By Lily Kelly-Radford
Where has grace gone?
Have social media and popular culture made us so cynical that we enjoy the “cringe” and the judgment when people fall on their face in the workplace?
I hope not. It’s unfair and hurtful. Not to mention that it undermines learning and growth that ought to come from mistakes.
Consider a client who I worked with years ago. He went to a new company – in financial services – and had to launch an event. There was limited onboarding and they told him nothing about how to manage this particularly important event.
Still, my client jumped in doing his best with the way he had launched events in the past.
Then came the freak out. Hours before the event was to take place, the team realized that there were details that only experienced members could have known about that had not been checked.
Team members had to correct it and get things aligned very last-minute, which was nerve-racking for all. It wasn’t clear that it would come off, until 10 minutes before go-time…when the event managed to come off successfully.
All’s well that ends well, right?
Not quite. Coworkers kept remembering that this new person faltered.
When this happens, the person lives with our narrative and story, even though we’ve never really checked it out. And we may repeat that narrative to others and spread it. It’s a false narrative which makes it even harder to grant grace, because now, more people are working off a false narrative, and no one’s giving grace.
Even the people that didn’t experience the event, began to hold him accountable.
I cringed watching this. But it wasn’t because of the new person’s mistake. The cringeworthy part was how the team treated him.
Why do we find that easier than saying, “You know what, that person deserves a little grace because they were new, or they were trying to figure something out. And everyone else knew that they didn’t know the right questions to ask.”
Why do we punish this person for a normal mistake that should be part of growth and learning, rather than give them grace? He’s a nice guy. He didn’t act like his mistakes were nothing, but he was also calm. And he understood that he needed to tighten up his game. I’m convinced he will.
So, what is grace and how do we give it?
It’s beyond forgiveness. Grace is kinder. A friend says it comes from a Biblical place. Like empathy and encouragement. Maybe you had your own similar experience that you can share with the person recovering from a misstep. Maybe you make yourself available for advice in the future.
Think of it like the difference between entertaining and hospitality. While entertaining means the right dishes, the right napkins and the proper placement of things and staging of your house. Hospitality is opening your home, your heart and your soul and sharing. Not whether you have the right dishes.
Like extending hospitality, grace is an attribute we can all aspire to. We can make our own grace-giving strategy be an authentic extension of who we are, so it becomes a hallmark of how others experience us.
