Don’t Take It Personally

You go to a meeting with a client. You expect discussion won’t be easy so you work hard to prepare yourself. You know your team screwed something in the past but you want to look to the future. Anyways you expect talking about merits.

You get a bucket of crap dropped on your head on the very beginning. Then your failures are pointed and criticized. And then you hear people on the other side have no empathy to share your pains.

Sounds familiar? For many of you it should.

After those meetings I always feel like I was slapped into my face. I feel like someone has drained my whole energy. My motivation peaks down.

That’s utterly and completely wrong. You shouldn’t take it personally. Me either. You should care as far as it pushes you to improve things and that’s all. You shouldn’t allow those situations to influence your work negatively.

Why? Because it is business. They have to play “you screwed” card to show you they’re unhappy. Nine vendors out of ten would ignore them if they just said they were unhappy so they hit high tones since the beginning.

You’ll go to the very same people a couple of months later and they’ll be all happy with your efforts and performance improvements. They’ll remember neither a bucket of crap nor lack of empathy. The future will look bright.

Why? Because it is business.

You shouldn’t take it personally. Or at least you should try to act like that. I can’t guarantee you a success, as I’m rather a failed example here. Even though I know how it works.

Tagged as: client meeting, personal development, project management, vendors