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How to grow professional relationships

tej.as

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Re: How to grow professional relationships

#131

Post by whatshisface »

tejaskumar_ wrote: post #125
BobaFloutist wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the benefits of playing the game is signaling that you're willing to follow norms even if they don't directly benefit you or make sense to you. Someone refusing to play along with anything that doesn't immediately make sense to them or reasonate with them is a yellow flag, since it shows that they don't value the social contract and aren't willing to humble themselves or make other people the priority. We're s…

I know a few people like this and can confirm: they're extremely difficult to be around and take pride in it, feeling great about being "free thinkers" and breaking from the "herd mentality". This I feel is unfortunately counter to the design of humankind, where we are—as you said—social animals and the only way to change for the better—at a species level—is to change together.

Isn't that basis for criticism a little broad? It sounds like you're saying that vegetarianism, every religion, and a higher than average scrupulousness towards not littering are in the same category as picking your nose during a one on one.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#132

Post by lovich »

impendia wrote: post #89
beryilma wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because all their relationships are transactional and they aren’t offering anything of value Why is a transactional relationship considered bad? And why would one consider a transactional relationship as something not offering value? I don't like small talk, but if I like the person I would try to help them anyway with their transactional request, with the expectation that I might have a similar transactional reque…

I am an academic mathematician, and one thing I love about our culture is that transactional relationships are considered perfectly okay. I can invite a colleague at another university, whom I might consider an old friend even though I haven't spoken to them in ages -- to come give a talk in my department. Very often they'll agree to come; we'll roll out the red carpet for them, and they and I will have a wonderful t…

Transactional relationships are completely fine, and personally I prefer them in the work space.

I was commenting on people who’s behavior creates transactional relationships when they wanted something with a deeper interpersonal relationships, and people whose behavior causes transactional relationships but also have nothing of value to make the transaction worth it.

If a billionaire calls me up once every five years for a favor but pays me a couple of million for it, I’ll take the call any day.

If someone I met at college a few times calls me up once every few years when they got laid off and only are talking to me for a reference but are never in a position to to help me, what reason do I have to help them other than a feeling of charity?

I guess I’m saying you shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated unless you are ok with that same behavior being turned back on yourself.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#133

Post by tejaskumar_ »

Aurornis wrote: post #124
beryilma wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because all their relationships are transactional and they aren’t offering anything of value Why is a transactional relationship considered bad? And why would one consider a transactional relationship as something not offering value? I don't like small talk, but if I like the person I would try to help them anyway with their transactional request, with the expectation that I might have a similar transactional reque…

Because in transactional relationships the other person only shows up when they need something and then they disappear again until the next time they need something from you. Transactional relationships are fine if that's the deal up front. I have a lot of transactional relationships with freelancers, contractors, and repair people. I call them up needing something and I'm going to pay them for it. The transaction. I…

This. It's the deceit that's hurtful, not the transactional relationship itself.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#134

Post by lukan »

lovich wrote: post #126
lukan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yup, you get a lot of people complaining about the pointlessness of small talk, but the reality is that small talk is social glue." Only with some people. Trying to do smalltalk with me, will not make me your friend. I simply hate smalltalk. (Talking unimportant things for the sake of talking) But there are a million of other interesting non buisness things I am willing to talk about at length. I also like to joke a…

Small talk doesn’t need to be about the weather as the trope goes. It can be as simple as “hey have you seen {shared colleague} recently?” Or “Hey man, you get into any new hobbies recently?”, or “I’ve been dabbling in {x} tech, have you done anything like it or are could recommend an alternative based on {personal information you got from collaborating with this person}” The main point in making is that you need to…

"The main point in making is that you need to continue in performing these relationship maintaining activities _before_ you need said persons help."

Well, but I am quite good in determining if another person is just trying to be (fake) friendly, so they can get my help later and I am not interested in that and smalltalk won't create that bond for me. I am interested in genuine connections.

So if someone asks this question "Hey man, you get into any new hobbies recently" and is actually interested in my response - then this is simply not smalltalk anymore by my definition. And I gladly answer. And maybe form a bond. And of course help each other later.

But if I feel, it is just a mechanical and calculated approach to bond with me, well, no thank you. But I also help people without doing smalltalk if I can.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#135

Post by tejaskumar_ »

lovich wrote: post #132
impendia wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an academic mathematician, and one thing I love about our culture is that transactional relationships are considered perfectly okay. I can invite a colleague at another university, whom I might consider an old friend even though I haven't spoken to them in ages -- to come give a talk in my department. Very often they'll agree to come; we'll roll out the red carpet for them, and they and I will have a wonderful t…

Transactional relationships are completely fine, and personally I prefer them in the work space. I was commenting on people who’s behavior creates transactional relationships when they wanted something with a deeper interpersonal relationships, and people whose behavior causes transactional relationships but also have nothing of value to make the transaction worth it. If a billionaire calls me up once every five year…

> I guess I’m saying you shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated unless you are ok with that same behavior being turned back on yourself.

This! However if you'll allow me—I think it's worth saying we shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated _at all_ because we're never really okay with that same behavior being given back to us because of millenia of social, communal evolution.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#136

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

ghaff wrote: post #82
tejaskumar_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha, what a lovely story! Really shows what happens when we engage as _people_, not _opportunities_.

This is a lot of the misunderstanding around "networking" you see in discussions. A lot of tech people see it as an unwelcome task/burden. Whereas, it should be generally viewed as a pleasurable opportunity to just get to know people who may (or may not) be useful at some point in the future.

I'm not used to putting effort into friendships, so it does sound like an unwelcome task.

And it sounds phony, since I have never put effort before. If I have to put effort then am I not faking it?

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#137

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

the_snooze wrote: post #51
lovich wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relationships are like a garden, they require continual, repeated effort to maintain. It doesn’t need to be an onerous amount of effort, but reaching out to people to shoot the shit once even a year is often enough to maintain the relationship for professional networks at least. In software we have an unfortunate amount of people who don’t value social connections at all so we end up with a large tranche of people wh…

>In software we have an unfortunate amount of people who don’t value social connections at all so we end up with a large tranche of people who can’t get past the “but why would I talk to them without a specific reason?” argument and then lament why all of their relationships end up transactional, or even better lament why no one will help them specifically because all their relationships are transactional and they ar…

It might be the depression talking, but I think in truth I don't want to like people.

I'm not playing a strong Devil's Advocate for this thread, my comments are explanations and not excuses - I just don't like people, and I would need to be convinced that relationships are worth having, before I cared about how to have them. If I wanted lots of platonic business relationships I would be interested in how to have them.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#138

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

tejaskumar_ wrote: post #109
bityard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it, as engineers we value efficiency and truth above almost everything else. But most people are not like us. They want to be appreciated, acknowledged, and seen above almost everything else. If you call up an old acquaintance and start the conversation by asking if they know of any job openings, you will be seen as someone who only values what they can DO for you, instead of who are they ARE to you. Nobody lik…

Exactly. Humans are so much more irrational and illogical than the machines we know. And this is a feature, not a bug.

Nit: If it's irrational and it works, it's not irrational

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#139

Post by tejaskumar_ »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #136
ghaff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lot of the misunderstanding around "networking" you see in discussions. A lot of tech people see it as an unwelcome task/burden. Whereas, it should be generally viewed as a pleasurable opportunity to just get to know people who may (or may not) be useful at some point in the future.

I'm not used to putting effort into friendships, so it does sound like an unwelcome task. And it sounds phony, since I have never put effort before. If I have to put effort then am I not faking it?

I'm not sure I understand this: do you mean you don't put in effort, or you do but the effort doesn't _feel_ like work?

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#140

Post by tejaskumar_ »

lukan wrote: post #134
lovich wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small talk doesn’t need to be about the weather as the trope goes. It can be as simple as “hey have you seen {shared colleague} recently?” Or “Hey man, you get into any new hobbies recently?”, or “I’ve been dabbling in {x} tech, have you done anything like it or are could recommend an alternative based on {personal information you got from collaborating with this person}” The main point in making is that you need to…

"The main point in making is that you need to continue in performing these relationship maintaining activities _before_ you need said persons help." Well, but I am quite good in determining if another person is just trying to be (fake) friendly, so they can get my help later and I am not interested in that and smalltalk won't create that bond for me. I am interested in genuine connections. So if someone asks this que…

I fully agree with this.
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