Getting Along with People at Work

Part II

We looked at two biblical principles that give us guidance on dealing with relationships.  Remembering that we can’t change others, we can only change ourselves, we talked about the principle of putting others first, as given to us in Philippians chapter two.  And then we began to take a look at the important principle of loving unconditionally and what that means.

The famous love chapter in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, gives us a very practical description of what is required of us when we choose to love unconditionally.  Here are just a few of the characteristics of love as given in that chapter.

•Love is patient.

Certainly you will be called on to exercise patience with:

•that coworker who is slow to learn,

•that boss who has unrealistic expectations,

•that customer who blames you unfairly.

Unconditional love will give you the ability to do that, rather than respond in anger or frustration.

•Love is kind.

Kind words are a choice you can make when responding to:

•a rude person,

•a brash statement,

•a hurtful comment,

•a condescending coworker,

•an unfair accusation,

•an unkind criticism.

When most people would respond with sarcasm or words that pierce like a sword, unconditional love gives you the power to speak gentle words that heal.  Kindness is something you can give to:

•the coworker who is discouraged,

•the boss who is grumpy,

•the customer who is demanding.

They may not deserve it, and that makes it even more powerful when it is freely given.

•Love is not easily angered.

Unconditional love helps you avoid a quick, defensive reaction.  It gives you the power to control your hot temper.  It enables you to resist the tendency to “shoot from the hips” and give back a little of what you got.  (Note that it does not say that love is never angered, but rather that it is not easily angered.)

•Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Funny how our memory works.  We can forget birthdays and appointments, but never forget how a coworker hurt our feelings last month, or last year!  Unconditional love does a lot of “erase disk” procedures, continually choosing to remove from the memory bank those wrongs done.  It takes away your drive for revenge and leaves the revenge for God to handle.

•Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

This kind of unconditional love keeps you from spreading gossip.  It eliminates the malicious talk that is so easy to participate in, especially when it is a common occurrence where you work.  This love will make you seek the truth instead of believing everything you hear.  It will make you suspicious of negative talk and bad reports.

Can you see how practical this principle is to our everyday lives?  Loving with unconditional love—God’s love—changes relationships because it changes our attitudes and actions.   And it is a choice we make, not necessarily an emotion we feel.

I have frequently challenged myself and others to read this wonderful chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, every day for a whole month.  God’s definition of love is so totally opposite to the world’s idea that we have to continually clean out our minds and get rid of all the wrong messages we’ve stored up, and fill it up with God’s truth.  I encourage you to give it a try.  Read 1 Corinthians 13 every day for 30 days.  It won’t take more than five minutes, but it will really give you a very different perspective of what love is.

In all our relationships we are admonished in God’s Word to be dependable and loyal.   You’ve heard the cliché that “the best ability is dependability,” but it’s far more than a cliché.  It is truth!

I remember early in my sales career, when my boss promised me a promotion if I sold a certain quota.  I worked my head off to reach that goal, but when I did, my boss had to tell me that he had made a promise to me he could not keep.  He did apologize, and I tried to let it go.  But it affected my relationship with him.  Broken promises have that kind of effect on relationships.

Did you realize that you have a dependability reputation?  The people who work with you see you as very dependable, sometimes dependable, or undependable.  A reputation for dependability takes a long time to build, but can be torn down very quickly.  And your dependability reputation affects your relationships dramatically.

Solomon understood how devastating broken promises could be.  He wrote:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

“Hope deferred” is another way of describing disappointment.  Any time you make a promise or a commitment to someone, you build hope in that person. If you fail to keep that promise without a very good reason or explanation, then it does something to that person’s heart—to his or her feelings toward you.

Now, obviously a one-time failure should not cause permanent damage and we all need to give people second and third chances.  None of us has a perfect track record of being totally dependable.  However, if a person is frequently undependable, it makes for a difficult relationship.

So, think about your dependability reputation and see if it enhances your relationships or causes problems.  Ecclesiastes 5:5 says: “It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.”  Solomon again gives us great advice here concerning making promises and commitments.  How good are you at keeping your promises and fulfilling your commitments and responsibilities?

A great little motto to remember is “Under promise; over deliver.”  Be careful that you don’t glibly promise what you can’t or don’t intend to fulfill.  Think carefully about your commitments.  It is better not to vow at all than to fail to keep a vow.  And it makes a great impression if you come through with more than you promised or sooner than you promised.  That’s a lot easier to explain than missing the mark!

Here’s a quick dependability checkup.  Ask yourself:

___Do my coworkers consider me to be very dependable?

___ Am I usually on time for appointments?

___ Do I often miss deadlines?

___Am I careless about keeping track of what I’m supposed to do and when I’m supposed to do it?

___Do I make unrealistic promises under pressure too easily?

If dependability is not your strongest suit, I encourage you to dig deep and ask yourself why you have developed this bad habit of being undependable, of breaking promises.  Here are some possibilities; see if any of them fit.

___The role models of my life (parents, family, friends) are not very dependable.

___I have a lazy streak that creates a lack of dependability in me.

___I have very good intentions, but my lack of organizational skills causes me to be undependable.

___ I am a very poor time manager and tend to be a procrastinator, which leads to lack of dependability.

___I get distracted easily and forget my promises and commitments frequently.

___ I do not have enough self-control or discipline in my own personal habits.

___I frequently make promises that are unrealistic.

Step one in making improvements is to identify our weaknesses.  If you recognize any of these as contributing to your poor dependability, you’ve made that important first step.  Now you are poised to make some changes.

List your areas of frequent failure in your prayer journal and begin praying about them daily.  As a believer, you have an incredible power source because of the Holy Spirit within you that allows you to change.  But that change has to begin with a motivation to change, in order to please the Lord, and then an intentional effort on your part to make specific changes.

Remember, we can’t change other people but we are responsible to do everything we can to get along with people, at work and elsewhere.  So, if your lack of dependability is creating a relationship problem, take heart because it is possible for you to change, if you really want to.

I’d like to share with you a story about my friend Steve, who is now a pastor at our church.  Before going into ministry, he spent ten years as a manager in a well-known trucking company, where he supervised about twenty union drivers.

The underlying attitude in this environment, both for supervisors and drivers, was an “us versus them” attitude.  It was a strife-ridden atmosphere.   Since he was a committed Christian, Steve knew he was to show Christian love and concern for those he supervised because they were loved and valued by God.

So, he began to get to know the men and women individually, asking about their families.  If there was a problem, he showed concern and did what he could. He began to build bridges of friendship with the drivers.

There were certainly many times of conflict when he had to reprimand his employees. He says it was a constant struggle to find that right balance between demanding what was expected of his employees in order to get the job done, and at the same time having a caring attitude toward them as individuals.  That took a lot of prayer and wisdom from the Lord.  But when he did confront, he was careful to do so in non-embarrassing ways with carefully chosen words.

Steve is quick to remind me that he didn’t do everything right.  On one occasion he lost his temper with an employee and barked a response to him that was full of anger and harsh words.  This kind of thing happened routinely with others, but Steve knew he had acted inappropriately.  He went to his employee and apologized for his lack of control.  Tears welled up in this man’s eyes and he said to Steve, “You didn’t have to do that.”  (By the way, this man has since become a believer in Jesus Christ.)

When Steve left to go to seminary, the union men threw him a party, gave him a Bible, and genuinely hated to see him leave.  Steve’s manager told him that never before had the union men had a party for a manager.