The Authenticity-Diplomacy Tradeoff

Continuing on….

Last week I was at a corporate meeting, and there was a video on a sister company I’ve done four different kinds of contract work for over a 4 year period. I still work for them. The president complemented the leader of that organization for the great job their organization does. Under my breath, I spoke my mind to myself, without censure and said “I really don’t like those people”. I’ve had some bad experiences with that sister organization, and unfortunately, that’s where I’m at right now. The person sitting next to me heard it and looked utterly shocked. I smoothed it over by saying “Did I just say that out loud? Whoops!” and we laughed. I was definitely authentic about my feelings, but it was a mistake to verbalize them around others.

Here’s another circumstance. One of my peers, and a very good friend, was promoted to a management position equal to my new boss at work. He asked me THREE TIMES what I thought of my new boss over a 6 week period. Mayday! Mayday! Each time I was neutral or positive in my answer. Finally he pushed me to stop holding out on him. So I was candid and shared some negative initial perceptions which have changed to the positive based on recent experiences with my new boss.

Well, he ran to my new boss with the information, and she raised all the bad stuff with me in a private meeting later. Totally awkward and career limiting — yet, authentic. And definitely, a mistake.

A while ago, one of my kids expressed just how much they loved being in the LDS Church. My true feelings? “Wait until you get older or need something from the organization — your feelings may change”. “Wait until they start calling you to demanding positions and then never release you when you start suffering

“…etc.” But I held my tongue.

My belief — there’s nothing wrong with holding your tongue at Church and around others about your Chuch misgivings — or at work. In fact, it’s part of survival in this world. It’s part of being smart in this world, part of being a gentleman, part of showing respect for the culture of the organization/religious group/country/family you happen to be working within.

Now, I’m not going to be proactive and broadcasting things I don’t believe just to get along — one has to be true to oneself. But I’m also not going to put down the organization to others when they ask me about things that I don’t agree with. Part of being true to myself is balancing my desire to be a diplomatic gentleman, with my personal opinions. Also, the aftermath of being nakedly authentic can be worse than softening your beliefs, or simply accentuating the positive — as my situations above have shown.

So, to achieve the balance, I think it’s important to create an arsenal of things you can say when placed in positions where your knee-jerk reaction is to say something negative.

For example, if someone said “What do you think of the Stake in this area?” — what would I say?

My feelings are predominantly negative based on recent experiences. I wouldn’t say this, but In my heart, I feel the Stake can be a terrible waste of resources, along with five or six other deficiencies that actually detract from our Church experience (that I just deleted).

However, I also believe they do serve an effective watchdog role on the Wards since the unit priesthood leaders report directly to the Stake President and have only a dotted line to the ward Bishop. This helps keep the Bishop operating within the parameters the organization has laid out. It’s quite a brilliant organizational design technique I haven’t seen elsewhere, in spite of lots of education in business. The Stake also equalizes fast offerings within the Stake in case a Ward goes over on their fast offering budget, which is good for the Wards. Their youth activities are valuable and are something a lot of youth look forward to. They also help the youth see they are part of a bigger community than they see in their Ward. Stake Leaders who truly understand their calling can be a valuable resource to new Ward leaders, to help them understand and learn about their new leadership callings.

So, if I’m ever asked, I’m going to be READY with the paragraph above, notwithstanding my more prevalent negative feelings about the Stake. It’s part of my authentic desire to be a gentleman. It’s also part of the reciprocity I feel I should show in partaking of the positive benefits of our organization. And accentuating the positive IS authentic, because I’ve personally decided that I will handle the tradeoff between naked/brutal/negative honesty and diplomacy, by erring on the side of diplomatic positivity. It’s my character to be that way in an effort to be culturally and personally sensitive to the feelings and views of others.

If you dig deep enough, I think you can find positive things to say about just about anything in the Church. I think it’s a matter of spending some time dwelling on the positive. Sorry for the long post — but that represents my latest thinking on this subject.

How do you cope with the tension related to not fully accepting everything at Church, while still being involved?

I think we confuse honesty with openness. They aren’t the same thing – not even close to the same thing, actually.

Case in point:

One my previous bosses really liked Steven R. Covey motivational materials. He had us all read the 7-Habits book. I ranted about this in another thread. There’s really nothing wrong with Covey material, it just rubs ME personally the wrong way.

Should I have been “authentic” and let my boss know that I don’t like Covey every time he brought it up? That would be the communication with the most personal honesty and integrity. Am I a liar and a fraud if I let him think, by keeping my big mouth shut, that I like Covey motivational material too? He would definitely make that assumption, absent of any other information to tell him different.

I could work somewhere else to avoid this problem, and I could also choose not to work at all. That would ensure that I never have a boss that likes talking about Steven R Covey. But those choices have their own consequences. I liked that company a lot. It was very much an overall net positive, including the need to earn a living.

Actually, I did let him know a couple times. I really wish I had not, looking back. I don’t think it helped our working relationship. What did I gain from it? Mostly the egotistical satisfaction of explaining why I thought the ideas were not practical, and too idealistic. What really was the point of that? What did it win me?