The first time I heard the term radical acceptance, I was in therapy. I was detailing how chaotic life had gotten since becoming a parent and how the little things that used to bug me were now things I could quickly accept and move on from. My priority became keeping an infant alive; I didn’t have the capacity or desire to care about things beyond my control.

“What you’re talking about is radical acceptance,” my therapist shared. Never having heard the term before, I became fascinated with how this concept played out in my new life as a parent. I never thought that radical acceptance could apply to the workplace. That is until I discovered Risha Grant.

Risha Grant is a DEI expert who has made a career of helping people around the world find radical acceptance. I wanted to learn more about how to use this newfound skill in the workplace, so I turned to Grant’s writing to learn more. “Radical Acceptance (RA) is the practice of welcoming and embracing people’s full humanity, including our own, without BS, full stop,” Grant explains. “In the wellness world, RA refers to the act of relinquishing the urge to control or avoid pain. The RA I teach doesn’t help you to tolerate pain, it prevents you from causing it.”

In her new book Be Better Than Your BS: How Radical Acceptance Empowers Authenticity and Creates a Workplace Culture of Inclusion, Grant encourages readers to examine the roots of their issues through a process of radically accepting themselves and then teaches them how to build a BS-free culture by radically accepting others.

While I’d love to live in a world where everyone is welcoming to coworkers, we embrace people’s authentic selves, and the only type of conflict is healthy conflict, the truth is there are always going to be people who push our buttons and make it challenging to work alongside. So, what are we supposed to do? I’d argue that radical acceptance is a good first step.

ADDRESS YOUR OWN INTERNAL BIASES

You can’t control other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but you can control how you work on yourself. So, before changing how we interact with others, I recommend that you first try to understand how you’re showing up at work. “You have to be willing to look at how you view the world and the people in it,” Grant explains. “It may also mean unlearning a lot of things taught to you by your family and the institutions you attended.” This inner work includes learning your biases and how they show up in your behaviors.

Once you have this lens of radical acceptance, you can then assess your authenticity, awareness, and acceptance. “I believe that a company can have the best policies and procedures in place to create a connected culture but if people keep showing up daily with their BS, it still won’t work and your company will not reap the benefits of great morale, higher productivity and teams that align,” Grant writes. “As the culture of Radical Acceptance extends from person to person, it makes employees feel safe. They can breathe. People who can breathe perform better. They voice their ideas and share their experience and perspectives. They cross pollinate, which allows companies to produce better goods and services.”

By first addressing your own biases, you can more clearly understand how you are perceiving, and treating, any coworkers you do not get along with.

APPLY WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED ABOUT YOURSELF

Radical acceptance allows us to recognize our actions and behaviors. It gives us the tools to learn our biases and belief systems through productive mechanisms like mindfulness, patience, kindness, forgiveness, and listening. This inner work requires self-awareness to understand why we are the way we are and unlearn the belief systems that no longer serve us. Only once we’ve done this inner work can the outer work start.

The outer work involves changing how we interact with others. While we can’t completely avoid conflict at work, we can control how we respond to it. “Radical acceptance allows us to listen better, make space for people to be themselves, and give them room to shine and excel,” Grant says. “Ultimately, how we get along with people is making sure we are being better than the BS we carry around. If we can release it and speak from a place of vulnerability, while being transparent, we can create change.”

By applying what you have learned about yourself to how you interact with others you can listen better and be more kind.

THREE TIPS FOR PRACTICING RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

If radical acceptance involves welcoming and embracing people’s full humanity, how can we do that at work when we don’t get along with a coworker? I have three recommendations.

First, be vulnerable. Vulnerability is scary, especially in the workplace. But sometimes, a disagreement can stem from a simple misunderstanding. Be willing to open up about yourself and learn about others to establish trust in your working relationship.

Second, keep an open mind. We don’t always have to agree with others, but we can be willing to listen to their perspectives and ideas. By being curious and attentive to people’s thoughts and suggestions, we can work to eliminate frustrations and challenges.

And third, be a good human. Not to oversimplify it, but isn’t that really what we all should strive for? We all want and deserve respect and kindness from others. The golden rule of treating others how you want to be treated doesn’t just apply to elementary school. It applies to every aspect of work and life.

So, while we can’t control who we work with, we can control our behaviors and how we treat others. If you’ve been looking for a way to deal with workplace conflict that doesn’t involve quitting, radical acceptance is a great place to start.