E-couragement: Different vs. Similar

“When you judge another you do not define them, you define yourself.” Wayne Dyer Scott is unshaven, cool, and articulate. He’s originally from Perth, Australia and moved to Munich, Germany a year ago to be with his girlfriend. On this overcast day, Scott was our tour guide at the former Nazi Concentration Camp, Dachau. He was a journalist before putting a lifelong interest in history to work as an instructor at this grim and significant memorial. His presentation was the appropriate balance of historical facts and personal insight. Scott said something particularly intriguing—a concept that’s at the root of cultural hate and corporate disengagement.

Scott stated that the Dachau guards intentionally created a disconnect between their captives and themselves by focusing on differences. They’d highlight a disparity in gender, religion, nationality, language, or lifestyle as a means to justify their inhumane actions and sooth their conscience. Ultimately, inmates were viewed as mere numbers or things, not actual human beings.

There’s a similar, yet unintentional, phenomena occurring in today’s workplace. Increased workloads cause a lack of meaningful human connection. Coworkers know about one another without really knowing each other. With little time available to discover the many similarities between peers, they’re left to focus on the few differences that separate them. The result is disconnected, isolated people, rather than engaged individuals and cohesive teams. The solution is to make workplace connection a greater priority. 

In reality, we’re all more similar than different. Yet it takes both time and skill to uncover the innumerable commonalities that connect us. Here’s what we know to be true, organizations which encourage relationship building, understanding, and trust, outperform their competition in areas such as employee retention, customer service scores, productivity, and profitability. As an engaging leader, it’s time to foster a culture where employees can shift their focus from differences that separate them to the similarities that unite them.

Leave your comments: In what ways are people building meaningful work relationships within your organization?