Sean D. Francis

Be Human

Posted on 24 February 2010

At lunch I was listening to a podcast of On The Media, an NPR show that analyzes the media. Bob Garfield was inteviewing Don Corrigan, the editor of The Webster-Kirkwood Times who had covered a shooting in his hometown. He spoke about receiving phone calls from national press asking for interviews. He received one call that stood out to him and he described it like this:

Chris Bury at ABC Nightline called me and wanted to do an interview. And I had a number of funerals to attend, and I just said, Chris, I just don’t know that I can do this. And he said, you know what, don’t worry about it. It’s more important to be human at this point. On The Media 2/5/2010 Transcript

I heard that and was momentarily stunned. While the sentiment on Chris Bury’s side was truly sympathetic, I couldn’t help but think that we all need to be human all the time. The national press needed to be human at that moment too.

Be human, always.

In the corporate world it is often too easy to see employees and coworkers as cogs in a wheel. How often have you heard, “leave your personal life at home”? Or “keep your work life and home life separate”? This assumes it is healthy to compartmentalize. We are human, first and foremost, and we have just one life that stretches across our day. So not only should we be human, but we should expect others to be human as well.

We should approach each person with empathy. We may never know all the stresses that are affecting a person, but we can at least assume that they have more going on in their lives than the work in front of them. We can assume that they have days where they have been fighting with a spouse, trying to deal with a complex schedule and logistics, or simply missed lunch and is grumpy. This means we can give other people a little latitude if they seem curt, distracted, or failed to express interest in the conversation.

Is it as simple as be nice? No, unfortunately, it isn’t. Being human isn’t being nice. Humans aren’t nice. Humans are still compelled by base instincts of survival and instincts for dominance. Being human and expecting others to be human is accepting that emotional responses are going to play a role in behavior.

Grieving for the death of friends is more important that giving an interview because the emotional response is an honest response to the situation. When we properly acknowledge our emotional responses and the emotional responses of others, we will treat each other better and we can appreciate the resilience and strength of the true human spirit.