避免争论，找寻真相
办公室里会出现一些争论，谁也不能说服对方。其实这些争论往往源于我们对争论问题缺乏真正的了解，而是由自己的主观臆断而导致的
所谓“子非鱼”。如果我们不了解一件事情，做好不要进入争论，而是努力找到事情的真相。
Chapter 3: Don't Fight— Find Out!OverviewSometimes office fights—much like fights anywhere—can start with deeply held opinions about how things are or should be. The trigger doesn't even have to be something as big as politics. A battle can erupt over ordinary views about what happens every day. As people express their views, they can end up in warring camps, each thinking the other is myopic, even crass, ignorant, and biased. Not surprisingly, workplace relationships can deteriorate from there—interfering with work and productivity. Yet, ironically, such passionately held views are often based on wrong assumptions, premises, and beliefs, so people may not be that far apart after all once these errors are revealed. In fact, sometimes the falling out is due to a communication problem rather than genuine disagreement.
That's what happened in one office lunch room when Sonia described a new product she had heard about—self-stick note pads preprinted with English and Spanish lines of copy about how to clean a house. This way an employer who didn't speak Spanish could post the instructions on a wall or on the refrigerator to tell a non-English-speaking Hispanic employee what to do when he or she came to clean. There were translations for phrases like "Scrub the toilet," "Wash the floors," and "Clean the carpets."
As Sonia described the product, she spoke in increasingly heated, offended tones. "It's racist and offensive," she exclaimed, and pointed out how the product supported the worst stereotypes of "dumb and stupid Mexicans." She continued on, deriding the arrogance of the rich employers who would buy such a product because they don't want to talk to their help. Worse, they probably exploited and underpaid their employees, considering them just lowly servants. Now this product served to demean their employees even more. Soon several other employees discussing the topic in the lunchroom agreed. This was definitely a repulsive, insulting, humiliating product—and another example of how the upper socioeconomic class further put down the servant, lower class in America.
At this point, another employee, Harriet, spoke up and said she thought the product would be helpful and not demeaning at all. She thought the self-stick notes would help an employer explain what he or she wanted, and she described how she had her own team of house- keepers, who were led by a woman who spoke English and came with one or two women from Mexico who spoke only Spanish. "If the owner can't come, I think this would be a great way to communicate with these other women," Harriet said. Then, another employee, Jack, came to her support, saying that he liked the idea too, since he hired household help and would never get his place clean if he didn't hire them. Another woman added that she didn't think it was demeaning to have someone clean a house. "It's like hiring any service, like bringing in someone to fix my computer when it breaks down."
The argument went on, one side stressing the practicality of the product and viewing the others as misguided protectors, and the other side accusing those who liked the product of being myopic, biased, and part of the problem. Over the next week, relationships at work were very strained as a result of the dispute.
The irony of this story is that not one of these employees was Hispanic; they had no idea how people who were Hispanic, worked as house-keepers, and were given self-stick instructions might feel. Instead, the employees each built up their own side of the argument based on their premises and assumptions about other people's feelings and intentions—in this case, how the housekeepers would feel and how their employers regarded their housekeepers.
What Should Sonia Have Done?Here are some possibilities. In Sonia's place, what would you do and why? What do you think the outcomes of these different options would be?
· Sonia was right in expressing her views. Even if the Mexican employees didn't think they were being stereotyped and demeaned, they were.
· Sonia should have found out what the employees who she thought were being demeaned really thought before making her claims; she could have talked to a few employees to find out.
· Sonia should have raised the issue in a neutral way to draw out everyone's opinions before coming to her own conclusions or expressing her opinions so forcefully.
· Sonia shouldn't have raised such a controversial and potentially divisive issue in the workplace in the first place, since it threatens employee relationships and morale.
· Other?
The point of this story is not to say who is right or wrong, but to show how mistaken we can be when we make assumptions about what people think and feel. Such assumptions can be especially dangerous in a multicultural environment, where people come from many different perspectives. Thus, rather than imagining how people might react to some situation, it is better to ask and find out.
That's what Harriet did a few weeks later, when her Russian house-keeper, Elva, who was married to a man from El Salvador, arrived with two Spanish-speaking women to clean her house. Harriet described the debate at work to Elva, who said she didn't find the notes offensive. Then, Elva translated Harriet's question into Spanish and asked her employees, who responded in Spanish, and Elva translated their answers for Harriet. "No, they say they wouldn't think it's insulting at all if an employer left them these notes. They say it would be helpful. They would like to know what their employer wants them to do."
Harriet had her answer. She found out for sure rather than continuing to rely on her assumptions of what her housekeepers might think and feel. So now she knew should this subject come up again at work— although in this case, she decided not to bring up the subject herself, since people had stopped talking about the topic and relationships had improved. She didn't want to risk disrupting the relationships again, though she was ready to give her informed opinion if someone else brought up the topic.
Likewise, if you're in a situation in which people have developed opinions about what others think and believe, ask yourself whether they really know what they are talking about, or whether you do yourself. Or is the debate and disagreement fueled by untested premises, assumptions, and beliefs about the facts? If so, don't keep holding on to your own unsupported opinion. Instead, find out what the facts really are. This way, your opinion, whatever it is, will be based on what you know. Then, too, when everyone has the true facts, often the source of disagreement can wither away. In fact, sometimes everyone may turn out to share similar opinions, once they see the true picture.
Today's Take-Aways:· If you're fighting about the facts, sometimes that's because you and others don't know what the facts really are.
· Don't just imagine or assume what the facts must be; find out when you don't know or aren't sure.
· Sometimes firmly held opinions are inversely related to what people really know; if so, seek to reverse the equation by providing them with the facts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he-feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.
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