pay attention to people who you don’t admire as well as those you do

It’s pretty widely believed that we should surround ourselves and engage with people who we admire and generally have wonderful characteristics. They’ll rub off on us, make us elevate our own game, both inspire and challenge us. I love and support this idea, but I am also a big fan of keeping some people close who you don’t admire or aspire to be like.

Sound counterintuitive? Hear (read) me out…

When you observe something about a person that puts you off, maybe it’s constant negativity about a project or a situation in life, maybe it’s constant whining and complaining, maybe it’s the way this person behaves in social settings; don’t begin to exhibit these characteristics but don’t totally cast him or her out of your life. Similar to how we each get better by feedback speaking to both our strengths and areas of opportunity, we can get better by watching people who operate in ways we admire and in ways we don’t.

You might need to filter out some comments or give yourself space at times if someone is rude or mean or catty, but for me it’s important to keep in mind what you don’t want to be just as much as what you do.

Have a bitter, disenchanted, or just negative coworker? Notice her behaviors. Then decide that when you get overwhelmed at your next team meeting or annoyed at a situation or person that you will channel your frustrations differently; articulate your issues or concerns but do so in a positive and action-oriented way rather than just complaining. 

Have a friend who constantly complains via Twitter about insignificant things in her actually very good life? Decide that when you want to tweet something that you think is funny but may also be seen as rude or judgmental approach it from the bright side with a lick of cute humor rather than bitterness and anger. Or just keep your mouth shut. 

A close friend of mine recently finished her student teaching rotations. Her first placement was amazing and she just shined in her role; the teacher, students, school, literally the entire district loved her. I remember talking with her during her second placement, which wasn’t going as well. This girl is going to be the most fabulous teacher, I have all the confidence in the world that when given the chance she was tremendous with the students; but this teacher she was placed with seemed, just, uninspired.

My friend told me that the teacher would show a PowerPoint presentation and direct her students to just copy all the notes verbatim. There wasn’t an active discussion, no one was engaged. What irked me and my friend perhaps the most was that this woman didn’t even introduce my friend on her first day to a good number of her classes.

I remember her telling me that she just couldn’t wait to be done with the rotation because she was obviously was learning nothing from this woman. I stopped her and challenged this statement. She was learning something I told her, but rather than learning about the type of teacher she wanted to be like she was learning about the type of teacher she didn’t want to be like; something equally important.

For the rest of her career even when she was tired or feeling lazy or close to giving up on a class or a student, I’ll bet that she’ll never revert to simply typing notes onto a PowerPoint and telling her students to copy them down, absent of all discussion. She’d never host a student teacher, or probably any guest for that matter personally or professionally, and not introduce this person to her class or other audience.

We can’t control the personalities of the people we work with or are exposed to at times in our lives. But we can control our reactions to, and what we glean from, these people.

Characteristics and skills that you don’t want to harness and possess are just as important to be mindful of as those that you do want. Just be sure you keep them on the right side of your personality!