Are You Threatening Me?

I think I may have been threatened at work today. Seriously, someone told me to stay out of the way because she didn’t want me helping another person that we work with to get a job accomplished. She told me that by failing you learn. That may be true for some things, but we’re talking about getting a project done at work, not learning a life lesson. Unless learning a life lesson is how to get along with others, especially people you don’t particularly like, to get a common goal accomplished.

We’re a learning organization so I take teaching seriously. It isn’t just a matter of writing training classes so we can spread the word from on high. I actually, crazy as it sounds, think you should walk the talk. If we’re going to be a learning organization then that means the teaching and the learning are internal too. How could I be in this field and torture myself with grad school in adult learning if I didn’t actually believe this to be true and want to help someone learn how to do whatever it is that needs learning? It doesn’t mean I’m going to spoon-feed them or do their job. It means I’m going to guide them through the process and help them learn by doing. Not a tough concept really.

So, what do I do when threatened? I take the high road and then plot like mad to make sure a big cup of comeuppance is served. The project will rock the casbah and the mentored will know what she needs to do in the future to carry a course on her own. The bully in all of this will just have to take a sip of this.