Choose Your People
Seth Godin recently posted a blog asking business people to consider what kind of customers they want. He expanded that to include other people like backers, members, and vendors and had a list of adjectives ranging from loyal to litigious.
The same thinking can be applied to any relationship. Focusing on business:
- What kinds of coworkers do you want to collaborate with?
- What kind of manager do you want to take direction from – or what kind of employees do you want to delegate to?
- What kind of company leaders are you willing to align yourself with?
Listing adjectives is a great way to identify what is important to you about the people you will interact with in business. Work satisfaction isn’t just about the job responsibilities, salary, location and hours. Think of how happy you can feel when you have a positive connection with the people you engage with, and how miserable you can feel when your personalities, work styles or values clash.
I think Godin’s most important point is that you have some choice and influence over the type of people you work for and with. If your management makes unreasonable demands of you, can you assert your boundaries without being punished or fired? If not, that doesn’t sound like a great place to work. As an entrepreneur, if you value signed contracts defining your scope of work and payment terms but your customers balk, maybe those aren’t the right customers for you.
To an extent, people learn how to treat you based on how you interact with them. If you put up with bad behavior, you’re teaching the offenders it is ok to treat you that way. If you react calmly and with an open mind when someone brings a conflict to you, you teach them that they can bring difficult issues to you without fearing your reaction.
Who do you want to work with? And how are you teaching them to treat you?
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