Today's guest blog post comes from Stephen Brewster. Brewster serves as the creative arts pastor at Cross Point in Nashville. Before joining the Cross Point team he worked for Integrity music. Brewster has a passion for creativity, leadership, and the church.
“Politeness Is The Poison Of Collaboration.” – Edwin Land
The best ideas we have are usually fostered in a collaborative effort. At times, a great idea can come from just one person, but usually one person sparks the idea and from there the flame grows into a collaborative effort that becomes amazing. Almost always, when it comes to executing a great idea it takes more than one person. Thats just how life is…we do not have the bandwidth to be “one man bands.”
The problem, especially in church world, is that being polite tends to dilute ideas. Honesty is actually more important than politeness. Being polite allows GOOD or less than GOOD stuff to live where GREAT stuff should be living. Being afraid of honesty, and being overly polite, allows for compromise to sneak in and water down the GREAT potential of our ideas. The balance, however, is not hurting peoples feelings. As creatives and leaders, we must learn the art of being 100% honest while still being sensitive to the emotions and attachment those who are presenting said ideas. Being polite is nice, but never breeds unity. Success, which is birthed out of honesty, builds unity. Everyone wants to associate with a winner. Everyone wants to be on a winning team, and winning teams are not always polite, but they are always honest. Honesty creates trust and builds value.
We have all sat in a meeting, looked at a design, had an idea presented to us and KNEW it was not good, but we held our tongue, remained polite, and ended up watching hours of times, energy, resource and effort go up in flames when if we had just been honest, we could have chosen a better, more sticky, idea that with the same emphasis would have changed peoples lives.
How do you balance honesty with being polite?
PS:
“I get what you are saying BUT i would love to redefine polite. The dictionary def is “having or showing behavior that is respectful and considerate of other people.” I’d love for people to realize that you can still be respectful and considerate but demand greatness.
9 times out of 10, politeness is a bad excuse for us to not speak the truth. It is really fear and underestimating our team driving wimpy critique not tact.” – @LindseyNobles I totally agree with Lindsey. This is not a free pass to be a jerk, insensitive, or bully people around. There is a professional code that must be maintained. Thanks Lindsey for speaking into this post.
