Transcript:

Let’s talk about the Rubber Rule. I ascribe but what I call the rubber rule, that is there is no hard and fast rule. Instead, it’s about reflecting on what you do, why you do it, is it serving you and others, or should you change. In my research, People often treat different people differently. Respect is relative, contradictory, and subjective. If you’re like most people we talked to, you may also have different expectations of how you should be treated, depending on who you’re interacting with. This shows how respect is relative. The way that you treat your boss could be different from the way that you treat a vendor. And how you expect your boss to treat you might be different from how you expect a vendor to treat you. 

Respect is also contradictory. Think about that person who is always giving you unsolicited constructive feedback but when you give that person unsolicited constructive feedback, they don't like it. Respect is contradictory within ourselves. The way that you want to be treated often may differ from the way that you want to treat others. There are a lot of people who like to surprise people, but they don’t like to be surprised themselves. 

How I want to be treated with respect is most likely different from the way you want to be treated with respect. And that has to do with what we learned in Module 2 about where our ideas of respect come from. Personal relationships and experiences influence how we think about respect, which is why respect is subjective. 

To finish this module, you can take a quiz to test your learning.