My wife, who is a teacher at St. Paul Schools, has been working with Karen immigrants for the past couple years. These folks come from Burma, but have been chased through the jungles by the Burmese Army for more than 50 years. To a person, the Karen people my wife has met all have stories about loved ones – children, parents, siblings – being slaughtered by Army troops before their very eyes. Very sad stuff.
Imagine if that was your life. If you had those kinds of experiences, would you feel sorry for yourself? Would you think the world just might owe you something? I’m guessing that I’d be quite bitter and would have a hard time mustering anything resembling a positive mental attitude.
But that doesn’t seem to be the way the Karen are coping with their adversity. At least that’s what my wife reports, after having worked now with a few hundred families.
This summer when my wife was interviewing several Karen people for a highly sought after interpreter job, she noticed something unusual. Despite being desperate to work, the candidates were habitually downplaying their own skills and qualifications. Not only that, they were actually selling against themselves, saying things like, “If you find another candidate who is more qualified than me, please hire them instead of me.”
What got me was how the candidates would close out the interview. With sincere thanks. “Thank you for the interview,” one of the candidates said earnestly as things were wrapping up. “No matter what happens, I have already learned a lot and grown just from talking to you.”
I don’t know about you, but I find this incredibly humbling. Unless it has gone well and I’ve gotten the job, l can’t say that I’ve ever left an interview with the feeling that I came out ahead. And I’m don’t leave discussions with prospective employers and clients feeling that I have grown as a person. Is that a reasonable expectation? Or are these Karen immigrants naive and deluded?
Perhaps they’re on to something. Imagine what your meetings and sales pitches could be like if you truly felt grateful for the opportunity. How would you prepare for such meetings? How would people perceive you? And how might you grow personally from such postive, generous interactions?
September 25th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I know next to nothing about Asian culture, but I have spent a little bit of time in China, and studying Mandarin. In Chinese culture, if
you are given a compliment, the polite thing to do is not to say “thank you,” like we do–because then you are agreeing that you are as awesome as the other person says you are, which is considered arrogant. The polite thing is to disagree and say “mei-yo” (literally “have not”) meaning you don’t have the awesomeness that you were accused of having.
It seems like that may be a broader Asian cultural tradition, since the Karen people are exhibiting similar humility. And I agree 100%, if sales reps (like me) would take that kind of attitude, it would almost force decision makers to let their guards down, and really listen to what the rep has to say.