My last blog in this thread contained the word “respect” in the title. I did not plan to follow it up with one about disrespect (incidentally a word which can only be a noun, and not a verb, in my view) but something has happened to prompt me to write it.
I belong to an international network of business advisers, and we have regional monthly meetings for those who wish to turn up. It is useful networking at a nice country pub and we also have speakers, internal and external to update us on various topics which amount to good CPD.
At the most recent meeting we had a guest speaker, who happens to be a friend of mine through networking elsewhere and who is a thoroughly nice guy. He was speaking on a particular discipline which is a major issue in business, and he has a radical alternative and refreshing approach. I will not expand on the discipline; that is not the point of this piece and I do not want the players to be too easily identified.
Anyway our guest, I stress “guest”, gave a very enjoyable and interesting talk for about three quarters of an hour and received impressively lengthy applause at the end. Our group is not usually quite so evidently appreciative, so this was significant. He then took some questions, and the chairman of the meeting started to thank him when a newcomer to our group professing to practice the same discipline, whom none of us had met before the day, started to tear into the premise of our guest’s talk with a ten minute talk of his own. He derided the common sense approach of our guest and said that rules and regulations were there to be followed (I do not think our speaker said they were to be disregarded) but the premise of his long critical statement was that our guest was wrong in almost everything he said, and that the best approach was a by-rote following of the rules; that in itself is material for another blog.
Our guest came back and comfortably rebutted the critic’s arguments. As a professional speaker also, he can look after himself, but I was severely embarrassed at the turn of events, and I know that many other members of the group there were as well. Our speaker had given up his time to speak to us – we were not paying him. I also believe it is disrespectful to criticise a speaker too much whether you know the person or not. One might ask for amplification or clarification of a certain point, but if one really does not agree then it is best to bite one’s tongue and keep quiet, and perhaps try to get a date to address the same audience at another time.
Before the meeting we had welcomed the newcomer whilst some of us were enjoying our pub lunch. Presumably the new guy would like to work with us and be involved in members’ contracts or projects. I would rate his chances of getting future work from or through those present at nil. He had alienated the entire group, and of course people do not forget.
If we are to get on in business or indeed enjoy a full social life, it behoves us not to go round upsetting people. I have many friends with whose views on various subjects I would disagree, but there is no point in going there. It is better to enjoy their pleasant company and work with them if in a business environment. This is obvious to the un-blinkered networking community and to most in our society. This rude troublemaker was the equivalent of an online troll.
© Jon Stow 2009
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The problem today, it appears to me, is that being disrespectful is par for the course, whether it be in business, in a restaurant or on the road. In fact, particularly so on the road, where hardly anyone gives way, out of courtesy and sometimes, not even when they are required to, by road signs and markings. They don’t even seem to understand that the ‘fast’ lane (whatever one of those is, anyway) is actually the slowest of all, with drivers being induced to undertake when others don’t pull over, as we have all been taught.
Society does appear to be getting much more unfriendly and less accomodating. Oh for the return of basic manners and common courtesies.
Well said Jon