When approaching a complex conversation with your boss or client, one of the strategies that works most consistently is, no matter how challenging and dirty the conversation or interactions get, to constantly and continually find similarities between you two.
And no, that is not useful in the trivial sense. I’m not suggesting, “Oh, you like Game of Thrones, so do I!” That’s the child’s version of relationship building, not the adult’s version. You don’t build true trust nor true confidence with someone because you both enjoy absorbing the same media. “Oh, you put on socks when you get dressed? I also use socks! We’re so similar!”
The trick is to find similarities in regard to the specifics of the complex situation at hand.
One strong formula for doing this is to attribute positive intentionality to him and then mirror that back to your own intentions.
“I understand why it took you more time than allocated to do this. You wanted to get the details right. I do the same because I also obsess over details.”
“For me personally, whenever a big deadline approaches and I’m not ready and I know I’ll miss it, I freeze. It actually becomes hard for me to concentrate. I think that’s what happened to you, too.”
“My natural instinct is to try to control every little detail of everything. I have a little dictator inside of my heart! But life has been training me to restraint it. So, I totally get the instinct to micro-manage.”
There are two keys to doing this well.
Firstly, this only works when it is sincere. Unless you’re a world-class actor, don’t pretend to be similar if you’re not. And that’s fine, different people are different, and not every strategy is applicable in every situation. Build on similarities when they really are there. Don’t pretend to be religious if you’re an atheist.
Secondly, you probably have different sides to your personality. In fact, unless you are a robot, you definitely do. So, when you search for common ground in a situation, find one aspect of your situation which can relate to your personality. If you’re not an atheist but you’re just spiritual but not practicing in a structured religion, that’s a good common ground between you and someone very religious. For a work-related example, maybe you’re not a perfectionist in your work, but you are a perfectionist in your art or your writing (God no!), and then that’s a good starting point for finding common ground with a perfectionist.
Walt Whitman framed this well, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” You are large too and you contain multitudes as well. Just find the corresponding multitude.
