things off. Or, they bowl you over in their rush to get things done.
I bet you’re putting up with almost everyone.
On second thought:
The more I think about how I tolerate others, the more I realized I judge people by myself.
When you behave the way I think you should behave, I think you’re awesome! Tolerance is irrelevant when you do the “right” thing. And, the “right” thing is the thing I would do. When you fall short, I tolerate you.
Those you don’t tolerate, you don’t like.
Surprise:
They tolerate you the same way you tolerate them.
This whole line of thought makes me uncomfortable. First, it makes me feel arrogant. Second, I’m trying to figure out when I should be intolerant.
Excellence includes intolerance.
Those who pursue excellence don’t tolerate mediocrity.
Don’t tolerate:
- Behaviors that clearly hinder team efficiency or effectiveness.
- Behaviors that conflict or contradict organizational values.
- Behaviors that are unethical or illegal.
Tolerate:
- Weaknesses that correspond to strengths. People who are great with details don’t like to be rushed, for example.
- Different viewpoints.
- Decisions that aren’t perfect, but work.
Relationships end when you stop tolerating weaknesses. But, success requires intolerance. Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell’s Soup, comes to mind. Doug says,
“Be tender with people and tough with standards.”
Read Doug’s book: “Touch Points”
How do you determine what or who to tolerate?
When is intolerance appropriate?
Great post and questions Dan!
Interesting choice of words and the topic seems to align with my current acceptance series I’m writing about!
First on words. As I’ve been exploring acceptance more in depth over the past month, I’ve been learning that there IS a difference between acceptance and tolerance. We can ‘tolerate’ people without actually accepting them. Basically, we may ‘put up’ with people or things we don’t like, and this has nothing to do with ‘acceptance’.
I would say the reasons WHY we are merely ‘tolerating’ something or someone is key. We have to know/understand our own ‘why’ first before we can gain any wisdom in knowing the difference and what to do about it.
Example: I might discover someone rubs me the wrong way because I’m being prejudiced. Or they live a more ‘free’ lifestyle then I give myself permission to live. Or maybe their extroverted behavior puts the introverted part of myself in ‘sensory overload’. Or the quiet introvert may irritate me because I’m confusing it with weakness, shyness, or dishonesty!
We have to be able to discern between our own ‘faults’ in judgment and who people really are.
Secondly, values and ethics are a whole other matter.
Murder is almost universally ‘wrong’. Although every nation on the planet will justify it in times of war. But let’s simplify for this to the general population. Hopefully no one at the office is on the verge of murdering anyone, so I”m assuming these are relatively minor things. Although they might not be! People in the office could be stealing office supplies. Lying about their co-workers or bosses. Harassing people in the office,etc.
This one has to do with boundaries. And while ALL of us have varying levels of comfort and discomfort within boundaries, this is where we start to take action when it comes to what we will and won’t tolerate with one another.
If a persons actions cause harm to another person, this is when it’s time for conflict resolution. It needs to be dealt with. Lying, stealing, intentionally hurting others etc. When OUR so called freedoms impede the freedom and safety of anyone else, we’ve crossed the line. Freedom is not the freedom to hurt other people. With our words nor our behaviors.
Now when it is LESS black and white as murder, lying, stealing…this is where we have to ‘tolerate’ each individual’s ‘diversity’ in comfort levels. With some people, we may not KNOW their own preferences or comfort levels right off the bat. So we have to learn to ADJUST once we discover someone’s boundary preferences.
And this can be rough all the way around if you haven’t been ‘enforcing ‘ it before. Then boom! Suddenly you do and it’s a shock on everyone. Can also be confusing.
I believe I basically answered both questions in some manner. : )
Thanks Samantha. I appreciate your comment. In particular the distinction between acceptance and tolerance is helpful to me. I definitely wrote about tolerance today.
I think acceptance makes tolerance easier and, at least in some cases, unnecessary.
I was thinking that acceptance makes tolerance unnecessary. But, that’s not true in my experience. The people in my inner circle, the ones I know best, I accept. There are still things that I tolerate about them. And they tolerate things about me. We actually joke about these things.
Hi Dan,
Because I coach others to become the leader they want to be, rather than who they think they should be, I let authenticity guide my tolerance levels.
I have discovered the more people lead from who they really are, the more tolerant people are towards them.
This also makes a conversation about what you tolerate and what you don’t possible.
When you are able to communicate your preferences, your leadership point of view, your hopes, dreams and expectations directly and easily, tolerance on both sides expands exponentially.
Cindy
Thanks Cindy. I find your comment very helpful. Being authentic enables us to speak our preferences with calmness. I also find that the more embrace my own identity, the better able I am to accept others.
This has nothing to do with performance. One of the tough areas of leadership is accepting the person while correcting performance issues. I think they go hand in hand.
…ok, seriously do you have some sort of spy camera where I work? It’s freaky how spot on each and every week you are.
Thanks Kelvin… 🙂 .. have a great week
Thanks for the help in differentiating when to be tolerant and when not to be. I think you helped clear up how to be intolerant and intolerant as well. This was a big help. Oddly I think more about how people are viewing me, though. When you introduce stress into the system I imagine that the fluctuation in behaviour is more spiked. How do you correlate stress and tolerance/intolerance? Or jobs that require high levels of skill?
Thanks Jared. It seems like stress makes everything more difficult if we haven’t learned how to deal with it. Perhaps having too much tolerance or intolerance makes stress worse.
Personally, I lean toward compassion. When stress goes up, give people a little more space. What do you think?
That is a very valuable insight – too much (in)tolerance can lead to more stress. Thanks! Maybe you can tailor a post to the relationship between compassion and tolerance….
Man you nailed this one, I have to accept everyone because we have to work together for a successful organization, in regards to tolerance sometimes I have to reach deep inside and ask myself what do they see that I do not? Sometimes I have tunnel vision and loose the real picture, because I did not have the experience of a particular task being performed by by those I do not tolerate, but I except them for who they are as a Professional. The journey we all get to travel in life is sometimes muddied because we micro manage to much as Leaders, we should sit back and watch the flow to the end result! Perhaps the experience in the end far out weighs the non tolerant and tolerant viewpoints and comes with acceptance of these individuals as a whole picture.
Thanks Tim. Love the idea of stepping back or raising our head above the weeds. That should really help us with tolerance and it may help us see things we should stop tolerating as well. In either case, it may help us develop humility.
I’m curious: How many of you have found merit in tolerating things about others at least one or two notches above what you want them to tolerate about you? The ages old advice to consider the log in our own eye before finding fault with the speck in another’s eye?