It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to like you. Sure, it’s always great to feel well-liked, but it’s not something that should be at the forefront of your mind when advancing your career or interacting with others.
You can’t control how a particular individual perceives you. You can control how you treat people, and how you view them, but you cannot compel an individual to like you if he or she simply refuses to feel that way. And that’s perfectly okay.
In fact, not that many people actually have to like you. Only the right people have to like you. These people will want to work with you, network with you, and add value to you.
Don’t waste your time getting everyone to like you. You won’t achieve your goal, and you won’t be leveraging your time and efforts to the best of your ability. Rather, expend your efforts on getting the right people to like you, and you’ll realize more value than you could ever cultivate from misguided attempts at attracting everyone’s approval.
Let me provide you a personal anecdote that illustrates my point.
In one of my MBA classes, my peers and I completed a survey that asked us questions on how we viewed one another. Each survey provided a list of all my classmates, and asked whether or not I would want to work with them on a project. The survey asked multiple questions to this effect, and every classmate rated fellow classmates on a sliding scale that emphasized how much or how little we agreed with the questions, based on each individual peer in question.
Once the surveys were completed, my professor provided a diagram that revealed something very insightful. In this diagram, my peers and I were each represented by a circle. Under each circle, each of our unique numerical identifiers showed which circle represented which classmate (to ensure anonymity). The size of your circle revealed how many people would want to work with you – the larger your circle, the more you were liked and valued in a work setting. Additionally, the circles were part of an overarching network that related the big circles (my classmates whom everyone wanted to work with) to the small circles (my classmates whom few people wanted to work with); consequently, the diagram provided a spatial understanding of who was at the center of the network and who was on the outskirts.
I’ll spare you the suspense – my circle was smaller than anyone else’s circle. This indicated that fewer people wanted to work with me than anyone else in my class. Needless to say, this realization deeply affected me. I was always intentional in bringing energy to my classmates and in engaging as many people as I could. I appreciated my classmates and truly enjoyed getting to know them. As I glared at my small circle, I felt my disappointment and astonishment crystallize.
After a few minutes of stewing in my own shock, I came to a profound realization. I took a step back and looked at the diagram as a whole. Although my circle was the smallest, it was also at the center of the network. No other circle was at the center. How on earth could I be the smallest circle, but at the center of the network?
When I looked outwards from my circle, I saw several lines extending towards other circles. These lines represented the very few people in my class who actually wanted to work with me (these lines are what formed the network on the diagram, as they connected all the circles together based on survey results). To my surprise, each of my circle’s lines extended to every single one of the big circles in class! This meant that all the big circles wanted to work with me, almost all the moderate circles wanted to work with the big circles, and that none of the moderate circles wanted to work with me.
The big circles represented the most influential people in my class. These people held the highest positions in various extracurricular organizations, networked very well with all their peers, and carried more esteem than my average peer. And they all wanted to work with me. The moderate circles did not. But all the big circles did. I had constructed a network that was comprised entirely of the most influential and revered members of my class. With this network in place, there was no need to waste time in getting the moderate circles to like me – it was prime time to leverage my network and continue to add value to the circles within my network! If one’s network truly is his net worth, then I had secured the highest net worth I could … not in the quantity of my circles, but in the quality of my circles. The quality of my circles truly made all the difference for me, and it will make the difference for you and for your networks.
And with this realization, I bring you back to the title of this post …
Not everyone has to like you. Just focus on the small number of people who are the most influential, or the most value-adding, or the most relevant. You can’t please everyone, and you certainly don’t want to waste time trying to please everyone. Be intentional and intelligent in how you network, with whom you network, and how you leverage your network. You don’t have to be the smartest guy, or the most successful girl, or the biggest circle to play a center role in a network, a profession, or a personal endeavor. All you have to do is position yourself well within a network.
That cliché about who you know being more important than what you know … it’s definitely onto something. Let me know how you establish yourself in your network and how you approach relationship building!
