Trigger Question #157:
Pay attention, because I am going to help you spot unreasonable people at work.
What do you mean you don’t need my help? You think you know unreasonable when you see it? Well, what if I tell you that some people believe that unreasonableness is a strength? If that’s the case, you might easily miss unreasonable behavior.
By some people, I mean George Bernard Shaw, who had this to say in his play Man and Superman, written in 1903:
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
There you have it. Unreasonable can be good. More a strength than a weakness. It’s almost a case for why we need mavericks, dissenters, and other nonconformists at work. They make change, even progress, happen. Or so believed Mr. Shaw.
If that’s so, why do we dislike unreasonable people so much? Because unreasonableness is not always a positive attribute. Sometimes unreasonable people are simply jerks. But how can you tell the difference between the positive and the jerk? By using my definition, that’s how:
A jerk is someone who is unreasonable without reason.
If you are unreasonable at work for no reason, simply because you can be, then stop. Before you turn into a jerk. Many reasonable people will humor unreasonableness if it leads to positive change and progress. But few people will tolerate jerks for long.
Whatever jerks might believe, progress does not depend on them.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
. . .