I was at a dinner with some fellow lawyers a couple of years ago sitting at several long tables in a private room in a restaurant in Islington. It was fine at first but as the evening wore on a couple of the people sitting opposite me started to dominate the conversation so nobody else could get a word in edgeways.
We’ve all been there and it can be very tedious and not at all enjoyable, but actually we have a choice if we realise and decide to exercise it. I chose to get up and move to a vacant seat on another table where I had a much more productive conversation with some much more relaxed and interesting people who were interested in an exchange of views and not clever monologues.
There’s a great 1960’s book called I'm OK – You're OK by Thomas A Harris which is a practical guide to transactional analysis as a method for solving problems in life. Transactional analysis delineates three ego-states (parent, adult and child) as the basis for the content and quality of interpersonal communication. Rather than behaving as rational adults in communications with others we are vulnerable to the inappropriate, emotional reactions of our child and the uncritically learned behaviour programmed into our parent. However, in our “adult” state we can choose not to “play games” but rather to have a balanced I’m OK You’re OK conversation – as I in effect did at the dinner.
As Mark Twain said "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
The same is true in networking, working in a team or developing a business. If you don’t enjoy being with someone or working for a particular client the chances are the relationship will not ultimately be successful. I recall a client in private practice who was incredibly demanding when it came to wanting advice, but difficult to deal with and awfully reluctant to agree and pay our bills. Eventually we parted company even though they provided quite a lot of legal work.
See this Forbes article which suggests that People ultimately choose to do business with people they like, and everyone likes someone who appreciates them. Or this article People Do Business with People They Know, Like, and Trust. It is not just getting on with people they have to trust you will work with them too – Zig Ziglar the motivational teacher and trainer said “If people like you they'll listen to you, but if they trust you they'll do business with you.”
Dale Carnegie the author of How to win Friends and Influence People summed it up "People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." You cannot have fun if you do not get on and collaborate with the people you work alongside.
And more profoundly "It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."– Charles Darwin.
Steve Jobs commented “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” We simply cannot do that if we do not get on with the people we do business with.
We’ve all been there and it can be very tedious and not at all enjoyable, but actually we have a choice if we realise and decide to exercise it. I chose to get up and move to a vacant seat on another table where I had a much more productive conversation with some much more relaxed and interesting people who were interested in an exchange of views and not clever monologues.
There’s a great 1960’s book called I'm OK – You're OK by Thomas A Harris which is a practical guide to transactional analysis as a method for solving problems in life. Transactional analysis delineates three ego-states (parent, adult and child) as the basis for the content and quality of interpersonal communication. Rather than behaving as rational adults in communications with others we are vulnerable to the inappropriate, emotional reactions of our child and the uncritically learned behaviour programmed into our parent. However, in our “adult” state we can choose not to “play games” but rather to have a balanced I’m OK You’re OK conversation – as I in effect did at the dinner.
As Mark Twain said "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
The same is true in networking, working in a team or developing a business. If you don’t enjoy being with someone or working for a particular client the chances are the relationship will not ultimately be successful. I recall a client in private practice who was incredibly demanding when it came to wanting advice, but difficult to deal with and awfully reluctant to agree and pay our bills. Eventually we parted company even though they provided quite a lot of legal work.
See this Forbes article which suggests that People ultimately choose to do business with people they like, and everyone likes someone who appreciates them. Or this article People Do Business with People They Know, Like, and Trust. It is not just getting on with people they have to trust you will work with them too – Zig Ziglar the motivational teacher and trainer said “If people like you they'll listen to you, but if they trust you they'll do business with you.”
Dale Carnegie the author of How to win Friends and Influence People summed it up "People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." You cannot have fun if you do not get on and collaborate with the people you work alongside.
And more profoundly "It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."– Charles Darwin.
Steve Jobs commented “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” We simply cannot do that if we do not get on with the people we do business with.
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