What the…! You Want Me to Be Civil?

News media consolidation and political leanings. The not-breaking news “Breaking News” alerts. The eight squares of talking heads waiting patiently for the cable news host to grant them nine seconds to share their opinion. The highly curated social media feeds magically sending you exactly what you want when you want it.

These are just a few of the sources of the intense levels of stress and anxiety we have experienced over the last few years. 

Those sources influence you, your colleagues, clients and partners, who all have strong feelings about what’s happening today, and what might be coming tomorrow. And those feelings can cause incivility.

Research shows that incivility has business implications, impacting employee behavior, performance and turnover. Those who believe they are working in an uncivil workplace are twice as likely to indicate they will leave their job within a year, according to SHRM. 

More important, according to University of Iowa research, “Experiencing, witnessing and instigating incivility and bullying behaviors can have long-lasting effects on our mental and physiological well-being.”

We must tackle this challenge head-on. How? We must start with ourselves.

Understand that you don’t always have to be right. 

Have you woken up in the middle of the night because you were playing back a difficult conversation? That’s because you’re still in a fight to be right. Take yourself out of a competition without a winner. The best thing you can do is expend that energy elsewhere and get tired. One way is through exercise. Sweating out your energy will be better for you in the long run — trust me.

Call out incivility in real-time. 

That said, when lines are crossed, they need to be addressed. Creating a space to safely discuss current events at work is essential to your well-being and those around you. When we allow others to act disrespectfully in the moment, they are taking permission to do so again and again. If something isn’t right, then call it out in the moment. If you’re being disrespected by a client, then raise it with your manager or the client directly, and also with human resources, if needed.

Slow down. 

Whether it’s a 1-on-1 conversation, a Slack message or an email, PR professionals are often quick to respond. It’s in our DNA to automatically and immediately serve our clients, but I want you to give yourself permission to take a breath and count to three before responding to difficult, real-time conversations. Permit yourself to wait 15-30 minutes before responding to that Slack message. Have a difficult email to send? Write a draft but leave it overnight and come back to it in the morning.

Treasure the humanitarian.

While it might be easy to simply say, “Do not feed the trolls” online, that’s only half the challenge. We should be thanking those who go above and beyond to be respectful, inclusive and create a safe environment. Being kind and civil might seem easy to some, but to others, it takes a considerable amount of work. If you see people being civil, then tell them!

Finally, we must be aware of the difference between having a relationship with the media and being a media consumer. This includes regular audits of newsletters we subscribe to, social media accounts we follow and online communities we’re part of.

Ask yourself: “Is my life better because I read this newsletter, follow this account, or engage with this community?” If your answer is no, then you know what to do.

Thank you for taking these steps to combat incivility by starting with ourselves.