Su Shi
I see no bad people
Treating a person as a person
His brother Su Zhe's epitaph for him
A man whose enemies nearly had him executed said he could see no bad people anywhere. This is not naivety.
What actually happened?
Su Shi was jailed over lines from his own poems and came close to execution. For twenty years afterwards, as two factions traded power, he was demoted again and again — the last time to a tropical island. He opposed the reformers' new laws, then opposed the conservatives when they scrapped every one of them. Neither side could keep him. Late in life he told his brother: I could sit with the Jade Emperor or with a beggar. I see no bad people.
Refusing to sort people into sides
Faction logic labels the person first and lets the label decide every interaction after. He judged each measure on its merits and was exiled by both sides for it. Not neutrality — a refusal to use the frame.
Sort colleagues into 'with me' and 'against me' and you have just guaranteed you will never again receive useful information from the second column.
'Bad person' is an expensive verdict
Once you decide someone is bad, your available moves collapse to guarding and fighting, and both burn enormous amounts of you. Seeing a person with their own situation and interests is what lets you work the actual disagreement.
Decide he's out to get you and every email needs a paper trail. A year of that costs more than the disagreement ever did.
This is not the same as having no judgement
He knew exactly who was working against him, and knew his own mouth was the danger. 'No bad people' describes how he treated people, not how he assessed them. Confuse the two and you become either a pushover or a cynic.
You can judge that someone can't be trusted with something big and still work with him properly and credit his work. Assessment and conduct are separate.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: there's history with someone, and now every contact is defensive.
Ask first: if I treat him as a person with his own situation, can this specific disagreement be discussed?
Where it goes wrong: mistaking generosity for having no judgement; letting your assessment of someone dictate how you treat them.
Lines to keep
Like a fly in the food: you spit it out before you rest.