Never Compare People with Others
Mayengo narrates how everyone in his department was extremely relieved when they heard that their Director, Baliwo, was finally retiring. Text messages were sent from one cell phone to another, jubilating that the ‘leopard’; the secret nickname by which Baliwo was known; was about to ‘exit enemy territory’. Working with Baliwo had been a dreadful experience for Mayengo and his colleagues. For not only would the man dump unnecessarily long tasks on employees; but he had slashed all overtime allowances. “How sure am I that you are not spending the whole day browsing pornographic internet sites?” he would shamelessly declare, whenever the lads dared raise over-time related queries in staff meetings.
In his farewell speech, Baliwo emphasized that the new Director Mukiibi was his long-term close friend and school mate, requesting that the employees cooperate with the new boss. But the opposite happened. For as soon as Baliwo left, word got round that ‘another leopard’ had entered enemy territory, with people vowing to give Mukiibi the hardest time of his life. A few months later, the new boss was forced to resign on grounds that he had failed to manage his supervisees.
Mayengo and his peers made a mistake. They discounted the fact that Baliwo and Mukiibi were different, with a unique DNA and set of fingerprints. The employees should have been ready to accept that two people cannot be the same.
If you battle with the habit of comparing people with others, you would recognise the familiar inner voice that says: “if this was so-and-so, she would never have done this…”, “since so-and-so does it this way, some other so-and-so will definitely do it the very same way”.
But much as it may be difficult for one to accept, realise that two people cannot be exact replicas. Thinking that way is a dream; and, the day you wake-up to reality, you could be very disappointed.
Failing to accommodate and appreciate the diversity amongst people can be most counterproductive and could damage relationships; thence opening a door for you to find it hard to forgive people.