Before pointing to someone's dirty laundry..

Recent political and world climate reminded me of this FR from 2008.

Point to Ponder: Once upon a time I had a Boss with a nice style of keeping focus on the right things. Whenever he heard criticism that another department or a person needed improvement, he would gently remind us about the things in our department needing improvement. "You have to be mindful of.."

Story Line: A young couple moves into a neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hang the wash outside.

"The laundry is not very clean", she said to her husband. "The neighbor does not know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor hung her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About a month later the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look! She has learned to wash correctly, I wonder who taught her this?"

The husband said: I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows!

Reflection: How clean is your window?

And so it is with life: what we see watching others (peer groups, competitors, different cultures and nations) depends on the purity of the window through which we look.

Before we give criticism, it might be good idea to check our state of mind and ourselves if we are ready to see the good rather than to be looking for something in the person we are about to judge.

And oh yes! I almost forgot ...

I see you much cleaner than I did yesterday ... And you?

 

Comments

[Jerry]

When I see you much cleaner than I did yesterday, that means I am also cleaner than I was yesterday.

[Anne]

So true, we always see others fault before seeing our own faults first. Thanks for sharing this.

[Concerned Citizen]

Have you sent this reflection to Clinton and Trump?

[Mark Dennen]

I think the quote is something like, "First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Today, with so much media attention and availability, it is so easy to be judgmental, so hard to sit back and let it all pass. I know people who do not watch the evening news and wonder how it that possible, but then I can also see the benefits.

[Sam]

Very sage advice!! We make a lot of assumptions when we are judging the other person and some of them would be incorrect. Also, it is much easier to change myself than others.

[BHSC]

Oh this is wonderful… and very insightful

Thank you for sharing!
Another great wisdom story.

[BQN Old Timer]

This reminds me of the process control system training slide where we teach that bad metrology (ability to see) results in bad decisions (in this case, conclusions).

[IlliniGrad]

Great reminder. While this is something I've known logically and theoretically for a long time, I believe I still often struggle with it practically in not letting my assumptions, perceptions, pre-dispositions, mood, and biases affect how I see and react to others.

The improvement project continues...

[SMS]

This story is more relevant to the politics today than ever. The two candidates and their surrogates, one more so in particular, seem to use the other candidate's dirty laundry. The media and voters seem to miss how dirty our windows are.

[Chiaoju]

So many has happened at my current workplace and of course one issue we had to constantly deal with is this exact scenario - pointing to someone's dirty laundry. We had a session of reflection; to think about 2016 and to see how we can move forward in 2017. We were asked to provide a score, and we didn't score ourselves very high. It was truly a reflection for every single person in the team.

A few days passed and there were a lot of conversation revolving around the reflection session. Turns out a handful of people had think that the reflection session was meant for "someone else", not them.

To be able to dig down beneath us and reflect requires the ability to look at ourselves in the mirror. It is also a habit. I was fortunate to have done this many times since I was young, for my mum, at the end of days when we were not behaving well, she will leave us with a statement "before you sleep tonight, just think about what you have done today and evaluate if it's right or wrong.". I guess this reflection habit has stuck by me for what feels like forever.

To be able to reflect on ourselves can be a challenging task for some people. Because when the reflection reveals the truth, some may not be able to take it.