Have you ever worked at a job with a lot of unspoken rules? Things you didn’t know about until you unknowingly violated some kind of intolerable norm? And you felt kind of blindsided by it and wondered if it was so dang important, then why didn’t they just inform you at the front end? Sure would have made things easier, right?

Everyone has a set of intolerables. Most are unspoken. So, can you list yours? As a leader, have you spelled them out in writing for your team to know about in advance?

You most likely went into business because you couldn’t tolerate being an employee. You wanted more control and opportunity that what you could get working for someone else.  However, by being a business owner and self-employed, you soon learn that you’re trading off one set of control issues for other ones. 

As you know, there are a whole set of frustrations that come with owning and operating a business. Sometimes you might find it hard to even articulate what those frustrations stem from. You don’t know what you’re frustrated about, you just want it fixed. Nice try.

When you find yourself frustrated, annoyed or angry, start a list. It’s a list of things, behaviors, patterns and repeated mistakes that make you feel that way. It’s your list of intolerables. 

What’s the root cause? Maybe it’s obvious. Other times, you have to think about it. 

Then start expanding your list to 10. You might know right off the bat what they are. Perhaps you only can think of 2 or 3. However, as life goes on, I guarantee that you’ll add other items to the list.

It’s important to define them. Ultimately, you want to be able to list them so that you can share them with the people in your organization who report to you. If there’s something that you just can’t stand, then why not let people know in advance what that is? It will help them to help you.

Here’s an example. In our business, we build for a lot of high net worth people. In doing so, I’ve met some amazing and extraordinary people. People I never would have met if we hadn’t been hired to remodel or build their home. People who have made a significant difference in the world. 

On the other hand, we’ve also built for a few, fortunately very few, petty and unhappy people who happen to have a lot of money. I learned that the old adage, “Money doesn’t make you happy” is backed up in truth. And having a lot of money gives some people a false belief that their shit doesn’t stink and that they have some sort of right to demean those around them in order to feel better about themselves.. 

So, a key intolerable for me is abusive clients. Fortunately, we haven’t had too many, but we've had a few. Sure, we had tough, demanding, opinionated, and strong clients. But only a handful who were truly abusive. These people were rude, entitled, unappreciative, and treated my site supervisors and trades poorly. 

I learned over time that abusive behavior is my biggest intolerable.  No one in my company has to eat shit from a client. While I expect everyone in my company to remain professional, they also have the option to leave a site or a meeting if a client becomes rude.

Again, no one needs to eat shit. While we all make mistakes, they are honest ones, and we own them. So I can’t tolerate those clients who want to berate or belittle people in the trades as a day-to-day practice.

It’s a tough situation for yourself and your company. Abusive clients can literally take years off your life. Abusive clients can make people sick. You have to set boundaries without getting into a pissing match that you can’t win. However, there is a way to handle this situation.

Acknowledge the abusive person’s emotional state and then say you are going to leave the site for 90 minutes and then you’ll return. You can remain professional AND refuse to play their game. Let them know that if they’d like to discuss the situation later, that you would welcome that, provided that they’re in a place where you can have a rational conversation.. At the moment, however, it doesn’t seem like anything productive is going to happen, so you’re going to leave.

You do have to acknowledge the abusive person's state of mind and then you set the boundary. For instance, "We've been talking about this issue for 20 minutes now and it seems like you're pretty frustrated." Then wait, listen, and acknowledge their response. "Okay, I understand the drywall texture is not meeting your expectation. However, abusing my employees or the drywallers is not an acceptable response. So I understand your irritation AND when you're in a place where we can discuss this rationally, then I'll be available to meet with you. In the meantime, I'm going to take my leave until we get to that place where we can have that conversation. I'll check back with you in 90 minutes." 

So, after thinking about my intolerables over the years, itemizing them and refining the list a few times, I learned that I needed to share the my list with my employees soon after they were hired. It made sense to let them know as soon as possible what my intolerables are so that they could avoid pushing my buttons unintentionally.  

I began doing this, asking for feedback and asking them to list theirs. Most couldn’t give me their list as they hadn’t defined theirs, but at least they knew mine and I got them thinking.

So, here’s my list of intolerables that I gave to our company and our new hires within 30 days of starting work at our company:

RBG’s Intolerables defined for G&Cers’:
1.    Stealing, cheating, lying, or “shading the truth”
2.    Not keeping others fully informed
3.    Not taking responsibility for your work
4.    "Leaving the 1 nail out of 100 lying on the ground" and not pointing it out; 
5.    Incompetence, “knowing it all”, not willing to learn and admit mistakes or that you don’t know something.
6.    Pointing out problems consistently without offering 2 or 3 solutions and taking ownership of the problem.
7.    Screwing your fellow colleagues, employees, trade contractors and vendors.
8.    Screwing the client.
9.    Screwing the company.
10.    Lastly, no one needs to eat shit here while working at G&C.  Bullying, scapegoating, abuse or mistreatment of G&Cers by our clients are all intolerables.  While remaining professional, you can always opt to leave a situation where there is abuse taking place.

You can work here and be true to yourself.

So, the question is: What are your intolerables?