The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it

by Henry Cloud

But the need for connection begins even before birth. It goes literally from the womb to the tomb.

The undeniable reality is that how well you do in life and in business depends not only on what you do and how you do it, your skills and competencies, but also on who is doing it with you or to you. Who is helping you? Who is fighting you? Who is strengthening you or resisting and diminishing you? These people are literally making you who you are. Who is helping you build those skills and competencies? Who is tearing them down? Other people do have power in your life, for good or bad. But what kind of power are others going to have over your life and performance? Are they going to enhance or diminish? These are the questions we will examine. You don’t have a choice about whether or not others have power in your life. They do. But you do have a choice as to what kind of power others are going to have.

The clinical arena: how we feel, think, and behave; The relational arena: how we relate to others; and The performance arena: how we perform and what we achieve.

it is in relationships that our minds are actually built.

If you are trying to reach a goal, do you focus only on your strategy, or on whom you are going to engage to help you get there?

If you are trying to change a behavior, do you set out a target for change, and begin to try to live up to that target? Or do you seek coaching and support that will help you get there? If you are trying to build a successful business or grow the one you have, do you focus on strategy and execution only? Or do you focus on building a thriving culture?

The reality is that you are always in one of four places of connection. No matter what life circumstances you are going through on the outside—victory or defeat, or somewhere in between—there are only four possibilities of connection that you can be in at any given time. It is the premise of this book, and science and experience agree, that figuring out where you are is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. While there are four different kinds of connectedness—four possible corners of our relational space—only one of them will help you thrive. The other three corners will always diminish your performance and your well-being. They can even destroy your vision, your relationships, your performance, and your health. The key is to get out of any of the other three and into the only one that works. Think of this dynamic as the geography of relationships, a map with four corners: 1. Disconnected, No Connection 2. The Bad Connection 3. The Pseudo-Good Connection 4. True Connection

Truly connected people do both. They are emotionally present and able to give and to receive.

As leaders, people residing in Corner One tend not to build strong relational cultures. The culture might be high-performance and demanding, but people don’t feel that their contributions are valued or that they are truly cared about. And even though there might be good business results, these are usually short-lived, and then the lack of deep, positive relationships and a caring culture begins to erode trust and goodwill. It goes more and more toxic. The healthiest and most talented people usually leave to work at places where they’ll feel more valued, where they can be part of something with a soul.

Under disconnected leaders, decision making tends to be done in isolation, either solely by the leaders or in organizational silos that they build or foster. Sometimes disconnected leaders allow one or two people into their worlds, but usually only to act as human shields, allowing the Corner One leader to stay in a bubble. Such a shield might be a colleague, a direct report, a spouse, or anyone else who helps the leader stay disconnected from the w...

Do you want to know how you’re doing if you’re in Corner Number One? Here are the signs to look out for: Clinical: Increased stress; lower energy levels, concentration, and motivation; problems sleeping; lowered libido; increased fear and anxiety; increased levels of suspicion, distrust, and resentment; loss of hope and purpose. Relational: Not feeling as connected to others as you once did—even at home and in your personal life, more isolation, detachment from those you care most about, conflicts with those you’re close to, shortness of temper, lack of patience, anger, or just not wanting to be involved or around others. Loss of interest in relationship, in being with people. Disappointment with relationship itself, and a feeling of just being cut off. Performance: Not getting the results you need and feeling as if it all depends upon you to do so; not being able to get “on top of it all,” procrastination, disorganization, lack of clarity about goals, feeling bogged down by tasks someone else should be doing, diminished focus.

No one delivers a great performance while lost in negative self-evaluation.

Flattery is perhaps the worst drug of all for Corner Three leaders.

In the simplest terms, a real connection is one in which you can be your whole self, the real, authentic you, a relationship to which you can bring your heart, mind, soul, and passion. Both parties to the relationship are wholly present, known, understood, and mutually invested. What each truly thinks, feels, believes, fears, and needs can be shared safely.

People need to see hope and strong determination in the faces of their leaders.

All great leaders need to be able to address their constituents—whether voters, employees, or investors—with confidence and the courage of their convictions, but those same leaders need a safe place to nurse their wounds, to be restored, and to let down their guard and be real.

“The big problem with people like me is that we think we’re gladiators. We can fight our way through anything and just never will give up. But when it comes to our needs, or vulnerabilities or weaknesses, that’s where the gladiator mentality falls short. We can’t do it alone.” Bingo.

The range of human needs is broad, but the way to meet those needs is very narrow: it involves humbly and honestly embracing the need and reaching out to the “power of the other.” There is no other way.

Humble yourself. Head to Corner Four and seek someone who can meet the need that you have. Whether for emotional support, courage, wisdom, expertise, or pure community, go to Corner Four . . . and stay there.

get a good leadership book every month, have the team read it, and take a little time once a week to discuss what you all are learning. Watch the energy go up.

Look at your own life and work right now. Are you surrounding yourself with people who fuel you? As the steward of your life, make sure that you have these kinds of Corner Four “fueling stations” in your life, at regular intervals.

Corner Four relationships affect us physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually as they help us find our purpose in life. In most cases, no one relationship can supply our needs in all of these dimensions, though sometimes one is paramount. That’s why it’s important to establish multiple connections that feed us different kinds of energy. It does “take a village” to grow a person, and to sustain one.

You are 100 percent in control of your side of the relationship, your levers in the business, your input, the training and discipline of your kids, and on and on. Self-efficacy is part and parcel of any kind of human performance.

Self-control, agency, self-efficacy—all hallmarks of psychological health that undergird performance—are built and supported in relationship to others.

What if your company asked, “How can I be a fueling support and at the same time make sure that those closest to delivery of the business have all the control and autonomy that they need in order to perform?” That would be powerful.

Corner Four relationships don’t rescue us from hard decisions or responsibility. In business, for example, when your protégé makes a mistake the first time she leads a project and ruffles some team members’ feathers, you don’t jump in to smooth out the problems her style has caused, but you do encourage this less experienced manager to find a solution and adapt her style.

Obviously, communicating freedom and responsibility is not abrogation of one’s own responsibilities.

Corner Four accountability is a commitment to what is best at three levels: (1) both or all the individuals involved, (2) the relationship(s), and (3) the outcomes.

In Corner One, there’s no feedback. In Corner Two, it makes you feel bad. In Corner Three, it’s dishonest, mostly flattery.

People in Corner Four relationships care, are honest, and fix problems.

Corner Four demands all three: caring, honesty, and results—caring enough about someone to not be hurtful in how we say things, the honesty to say them directly, and a focus on behavior change and better results.

Research has shown that the brain responds best to a ratio of five positive feedback messages for every negative message. In business research, the best ratio is actually six to one. The highest performers get an almost six-to-one ratio of positive to negative feedback,

Research into brain circuitry shows that new capacities grow when we have to grapple with a problem ourselves instead of hearing someone tell us how to fix it or watching someone fix it for us.

Few things are worse for the culture of a team than rewarding or overlooking poor performance. It clearly tells the underachiever, “What you’re doing is good enough,” and tells the others, “Your efforts toward excellence, your care, and your diligence have no value.”

There is no freedom without responsibility, and that is generally taken only if there are consequences for not taking it. A standard without consequences is a fantasy, a wish, or a suggestion, not a standard. And consequences that involve no pain or loss aren’t consequences at all. Real ones mean that if I don’t meet the standard, I lose something important to me. Otherwise, we drift.

Facing reality can be painful and difficult, but the consequences of not confronting it are always far worse.

The amount of freedom that you will have will be equal to the amount of responsibility that you take when you have it, and that responsibility should be measured by love.

she was very direct and her feedback was often served without cookies and milk,

At Pixar, for example, they all assume that there’ll always be problems and they’ll always be addressing them. What a great standard!—as opposed to no-problems-allowed cultures that make it dangerous for anyone to speak up, let alone grow into doing their best work.

Leaders must inject just the right amount of tension into the system to motivate their people, but not so much that their people shut down. Stretch them and they’ll move toward the goal. Stretch them too much, and like rubber bands, they’ll snap.

“What is the one-sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting” (Larry Page, University of Michigan Commencement Address, May 2009).

It was just the way my mind works: as I see issues that leaders need to address for their own growth and for their organizations, I love to build models that capture the conceptual dynamics and the implementation methods that prove most effective. It kind of comes naturally. But I was way too disorganized in those years to ever write a book. Way.

The combination of the big goal and the little steps, empowered by relationship and accountability, got me there.

It’s a gradual process by which the patterns, tones, fueling, and cadences of our relationships become embedded in the internal structure of our minds, our psyche.

Soothing is one of the powers of the other. But, after a few hours, that comfort has disappeared and is needed again. It has not yet been internalized.

How do we ensure that our lessons, experiences, and values get passed along without our having to be there each and every moment? That’s the magic of internalization.

I work on with high-level executives who just can’t let go of certain things is to turn what they know into a process, a repeatable formula or system that they can teach and coach others to use. It always surprises people how much they can actually let go of if they know how to get it out of their own heads and into the heads of other people. They find they’re not as indispensable as they thought, and they are also freed to take on the kinds of challenging goals that the company needs in order to grow and thrive.

Your brain is available for downloads and updates to its software, but just like your cell phone, it has to be plugged into a good network, with unlimited data and no viruses.

We learn to soothe and regulate our emotions when an external soothing system is internalized. We learn to challenge ourselves when someone pushes us past our perceived limits, and then we learn to do that for ourselves. We learn to think differently and to think about our thinking by having someone observe us and get us to observe ourselves.

So-called self-improvement—the process of getting better—is really a relational enterprise, not a “self” enterprise.