What to Watch Out For

• You tend to avoid conflict when it involves you. And yet it builds and builds, until finally you explode in a way that can come as a surprise to others, in a way that can even seem irrational to others. Since you tend to fight for yourself only when you are backed into the kind of corner where your values are being questioned or challenged, discipline yourself to use your values as backstop earlier, rather than later. In this way you will take a stand earlier, and when it comes your stand will be, at the very least, predictable to your colleagues.

• You are not naturally politically astute. You assume that everyone will be as responsible and as inclusive as you are. And yet they aren’t. And so there will be times when you are taken by surprise, times when you are disappointed by other people’s blatant self-interest. When this happens, tell yourself positive stories. Remind yourself that though people can be selfish, they can also be trustworthy and caring and forgiving. These stories will right your ship.

• People love to share. They love to tell stories about others on the team, some of which might be quite unflattering. Resist your temptation to believe everything you hear. Before you commiserate with them, before you take on their slight and try to do something about it, get the facts. The slight may be imagined, and so your responsibility may be to listen to the person who is complaining and let them get it off their chest, rather than diving in and trying to right the slight. The worst reputation you can get is that you are a “gullible shoulder to cry on.”

• Since you are acutely aware of personal responsibility, the sight of others whose standards of responsibility are not as high as yours will sometimes disappoint you. Learn to move past your disappointment and into the land of expectation: “What are you going to do next time?”

• Few are as inclusive as you are. There is always a delicate balance to be struck between people’s need to be included and people’s need to feel special. Often you will err on the side of including everyone and run the risk that no one will feel special. To make everyone feel special, frame everything in the language of responsibility. It’s fine to include everyone, as long as everyone has a specific responsibility. Responsibility drives expectation and expectation drives each person’s sense of self-worth. Each person feels special when something specific is expected of him or her.

• Since few are as inclusive as you are, there will be times when you are excluded. Try not to take this personally. It isn’t. It is just a function of the fact that not everyone feels your need to include everyone.