Tag: SWOT analysis

Improve your like-ability

It’s common sense that when we are liked, we have more influence and opportunities.

Jackson Brown says “Opportunity likes to dance with those already are on the dance floor”.

Sometimes, to improve your like-ability, all you have to do is to show up.

Frequent exposure increases your chances (conversely “scarcity” increases your values).

Something about being with a person over a long time. They have become predictable and familiar.

Their range of expressions and personalities, likes and dislikes, strength and weakness.

Paradoxically, it’s the weakness part that brings people closer. Yet we have been taught to work from our strength and cover up our weakness.

We have not learned to sort out which part of our weakness is changeable and which is not (Franciscan prayer).

It’s the grey middle that tends to creep up at the least expected time.

The wisdom of team teaches us that our weakness and strength can compliment each other.

And that we fight on as one. As a team of 300.

Long time ago, people thought the Homogenous Unit Principle was it. One pure race, or group that all look alike, chances for success are highest.

Of course, we like people who look like us.

And we love the results and productivity.

Yet, World War II lessons have been well learned.

That takes to present day. We will work and play with people who are different from us.

That leaves the improvement of like-ability squarely on our shoulders.

Frequent exposure, good appearance, punctuality, honesty, truthfulness (coming clean) and a little weakness in the mix should do the job.

Above all, like yourself first. Then make it contagious.

 

SWOT and ROI

We do millions of those calculations a day (the reptilian brain). Threat? Opportunity? Fight and flight.

Yet we also learn to trust, to take risks.

In business or in life.

Situations and circumstances, problems and people (who often times become problems).

Some of us are more reflexive than others.

But at long last, we will have arrived at the same conclusion to validate that initial BLINK (first impressions, first 6-seconds).

Without that instinct for survival, we wouldn’t still be here.

No matter what color we put on outside.

Underneath it all, lays our human nature: ambitious and ambivalent.

We initially employed SWOT and ROI analyses in business.

Then, work doesn’t stop after 5PM. So we start doing that in social and academic context (study for a career that is most promising, she is a good match i.e. suitability measured in socio-economic fit).

So there is no  point in denying it.

Still cavemen-like. Still operating reflexively with the reptilian brain (WIIFM = what’s in it for me).

Keep that in mind. When two or more get together, there will be collision of self-interests.

Group leaders know this and thrive on it. 2+2=5 when it is handled well. It’s called synergy.

Hunt in pack. Celebrate together. Burning men and bushmen. Boardroom or bedroom. We need one another if we were to live a ROI life. It’s worth a try. Despite all the threats. We are still here, together, working for the common goods.