Generalizing is a simple trap; don’t go there

Simplistic, overgeneralized arguments are one of the most destructive things we can find in the workplace. You’ve heard a lot of them:

“The boss always does that to people.”

“These employees just want to make trouble for their managers.”

“Nobody around here cares.”

More and more, our society and our workplaces settle on broad, impossible-to-prove general accusations, and it’s leading to a polarized society. A popular, current simplistic argument is “personal responsibility versus entitlement.” Conservatives insist liberals want to coddle people at the cost of personal responsibility, and liberals try to paint conservatives as mean-spirited and selfish.

Last week, a conservative approached me after a talk and said, “You sound like a Republican when you talk about personal responsibility.” I resented the implication that talking about personal responsibility paints me with one political stripe or another. Neither Republicans nor Democrats own personal responsibility or social concern.

Management and workers fall into this same trap. When workers insist on fair treatment and seek better benefits, top executives often play the entitlement card. They charge that employees think they are “entitled” to pensions and cheap health care. They complain the employees don’t want to take personal responsibility for their lives.

Workers retort that the managers are obsessed with their own personal wealth and care little about the social responsibilities of business and the company’s obligation to workers.

I cringe when I hear people imply that business must either force personal responsibility on people or else they are buying into an entitlement culture.

Personal responsibility has been a constant theme of this column. In November 2002, I wrote, “From CEOs to insurance adjustors, if we’re going to find meaning and purpose in our work, if we’re going to find the transcendent in our everyday lives, we must take personal responsibility for our mood, our attitude and for the persona we project. If we run a billion-dollar company into the ground or if we bump our car door into the next car, we have to own that responsibility.”

But I have also applauded social responsibility found in companies, big and small. It is essential that business focuses on its responsibility to serve customers, employees and society at large.

We do ourselves a profound disservice in society, and in the workplace, if we reduce personal responsibility and social concern to an either/or proposition. Our attempts to create a world committed to creating a common good does not have to mean that personal responsibility is abandoned.

Everyone at every level of our workplace, our society and government must be held accountable for words and deeds. We must not sacrifice standards of morality, and we must not fall prey to the “victim culture.” We also must appreciate that creating a more equal playing field for everybody is also a necessity.

We must continue to impress upon employees and citizens the importance of personal responsibility — that also includes a responsibility to create a sense of social responsibility for everyone we encounter in our workplace and in our society

We need to change the pejorative “personal responsibility versus entitlement” to a more constructive call for personal responsibility AND social responsibility.

Tip for your search: For one week, keep careful track of all the things you and your co-workers say that stop conversations and put people on the defensive. Often the statements have words like “all” or “every.” “All orange people do this.” “Every person in the department is that.” They are usually loaded with uninformed opinion and they often put the listener down. Once you have listed all the stoppers you’ve heard or uttered in a week, then take personal responsibility for your own conversation blockers and stop using them.

Resource for your search: “Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose” by Brian J. Mahan (Josey-Bass 2002)