Shouldn’t I be taking this personally?

Having passion

Every now and then (not once in a blue moon) I get end up receiving emails which to a smaller or greater extent include the phrase “don’t take it personally” in some form or other. We all tend to get those occasionally.

If we consider the following quote:

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple

and the fact that 1/3 of our waking hours during our adult lives are spent working, it’s easy to say that to enjoy working and to give it your best you need to have some passion for what you are doing and if you have even a bit of passion you are personally invested.

Of course this should not be mixed up with outside of working hours relationships with your fellow co-workers nor does this mean that decision making should be impulsive. The latter requires data and logical thinking (you can have a passion for those) and the latter is… well how you choose to spend your time.

Finding the balance

Somewhere along the way in society we have gotten this right in Sports where the use of data analytics in it’s various forms and passion for the game are commonly praised and young athletes have role-models how to combine both.

Another great quote that has stuck with me from early sales training is:

"People buy from people, not companies." - John Jantsch, author and entrepreneur

And to expound on this a bit is “people work with people who they like and respect”.

There is that fine line of finding the balance between having the love & passion for what you do, adopting data driven decision making and being respectful of colleagues, partners and clients. A word of caution when leading with passion. With passion comes emotions and with emotions comes sometimes conflict. There is nothing wrong with having a vibrant and melodramatic argument about a specific topic at work as long as both parties know that the emotions are coming from a place of respect and love for the work. As such you are taking the argument personally but not the disagreement of the other person. Also they are not using the “don’t take it personally” to dismiss you.

Dealing with it

I am still learning - and most likely will keep learning - for the best ways to deal with this, but some of the ways I have addressed such emails and attitudes are:

• Sleep on it - is it actually what is being said or you are reading into it too much in the moment
• Call it out - and I mean literally call the person and explain how their approach is disrespectful to your commitment to your job and passion for it
• Let it slide - you know those annoying neighbours across the street that slightly annoying but not worth antagonising…

As such do you think we should or shouldn’t take work personally?