

The Emotional Bank Account - Establishing Good Credit With Coworkers/Employees - shabadoozie
http://roachblog.com/2010/03/29/bank-account-the-one-that-matters/

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philwelch
The basic idea of enriching interpersonal relationships by making the
relationship a net gain for the other person is a great idea, but the
"emotional bank account" analogy isn't the best.

If you view this in the naive sense of being owed more favors than you owe
other people, you have to be the only one employing this strategy. If I have a
positive "emotional" (favors) balance with you, you must therefore owe me
favors and have a negative balance with me.

Unless you're the type of person, or in the type of relationship, that keeps
track of favors owed, then the zero-sum bank account analogy falls down. A
functioning relationship, working or personal, is built out of a series of
positive-sum interactions. The kind of things the OP gives as examples of
"deposits" (signs of respect, really). In that kind of relationship, once
you've reached the level necessary to ask, and win, serious favors (the
manager relocating to Orlando), that manager might have had _more_ trust and
respect after moving to Orlando, if only to maintain a consistent cognitive
model (I must really trust and respect this guy, I moved to Orlando for him).

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kellishaver
The basic concept can be summed up in 2 sentences: Do nice things for people
and they'll do nice things for you. Treat them like crap or ask for too much
too often and they'll treat you the same way in return. Which pretty much
seems like common sense to me.

The idea of a give and take bank account balance is somewhat strange. I can
see where the intent is with the metaphore, but I don't think it's an
accurate, or, more importantly, entirely healthy one.

I prefer to keep my relationships a little more fluid, rather than keeping a
record of who owes who how many favors. But maybe I'm in a unique situation
with regards to my job, in that my employer is also a really great friend and
it's pretty much a given that we'll both do all we can to help the other out,
just because we like doing so.

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euroclydon
I wonder how roachblog's emotional bank account balance stands with Covey
after ripping off half the blog post from him?

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diN0bot
great concept, especially for developers who tend to focus on content over
process, and otherwise miss "the big picture."

"emotional" currency is more complex than actual money, since the two parties
may disagree about what constitutes actual money (let alone disagree on
valuation). this seems more problematic for personal rather than work
relationships.

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eroach
Cash is cash, how one is treated is whole new ballgame.

