Not long ago, I met a friend for dinner. My stir-fry came with a teeny-tiny side of
rice, which lasted about five minutes before it was all gone. When the server asked how we were doing, I
asked if I could have a little more rice.
“Sure, honey,” she whisked the empty dish away. “I’m supposed to charge you, though.”
“That’s okay.”
“I won’t, though,” she leaned in close. “I won’t charge you. I’ll just give it to you.”
“No, really. It’s
okay. You can charge me.” I tried not to sound irritated.
“I won’t, though.”
And then we got in a little I won’t yes it’s fine no I won’t, with my voice sounding
increasingly desperate and her voice increasingly like my co-conspirator, which
was silly, because, as my friend pointed out later, “You were going to pay for
that rice, either way. She was just
hoping it was on the tip.”
But it was Guilt rice, is the thing. So, free or not, it had a metallic and nasty
tinge to it.
There are lots of things that come with a side of
guilt. The one that stands out to me
most, in my work, is tied to a leader’s daily quandary: Making sure the right things get done in the
right amount of time—for the right reasons.
Motivating people to do good work, though, isn't done by making someone feel guilty. In fact, delivering anything
with a side of guilt—rice, news, requests, gifts—generally backfires, because people don’t like to
feel guilty. It’s a successful tactic sometimes,
particularly if a religion or culture relies on guilt from its followers, or if
one grew up in a household tinged with guilt, but it never feels good.
Here are things
I avoid saying when rallying people to come together.
Do it for me. This might work in marriage or
friendship, but it doesn’t work in leadership.
Do it because someone
else will suffer if you don’t. This
works if it’s really true… but unless we’re talking about broad cultural
implications or big world issues, it’s rare that real suffering will occur if
someone doesn’t follow through—and everyone knows it.
Do it because you’re
a lousy person if you don’t. No one
likes the implication that they are not a decent human being. Putting caveats on any action in which one’s self-worth
is at stake is a big mistake, because in the end, while the task might get completed,
it’s done with resentment and distrust.
In the end, culpability and obligations really lie within
each of us. We do things because we want
to. We want to do well. We want to do right by the world. We want to feel proud or accomplished or legitimate. No amount of reproach or condemnation will
change that. We can try—we can dig deep
until others have deep and ugly pangs of guilt—but in the end, it just.
Doesn’t. Feel. Good.
I have a friend who almost married a man whose
guilt-inducing controlling tactics kept her tightly diminished and
miserable. Every dollar she spent,
everything she said, every choice she made about her time and energy—it was all
questioned and discussed, ad nauseum, until she finally realized how guilty she
was feeling—all the time. That’s when she finally considered a lifetime
of feeling that way. She walked away,
just in time.
I know a lot about guilt; I feel it deeply, and always
have. Even as a child. My friends and family could get me to do
anything by spreading a few specks of guilt around the room. And then there was my brother, who didn’t seem
to have a single shred of that particular bone in his body. My mom remembers trying to get him to clean his
room when he was about twelve. She was laying it on thick: She was tired, she couldn’t do it all
herself, she was relying on him, things would get so much better for the whole
entire world if he would clean his room.
Will full-on distain, he said to her, “Don’t even try it, Mom. Guilt won’t work with me. Ever.” She says she realized she’d have to give him
real reasons to do his part in the world, because taking the easy way out—motivating
with guilt—wasn’t going to work. He
could see right through it and had identified it for what it really was. He’d outsmarted her in a game she didn’t even
know she was playing.
I try to catch myself saying things that might illicit guilt
in others. I don’t want to be the person who asks anyone to do anything out of guilt.
If I can explain why, and if we can come together in our mission for real
reasons, good reasons, sustainable reasons—there will be no reason for anything to come with a side of
guilt.
In the past few days—the first week of school, here, for us—I’ve
been overcome by the teamwork of our staff.
It’s been like watching a well-rehearsed orchestra, with all the
instruments showing up right on cue and playing their hearts out. Every string in sync.
The extra steps everyone took? It wasn’t out of guilt. The times they showed up for a duty,
unassigned; the extra smiles and helping hands offered; all of the people,
supporting and assisting and just being available—all
those things happened on their very own.
They didn’t do it because I asked
them to, or because I insisted. I didn’t
even really have to mention it. They just
did it because it was who they are and what they wanted to do.
