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How to grow professional relationships

tej.as

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Re: How to grow professional relationships

#71

Post by williamdclt »

jjice wrote: post #35
mkmk wrote: post #9

On the practical side of things, one important behavior that I see people frequently forget is the importance of following up. This is probably the biggest differentiator between relationships that languish in the early stages, versus those that progress along the author’s continuum. It’s always a bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever-…

Does anyone have any practical advice to keeping up with former remote coworkers? My last job was remote with some fantastic people, but as time has passed and the company hasn't done incredibly well, people have scattered (including myself) and I've found it tricky to keep in touch. I'll video chat with some of them once every few months online, but I only have contact with some of them this way. For others, it feel…

It's a hard one. If you lived nearby, I'd say that meeting up for lunch or a drink is unbeatable.

Maybe ask for their help or opinion on stuff you encounter? Whether it's technical problems, interpersonal stuff, personal musings about the industry... once every few months is probably enough, you don't have to stick to professional topics but that's probably a good way to start!

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#73

Post by tejaskumar_ »

LoganDark wrote: post #66
tejaskumar_ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't entirely accurate. Psychopathy involves impaired affective (emotional) empathy as a core trait, while cognitive empathy remains intact or can even be enhanced. This is slightly different from autism, which typically shows impaired cognitive empathy but intact affective empathy . Psychopathy is not about choosing not to feel empathy - it's a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits i…

I think you might have run into the exact thing I put in my comment: "not to be confused with ASPD", which is also sometimes called sociopathy. I use psychopathy and sociopathy differently (such that psychopathy is chosen while sociopathy is inherent) and choices like these can be an autistic trait. I'm not talking about empathic struggles , but rather a choice not to care too much about someone's emotions in a parti…

Heard! Sorry if I came across as combative! I spent way too much time around clinicians and tend to stick to formal definitions a little too much.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#74

Post by tejaskumar_ »

gadders wrote: post #69
mkmk wrote: post #9

On the practical side of things, one important behavior that I see people frequently forget is the importance of following up. This is probably the biggest differentiator between relationships that languish in the early stages, versus those that progress along the author’s continuum. It’s always a bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever-…

The other thing you can do is "Hey, I remember when we spoke you were interested in XX. I just found this article on it that I thought you might find interesting." It's a tiny favour, but it also shows you listened to the other person.

Love this!

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#75

Post by Agentus »

lovich wrote: post #19
mkmk wrote: post #9

On the practical side of things, one important behavior that I see people frequently forget is the importance of following up. This is probably the biggest differentiator between relationships that languish in the early stages, versus those that progress along the author’s continuum. It’s always a bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever-…

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…

yeah i switched from business to software engineering, and it felt like an sysphean task to develop and keep relationships up in this new hemisphere. thought it was just me but didnt really have that issue with business people. in software it feels like the relationship halflife is accelerated. wonder how to get around that issue with people you literally have to strong arm the social stuff for them. i know doing computer gaming socials and having mutually overlapping projects can help be temporary glue but beyond that, trying to muster things up continues to be a struggle at least with a large portion of the software community. whats the secret to effortless networking and convincing introverts to so social stuff that they are repelled to doing.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#76

Post by tejaskumar_ »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #68

Nearly every professional 'relationship' I've had has been transient after you stop working with them, with people completely failing to reciprocate even after multiple attempts to reach out. From talking to people I know that this experience is not unique to me, this appears to be the norm, may be it's the industry I work in : software development.

I'm sorry to hear that's your experience and hope this article helps that get a little better!

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#77

Post by gadders »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #21
mkmk wrote: post #9

On the practical side of things, one important behavior that I see people frequently forget is the importance of following up. This is probably the biggest differentiator between relationships that languish in the early stages, versus those that progress along the author’s continuum. It’s always a bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever-…

Very good point. What's the old saying "A friend in need, is a friend, indeed." ? I like to have personal relationships, as opposed to corporate ones. Funny story: During the 1990s, my direct boss was a fairly low-key Japanese man. I really liked him. He was a marketing type, so we didn't really have a technical basis for our relationship. He was a decent chap, and I happily followed his orders. In return, he gave me…

A similar thing happened to me recently. A chap I knew at a previous bank when I was an AVP and he was a VP is now on the board of my (very large multinational) company.

When we caught up it was nice to see that he was exactly the same, and remembered me and said hello.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#78

Post by tejaskumar_ »

gadders wrote: post #77
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good point. What's the old saying "A friend in need, is a friend, indeed." ? I like to have personal relationships, as opposed to corporate ones. Funny story: During the 1990s, my direct boss was a fairly low-key Japanese man. I really liked him. He was a marketing type, so we didn't really have a technical basis for our relationship. He was a decent chap, and I happily followed his orders. In return, he gave me…

A similar thing happened to me recently. A chap I knew at a previous bank when I was an AVP and he was a VP is now on the board of my (very large multinational) company. When we caught up it was nice to see that he was exactly the same, and remembered me and said hello.

These people are the real MVPs.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#79

Post by LoganDark »

tejaskumar_ wrote: post #73
LoganDark wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have run into the exact thing I put in my comment: "not to be confused with ASPD", which is also sometimes called sociopathy. I use psychopathy and sociopathy differently (such that psychopathy is chosen while sociopathy is inherent) and choices like these can be an autistic trait. I'm not talking about empathic struggles , but rather a choice not to care too much about someone's emotions in a parti…

Heard! Sorry if I came across as combative! I spent way too much time around clinicians and tend to stick to formal definitions a little too much.

The thing about psychopathy sort of being defined either way depending on who you ask is that we don't necessarily know for sure which definition is right anymore. They're essentially both "correct in a way". The term also has a somewhat muddied history that makes it difficult to figure out what it was truly originally supposed to mean, so we don't even know which definition today is supposed to be the right one.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#80

Post by askafriend »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #68

Nearly every professional 'relationship' I've had has been transient after you stop working with them, with people completely failing to reciprocate even after multiple attempts to reach out. From talking to people I know that this experience is not unique to me, this appears to be the norm, may be it's the industry I work in : software development.

Allow me to be crude for a second: half the people in software are likely autistic so I'm not surprised they struggle with building or maintaining relationships.
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