On Sunday, my mother would go to church. Sometimes she’d insist that I accompany her; but some Sundays, I’d get to stay home with my dad. We’d pour bowls of cereal, he would use a large mixing bowl and I would use one of my plastic bowls with pink flowers, and we’d sit in-front of our large, floor-model television to watch cartoons. I don’t know if he was acting; but watching cartoons with my father was better than watching them with any other adult because he seemed to enjoy them as much as I did. Watching cartoons wasn’t something that he allowed me to do – like my mother and grandmother – but something that we did together.
Our favorite cartoon was Scooby’s All-Star Laff-a-Lympics, where three teams: The Really Rottens, the Scooby Doobies, and the Yogi Yahooeys would compete each week in various contests to win the Olympics. I’d waffle back-and-forth between excitedly rooting for either the Scooby Doobies or the Yogi Yahooeys; but my father, would always rambunctiously root for the Really Rottens. He’d jump out of his gold velvet lounge chair, raise his arms and his voice, and exuberantly cheer on his team.
I was appalled! My 8-year-old understanding of the world was that there were “good guys” and “bad guys” or rather heroes and villains; and everyone wanted the good guys to win (everyone but my father). I’d argue with him: get close to the television so I could show him how the Really Rotten contestants blatantly cheated and were mean to the other contestants.
My 8-year-old brain, like most children’s brains found a sense of safety in the idea of there being bad people and good people; and that it was easy to distinguish between the two. In fact, I don’t think any of us ever completely outgrows the ideology that there are bad people and good people; that we will be able to tell the difference between the two; that all we need to do in life to be happy and successful is to avoid the bad people; and that the good people always win. From fairytales to romantic comedies; superhero movies to war movies; this is a consistent and comforting theme.
And then our greatest teacher – life – reveals and reminds us of the truth: people are extremely complex. Most of us are good people who sometimes make bad decisions, horrible mistakes, and say inappropriate things. We ask for grace when we mess up. We explain the circumstances that led to our poor judgement. We don’t conclude or expect anyone else to conclude that we are horrible people.
Yet, we oftentimes aren’t empathetic to others when they upset us. During those times, many of us fall into our old, programmed way of thinking: there are bad people and good people and this person just showed that they are bad. Consequently, the relationship oftentimes becomes strained, or even broken – affecting your, the person’s and the team’s productivity and happiness. Every year, companies lose millions of hours of lost productivity because of workplace conflict; and hundreds of millions of dollars due to people leaving because of unresolved workplace conflict.
Company culture, productivity and profits; and employees’ output, happiness, and feelings of inclusion benefit when people embrace the act of forgiveness. What if John said something that offended you, not because he’s bigoted but because he is uninformed? What if your boss passed you over for a promotion multiple times not because he doesn’t respect women but because he assumed that you wouldn’t be interested because your male colleagues had expressed an interest in the role, and you hadn’t? Those issues can be surfaced when you allow yourself to be open to forgiveness and to having purposeful conversations. Even if a there isn’t a plausible excuse for someone’s poor behavior, there is power in forgiving them – in seeing that a bad decision or poor behavior doesn’t necessarily equate with someone being a bad person.
Relationships at work are as any other relationships: they take work. And, being open to forgiving people is critical for maintaining these relationships, as people are most surely going to make mistakes (as you will). Forgiveness allows for all parties to learn from situations, to move on, to have more meaningful dialogue and improved work relationships.
As I’ve gotten older and become a parent myself, I realize that my father cheered on the Really Rottens to make watching the competition more fun for us. Little did he know that he helped me to understand that quite possibly even the Really Rottens weren’t all bad. Perhaps they were just a bit overly ambitious; hadn’t been taught the rules of fair play; and had I at least been open to considering their perspective, I too, would have rooted for them too.