Power Play: If someone has a problem with you, raise it directly

Just because Power Players have power doesn’t mean others won’t have a big problem with them from time to time.

Power Players look a problem directly in the face. If someone does have issues with their approach, they don’t avoid it or, worse, pretend it isn’t there. They go directly to the source and they raise it with them.

Power Players know that people have the right to a legitimate beef. When a Power Player goes directly to the source of that beef it demonstrates three things: humility; fairness; and great character.

Learn from the most accomplished Power Players and don’t sweep problems under the carpet. Go directly to the person and see if you can sort it out. Nine times out of ten, it will work.

The story

My girlfriend is notoriously late.

We’ll agree to meet at 1pm and she’ll arrive at 2pm. For years I’d simply built her lateness into my schedule, then one day I decided that if we were still going to be friends 20 years from now, we needed to talk about it.

The next time she was late I told her that her lateness always made me feel like her time was more valuable than mine and that I didn’t deserve the same courtesy of promptness that I was extending to her.

It was a direct conversation had respectfully, and my friend was never late again.