Kweku’s Korner
By Dr. Alisia Moutry
President/CEO of 4AM Consulting, LLC
& Kelly A. Smith M.A.
For nearly 40 years, Alisia, Kelly, and our relationship evolved. Straight out of the 53216 and 53205 ZIP Codes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we started our friendship as college students. To date we remain Platinum level friends (we call each other Road Dogs). While both vacationing in Costa Rica, we decided to share our secret as an effort to help strengthen our community. As you read this article, we challenge you to consider the relationship(s) you need to elevate. Strengthening relationships has a Three-tiered approach.
Silver Tier 1 – This tier is kindness and human decency. Kind is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate, according to Google, Oxford Languages. Kind means different things to different people and situations. Kindness could be represented by treating someone better than deserved or doing something that creates a smile. Here are some random acts of kindness to try: pay the bill for the person in line behind you, send an unprompted motivational message, call someone you haven’t seen or spoken to in a while, and move the neighbor’s trash bin.
Gold Tier 2 – This tier illustrates treating others how YOU want to be treated. Harry J. Gensler calls it an ethic of reciprocity in his book entitled Ethics and the Golden Rule. This means you treat others how you would like them to treat you (not necessarily, how they treat you). For example, if you like when people are direct in communicating, reciprocate that to others. If you like timely guests, then you show up on time. At the end of the day, you want to provide, behave, and interact in ways you would hope others would with you. Tony Alessandra and Michael O’Connor argue that the “Golden Rule” is not always the best way to approach people, they propose the Platinum Rule.
Platinum Tier 3 – This tier depicts kindness as treating others how THEY want to be treated. “Do unto others as “they’d’’ like done unto them”. This requires extra effort because the giver must step outside of personal likes, desires, and wants. The giver must get to know the receiver who may take the giver outside of their comfort zone; however, not outside of the giver’s moral standards.
The Silver and Gold Tiers 1 & 2 can result in friction, typically because the giver gets frustrated because the receiver is unhappy, and or unappreciative. Here are a few signs of friction: one or both feel like the victim, communication breakdowns, outbursts, obsessive need to be together due to fear of abandonment, and distancing self. Within effective relationships, both parties must intentionally choose to remove self from the equation to focus on the receiver. Platinum relationships will build and strengthen our community.
Of course, there will be times that you feel like no one reciprocates or deserves this Top Tier. In time, with consistency, one relationship at a time, from the words of the great Sam Cooke, “change is gonna come.”