I am pleased that you are pleased
Bel: A friendly reminder as a co-student in mindset development: "this is the past, I only have now." 🙂
I know John, just let me ruminate for a bit and now I’ll switch it off 🙂
Hahaha, that's the spirit! Seriously, I know how difficult it is. It happens to me as well of course and I find it to be disempowering.
Here is the incredible thing: in my former big law firm there was an (unwritten) rule against this.
Just like in this article which mentions another firm having the same rule but explicitly:
I can only stipulate now that such directives are meant to discourage young lawyers from establishing good relations with the firm’s clients and with colleagues!!!
Just mind blowing.
Edit: here is my thought on one of the reasons always responding is so effective:
If you don’t do it, the other party can get the impression you are only interacting with him or her due to their work role, but are not interested in them as persons. They get a feeling of you “using them”.
If you do it (ie respond even when it’s not strictly business-necessary) the other person picks up that you care! Which was the case even before, but the absence of this subcommunication was still damaging!
My very power-aware high power previous supervisor did not like it as well. He told it to me explicitly.
It's a matter of style. The people who are ruthless with their time and are all about efficiency will behave as you say.
So it's a matter of adapting to one's style.
Quote from John Freeman on July 1, 2022, 4:30 pmSo here is a feed-back to Kavalier:
I started to do answer to all emails this week and the results speak for themselves (...)
Quote from Bel on July 1, 2022, 4:48 pmI am also starting to see results similar to John’s.
Rock on! 🙂
Quote from Bel on July 1, 2022, 5:09 pmHere is the incredible thing: in my former big law firm there was an (unwritten) rule against this.
I can only stipulate now that such directives are meant to discourage young lawyers from establishing good relations with the firm’s clients and with colleagues!!!
Yep, that's probably the case.
An example of diverging interests and corporate manipulation.
Edit:
Conflicts of interest resolved 100% in favor of the company, of course.
It's also in PU as a general principle: you want to keep your customers close, the owner wants to keep the customers as far away from you as possible, and keep your work as impersonal as possible.
Quote from John Freeman on July 1, 2022, 4:30 pmSo here is a feed-back to Kavalier:
I started to do answer to all emails this week and the results speak for themselves (...)
Quote from Bel on July 1, 2022, 4:48 pmI am also starting to see results similar to John’s.
Glad I could help as much as I was helped! 🙂
Thank you Kavalier, this was really invaluable!
Quote from Kavalier on June 30, 2022, 7:05 amThe most important thing would be to calibrate your reply (almost always must happen) to the input you received. If the input was rather cold, then a minimum threshold of politeness would be preferred. If it was rather warm, then it would be advisable to at least match the tone in warmth.
I like to be at least one marginal level of warmth/politeness above the individual I'm dealing with because I feel this is the only position you can be at in order to lead to win win.
Today I went to the butcher and he said something like:
Butcher: This meat you’re buying is very good. This one is also good.
I immediately had a thought that the situation was similar to the one mentioned in this thread. The butcher was making a bid for emotional investment. So I replied with:
Me: Thank you, I’ll have to try that one as well next time then!
And I could see him just light up!
I think I have been oblivious to this mechanism until now. This explains so much: people would interpret my behavior as snubbing them. Now I understand why I had so many frenemies: I used to make this mistake everywhere: text, email, in person…
So the “emotional warmth matching” is a very important principle.
It's great to hear your experience with this, Bel! Thanks for sharing. It's something I was also oblivious to until enrolling in Power University. Lucio's reflexions on warmth and power and emotional gifts were the big game changers. The fact is that after I started to apply this systematically, I started to feel I came across as more likable to new acquittances - whereas before I was described as somewhat cold and serious. This is in stark contrast to my old social circles, by the way - I toned my assertiveness up, and the old people started to like me less. I guess people don't like to revisit established hierarchies - though in most cases this is temporary.