Moving Words – Respect

Timothy Brady

“There is no Respect for others without humility in one’s self.” – Henri Frederic Amiel

In these difficult and challenging times, one value that’s at risk is respect for others.

I was having a conversation with a high school English teacher about some of the challenges she’s experiencing in this year of the pandemic: the trials she and her students are facing with mandatory masks, social distancing, quarantining and personal hygiene required to keep her and her students healthy and able to learn. These added stresses to the normal pressures of teaching, along with the burdens the students are dealing with: assignments, exams and day-to-day peer pressures of being a teenager could be overwhelming. I found her solutions to relieving these added stresses profound and a ‘blinding flash of the obvious.’ And the base line for this is respect for others.

What I found the most eye-opening was how she turned the idiom of “Respect must be earned” on its head. On the first day of class she had her “breaking the ice” session: she asked what was the most challenging aspect each student faced for the coming school year. One student replied she didn’t feel any respect and had no clue how she was supposed to earn it. This is when the teacher said, “If everyone waited for others to earn their respect, then no one would ever be able to give another any respect. It would become a vicious circle.” We tend to focus on the first dictionary definition of the word ‘re·spect: a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.’ In fact, we should concentrate on the second definition: ‘Having due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights or traditions of others’ This doesn’t require agreement, just empathy, compassion and understanding.

Now you might be thinking, “How does this apply to the moving business?”  Stress is stress, whether it’s a teacher dealing with teenagers, a teenager growing and learning or a shipper before, during, and after a move. I’ve found a great reliever of stress is the respect we give to others, based on the second definition above. This also goes further in reducing the stresses all in the moving business experiences, especially during uncertain times and economic downturns. Showing respect for everyone we come into contact with on a daily basis, from fellow employees to vendors, customers and the general public will have a profound result on our own stress as well as helping others reduce theirs.

So, what are the steps to show our respect to others?

1. Listen. Really listen to what a person has to say. Think: when you’re talking, you want people to listen to you and your thoughts; you want to be heard. Put your phone aside and give your full attention to the person speaking. How do you feel when you know you’re not being listened to? The best way to be heard is to let the other party finish their thought before you start conveying yours. If that person is angry, let them exhaust his or her anger before responding. Let them get what’s weighing on their minds out in the open, especially if you vehemently disagree with what they are saying. Listen for common-ground concerns; watch for their assumptions creating inadvertent misunderstanding. The objective of the conversation is to find a resolution that works in both people’s favor, or if that’s not possible, ‘agree to disagree.’ Bottom line: When you give another person your time, your focus, and your ear, you validate them. Validating them conveys respect, which creates the environment for finding common ground. We must leave our assumptions out of the conversation.
2. Affirm. By affirming someone, it guarantees you respect them. So how do you affirm someone? You have to notice something positive about the person and then tell them what you see. While you may not admire every aspect of who they are, you can still give them respect at a level that affirms them. Affirmation is an important key to showing respect to others.
3. Serve. Serving others shows we care; caring shows respect. Think about the moving profession: it revolves around this entire idea of serving others by providing a service the vast majority of humans detest doing. And to do it right, we must care for the shipper and their belongings. We just need to transfer that serving and care into all interactions with others.
4. Be Kind. Kindness and serving are intertwined; however, they are not the same. One can serve without kindness, but one cannot be kind without serving. When you’re kind, you’re giving of yourself. It may be something they can use, something they need, or maybe something they desperately require. Think of the relief you experience when someone is kind to you. Pass it on.
5. Be Polite. Politeness can change a person’s day; it can even change a person’s life. It lifts spirits instantly. It can help move someone forward in difficult times. We all need to learn the art of polite discourse before it’s lost to humanity.
6. Be Thankful. If we all crave appreciation, thankfulness is the means from which we affirm it. When someone is helpful in some way or they listened to you, affirmed you, served you, were kind, and polite – we should be thanking them.

Finally, in the words of Abraham Lincoln –“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.” And that all begins with the six steps outlined here. I hope this article provided you with some thoughtful responses – and hope for our future.