Dignity Counts

Today I’d like to discuss one of the most important aspects of business and life – one which is all too often discounted or ignored. When it is present, you feel it, though it's hard to put words to it; when it's not present, you feel its absence and wonder how you lost it. It is only one word, but it means so much.

What It Isn’t

Dignity is not a thing. You can’t touch it, you can’t see it, and you can’t measure it. Dignity has no monetary value. No company gets bought with an asset called dignity, do they? Dignity doesn’t command a premium. It is not quantifiable in dollars and cents. You won’t find the word in a job description or in an employment agreement. It’s not something talked about at the water cooler, that is if there are still water coolers that employees gather around to discuss office culture. Lastly, dignity is not something most people ever ask you about when discussing your career or life. Typically, it is not the topic of the day.

So, why don't we talk about dignity in our day-to-day living and work experience? It is very important to us after all.

Fish In Water

You know the story of two fish meeting in the aquarium for the first time. One fish asks the other, “How’s the water?” The other fish replies, “What water?” That demonstrates an aspect of life where we get too acclimatized or habituated to what we are moving through. For a fish, it moves through water without noticing or thinking about it. When does a fish notice the water? That’s something we probably will never know, with one exception. That moment is when the fish is out of water. It then gasps for air as it writhes purposefully searching for its lifeline. This is a curious phenomenon, isn’t it? It takes not having something to notice that it was actually there unnoticed all along. When we are surrounded by something so critical to our environment, it’s all too easy to forget it is there, much less recall what life’s like without it.

Similarly, a person will move through states of being without noticing who and how they’re being, despite their existence as a human being. We tend not to notice the being of human being until someone we love stops being. The missing of something makes the something more noticeable than its presence. That, dear reader, is an insight to ponder for a lifetime and it applies to dignity in spades.

What It Is

Dignity creates a space that you and your colleagues move through with ease and grace. The flow of business and life is accelerated with dignity. If you look up dignity in the dictionary, it’s the state of being worthy of honor or respect. Though intangible, it is something so valuable to each and every one of us. And, dignity is good business.

Another definition of dignity is a sense of pride in oneself: self-respect. This is where you have dignity for yourself. This includes everything about you – all your successes and failures, all your struggles and accomplishments, all your past mistakes and victories. You bring this sense of yourself to work every day and like a fish, you swim in it without noticing it. Please pause right now and consider your level of self-esteem and pride in yourself and your work. What level of dignity are you operating with?

I assert that the places you've loved working at had a tremendous amount of dignity in its ethos. There was a profound respect for all constituents of that enterprise, from leadership to customers and everyone in between, including the family members of workers. What made that culture come together the way it did? Do you have that in your life now? What would it take to reproduce it for others? Dignity is worth the effort.

An Insight

In a recent conversation, I was asked what the internship book series is all about. After much contemplation, I had an insight. My entire career has been about bringing dignity to work and others. Admittedly, I have failed to do so more times than I can count, especially when I was a much younger man. We all make mistakes to learn from. And, here we are with How To Intern Successfully: Insights & Actions to Optimize Your Experience published out of a commitment to bring dignity to students who choose to intern. It is clear to me that this fundamental aspect of relating to oneself and others in a business setting has been missing in the realm of internships. Employer and student intern can now have the opportunity to restore dignity through this book.

In this newsletter, I rarely make a request. Given it is mid-March and summer internships are only weeks away, today I am making a request. I ask that if you or your firm has an intern that is starting this summer, that you get this intern book for them and yourself this month, well before they start. Let the water they swim in at your firm be the dignity we all aspire for. That may be the noble opportunity before you, don't you agree?

I'm counting on you not to discount the uncountable: dignity.

Here's to you and your awesome future.

Until then, keep your feet on the board and keep riding your wave!

Robert J. Khoury

CEO Agile Rainmakers