In
spite of the vast industry devoted to human classification and no matter how you
classify human beings, we are all more alike than we are different. How alike
are we? Well, 99.9 percent of our genetic material is identical.
Identical.
Are
there people you can't relate too? Of course. There always have been and always
will be. Are there any who aren't worth trying to relate to? Not if you need to
work with them in any way shape or form.
There may be a few people that you want as little to do with as possible. That's
perfectly fine. Provided you never do have to deal with them at all. And never,
as they say, is a long time.
This is particularly true if you wish to have influence in your organization.
Tip:
Even those who
aren't decision makers themselves can have a huge impact on decisions others
make, especially when decisions are made in a group environment.
Winston Churchill said, "Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ
grinder is in the room." But if you treat anybody like a monkey—if
you ignore anyone in that room or snub anyone involved in the process—that
person will do their best to make a monkey out of you.
Tip:
It's easier for
decision makers to make decisions when those around them agree. Remember that,
when you decide someone isn't worth the effort of trying to relate to.
If
you do make that effort, you might be surprised by what you discover. I know a
woman who was judged by a fellow manager to be, "the most incomprehensible and
self centered business person I've ever known. Successful in business, but
completely unsuccessful at the business of being a person." Most of her
colleagues shared that opinion. And I have to admit that when I first met her I
felt much the same. Later I found out that among the things we hadn't
comprehended in her "incomprehensibility" were clandestine acts of generosity
with friends, acquaintances and even strangers that put anything the rest of us
had done to shame.
It
was fun to make her the devil. But it not only got in the way of business, it
wasn't accurate. I’d love to say that recognizing her generosity and granting
humanity to her made it easy to deal with her. It didn’t. But it did make it
easier—considerably
easier.
A
man most of us would never have taken the trouble to get to know once said,
"What am I in the eyes of most people? A good-for-nothing, an eccentric and
disagreeable man, somebody who has no position in society and never will have.
Very well, even if that were true, I should want to show by my work what there
is in the heart of such an eccentric man, of such a nobody."
That was
Vincent Van Gogh. What would you give to have the chance to share a few glasses
of wine with him now? (So what if you wouldn't be comfortable asking him to lend
you an ear?)
It's hard to imagine anyone more difficult to relate to than Van Gogh. Yet he
may be the most popular painter of all time. Which means that, on some level at
least, he's astonishingly easy to relate to.
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© Copyright 2007 Barry Maher, Barry Maher
& Associates, Las Vegas, Nevada
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