A people watcher is a collector of observed behaviors. When I was a child, I remember watching my parents and wanting to say and do everything I observed. How quickly we forget. Fast forward to a quick road trip lunch stop at a nasty McDonalds in Maryland where now I am the daddy that is being observed by a toddler sitting in the restaurant-supplied high chair. Imagine my surprise when I heard that cherubic little voice say, “Goddamn flies!†Remembering that the repeated utterance had only minutes before left my lips without being filtered, it was both amusing and shocking at the same time to hear this potty-mouthed little girl say it so that everybody else heard her.
Several years ago at the conclusion of a successful college recruiting drive, I was given several back-pats and congrats from the bosses for the brilliant new software engineers we brought into the company. Unfortunately, I felt our success was evaporating because of one man who was gradually becoming known as a total jerk. When I started hearing the word “insubordination†being thrown around, I took him aside and asked him what was going on. He was quick to say that his father taught him to always question authority if he wanted to be a success. It was if he had arrived from another planet with a prime directive to act this way even when it was illogical to do so. He watched his father become a success by grappling with incompetent management and making his mark as a rising star. His son now saw everyone he met as incompetent and nobody went unchallenged.
Are there rules for raising questions about practices and ideas? The rulebook for the debate team doesn’t apply here. If there is a disagreement, some kind of compromise can usually be carved out to resolve the situation. Every case is different, but we do have some instinctive concepts that can guide our thinking.
- Don’t accept everything at face value. This does not mean that we must have a cynical approach at life, but we live in an age when the ability to communicate almost instantly often sends the wrong message. It is acceptable to advertise products by pointing out the good stuff and forgetting to mention the bad. Even when we think we have heard the end of a story or argument, it must survive the test of the passage of time in order to know for sure.
- Value the opinions of others and make your challenges with respect. This seems to be a golden rule-ish kind of sentiment, but it is not about being nice so that others will be nice to you. Communicating effectively means that if you fail to listen there is a high probability that you will not be heard. If the purpose of the dialog is to fix a problem rather than indiscriminately challenge everything, then listening is mandatory for solutions to happen.
- Have some idea of an alternative rather than simply questioning a decision or concept. Challenging ideas and decisions for no particular reason other than to be controversial is never productive. The first question is internal; to determine our motivation for the question. If it is to expand on an idea we must give them our idea. If it is about ego or personal one-upmanship it will be difficult to hide that true motivation from others and we ultimately lose.
- Give the benefit of the doubt to someone else’s intentions. We are too quick to call someone a racist or sexist because of some innocuous statement taken out of context. There are enough true racists and sexists in the world that are legitimate targets for crusaders that we really don’t have a need to pick on everybody else. Never accept that everyone is operating from a neutral point of view, but punish only the guilty and allow diversity of thought to guide our actions.
Sometimes we create monsters without really trying. Learning that happens by observation and practice makes a more direct impact on our brain than simply visual or aural stimulation. We know intuitively that formal education is not as good as practical experience for accomplishing specific tasks. On-the-job training when accompanied by mentor reinforcement formulates one of the strongest designs for orienting new employees to a culture. They not only learn the “how’ but also the “why.” Take notice that OJT happens even when we don’t plan for it, so the downside is that unquestioned performance of an action may send the wrong example. So always question everything… sometimes.
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