(#3) Relationships that endure … even after you return back your borrowed professional self!

(views are my own)

Many years ago, a large company here I knew had a massive, brutal cut in one of their corporate departments. The department had been accumulating inefficiencies for years (for political reasons, mostly) until the organization could not stand it any longer and so it finally exploded. Easily half of the department was cut in half using very gross criteria such as age, position, and salary (everybody between this and that position, above certain age, above certain salary, was fired). The department was in shock for a while and many things worked badly for some time, until the dust settled.

Now, such a crude, and to some unexpected, crisis caused curious things in many people. Some of those effects, I could observe them myself and some others were described to me, but let me tell a couple that specially caught my attention:

• First, a high-level executive had his life so related to the position he had lost that he still tried to use his former secretary. The shoecked secretary did not know how to explain, maybe for pity, that he was no longer in a position to use her services.
• Second, a manager that had been a "tought one" (the most appropriate word to describe him begins with "a" and finishes with an "e") was fired and soon found himself in the need to go to those suppliers that he had treated badly to find another job (he was indebted apparently, and I remember him being a bit desperate at the time). It was curious seeing a guy who was such a pain trying to be nice to all the people he had mistreated.

By the same time, I met an c-level for a very important company at an industry meeting. A few weeks later, he told me he had been fired and that he was starting his own consultancy. A couple of years later, he asked me for a meeting where he told me that he was through a very difficult time and that all the people (suppliers, etc) that he related with while he was an important CxO, had shut the door to him. I wondered why because he seemed such a nice person. Months later he got a job and when I asked him to meet again, he argued he was too busy at his new position, he didn't have time and a few other excuses. Unfortunately, a couple of years later he found himself jobless again and … guess what? He came back to me asking to share a coffee. Seems that he was eager to relate only when he needed to.

I could go on with many other examples, but the pattern repeats. Someone in a very high position is a pain to others (colleagues, reports, suppliers, etc) while he / she has the power to do so … until he / she losses the position and find himself / herself in the need to go back for help to those mistreated ones. The once a****le suddenly becomes nice and friendly.

By the time I had observed some of the cases above, I remember discussing with the CxO of a very important financial services firm. This guy, contrary to the some of the ones I mentioned, was not only a great professional but a great person that treated everyone with respect (even at difficult times – that is, not that he was nice all the time, but always respectful). We were sharing a taxi drive while I was telling him about one of the cases above and he answered to me with a phrase that I always remember "people like that don't understand that their power and position is borrowed and they may have to return it at any time". A "borrowed self". Wise words.

The interesting part is that the latter CxO was latter separated from the company he was at the moment, but having been a respectful professional at his tenure as a CxO, he found himself with many friends to help him in this new period (one of those was me). He became a successful independent professional and he is happier than ever.

I have many other examples on the healthy counterpart of this pattern. I, myself, helped many people who showed their good values while they were on a high, powerful position. When they lost it, I didn't hesitate to spend hours on the phone helping them discuss about their future, potential new employers, connections and even preparing for an interview. It seems that being a good person despite one's position ends up paying in sound relationships that endure.

Along our professional lives, our positions and power may come and go. A colleague used to joke saying that all of us are sitting on a gunpowder barrel that may explode at any time. Whatever metaphor you choose, haven't you thought that your current powerful position today maybe borrowed, and you may have to return it eventually? When you lose it, who will you be? Will others want to relate with you when you no longer have a powerful position? Will others want to buy you when you become an entrepreneur or independent professional?

We have different type of relationships along our professional lives. Some are transactional in nature and there may seem there is no point in making them healthy … still, you never know how important that relationship could be in the future. In any case, from my experience and others', I have found that being respectful despite your current position fosters better, more enduring relationships … relationships that may even endure when, eventually, you have to return your currently borrowed self!