Behavioral Standards: The Blueprint for Healthy Relationships

Last year, when I was contemplating the idea of this newsletter, I had a phone call with one of my friends to get his thoughts and feedback. I gave him my pitch, explaining why I believed standards are healthier than expectations, how we can live a more satisfying life by replacing the latter with the former, and why they're the key to stronger relationships.

He paused for a few seconds, and then responded by sharing a personal experience:

You know, my wife has always said, "I have no expectations."

One time, when we were either dating or engaged, we got into a little argument and I said, "You were bitchy."

She shot back, "Oh, no you don't!"

What she did with that response was draw a line of what was unacceptable in our relationship. She didn't have an expectation of me to never say something like that...she set a standard.

I imagine that most of us have been in both my friend's shoes (saying something we probably shouldn't have) and his wife's (drawing the line of what is un/acceptable). I also imagine that, in many cases, the outcome wasn't the same!

THE BLUEPRINT

In recent years, I've come to a conclusion about relationships, whether personal or professional: the most healthy, mutually beneficial, continually growing, and beautiful relationships are based on a blueprint of behavioral standards.

By this phrase, I don't mean something rigid, like hard rules or a written agreement. Instead, I mean exactly how the word "standard" is defined:

• something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example

• something set up and established for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality

In the workplace, such behavioral standards are established by authority or custom "as a model or example...for the measure of...extent, value, or quality."

The CEO may tell us that foul language is or isn't allowed; U.S. law dictates that workplace sexual harassment is not allowed; as an entry-level employee, your co-workers may tell you that it's OK to call executives by their first name because they've always done it.

In our homes and personal lives, such standards are established by custom or general consent, for the measure of the same attributes. Children may have to ask permission before leaving the dinner table and then put their dirty plate in the dishwasher; longtime friends may have a standing phone call every week; life partners may agree that neither person goes to bed upset or that raised voices aren't allowed.

The reality is that there are countless more desired behaviors, both in work and life, that we have of others: load the dishwasher a certain way, take shoes off when entering the house, respond to emails within a certain amount of time, know when to speak in a meeting, etc.

More often than not, I believe these desired behaviors are simply expectations. We haven't gone through the process of setting them as standards, or we don't have (or didn't use) the "authority, custom, or general consent" to articulate them as such.

And even when we do, we often forget to consider how beautifully complex human beings are...both other people and ourselves.

THE CHALLENGE FOR BEHAVIORAL STANDARDS

Everything that makes each of us exceptionally unique as a human being also makes us exceptionally complex. As I've pondered this notion over the past year, I've come up with a handful of reasons that I believe drive our uniqueness and complexity. Obviously, this isn't an exhaustive list but I hope it paints a picture of how challenging it can be for us to set and follow behavioral standards.

1. Personality

This is a no-brainer. We all know that, as adults especially, so much of our complexity is driven by our amazingly different personalities. But what is personality made up of?

In the field of psychology, I found that the most common and historical standard for describing personality traits is the Big Five:

1. Openness to Experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)

2. Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)

3. Extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)

4. Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. critical/rational)

5. Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)

Taking a Big Five test reveals where we stand on each spectrum of the five traits and research has shown that those traits can change over time.

Think about the infinite possibilities! Five factors, a spectrum for each, and change over time. Just think how that affects our ability to follow standards, especially the fact that most of those standards will reflect a variation on any of our own traits (to take a Big Five personality test, here's one from Psychology Today).

2. Baggage

Obviously, we're all familiar with the fact that each one of us brings "baggage" to our relationships. But I want to zoom out here, and not just refer to baggage as problems or negative things, but rather the collective of who we are as humans, based not only on our personalities but our experiences.

If I was raised by happy, outgoing, and optimistic parents, it's possible I'll bring that "baggage" into the workplace. If I was raised by a parent who was an alcoholic, it's possible I'll bring that into the workplace. If I had a tragic accident as a child or had a nurturing and empathetic manager right out of college or took a gap year to travel the world...you get the idea.

All of this baggage that each of us brings into the workplace influences how effectively we can meet behavioral standards in any given moment...especially considering the next factor.

3. Life Circumstances

Staying on the theme of personal attributes, our ability to meet behavioral standards is also affected by what we're going through at that moment in time: a spouse losing their job, discovering that our identity was stolen, hearing that a close friend was diagnosed with terminal illness, experiencing deep anxiety because of world issues. The list goes on.

On any team, I believe that it's inevitable that someone is going through something that is affecting their ability to be their "normal self" and meet the behavioral standards for that team. And while more people are becoming more comfortable sharing what they're going through - and more companies are providing more resources to help - the reality is that we will never really know the full picture of anyone's life circumstances....just like others will never really know what we are going through ourselves.

4. Clarity

If you've read past articles of this newsletter, you know that I use the word "concrete" a lot when describing standards. I believe it's essential for standards to be specific and clear so that everyone understands what they are.

The example I often use is a standard many of our parents had in our homes: respect. As children, we have no idea what that means until our parents clarify that we should greet people with eye contact and a greeting, use "please" when asking for something, address elders in a certain way, and so on.

In the workplace, many people struggle with meeting standards because of a similar lack of clarity. Whether it's one-word core values (integrity, fun, service) or buzzwords/jargon (customer-centric, radical candor, stay in your lane), many workplace "standards" are actually just unclear expectations.

5. Role Models

This is a big one in professional environments. Just as our behavior - both healthy and unhealthy - in partner relationships is shaped by the role modeling of our parents and guardians, our behavior to professional relationships is influenced by the behaviors we observed of managers and co-workers early in our careers (as well as those parents and guardians!).

And as adults, the influence of role models deepens because we hear people's shared experiences, we read about and follow celebrities, we're inspired by mere acquaintances, etc. So what happens is that our beliefs and values are consistently being challenged, if not updated, as a result of this role modeling. And that has nuanced effects on our behaviors, as well as the ability and willingness to follow standards.

6. Training

As a leader, it's one thing to have behavioral standards, it's an entirely different thing to help people meet them.

When I worked in corporate America early in my career, I was invited to an important meeting held by my manager's boss, who was a VP. There were several others at the meeting but everyone was a peer of my manager or me; we were the most junior people in the room.

The VP did most of the talking while my manager and her peers did the rest. About halfway through the meeting, I chimed in with a benign comment that didn't draw a response nor did I pick up on anyone's non-verbals (truth is, I didn't even know that was a thing).

The meeting continued like any other, and ended on time. Afterwards, my manager called me into her office, apologizing that she hadn't shared a behavioral "standard" at our company: lower-level employees were to speak up only when called upon (remember - this was the early 1990s and it was a very large multinational).

Our ability to meet such standards in the workplace depends almost entirely on our employer, its leadership, and our immediate manager. Every company has its own culture, values, and code of conduct. And with the amount of turnover that occurs at all levels, this cause of not meeting standards might be the most compelling of all.

WHY A BLUEPRINT

I believe it's essential that we have a blueprint for setting and following behavioral standards - like a code of conduct - to help us build healthy relationships. Such a blueprint could help mitigate some of the above reasons and many others that make us such complex beings.

In some homes and cultures, religion or spirituality serves as that blueprint. In certain classrooms, a highly effective and exceptional teacher serves as that blueprint. At companies like IBM, a documented history of principles of conduct serves as that blueprint.

Such a blueprint doesn't have to be a rigid, rule-based system. It's still vulnerable to our complexity as human beings and I believe it must be forgiving to it as well. But a blueprint provides direction for everyone, the people who design it and those they hope will follow it.

AN ACCESSIBLE BLUEPRINT

I've been thinking, studying, talking, writing, and speaking about standards for almost ten years. But it wasn't until recently when I had a revelation that connected standards with another subject area where I have even more experience: emotional intelligence (EI).

As most people know who have studied EI, relationship management is the most complex set of competencies because it requires an ability to not only exercise self-mastery but also pay attention to, and influence, others in a mutually beneficial way.

One major part of relationship management is collaboration and teamwork, the ability to work together towards shared goals. Studies have shown that the strongest workplace teams are also emotionally intelligent teams. And the same studies concluded that emotionally intelligent teams resulted from emotionally intelligent norms, a synonym for standards.

Think about it: if an entire team (or family) consistently practiced behaviors that demonstrated everything from emotional awareness to self-control to empathy and compassion, wouldn't they develop emotionally intelligent norms? And in doing so, wouldn't the relationships be healthier than average?

So the revelation I had recently was simply that learning and practicing emotional intelligence is an accessible blueprint for behavioral standards in any organization or home. It's effectively a path towards engineering strong, healthy relationships.