People-problems are one of the biggest reasons workers hate their jobs. So, how can we get along better at work?
The answer is, by seeing how people see.
Let’s illustrate with a story…
It’s a typical workday at StickRite Label Company. Nick’s boss comes to his cubicle and quietly breaks the bad news: Nick didn’t get the promotion.
The workers around Nick – Rhonda, Jaime, Barbara, Natalie, and Nassim – overhear the conversation. And they all feel different about it. Rhonda is pleased. Jaime is sad. Barbara is afraid. Natalie is angry. And Nassim feels nothing at all.
How can five workers, in the exact same situation, hearing the exact same information, have five completely different emotions and motivations?
Because of the different ways they saw the situation. Not in the sense of physical sight, but in the sense of characterizing and interpreting. Each worker “saw” the situation from a unique point of view, and the emotions and motivations grew from the way they “saw”:
- Rhonda felt pleased because she saw herself as a better candidate for promotion than Nick.
- Jaime felt sad because he saw Nick as his close friend.
- Barbara felt afraid because she saw herself as low on the totem-pole and likely to get laid off.
- Natalie felt angry because she saw the boss as unfair.
- Nassim felt nothing because, as a visiting auditor, he saw the workers as strangers.
Five different emotions and motivations all came from five different ways of seeing. When we “See” things a particular way, we then “Feel” a particular way and “Act” a particular way. “See” grows into “Feel” which grows into “Act.” This is the See-Feel-Act progression I’ve been discussing in several recent blogs.
The root of our emotions, motivations, and behaviors is the way we “See.” And this is the root of most of our conflict as well. When we work to see how each other sees, we automatically understand how they feel and why they act. Seeing how others see is the first step to resolving conflict.