Respect old people. They graduated high school without Google or Wikipedia.
Anonymous
Last year, your daughter’s elementary school teacher was awesome, and your daughter was motivated to learn. This year, you wonder how this teacher got her credentials, and your daughter is bored and falling behind. You’ve tried to reason with the teacher, but she just doesn’t seem to hear you. You’re upset, but you’re also stuck. You can’t change teachers. What should you do? You know there’s a tough conversation coming—with her? With the principal? With your daughter?
How can we respect someone who doesn’t deserve it?
That’s a tough question but an important one. Respect is the lubricant of any relationship. When it’s present, everything else runs smoother. When it’s absent, everything else is rougher.
Respect isn’t just for what someone does; it’s about who they are. When someone has high character and donates a million dollars to an orphanage, we respect them. But if a person of low character does the same thing, we’re happy for the orphanage—but we don’t respect the person.
So what is respect? How do we get it, and how do we keep it? And how do we develop respect for others, especially in the midst of tough conversations?
The Case for Respect
I once heard someone describe respect as “showing appreciation for the worth of someone.” That’s an interesting perspective, because it focuses on the innate value of others, not their performance. It says, “You have value simply because you’re you.” So if you perform well, you have value. If you mess up, you have value. You have innate value simply because you exist on the planet.
I’m always amazed at how much disrespect people can have for others because of their beliefs, even if they don’t know the person. When someone disagrees with them, they can almost develop a hatred for that person.
Yesterday, I drove by our local post office. On the street corner, a tall woman stood near a small table surrounded by handmade signs and pictures of the president of the United States. She had drawn a small moustache on him to identify him with Adolf Hitler and written slogans that expressed her anger at what she perceived he was doing to our country. Apparently, her anger had been building up to the point that she simply had to take it public. I wondered how someone could develop such hatred for someone she had probably never met.
I didn’t stop to talk with her, primarily because I wasn’t interested in a lengthy discussion about politics. Her signs were filled with venom. She was obviously on a mission to convince everyone she could how evil the president was and to turn people against him. In those kinds of situations, arguing is pointless.
On a lesser scale, we see the same thing in sporting events. People begin to heckle the opposing fans. Add a few drinks, and they become vicious. They don’t know the other fans, but they have developed anger toward them because they’re cheering for the opponent. How can people feel this way toward others when they don’t even know them? They dehumanize them. They don’t see them as real people; they simply see them as the enemy.
We might experience the same thing when we’re driving. Someone cuts us off or makes a crazy lane change without signaling, and we form an opinion of their character. Since we don’t know who they are, we usually see them as a combination of all the worst people we know.
But what about someone we know, like a spouse, family member, or boss? It’s much harder to disrespect someone we’re close to. We have to separate ourselves emotionally from them in order to treat them with contempt. In a sense, we dehumanize them. We can justify our anger if the other person has no value in our eyes.
Hug a Server Today
I spend a lot of time in hotel meeting rooms. As I’m getting ready for a session, service personnel are setting up tables and equipment, arranging food, and tidying up the room. During breaks, they swoop in and clear dirty dishes, remove trash from tables, and reset the room for the next segment. They work quietly but proficiently. Their job is to make the experience as positive as possible for participants so nothing gets in the way of the focus of the day.
Those people are invisible. At the end of the day, I could ask anyone in my seminar to describe one of these workers, and I probably wouldn’t find anyone who could do it. They’ll go home and talk about all the interesting people they met. But they can’t remember even seeing one of the serving staff, much less interacting with them.
That’s unfortunate, because they miss some great opportunities. These servers are generally proud of the work they do, and they want to make a good experience for everyone. They’re not looking to be in the limelight; they’re content to be in the shadows, working with excellence. I’ve heard some fascinating stories when I’ve taken the time to interact with them.
The same thing is true in a restaurant. Overlooking the servers might not be as obvious, because they’re paid to interact with customers. Some customers see them as real people and interact with them as such. Others see them as hired servants, paid to wait on them and do what they ask. If there’s a problem with the service, they berate the server and write a scathing review on social media review sites.
How can they treat servers with such disrespect? By dehumanizing them—seeing them as invisible instead of as real people.
We don’t respect things; we respect people. When we stop respecting people, we turn them into things.
Respect is one of the foundations of effective relationships and strong communication—and it’s essential for handling tough conversations. Respect challenges us in at least two ways:
We have a tendency to base our self-worth on the opinions of other people. If they like us, we feel good about ourselves. If they don’t like us, we doubt ourselves. When we do that, we give away the ownership of our lives to other people. We’re dependent on them for our value. We become like a boat with no engine, drifting wherever the current takes us.
Answer these questions to see if you’ve given that control away to others:
If you answered yes to most of these questions, it’s probably time to take back the control of your life.
Respecting ourselves means we set healthy boundaries. We don’t automatically comply with the wishes of other people; we choose what we do instead of letting others decide. We stand up for what we believe. We learn how to say no.
We need to pay attention to what we say to ourselves about ourselves. When we catch negative self-talk happening, we need to corral those thoughts and ask ourselves if they’re accurate. If they’re not, we need to let them go and replace them with truth.
Developing Respect for Others
When conversations get tough, we often respond by digging in our heels and fighting for our position, hoping to convince the other person they’re wrong. These kinds of conversations tend to escalate, because we’re focused on ourselves and what we want. Respect for each other goes out the window, because we each think the other person is the problem.
If we can learn to maintain respect for the other person in the midst of conflict, we have an opportunity for realistic, healthy dialogue. That’s hard when we’re upset. Respect is a choice we can make, even in the middle of strong emotion.
How can we choose respect? We begin by making sure we don’t dehumanize the other person. We see them as they really are, a flawed individual who makes good choices and bad choices. In other words, they’re just like us.
The more important the relationship is, the more important it is to keep respect in our conversations. For the purpose of the tough conversation, we’re both on the same team trying to reach a common goal. Respect allows us to attack the problem instead of each other.
When Respect Is Nonexistent
This book is about tough conversations. We’re talking about relationships that are important to us, where it’s worth the effort and the risk to communicate effectively.
Sometimes the relationship has become toxic. Respect is nonexistent, and people in toxic relationships see each other as less than human—which allows them to become vicious with each other.
Communication problems at this level are beyond the scope of this book because there are deeper issues. Solving them is not a matter of learning better conversational skills; there is a relational issue. In those situations, we need professional help. We are often reluctant to see a therapist or counselor, feeling that it means we’ve failed. Our pride makes us want to be able to fix everything ourselves.
When things need fixing around our house, my wife and I usually do the work ourselves. Sometimes we know what we’re doing. Other times we’re in over our heads, so we go to our local home repair store and ask for advice.
When something goes wrong that involves the electrical system, I call a professional. I know it’s dangerous to do the work myself. Asking for help doesn’t make me feel like a failure. I’m more concerned with staying alive.
I wouldn’t attempt to do my own brain surgery to save money. I’d want to have the best brain surgeon in the business. That doesn’t mean I’m weak; it means the problem is bigger than my skills. When a relationship has become toxic, a gifted counselor, psychologist, or therapist can move us toward healing in ways we can’t accomplish on our own.
The bottom line is that respect is crucial in any relationship that’s important to us. Without it, the relationship crumbles over time. When it’s present, it provides a foundation to build on. It helps us work as a team to attack the issue rather than attacking each other. Respect reminds us of what’s really most important: the relationship.
Practical Steps for Maintaining Respect
How do we show respect for a person when we’re upset with them?