I published a whitepaper on this site today called, “Rudeness Really Does Matter.” It outlines and discusses research published recently in the Academy of Management Journal that indicates that rudeness causes others to be less cooperative or helpful (which isn’t all that surprising), but also (and perhaps more surprisingly) that rudeness actually tends to diminish others’ cognitive ability!
That’s right: when someone’s rude to you, it actually makes you a little dumber (at least temporarily)!
It seems to me that this is an important finding—particularly in a Self-Managed organization, where each colleague is responsible for addressing behavior that detracts from the organization’s mission. The problem is, oftentimes, the colleague that jumps out and deals with the issue (“kills the snake”) does so in a manner that’s, well, downright rude.
And now it seems that we have some support for the notion that this rudeness actually detracts from our collective effectiveness!
The whitepaper digs deeper into the research and does more to fill out the topic, so I urge you to click on the link above and read it (it’s good stuff; I promise! You won’t be sorry). But more importantly, weigh in here.
I pose a few thought questions in the whitepaper; spend a little time on them. Then jump back over to this blog post and leave a comment. What do you think? Is this meaningful research? Does it resonate with you, or is it pure balderdash?
