Team Player?

I recall that several years ago I asked my good friend Dr. Stein to write a reference letter for me.  I do not now remember why I needed this.  She kindly wrote a letter and provided me with a copy.  In the letter she made very complimentary statements about my clinical skills and my character.  However, when I read, “Mr. Pickett is not a team player.” I thought she was saying something negative and my feelings were hurt.  After we talked, I had to be honest with myself and admit that she was, in her usual, insightful manner paying me a compliment.   

Professionally and personally I have always struggled with my conflicting desire to be liked and my  “need” to behave in a manner which is consistent with my current understanding of what is right or moral;  the best educated guess of what is most consistent with my professional and personal goal of being the most loving, competent, ethical, hard working person I can be.    I am grateful that the part which needs to behave in a way which seems “ethical/moral” wins a lot of the time.   Of course, in many situations this is not conducive to what may seem best or most efficient to my employer or other members of the organization of which I am a member.  If, for example, the goal is to follow a set of rules so that all members of the organization are behaving the same, then I must decide if some other moral or ethical principles takes precedence. If I  think that there is a sound clinical reason to continue to see a client when their insurance has run out or if there was some misunderstanding about the terms of a contract  I may decide that it is important to error on the side of the needs of the client even if this does not seem like a good financial decision for the organization or is not consistent with their rules. 

Administration would find it difficult to manage an organization if everyone was making up their own rules. That is not what I am suggesting.  Those who know me are clear that I do not arbitrarily break rules just to be breaking them. They are well aware that if I break a rule it is because I believe that I have very solid, well thought out reasons for doing so.  (Secretly they may hope that if they ever need an advocate then I will be that advocate.)

Now if I am going to break rules I wants to make sure   that I am clear about the reason for doing so.  I want to be careful that I do not allow oneself to get drawn into a power game/contest.   Needing to win an argument is not the same as doing what is best for the organization or the person for whom one is advocating.    I find that I have to rely on trusted friends and colleagues who will tell me the truth as they see it about why I am behaving in a certain manner.   They may tell me that this particular fight does not involve an important moral principles; that I have fallen into the trap of needing to prove that I can do my own thing.   “Oh dear”, one might think.  It is time for a little humility which will then require me  to quit what I am doing, apologize and get on with important work, whatever that work might  be.

All this sounds very simple and it is. There are those situations when trusted friends might think that the issue is not that important, but I am unable to agree with their point of view.  Then I must strive to be very honest with myself about my reasons for wanting to do something.  Accessing that truth within myself might take hours or many days and may involve many sleepless nights. Such self-reflection does not come easy for me. As is the case with many people I tend to over analyze and complicate even the simplest situations.

I keep thinking that as I age, I will become wiser or less passionate about what seems moral or ethical.   Fortunately or unfortunately, at nearly 75, I still feel a need to break the rules; to refuse to be a team player if it means doing something which seems unethical, unfair, or immoral to me. I also continue to agonize about what is the most moral or ethical behavior.

Just recently a situation occurred when I again found myself refusing to do something which an employer believed very strongly needed to be done.  Naturally my behavior did not make my employer happy with me.   In fact he found it very frustrating.   He was struggling with the conflicting facts that his initial impression was to “like me” and the fact that I seemed to be refusing to do something relatively simple for which he had very good reason to believe was best for the clients we were serving. I did not question his motivation. I could not, however, agree with him just to make him happy.  I wanted to make him happy or at least I wanted him to like and respect me. Yet, what he was demanding did not seem clinically sound to me despite the fact that there was a kernel of truth in what he was demanding.   The implementation of that truth was open to a lot of different possibilities.

To be very honest, there were a number of factors which were important to me at that moment. These included:

·      Considering what was best for the client’s healing/growing.

·      Getting the employer to continue to like and respect me.

·      Holding on to a part time job which paid decently.  (Actually I had already decided I could not continue this job, but a part of me loved having the extra money every two weeks.)

·      Wanting some internal peace  since struggling with such issues causes me a lot of internal stress.

·      Wanting to model making hard decisions for the clients who employ me.

·      Honoring my belief that the clients and not the “owner’ are always my boss.

“Mercy Jim!  You certainly do complicate a seemingly simple issue. Can’t you just be a team player?   Everyone else seems to either agree with the owner or does not see this as an important issue.”

Today  I am no longer an employee of this organization. I willingly resigned, but I believe that I would have been fired if I had not resigned.  I may be wrong, but I think that the employer wants a team player.  After all, team players make it easier for everyone to just get on with their job of making this a successful business; a business which has and will continue to provide a venue in which many folks will heal/recover.

I will continue to surround myself with loving, thoughtful people who will challenge me to examine how I choose my battles.  I will also continue to struggle with my conflicting desire to be ethically/morally consistent and my desire for people to like and respect me.  In this life journey I do not expect this internal conflict to be resolved.  While I am clear that I always want to allow my conscience to my guide, I seem to have an uncanny ability to deceive myself.   I hope that I do that less often than I use to, but I know that honesty with myself will continue to be an ongoing challenge for me.