Could you have worked with Norman Tebbit?

Norman Tebbitt was a right wing political bruiser. I disagreed with him about everything in the 80s and later he opposed equal marriage.

But I’ve been wondering, while most of his views appalled me, shouldn’t we try to find the good along with the bad in ourselves and others, where we agree with others as much as disagree?

This week Suzanne Moore, the columnist, tweeted, that she had once received death threats from the neo-Nazi group Combat 18. Tebbit wrote her a sweet note that basically said ‘You are no one till you have had a death threat’. When she posted this there were some very disheartening replies like “I only wish he'd died earlier”.

But in 1984 the Brighton left him very seriously injured and his wife was almost completely paralysed. He gave up politics to care for her. And he never lost his rather mordant wit. When asked about John Major’s improbable affair with Edwina Currie he remarked: “I thought it was a wonderful illustration of mutual bad taste.”

I disagreed with so much of what Norman Tebbit stood for but he was also a man who cared loyally for his wife “in sickness”, appeared to be unfailingly polite and (my weakness) had a caustic wit. Could we have worked together? Well we’d probably never found a common cause in politics but if we were in an organisation together, could we?

So, let’s take the good from Tebbit and ask, what are the questions for us at work when we have really different views from a colleague?

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1. Do disagreements with others matter at work if they are not about work? Can I separate my feelings about their views from our shared professional goals?

2. Is a colleague’s behaviour what matters, rather than their views? Do I judge them more for what they believe, or for how they act towards me and the team?

3. Does how we treat each other matter more than how we vote? Would I rather work with someone whose views differ from mine but who treats everyone well, or with someone who shares my views but behaves poorly?

4. Do we need to respect each other, or is it sufficient to treat each other respectfully? Isn’t professional civility enough?

5. Is the most important thing to have your views, even express them, but not force them onto others? Open dialogue is healthy, but imposition breeds resentment.

6. When someone upsets or offends us, is it worth pausing to consider whether they were malicious or just clumsy? Before reacting, ask: Was this intentional, or just poorly expressed?

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