More Than Work: Assumptions can build walls between co-workers

Tim McGuire is a past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and former editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He writes about workplace issues.

For years as editor of a newspaper I received some angry, ugly e-mails.

I could easily spot the writers who wanted to engage in genuine dialogue, but answering the hateful e-mails was counter-productive. Often they were trying to bait me into saying or doing something foolish. Too often I accommodated them, and I always regretted it.

So the easiest route was to ignore the e-mails, which were either incredibly doctrinaire or personally hateful.

One of the doctrinaire e-mailers wrote often. I cringed whenever I saw his address. He was always reasonably polite, but I judged him hopelessly dogmatic. He hammered the same points so much he became a caricature in my mind. I could not take him seriously.

A few weeks ago that man responded to one of my columns. I grimaced and, to be honest, I came very close to deleting he e-mail without reading it.

But to my surprise, the e-mail was one of the most rewarding I've ever read. He was responding to a column about purpose and he shared a dramatic personal story about his own discovery of new purpose in his life. That story completely changed my view of the man.

We will never agree politically, but we now have a serious emotional bond. He showed vulnerability, he shared a deeply personal story, and he is doing the right thing. I will forever respect him.

I'm sure there are people in your workplace you dislike intensely. If not, my sincere congratulations. The rest of us jump to conclusions, assume the worst and are convinced that half the office is trying to make us look bad.

I can't count the number of times I assumed the worst about people only to be profoundly embarrassed when I found out they were actually trying to help me. The way we sometimes add 2 and 2 and get 17, it's not surprising scandal constantly plagues American business.

A few weeks ago I got another e-mail from a reader who disagreed with one of my columns, but like so many of us she could not stop at disagreement. She felt compelled to make some nasty assumptions about me. She said, "Those of you fortunate ones who have never suffered from bad fortune are too often quick to label others from the point of your superior position of success."

The letter writer was taken aback when I responded politely, but firmly, that while I have been incredibly blessed, I do have a congenital birth defect that required 13 operations before I was 16 and I have a Down syndrome son. I suggested that by some standards that was "bad fortune."

Bad assumptions, meanness, self-interest and hostility are costing American companies millions of dollars and costing employees their health. Stress takes a terrible toll on American workers and we inflict stress on others by our behavior.

You won't be the first to accuse me of dating both Polly and Anna, but I believe the root cause of employee discord and the acute lack of civility in the workplace is that we fail to share our real selves with fellow workers.

Certainly, we can become a pain in the neck if we unload all our troubles on our co-workers, but it is so much more difficult to dislike a genuine, giving person than it is to dislike a person so intent on protecting their interior selves that they seem invulnerable.

When the dogmatic e-mailer revealed whom he really is as a human being, my entire attitude toward him changed. When the woman who thought I was a child of fortune learned my real story, her tone changed dramatically. We had a good give and take about her real problem with my column.

As long as we keep fellow workers at arm's length and don't appreciate their joys, triumphs, sorrows and trials, we will likely treat them like caricatures.

When we share our stories we create a bridge to better understanding, a bridge to more charitable behavior and a bridge to a more accommodating workplace.

Tip for your search

Your stories are intimate, anecdotal and specific recollections of the key shaping events in your life. Your stories will reveal who you are and why you are.

Think first about the most memorable stories of your childhood and youth. Explore those stories for their detail. How did you feel? How did others feel?

Secondly, think chronologically. Go year by year in your life and see what stories that produces. That may allow you to discover something about sixth grade that you had forgotten. Mix all this and then share freely.