5. One Alum’s Experience with Civility

When BYU Marriott alumna Crissan Pierce thinks about civility, she thinks about the principles of kindness that she’s learned and practiced throughout her life.”To me, civility means basic human kindness,” she says. “It’s using your nice words and treating other people with kindness. Civility means following the golden rule.”

Since graduating with a master’s of accounting degree from BYU Marriott in 1991, Pierce has worked as a tax consultant and manager for companies in the Los Angeles and Denver areas. Currently, she works as a tax manager for ProVison, a wealth management company. As she’s worked on projects as diverse as preparing tax returns for a healthcare company or counting Oscar ballots, she’s encountered both positive and negative situations in the workplace.

Tax work inherently involves deadlines, and these deadlines sometimes motivate supervisors to pressure their employees in a negative way. “I’ve worked for many different bosses, and I’ve seen people getting impatient that things aren't done and pushing people to do things in a way that;s demeaning,” she says. “That’s demoralizing, and it certainly doesn’t make people want to do their best work for these supervisors.”

However, deadlines don’t necessarily breed hostility. When supervisors take the time to show their employees that they are valued, the employees will be motivated to work harder. “At my current firm, even though I've been working like a dog, the people that I'm working for have never lost their temper. If anything, the partners have bent over backwards to be fair with people,” she says. “Even when we were crazy at the deadline and stuff was going out way too late on the deadline, they did not lose their cool with their employees or with others. That makes all of us motivated to do our best work for them.”.

When Pierce has been able to be a supervisor herself, she’s been able to build a positive environment, even in toxic situations. “During my time working at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, I was assigned a client, and the relationship with them had been pretty hostile up to that point,” she says. “So when the project was finally under me, I got everybody in the room and had a meeting together with my team and the client who was angry with us.I had the client, tell me what issues she saw, and I listened to her and repeated back what I was hearing. I then turned to my people to talk about how we could address the issues that she was seeing.”

This approach allowed Pierce’s team to see the situation from the client’s perspective, and they were able to turn a hostile situation into a more productive one. “My client became significantly calmer, and we came up with solutions to our problems. And my team was calmer, too, because they finally understand the problem. Once we listened to the real issues and expressed a desire to help with them, we were able to build a good working relationship.”

Whether she’s facing hostile clients or demanding bosses, Pierce recognizes that active listening can help both parties find a solution together. “Sometimes when someone is angry, it’s easy to respond in an angry way. But that’s not productive, and you’ll never feel good about yourself,” she says. “ It takes a lot of self control, but you can take a deep breath, respond calmly, and listen to what the other person is truly saying. If you can validate their concerns and work with them, you’ll reach a solution together”

In any situation, Pierce recognizes that basic principles of kindness are an essential tool for resolving conflict. “If you're going to work with other people, nobody wants to work with somebody who's hostile,” she says. “The old saying you catch more flies with honey than vinegar is 100% true in the workplace, just like it’s true anywhere else.”

Want to learn more about civility in the workplace? Check out @firstjob.kindness on Instagram to learn more about how to promote kindness in the office.