Thursday, October 1, 2026

The Power of AND

A small shift in thinking can lead to more fair and human workplaces

By Melanie Sykes

I can make up a whole story from one email or text.

A short reply, a weird tone, no punctuation, too much punctuation, or a delay in responding—and I’ve already decided what happened, what they meant, and probably how I feel about it.

I can decide what category of person they are: rude, wrong, dismissive, selfish, unreasonable, cold, or upset with me, before I’ve actually talked to them. At work and in my personal life, I can get there fast.

The funny thing is, rarely was any of it about me.

Most of the time, when I slow down, ask a question, or have a conversation, I find out there was something else going on. Stress. Grief. Money worries. Family stuff. A hard day. A misunderstanding. Not always something dramatic, just life. Real life, which we are all carrying while also trying to work, communicate, parent, relate to each other, and get through the day.

That’s why I keep coming back to the power of and.

People are rarely just one thing. A member can make a big mistake and still be more than that mistake. A coworker can be abrupt and overwhelmed. A steward can be strong, capable, and generous and be carrying something incredibly hard in their personal life. Someone can handle something poorly and still deserve a fair shot at fixing it.

When I’m teaching stewards, I often use this analogy. Sometimes, members make mistakes—some small and some big. And when people get called on those mistakes, they often do what a lot of us do under stress: get defensive, blame someone else, panic, or make the situation worse. They dig themselves a hole.

Our job as a union isn’t to act like the hole isn’t there. It’s not to get someone off with no accountability and act like nothing happened. Our job is to bring the ladder. Sometimes, that ladder is good advice. Sometimes, it’s a fair process. Sometimes, it’s helping someone slow down, tell the truth, and stop digging. Sometimes, it’s holding management accountable for their part in what happened.

Whatever it looks like, the point is to help someone climb out of the hole with their humanity still intact. We can bring the ladder, but they still have to climb it.

That idea helps me in and outside of work. When I remember the and, it saves me time, effort, and a whole lot of brain space. It can feel like more work at the beginning to slow down, get curious, and not go straight to judgment. But usually, it gets us to a much better place.

This is not a lesson I have fully mastered. It is a reminder I need constantly, because it is so automatic for me to sort people into categories and act like one hard moment tells me everything I need to know.

If you want to practice the and, start small:
•   Pause before assigning meaning. Before deciding what a message means, ask yourself, what else could be true here?
•   Talk to the person, not the story in your head. A quick conversation can clear up what hours of overthinking cannot.
•   Try one and sentence. For example, this person is frustrating me and they may have something else going on. Or, I can hold someone accountable and still treat them like a human being. Or, this friend is really bad at communicating with me and they always show up when I need them.

This comes up all the time in union work. Someone has made a mistake, management is reacting, emotions are high, and people are often sorting each other into categories pretty quickly. Good worker. Bad worker. Reasonable. Unreasonable. But that is exactly when the and matters most.

A member can have messed up and still be more than that moment. Management can have a legitimate concern and still miss the mark in how they respond. And the union can help slow things down and push for a response that actually fits the situation instead of going straight to the harshest possible outcome. To me, that is a big part of our work—not denying what happened, but helping people move forward in a way that is fair, practical, and human.

The Power of AND

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