common ground

How do we continue to work with people with whom we have differences? We see politicians berating each other in worst possible language one day, we cannot even imagine them seeing eye to eye, but then do an about turn, join hands and fight the next election together or form a government together. I had written off working with someone earlier this year because both of us did not see value in that relationship – but both of us are working towards the common goal and could have made things better if we collaborated. There are differences in communication, values, personalities, ways of working, culture etc. I mentioned earlier where Naval Ravikant (Farnam street podcast – the Knowledge project) talking about deciding not to work with people without integrity, who are angry, people with whom one cannot have an open conversation or those who cannot work in a peer relationship. Also that some of us in Services kind of business not having the option of choosing our customers.

• Treating each transactions as discrete – some transactions don’t go the way we want, but we will end up learning more about the people and our own nature. We can reflect and learn from the transaction. But it cannot spill over to the next transaction and color it the same.
• Ability to forgive and forget – one of my nightmare scenarios is to lose my memory altogether to the extent that I think I need to write a living will in case I develop dementia in late stage of life. There are people who remember impressive details on who said what and when for years. While it is a very good quality, so much unnecessary data storage may be a disadvantage too. Forgetting has its advantages. Intense emotional traumas or extreme happiness may leave strong impressions that can’t be forgotten easily, but ability to forget and hence forgive will go a long way in maintaining our peace and happiness. It will help in approaching the next transaction with a clean slate.
• Building trust – it is a barrier that has to be crossed to make it easy. I used to think if I can joke with a person genuinely and have a natural laugh about something, then we have reached a common ground somewhere. Like Naval’s point about not being able to work with people with whom we cannot have open conversation, we cannot solve big problems with people where we have formal transactional relationships and have to talk in diplomatic language, watching each step as to how the other person might take it. I may be stiff with strangers, relaxed with my friends and dance with my daughter, make funny faces or sing silly songs. There are different thresholds with people. We need to make conscious attempts to cross some thresholds and build connects with people.
• Adapting to people – I had to make a call to someone I didn’t want to talk to especially today. I thought of leaving a message, but I thought it is escapism. I needed to switch myself on consciously, make the call, say hi and make the conversation. I think I have ability to listen to intricate nuances – listen between words, understand emotions and unstated intents without making conscious effort. It may be the same with most people. But I tend to think I go too far to the extent of adapting to that person (like Terminator villain molding into any body he invades) and even possibly using their own language and words back with them. It is like a dance (I have two left feet, but I am good at observing) or a game – need to adapt to keep the conversation going. If we are able to try to tune into each person’s channel, somewhere the frequencies has to match.
• Accomplishing the goals – I got this advice this year that if you signed up for a game, then you must play till the end of the game and play to win. Not winning at all costs, bending or breaking the rules, but still aiming to win, not just to play. Every football world cup gives me a new favorite – this time it is Luka Modric of Croatia. I read about him and one of his former team mate’s description was his desire to win. I watched most of their games – he doesn’t try to win like Neymar rolling around the field or Ronaldo trying to dive or preen or even Mbape in the last game trying to waste time. He is full on and works from down the field to get the ball from a defender or goalie to up the field to feed the ball to a striker or have a go himself. He doesn’t easily fall down. But important thing to keep trying with every ball, winning each duel, losing the ball sometimes, going a goal down, being at the receiving end of fouls, his penalty getting saved and still walking up for the next one and face the same person in same situation and winning it – keep showing up every day, play the game, try something new / creative with every attempt and play to win.

There can be lines drawn on what kind of behaviors we cannot tolerate and what kind of people we will not work with at all. We cannot be held hostages, give in to Stockholm syndrome and suffer abuse or disrespect or mistreatment.  But above those threshold, we may need to use every trick in the book to form improbable coalitions and accomplish the goals.