‘Social’ Intelligence: A Gentleman Will Walk But Never Run

No intention to infringe copyright, honest.

Do you remember that horrible time back in elementary school when Billy the Kid bullied you into giving him your lunch money on a daily basis?

Of course you don’t; you have most probably suppressed that memory, and for a good reason- it gave you the creeps.

Nevertheless, those awful episodes from your childhood might have well evolved and found their place in your grown- up life.

At one of point of our lives, we decide that it is a lot easier to conspire than to confront; I shall opt to demonstrate what I meant by means of an example:

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Mary works at Flora LTD and is one of the firm’s top performers.

 She knows that and she has made it her hobby to remind everyone else how awesome she is and how good-for-nothing they are.

John has had enough of Mary’s impertinent behaviour and decides to conspire against her- he starts saying nasty things about her behind her back, coming up with disgusting nicknames and speculations about her private life outside work.

Since no- one in the office really likes Mary, the other employees find the above utterly hilarious and start spreading rumours about Mary’s success in the firm and how it’s tightly linked to her affair with one of the directors.

Everyone sees the conspiracy as a game and as a mechanism of dealing with Mary’s boasting.

One day, however, by mistake, an employee forwards a chain of emails to her instead of Mayri.

Mary is shocked at the acerbic comments that have been made about her; she forwards the email to the board of directors and asks them to deal with the matter.

And they do; as a result, John and another ten people are dismissed from his position owing to gross misconduct.

Further, as Mary now knows that no- one likes her, she can no longer work as well as before.

Finally, all of the remaining employees hate Mary even more now as they think that she is the reason for their colleagues’  dismissal.

The whole episode has destroyed the lives of many along with the working environment which is now tense and severely unpleasant.

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Believe it or not, the above situation is quite common nowadays as most people are really scared of confrontation.

Referring to the above example, it would have been much easier for John (or anyone else) to go to Mary and tell her that her behaviour was unacceptable and needed to change.

As a top performer, Mary would not want to do anything to compromise her position; consequently, she would stop behaving as she did in order to remain the top performer and model employee in the eyes of the board.

Conspiring against someone is immensely immature and leads to a torrent of unnecessary hurdles which could have easily been avoided.

Confronting someone, on the other hand, is, although much more difficult, the correct way forward as it shows people that you are not afraid to speak your mind and reminds them that you are a grown- up person and not a  silent chicken.

Many maintain that avoiding confrontation highly reduces the level of stress and, thus, makes you happier and more productive.

Such a statement is, of course, ludicrous in itself as, if a confrontation is not dealt with in its early stages, it grows and becomes much more intense. Also, it has a nasty habit of constantly reminding you of its presence which tends to make you feel miserable and greatly detrimentally affects your overall performance and well- being.

Further, confronting someone builds up character, boosts self- confidence and, quite often, turns enemies into friends as, in most cases, the need for confrontation stems from a rather silly misunderstanding.

To conclude, if your house caught fire, you wouldn’t ignore it just to go and grab a pint in the nearest pub, right?

Right...?