Acceptance

When I was in high school, I had a friend who I always had a great time hanging out with.  He was one of those guys that always was upbeat and had a great attitude.  He never said anything negative about anyone.  He lived in the moment and that made him fun to be with.  The problem was that he was not always reliable.  We would make plans on a Thursday or Friday for the weekend.  I would show up to the planned event (movie, party, football game, restaurant) and about 50% of the time he would never show up.  This was pre-cell phone era so contacting him was not easy.  Sometimes I would find a pay phone and call his house and his Mom or Dad would say they were having family dinner.  Sometimes, the phone would ring with no response.  You might be reading this and thinking, “Get the hint, Weizer,” and the thought definitely would cross my mind but on Monday he would apologize and have a legitimate excuse for why he was not able to make it.  The problem was that I was not free and easy.  Growing up, I liked plans and I held myself and those around me to a high bar.  If I said I was going to do something, I was going to do it.  As such, my view of the world was very black and white; either you were reliable or unreliable and I wanted nothing to do with flaky people.  My friend was somewhat of an exception until he put me in a bad spot. 

We had arranged a double date.  I was very ambitious and picked a really nice restaurant.  My friend and I agreed to pay the bill adhering to our late 1980s male stereotype.  I showed up with my date about 15 minutes before the reservation and his date showed up around the same time but my friend was late.  We waited and about 15 minutes after our reservation, the hostess asked me if we wanted to cancel the reservation.  I was embarrassed and offered to treat our two dates to dinner myself.  We had a great time but when the bill came I realized I had enough to pay the check but not enough to leave a tip adding to my embarrassment.  To save face, I went to the waitress and explained the situation and she accepted my willingness to come back the next day to give her the tip (which I did do but I had to borrow money from my parents until my next paycheck).  On Monday at school, I went up to my friend and asked him what happened (this is the PG version).  He gave me an explanation and I told him that we were done hanging out.  He would try to talk to me after in the hall and called me at home but I ignored him after that and we did not talk our entire senior year. 

In between my junior and senior year of college, I was home and out having a few beers at a bar with some of my high school friends when “he” walked in.  We both spotted each other and feigned ignorance.  But his friends were my friends and my friends were his friends and eventually everyone was sitting around a pool table reminiscing about our tortured high school years.  Eventually he walked over to me.  We exchanged small talk for a little while and then, out of the blue, he apologized. But by then, I had become less rigid.  I learned that my plans did not dictate the rotation of the globe and I also apologized and bought him another beer.  We all had a great time that night sharing what we had been up to these last several years and bringing up funny stories about the past. 

What I had learned from high school to college was to accept people for who they are, not for what you want them or expect them to be.  This lesson has served me well in life.  At home, my wife and I both appreciate our strengths and weaknesses.  She pays the bills and manages the finances.  When I am not at work, I take care of all the immediate tasks- grocery shopping, taking out the trash, picking up and dropping off kids.  If it is a task, I am your man.  If you want long range planning in your personal life, go to my wife.  At work though, I am different.  I like strategy and planning but as a surgeon and physician have come to realize that plans need to be fluid.  But to be able to do this, you need to know who you are working with and acknowledge what they can contribute and not expect them to do something that they are not capable of.  When it comes to patient care, there are two really good examples of this.  Because I am a cancer surgeon, I take care of a lot of people who still smoke.  Some surgeons will refuse to operate on people until they quit smoking but I and my patients know that we sometimes do not have the luxury of time.  So instead, I ask patients what they are capable of.  I don’t judge them for smoking but I explain that the less they smoke, the better chance they have of success.  Sometimes patients refuse to change but they know that they are taking on more risk.  And sometimes they reduce or quit altogether (and we offer help).  Similarly, for patients who are morbidly obese, I do not ask them to lose weight.  Instead, we talk about what lifestyle changes they are willing to make to be healthier.  If they lose weight, that is great but even if they don’t lose a pound but feel better and are more active, then I feel like I have shown them a path for their future.  I lose nothing by meeting people where they are instead of demanding where they must be and, in return, I nudge people in a positive direction. 

In my leadership role, I try to do something similar.  Even though I became more nuanced in college, I still had a long way to go (and probably still do).  My first leadership role was one of my most challenging because I was surrounded by people who would neither say what they mean or mean what they say.  I spent a year trying to read in between the lines when I was having conversations with various stakeholders.  But I became good at observing not what people said but how they acted and reacted to circumstances.  That gave me the chance to appreciate what drove certain people to act and behave as they did.  Because I took time to understand what motivated certain people, it allowed me to interact with them more productively.  For some people, I had to find the win-win.  For others especially on my team, I had to learn to play to their strengths and leverage what they brought to the team avoiding their Achilles heel.  Over time, I was able to create a team that had complementary strengths and weaknesses valuing what each individual brought to the table and minimizing their pitfalls. 

While you don’t always get to choose your team, it is possible to cultivate this over time which brings me to my caveats about acceptance.  The first caveat is implied.  Sometimes accepting someone for who they are means ejecting them from the team and finding them a new home.  I believe we have all been in situations where we are the odd person out.  We don’t fit.  In this day and age, we need to check our biases.  The color of our skin, our gender orientation, religion, cultural and social background must not be used to exclude others.  In fact, this diversity of people, of ideas, and of life experience are valuable assets that we should embrace.  But after we have made sure that we are not acting on bias, if there are still challenges, sometimes the greatest acceptance of a person is to find them another team to be on.  The second caveat is that while we should accept people for who they are and what they can contribute, sometimes we have no choice but to ask something more from them.  If my teachers and parents had only asked me to live up to expectations, I might never have been able to achieve what I have so far in life.  It’s okay to expect more if people are willing to give more.  This also is a form of acceptance.  The problem is when we expect more from those who cannot give it to us or do not want to.  As fellow human beings and leaders, our job is to identify the best in every person we encounter and maybe in some way, help them be a little better.  It starts with acknowledging the person in front of us for who they are without judgement or scorn.  One of my greatest sources of growth as a human being have been my patients.  I have seen them beat terrible odds, accept mortality with grace, and teach me through their life experiences.  This has happened because I strive to accept people as them and don’t impose my biases or judgements.  In turn, they hopefully see me as a partner in helping care for them.   

The truth is that not everyone wants to exceed expectations.  Alternatively what they want to excel in may have nothing to do with you.  That’s okay.  For patients or co-workers who want to meet expectations, our job is to meet them where they are.  For those who are motivated to exceed expectations, our job is to help them get to where they want to go. 

At the end of that night in college, my friend mentioned he was in town for a few more weeks and wanted to get together again.  I told him to give me a call and see what we could work out.  He never called me but we have bumped into each other several times over the years.  We each have our own lives, families, and careers and have a good time when we do see each other.  We have each accepted each other for who we are.  For this, we gain the occasional episodes of camaraderie and in return, we lose nothing.  Wouldn’t the world be a little bit better if we could all do the same.