My eyes smarted and a deep anger rose up in me that I couldn’t totally understand. “We can’t do that! That’s not the point!” I blurted out in frustration.
My coworker just stood there looking at me, visibly clenching his jaw shut. Instead of further discussing it, we took a break rather than pointlessly arguing. And the longer I worked on another project, the more it came back to me and the truth became evident. My coworker wasn’t crazy or mean or making bad decisions. He was fighting a different battle. Our goals and our end points were completely different, and if we didn’t discuss it, we were going to ruin not only this project but also our relationship.
We were going to have to discuss something that was hidden in between the lines of project goals and budget restraints. We were going to have to discuss our own world views and how they were shaping our work.
I have grown up in a society that insists faith and work are and should remain separate. However, on multiple occasions I have come to realize you literally cannot separate the daily work you do from the things you believe. Whether you follow a particular religious view or are an atheist, you have a particular way of thinking about the world at large- the way it came to be, our point on earth, and our major objectives- thus shaping the finite decisions you make and ways you solve problems in your daily life. Those same views also determine the decisions you make at your career, though we usually don’t see it like that.
A friend of mine in med school actually pointed this out to me- explaining that she didn’t go to class because of all the underlying topics they discussed in between the lines of the lecture notes. I started to listen and realized you could tell each lecturers value system based on their word choice, tangents, and conclusions for where improvement would come from. We all live, breathe, and work based on the way we view the world.
So when we’re working with someone who obviously has different goals, even like in my intro, where we had similar faith backgrounds, what do you do? There are three options:
1) Resist. The quickest response when something important is questioned is to get angry and fight back. Most of the time, we don’t fight with intent to understand each other- we fight to win. We tear the other person’s goals down as wrong or flawed, when honestly, they are simply different. This creates problems in our workplaces that usually compound significantly over time.
2) Retreat. This is common. Without realizing where our differences come from, we simply walk away, assuming it will work itself out in time. But honestly, we all know deep inside time does not heal all wounds. Far too often, this becomes a sore that festers and rears its head again later in various other ways. In order to effectively work with someone, we have to learn how to address something no one talks about.
3) Redeem. This should be our goal. Let your emotional response simmer and fight the urge to run. Take your conclusions and your coworkers goals to their endpoints and figure out what you are both truly fighting for. In the example above, I was fighting for suppliers and my coworker was fighting for consumers. And the right answer? Obviously, we needed to address and assist both. And in order to do so, we had to work together to make a reasonable plan.
Sometimes you’ll need to compromise, and sometimes reset goals. But you can’t do either without addressing the secrets you hid in between the lines of your spoken objectives. Want to learn how to better think this through? Check out my book here.
What about for you? How have you seen your unspoken intentions affect your work?