The limits of tolerance

We are often taught to be tolerant of others.

Even from a young age, if someone behaves badly towards us, we’re encouraged to deal with it constructively, rather than to lose our temper or display aggression.

This is “civilised” behaviour, and involves restraint and control.

Over time, we are conditioned to try to remain calm and to be respectful, even when faced with poor attitudes or behaviour.

But does this have its limits? And when does tolerating bad behaviour go too far?

A career of diplomacy, tact and restraint

During my career, I’ve often been in situations where I’ve needed to be tolerant and diplomatic.

As a consultant, I’d need to work with people who didn’t want me around.

Nobody likes a consultant. They come in, tell you what you’re doing wrong, ignore all the knowledge you have, get you fired and then leave.

So, the focus for me was all about building trust. Remaining calm, not laying blame or being critical.

Given time, this approach tends to work well because people learn that you’re not there to tell them they’re idiots – you’re there (hopefully) to help.

Managing projects was no easier. You’re there to get people to do things they often don’t have the time or inclination to do.

Some project or program managers focus on being directive and authoritative – but that was never my style.

Instead, my approach is about building trust, helping people feel motivated so they can perform at their best. This also works, but can take longer and requires patience.

Dealing with executives, I needed to put my diplomacy hat on as well.

It doesn’t generally work well to disagree forcefully with them, especially if they have a strong personality. Instead, it can be better to use the influencing tools in your toolkit.

You know – convince them that the smart strategy was actually their idea, for example. This often massages the ego sufficiently for them to do what you need them to.

But when does this level of tolerance and tact go too far? When is it time to say “enough is enough”?

We tolerate when it feels wrong to blame

When a child breaks something in the house, it’s annoying.

We might get angry, but ultimately we know that that’s what kids do when they’re playing. That’s their nature.

We seldom label a puppy incompetent for weeing on the carpet… it just hasn’t learned to go outside yet.

When a bear attacks and kills a hiker in the woods, we tend not to level our hatred on the bear. We instead say things like “that’s where they live” or “that’s just its nature”.

And for adult humans, we are often told to remind ourselves that we don’t know what is going on for other people when they do weird stuff.

“They might have some problems going on at home”, for example, which is where the iceberg model of human behaviour comes in.

This is a common strategy to get us in the right mindset to tackle a difficult conversation – challenging the story we are telling ourselves about the person, by putting us into a more curious, accepting state of mind before we open our mouths.

But there is an argument to say that we really shouldn’t blame anyone for anything they ever do… because millions of previous factors contributed to the behaviour we’re seeing right now.

Do humans have free will?

Some people argue that there is no such thing as free will.

That is – our choices are largely predetermined. We have no control over what we’ll do next.

As humans, we like to pretend that our successes are due to our own strength of character, intelligence and general awesomeness.

And that our failures are not really our fault… after all, there are many other factors to blame.

But consider that if you’re currently a well-paid leader in a civilised, safe society, you most likely got really lucky in the lottery of life.

If you had instead been born in poverty and in the midst of civil unrest where every day was a fight to survive, you’d probably not have had the opportunity to pursue an education which helped you get to where you are today. You might even have been born in a tiny village where nobody has even thought about going to university.

So are you really just the sum of your upbringing, genetics and environment? Is everything you do now simply based on those preceding aspects of your life?

And is it true you don’t really have a choice in what you do next?

It’s an interesting thought. And it can feel demoralising. Because it would mean that all the great things you have are not really anything to do with you at all.

Because those things had already been determined for you.

But I’m not here to tell you that humans have or don’t have free will.

We should, in fact, tolerate everything

If people’s behaviour is the result of genetics, past experiences and their environment, why don’t we simply tolerate everything?

If an employee comes in late because he has family problems at home and hasn’t slept, he surely cannot be blamed. His mother may not have tucked him in at night or read him stories the right way, so it’s not his fault.

What about the executive who stomps on other people’s throats to achieve his goals? We can trace that behaviour back to him being the smallest, youngest child in a family of six and his primary school teacher telling him that he “would never amount to anything”. So how can we blame him for that behaviour?

A criminal breaks into your house and steals your television. But he’s only a criminal because of his poor upbringing and lack of education… how dare you blame him for that?

But we don’t tolerate all of these things.

The question is, why not?

What differentiates the “live and let live” attitude of tolerance from “you’d better change your behaviour real quick”?

We’re less likely to be tolerant when there is clear personal impact

It seems to me that there are several factors which influence when we choose to tolerate the behaviour of others and when we don’t.

First, we are less likely to be tolerant when a person’s behaviour impacts on our safety.

This includes personal safety (you broke into my house), but also financial stability (you stole my TV and now I need to buy another one). These core drives are strong, and sit near the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. That is, they’re the foundational needs that we require before we seek to pursue greater motivations.

We also are less likely to tolerate behaviour when it has a negative impact on others. If your poor performance is disrupting my team, I can’t let that slide.

However, I notice that even though it seems like this is about looking out for others, we can still trace it back to an individual impact. That is – if you disrupt the team and I’m the boss, performance suffers and you make me look bad. Or, I look bad because I’ve done nothing to stop the poor performance.

On a similar note, fairness is a factor which may cause us to be less tolerant. You’re getting paid to do a job. If you’re not productive enough, you don’t deserve that money. But again, we can tie this one back to a personal impact too. If other people see that you’re letting an unfair situation persist, then perhaps you’re the problem.

We’re more likely to be tolerant when we’re fearful

What about the opposite – the times when we will let things go and choose to be more tolerant?

When you’re helping me achieve my goals, I might have a tendency to look past any problematic behaviour.

If I’m the CEO and one of my directors is causing significant conflict, I might overlook this if I can see they’re “really getting things done”.

And if I believe that the behaviour I’m seeing is simply part of the person’s nature, then I may be more tolerant. Bob is very shy so he hates giving presentations…but I’m OK with that – he can’t help it.

But we can’t forget about power. We also tend to tolerate behaviour when we don’t feel as if we have the power to do anything about it.

Or, when we are fearful that standing up is going to have greater personal consequences than staying silent.

The tipping point from tolerance to action

It appears that the degree to which we tolerate is situational and conditional.

Rather than tolerance, diplomacy and restraint being some sort of moral virtues, it seems that when the conditions are right, we’ll shift our stance.

We are taught to be tolerant from a young age. And in the workplace, “professional” and civil behaviour is built on tolerating things.

Calling out somebody’s bad behaviour could be viewed as creating conflict, so many people stay silent and choose the path of tolerance instead.

Our tolerance changes when we reach our limit – the point where we feel the personal impact is greater than our fear of responding.

We sometimes find ourselves tolerating situations that we know, logically, are not acceptable.

And it’s in those situations that it’s worth asking what would need to change – in yourself or the situation – to stop tolerating, and to move toward action.