Posted By Nigel Hammond I hope everyone will agree that to be a good H&S professional you need excellent interpersonal skills to influence others. While the majority of contributors to this forum are very civil, there seem to be a minority who do not know how to debate without being very abrupt or worse, issue personal attacks to others. The recent thread on using private cars for company business includes this behaviour by an anonymous individual. I would imagine the moderators walk a tightrope of not wanting to over-censor this forum while at the same time maintaining standards. I don't know what the solution is to this problem, I just wanted to raise it as an issue.

Posted By Al.. Some thoughts: In this forum, as in any place where h+s professionals gather, you will get a variety of styles when it comes to how people relate to others. Some people you will like, others you might not like. There will be people who are (1) very knowledgeable and very polite, (2) others who post incorrect/misleading information but do it in a very polite way and also (3) those who really know what they are on about but, at the same time, are somewhat abrupt (and of course those(4) who are both ignorant and rude). With time you will get to know whose opinions you value the most from a professional perspective and also those whose company you enjoy simply for themselves and a bit of banter. On some subjects it might be the views of (3) which are the most useful. In a gathering where we are meeting face to face, someone unknown to the others who is abrupt and rude is going to be ignored. However, someone whose abilities are highly respected will probably command a lot of attention even if he/she appears to be rather bad mannered. In their obituaries are often words like “somewhat eccentric” and “he did not suffer fools gladly”. But they were valued by their profession and were people who really made a difference. I have looked back at the thread Nigel mentions. I know whose opinion I found most useful. Al

Posted By Charley Farley-Trelawney You know when all is said and done the "interpretation" of the regs will always differ from person to person. Yes, that is a fair point you make with respect to the HSE giving differing views that will never stop; in the main perhaps due to the background the individual has come from. Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, how it is said and put across. Whilst maybe at times a response is a little forthright, I believe it is because the person responding is fully courageous in their conviction and I for one do not have any issues on that front; Some one liners very often refer to a recent thread or one that has been done to death in recent days/weeks, on that front it is wise therefore to have a look around or run a search for a subject requirement; I can be just as bad, and it’s the old maxim of "How do you spell that word"? "Go look it up in the dictionary" said my Pop's dulcet tones. Yep the information was there all the time, if you get my drift, so to speak. CFT

Posted By Bunny I think that with this many people posting you are bound to get some clashes of personalities. The written word is also notoriously more liable to cause conflict because it removes the ability to add intonation etc.making comments more easily misinterpreted. There are some heated debates on this forum but that can be good becuase if we all just agreed with one another then we would never move forward as a profession. Sometimes things get heated because people believe passionately in what they are talking about. Personally I would rather see some passion than people not caring about what they are doing. On another point I think we should all try and remember that we all take offence at different things. I don't take offence at heated debate because I put it in the context of a debate. I was brought up to debate things in life with friends and family and was taught to see that as healthy. However, some people see heated debate as a personal attack. Even if it wasn't meant to be. Conversely there are many I things I find offensive on this forum that are accepted by the majority. Sexual remarks / jokes about women for example (I'm female if you haven't guessed!). However, whilst I take offence at the remarks made I accept that they were not made with the intention of offending anyone and so I don't say anything. Maybe we should try and bit a bit more tolerant and accepting of the fact that sometimes we all come across on this forum in a way that was not intended.

Posted By Nigel Hammond OK, so no-one agrees with me but it's so nice to have responses that politely disagree! All the people who have replied so far have excellent interpersonal skills!

Posted By Sue Powell Hi All This thread could go on forever but - you know we're none of us Gods. We have an opinion, expert or not, and I thought that the point of this forum was to exchange thoughts, ideas and opinions. If we're nothing else we ought to be professional enough to do that without taking the hump if someone else disagrees. And you know sometimes those who aren't as academic or qualified as others can have great ideas/opinions that come straight from their experience of good practice. So let's not get too hung up about protocol and who knows better than who and just help one another eh?! Sue

Posted By Nigel Hammond Hi Kieren, I can assure you there is no guise or hidden agenda to my thread. Perhaps I chose the wrong subject line for my thread - perhaps I should have called it 'being polite and respectful to others'. What got me going was another thread I contributed to where someone came back with vitriolic comments that were accusing me of making up figures. I tried to deal with that one diplomatically rather than fuelling it with counter-attacks - as counter-attacks or defensive responses would have only exacerbated the situation. Then I saw the thread about driving in which someone tells someone else that their opinion is 'rubbish'. May be it's my upbringing but to me this sort of conversation is not polite. There are far more respectful ways of disagreeing with other people. As others have pointed out, email lacks intonation and body language so can seem abrupt. This makes it all the more important to think carefully about wording so that it is polite and respectful - that is assuming that being polite and respectful is a good thing?

Posted By Nigel Hammond Thanks John. It's nice to know I am not completely alone in thinking that people should be nice to each other on this forum! Judging by the recent OHSAS 18001 manual thread, it seems that outrageously rude and ungrateful posts will continue to happen. However, it was re-assuring to see a number of people speaking up for good manners - even if it got a bit out of hand. I'm glad the moderators just stopped the thread rather than removing it. As I said previously, it provides a tool to help employers/clients etc to Google search leading to this forum to get an indicator of what people might be like to work with!