It's counterproductive to take business conflicts personally. PG removed Sam Altman silently without harming his future. There is no reason to be enemies after the issue is solved. There may be deals to be made again.
100% agree with this, but it is productive to understand what was behind a business conflict. Personal like or dislike can change which alternative of a choice of equal alternatives, someone might make. As Tony Soprano would say, "It's just business."
The more you reveal about yourself, the fewer people you will appeal to because very few people share your exact values. People tend to like people who share some obvious common values and they assume that the values that are unspoken are also a match. In reality, it's rarely so.
As people learn more about the world and themselves, they begin to realize that some values that they didn't consider before are very important and they may be shocked to find that certain people they used to like do not share those values which they took for granted.
When police departments do that to overly aggressive cops, it’s generally considered a bad thing.
Believing that a person is not a good match for a certain business position is worlds apart from a public servant intentionally abusing his legally sanctioned monopoly on violence.
The first kind of person may be well a good match for another position, in another company; the latter is just a criminal in uniform.
All conflicts are Personal. It is only when you weigh your response and its consequences to short-term and long-term goals that you start spouting niceties like "It's not Personal; it's just Business". It is a question of balancing emotions vs. rational strategy/tactics; sometimes it suits the circumstances and sometimes it doesn't.
Kautilya/Sun-Tzu/Clausewitz are relevant here.
Years ago I was at an event talking to a colleague who was absolutely bashing someone (with good reason) and then another colleague walked up. Same person came up and my first colleague changed tone to "yeah, so-and-so is an interesting character."
Because I knew that the other colleague also hated the person, I called him on it. I wonder, though, how often that dynamic plays out where nobody will voice a negative opinion publicly - so people slide by without being called on behavior that shouldn't get ignored.
Exactly right. People are complicated and liking or disliking them is adjacent to whether or not they are 'good' at their job.
I've known people who sucked at their job, but doing the same job in a different environment were stars. That experience led me to disassociate what people do as part of their job from the person themselves. And I can respect someone for doing a good job, even when I find their personal attitude or motivations distasteful.
Complicated.
