I have a friend who is a retired athletic coach. She coached girls’ basketball for 40 years in Texas. She told me recently about the best piece of advice she ever received. She was taking a job in a small town in South Texas, and before she began, one of the boys’ sports coaches spoke with her. He said, “I’m going to give you one piece of advice. If anybody asks you how a certain kid is doing, always say, “Great…it is a pleasure working with her.” Or, “I love having a chance to coach that kid.”
My friend was 40 years old then, and with twenty years of coaching experience, she figured she already knew a lot. Still, she pondered what he said and decided to take his advice. Whenever someone asked how coaching a specific athlete was going, she would say, “Excellent” or “I love coaching that kid.”
Two or three months later, she ran into the older coach at a meeting. She enthusiastically raised her hand and said to him, “Give me a high five. Your advice is some of the best I’ve ever received.”
You see, she had discovered that in that small town, many people were related. Furthermore, the police chief knew a lot of families, the fire chief knew a lot of families, the preachers knew a lot of families, and they would pass along information to families. Word would have spread fast if my friend had said something negative about a kid. If she had something disapproving about a kid, word would have traveled to the kid and the kid’s kin. And then she would have really had problems.
When my friend, the retired coach, told me that story, I thought the advice from the experienced coach would apply well to the workplace and beyond. When someone asks, “How do you like working with so-and-so?” our rule of thumb should be to answer, “Fantastic!” or, “I love working with him.
You may ask, “Mark, isn’t that disingenuous sometimes? What if it’s not a pleasure?”
Your question is a good one. In that case, you can offer an answer like, “Working with Bob (or Sue or fill in the blank) is a privilege.” Why? Because even if that person is mean to you, patronizing to you, or a thorn in your side, you can assume that person is sharpening up a facet of your personality or work habits that needs to be sharpened. All of us can use fine-tuning. Often, the person who presents us with the most irritation helps with our blind spots. This individual can assist us in identifying our flaws. This is important. We need this. And, besides criminals, can we not honestly say that it is a privilege to work with practically any other human being?
So the next time someone asks you about someone in the workplace, say something positive.
Mark