What does respect mean as a company value?

Treating other people’s time, work and circumstances as though they cost what yours do, particularly when those people have less power than you. It is a behaviour with a direction: respect that flows upward is politeness, and respect that flows downward is the value.

How do you recognise respect at work?

By naming small, specific acts and who they were for: waiting for a colleague to finish a sentence, reading the proposal before the review, asking what happened before assuming. Each says more when the recipient is junior.

Why is respect rarely recognised?

Because it is defined negatively, as not being rude, and you cannot recognise an absence. Defined as a set of positive habits it becomes visible, and once visible it can be thanked.

What is the clearest example of respect at work?

Disagreeing hard with somebody’s work in a way that leaves them wanting to work with you again. It requires taking the work seriously and the person seriously at the same time, and it is rarer than most teams believe.

Company values

Respect

Respect is on more values pages than any other word, and it is almost never recognised, because it is defined as the absence of rudeness rather than the presence of anything.

Defined as an absence

Respect is the most common word on company values pages and the least recognised, because it is usually defined as the absence of rudeness. You cannot thank somebody for a thing that did not happen.

Defined as a set of habits it becomes visible: reading the proposal before arguing about it, arriving on time to the junior colleague’s meeting, asking what happened before deciding what it meant.

Look at who receives it

Respect shown to people with more power than you is manners. The value is the same conduct shown to people with less: the intern whose standup you are on time for, the colleague whose name you get right without making it a moment.

How you would know

Is on time to other people’s meetings: Treats the junior colleague’s calendar with the same care as the director’s.
Reads before replying: Finishes the document or the thread before responding to it.
Disagrees with the idea and never the person: Argues hard about the work in a way the author can hear.
Asks before assuming: Checks the circumstances behind a missed deadline before drawing a conclusion.

6 messages that name it

You were the only person who read the whole proposal before the review. It showed in every question you asked.
Peer
Reading is respect for the author’s time, and the questions were the evidence.
Thank you for asking what had happened before assuming Leo had dropped the ball. He had been in hospital.
Manager
The check before the conclusion is the behaviour.
You disagreed with the design for forty minutes and Ana came out of it wanting to work with you again. I do not know how you do that.
Manager
Hard disagreement with the relationship intact.
You arrive on time to the intern’s standup and five minutes late to the exec meeting. I think that is exactly the right way round.
Peer
Respect measured by who receives it.
Thanks for waiting for Priya to finish before responding, three times in one meeting. She had not been allowed to finish a sentence all quarter.
Peer
A small act, counted, in context.
You corrected the pronunciation of Nguyen’s name for the room without making it a moment. He noticed.
Manager
Specific, quiet and about somebody with less standing.

What its absence looks like

Where respect is absent, meetings start late for junior people and on time for senior ones, documents are argued about by people who have not read them, and a missed deadline is a verdict before it is a question.

Recognising it well

Look downward. Respect shown to people with more power is politeness; respect shown to people with less is the value.
Recognise the check before the conclusion. Asking what happened before deciding what it means is the behaviour that separates respect from manners.
Name the argument that stayed about the work. Hard disagreement that leaves the relationship intact is a skill, and it deserves saying so in front of the people who saw it.

Questions people ask

What does respect mean as a company value?: Treating other people’s time, work and circumstances as though they cost what yours do, particularly when those people have less power than you. It is a behaviour with a direction: respect that flows upward is politeness, and respect that flows downward is the value.
How do you recognise respect at work?: By naming small, specific acts and who they were for: waiting for a colleague to finish a sentence, reading the proposal before the review, asking what happened before assuming. Each says more when the recipient is junior.
Why is respect rarely recognised?: Because it is defined negatively, as not being rude, and you cannot recognise an absence. Defined as a set of positive habits it becomes visible, and once visible it can be thanked.
What is the clearest example of respect at work?: Disagreeing hard with somebody’s work in a way that leaves them wanting to work with you again. It requires taking the work seriously and the person seriously at the same time, and it is rarer than most teams believe.