Power Play: Mind your own business

Each day entrepreneur Rose Herceg presents a how-to power tip that challenges the typical Machiavellian theories of power. This is the Power Playbook: your quick-fix guide to influencing people – in a good way.

Great Power Players know when to keep their noses out of somebody else’s business.

If it’s not their place to know or to comment or to get involved, they don’t. Not once. Not a little bit. Not ever.

When people work long hours and the line between personal and business becomes blurred, it’s often easy to get involved in matters that are not entirely one’s business.

The classiest Power Players never try to make something their business. Most of us (sadly) enjoy some juicy gossip or want to weigh in on someone’s private business yet Power Players rarely do. They let the momentary urge pass because they take a longer view of what this involvement might mean a month ahead or a year ahead.

There’s a strange kind of power that comes from not knowing someone’s private business. It allows Power Players to leave the judgment to one side and focus on the stuff that matters: not the gossip that can redefine a person and take the focus away from talent and skill. When it’s not your business, don’t make it your business. Ever.