First, Do No Harm

Every volunteer for the 2002 Olympic or Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City received training to improve our interaction with the diverse people coming to this international event. Most of the training described common sense good behavior. But my instructor taught one very powerful idea that continues to influence my relationship with others.

The core idea states that people are people before anything else. In English we say "I am" to describe both inherent and immutable traits as well as passing and temporary conditions. I am an attorney, doctor, athlete or boss is expressed the same as I am sick, cold, hungry or sad. But saying that someone is sad versus being a sad person carries a drastically different meaning. Whenever we emphasize the adjective we minimize the humanity.

They trained us to see people as people first and to use adjectives only as needed to accommodate individual situations.  If we were dealing with someone from Sweden  or someone from Japan our behavior would be generally the same because they were both people. But should we ignore their differences and not discriminate? Of course not. Some of our Japanese friends didn't speak English or Swedish so if we treated those individuals like the Swedes we would have been tremendously rude. The rule is simple, treat everyone as a person first, not as an attorney, doctor, athlete or boss but just as a person. If you approach everyone on the basic human level first, they will recognize your pure intentions and they will understand that when you help them into a car because they are missing limbs that you are acting out of human kindness and not pity for someone you believe inferior.

I thought of this lesson yesterday when I learned of a $1.2 billion dollar fine that Toyota is paying because they hid data that demonstrated their prior knowledge of problems that led to sudden acceleration in their vehicles causing death and injury. What struck me was the government official who announced the fine using the term consumers to describe those who were placed at risk because of Toyota's behavior. I knew the word was coming even before I heard it over the radio. The hairs on my neck stood on end.

We are not merely consumers. I know the word exists and I will probably use it myself in the near future but it doesn't define who we are. We are people. We are human. We are husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. We are wives, mothers, daughters and sisters. When we are just consumers, a $1.2 billion dollar fine can remedy the harm caused in accidents.

But there is only one way to remedy harm done to people. You have to do good. Paying a fine and stopping to do that which is wrong is necessary but an insufficient step for true recompense. I invite Toyota to do more than pay its fine and stop doing things that are wrong. It is time for them to do good.