BookYol

Concept

Respect as Seeing

Respect as seeing is the stance The Courage to Be Happy places at the start of education and of every close relationship: seeing a person as they are rather than as you wish they were, being aware of what makes them unique, and taking an interest in what interests them.

In their second book, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga answer the young man, now a teacher who doubts that Adler's ideas survive a real classroom, not with a technique but with respect. They borrow the definition from the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm: respect is the ability to see a person as they are. It sounds modest and is hard, because most of us look at people through a picture in our heads: the ideal employee, the child we expected, the colleague who should know better by now. When we respond to the gap between the picture and the person, the person feels it as a verdict. The book adds an Adlerian step: seeing with another person's eyes and hearing with their ears, which means taking a real interest in what they care about. Two consequences follow. Respect cannot be obtained by demanding it; a demand produces fear or compliance. And it is unconditional, offered before it is earned. Seeing someone as they are is not approving of everything; you can still argue about the work, but with the real person.

A real-life example

Ayten, an operations manager at a logistics firm in Eskişehir, thought her new planning specialist was too quiet. Before a meeting she wrote two sentences, one describing the specialist as she wished he were and one as he was. The second noted that his route calculations never contained errors. In the meeting she asked him how he checked them; he explained his method, and the team rolled it out to every region.

How to use it

  1. 1Before a difficult conversation, write one sentence about the person as you wish they were and one as they are, and start from the second.
  2. 2Ask about something they care about that has nothing to do with your agenda, and listen to the whole answer.
  3. 3When you notice you want respect from someone, ask yourself what you have offered them first.