Why Respect is Meaningful
Julie Pham, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of CuriosityBased, an organizational development firm, and a noted expert on respect.
A conversation about respect elicits an emotional response in most people, especially if they feel its presence is insufficient or lacking.
There can also be definite disagreement on how people view what respect is and isn’t, and when it is and isn’t being extended.
Julie Pham, Ph.D., has invested significant work in researching, studying, communicating and teaching about it.
The founder and CEO of CuriosityBased, an organizational development firm, is also the author of “7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work.”
Mutual misunderstanding and the breaching boundaries can create disputes and lasting conflicts. One reason, but not the only one, is that respect is arguably relative in nature.
“We normally think about respect as being fixed and universal,” Pham says. “People can agree on what respect feels like: to feel seen, heard, acknowledged, admired, appreciated. What we don’t always agree on is what it looks like.”
The reason, she explains, is at times at least, people can create their own definitions.
“We may have different interpretations of what respect looks like to us — the behaviors and actions that convey respect,” Pham says.
“We have different expectations, yet we feel that our expectations are the right expectations. “The 7 Forms of Respect” show that respect is relative, contradictory, subjective, and dynamic,” she asserts.
The impetus for her curiosity and commitment to the subject was rooted in observation and patterns that Pham detected.
“In my community-building work — facilitating collaboration among people from diverse backgrounds — I would to see that there would be different expectations of how people wanted to be treated,” she begins.
“Friction would emerge because of the different expectations.”
This led to an important question to create understanding and a map to progress.
“When I turned to ask people how they want to be treated, they would talk about respect,” Pham says. This led to the motivation, she says, to “dig in and do some formal research.”
Her own experiences additionally influenced her curiosity and research.
“I grew up bicultural and also lived in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Vietnam as an adult and people had different expectations (about) how we should treat one another,” Pham details.
She learned something interesting in her observations.
“I realize that people who do well in different settings are those who can adapt. A lot of people don't recognize that their needs may be different from other people's needs, and I wanted to get people a framework, a language, code to demystify unspoken expectations,” Pham remembers.
The objective then and today remains the same.
“I want to give people a tool to communicate and articulate what they need, as well as understand what other people need and want,” she says, because, “If we can communicate better, then we can also transform our relationships with ourselves and with others.”
Respect can be difficult to come by or earn, which is problematic because it remains a human craving and need.
“It goes back to that respect feels like being seen and heard,” Pham says. “We just want to know that whatever we're doing in this world, we are not doing it alone and people see us and recognize us. It helps assure that we matter to others.”
This communicates more than people realize.
“The feeling of respect in the workplace, in business, in society, tells us that it matters that we show up; that our words, actions, and contributions matter, that we are appreciated, that we're not just interchangeable widgets.”
Publisher’s Notes:
