[medvezhenok]

Sort of. I think everyone should read "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. I think in any interaction, if you want to maximize your success, you have to approach it from the frame of reference of the person you are talking to. Put yourself in their shoes, and think about what they care about, what they value, and then whatever you want to do, express it to them with reference to their perspective.

This is especially true for hard conversations (like firing someone, or leaving a company, etc etc). Note that understanding and getting into their shoes does not mean bending over backwards to do it their way; you can still do things your way (or find a compromise between the two), but you have to convey that you understand their perspective and (ideally) how what you are doing can be beneficial / neutral for them from that perspective.

Another good source is Coyote Talk vs Giraffe talk (it sounds silly, but I promise it isn't). That one is more focused on personal relationships, but I think much of it can be applied to work interactions too.

Most fighting and animosity in the world is caused by people talking past each other, not engaging in actual constructive dialogue.

[billllll]

The thing about "How to win friends..." that isn't explicitly stated is that you are doing the things recommended in the book because you WANT something from them. You want their friendship, so you put yourself in their shoes to help achieve that.

In the case of quitting your job, I'm not sure it applies since what you really want to do is to leave. If you have a good relationship with your team and company, by all means be generous with your time. Otherwise, I don't think you'll get much value out of being overly considerate of your old company.

[com2kid]

> In the case of quitting your job, I'm not sure it applies since what you really want to do is to leave. If you have a good relationship with your team and company, by all means be generous with your time. Otherwise, I don't think you'll get much value out of being overly considerate of your old company.

The # of times I've encountered people from my past is staggering.

No reason to needlessly anger people, especially if leaving a good impression just takes a wee bit more effort.

[BeetleB]

I'm not disagreeing with what you say, but I am having trouble connecting your comment to mine - did you mean to reply to someone else?

> Put yourself in their shoes, and think about what they care about, what they value, and then whatever you want to do, express it to them with reference to their perspective.

Agreed, but applies equally to managers as it does to employees.

> Most fighting and animosity in the world is caused by people talking past each other, not engaging in actual constructive dialogue.

The challenge in doing this is that there is often a great deal of information asymmetry between employees and management. It's quite common for managers not to be completely transparent (and at times, they're not allowed to when it comes to things like compensation). This automatically (and in my opinion, fairly) results in employees withholding information (personal motives, etc) as well. When there is either a power or information asymmetry, you'll find that usually the one who has the more power/information has to put in more effort to win the trust of the other.