Respect = Look Again

I was reminded yesterday of Liz Keogh‘s derivation of respect as re-spicere, or “look again”, “challenge your assumptions”.

A colleague told me how she gets a bus at 7:15 which gets her into work at 8:30. I was about to commiserate with her and suggest an alternative route which might be quicker, although it would involve a change, when she continued:

“It’s great. I get to sit for an hour and a quarter in a warm bus.  I can read my Kindle, catch up on magazines, or even sleep.  I always get a seat, and I don’t have to worry about rush-hour traffic. And then I get the same home again at the end of the day.”

Like Liz’s example of the 20-stone woman (see about 6:35 in her keynote at Lean Agile Scotland 2012), this made me look again at my assumptions and realise how they were flawed.