Keep focus on success, not failure
Life as a freshly minted grandfather has reminded me of all the strange games we play with our children. We watch our granddaughter Kayley’s development with rapt attention and affection, but at the same time we constantly compare.
Parents and grandparents devise an unspoken baby decathlon where we match every developmental step from crawling to talking to the “normal” standard we find in books. Insidiously, we relate Kayley’s every accomplishment with her friends Abby and Alex and even with our own children’s developmental mileposts. Unfortunately for these toddlers, the comparison game will only get worse when they enter school and compete for grades and athletic accomplishments. I sincerely regret all the times I judged my own children based on how they ranked with other children.
We live in a culture that compares. We constantly assess ourselves against our next-door neighbor, our siblings or the person in the next cubicle. Our motto could be: “I’m not much, but I’m better than he is.” The workplace is a haven for comparisons. Employees and executives are always comparing performances and accomplishments. It’s a fact of life that will not go away no matter how much we deny or ignore it.
When I wrote a column several weeks ago about the need for humility in the workplace, a reader questioned if my argument on behalf of humility in the workplace makes any sense because “the people who trumpet their own small accomplishments seem to get all the promotions and raises.”
That letter-writer didn’t say it specifically, but he was asking an increasingly frequent question in our society: “Why do good things happen to bad people?” We look around at other people who seem to be succeeding more than we are and we judge them. Those people don’t go to church. They’re not honest. They don’t work as hard as we do. Why are all these good things happening to them? Why do they seem to catch all the breaks?
Inevitably, when things go better for others than for us we look for someone to blame. If something has gone wrong it must be somebody else’s fault. We blame our boss, our co-workers, the fates, our Creator or we blame a generic management or system.
Several years ago I dealt with a man who helps parents of disabled children navigate the complicated legal and financial issues facing such families. As we discussed his work he told me how frustrating and heartbreaking it was to deal with the unreasonable and sometimes mean-spirited demands of parents. He said, “I deal with hundreds of ANGRY families, families who are convinced somebody should pay because they’ve had a child with a disability.”
“Somebody should pay” has become the philosophy of too many people in the workplace. When things go bad, or when they simply go better for other people than they have for us, we convince ourselves somebody else is at fault and they “must pay.” Lawsuits, grievances and backbiting are often the result.
Sometimes the slights are small and really amount to “hurt feelings.” Sometimes the grievances are real and boneheaded management decisions have created a genuine lack of fairness.
Our ability to sort out the inconsequential slights from the major wrongs would be enhanced if we could stop comparing, start to celebrate other people’s success, and examine our own performance before we look for somebody to blame.
Tip for your search: Bad things are going to happen, count on it. Good things happen, too. Keep your focus on those and make sure you ask yourself why you are so darned lucky more than you ask why bad things happen.
Resource for your search: “How Good Do We Have to Be?” by Harold S. Kushner (Back Bay Books, 1997).