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lifeSPACE spotlight
Q&A with Justin Cohen, author of Winning with Relationships
You provide 21 laws of influence in your book. After a year of social distancing, do they still apply?
‘We are physically, not socially, distanced. Online or offline,
our relationships have the single most important impact on our success
and happiness. However, because relating online provides shorter interactions
with fewer non-verbal cues, we need to be even more conscious about doing
the things that build rather than break relationships.’
You write: ‘There is no such thing as success without successful relationships.’ Is that only true for business?
‘Having worked in the corporate sector for the past
20 years, it is very clear to me that great personal and business relationships require many of the same social skills: listening, appreciation, positive expectations, forgiveness, and giving and receiving constructive feedback. Much of what it takes to win at home is what it takes to win at work.’
Is there really room for relationships in the cut- throat world of commerce?
‘One of the biggest predictors of business success is culture.
A Harvard study found that a strong culture increases net income 765% over 10 years. The companies I’ve worked with that have the best cultures have people who love what they do, love who they do it with and love who they do
it for. But love doesn’t just happen. You have to create it.’
#enrichyourthinking
HEARD ON THE OLD MUTUAL CORPORATE RESOURCE HUB
‘I make sure that I employ people who are far better in lots of areas than I am. What’s the point of hiring someone who is exactly like me?’
– Uyandiswa CEO Amanda Dambuza on the power of people
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Book list
NEW COUNTERPARTS TO OLD FAVOURITES
If you liked...
Atomic Habits
Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg (Ebury Publishing)
As we live through the sequel to 2020’s real-life disaster
movie, it’s worth thinking about the small changes all of us will have to make. Making small, easy changes instead of stressing about big ones that you should be making, BJ Fogg argues, can change everything.
If you liked...
How to Win Friends and
Influence People
Winning with Relationships by
Justin Cohen (Burnet Media)
Even if you don’t apply all of
Justin Cohen’s 21 laws of
influence in life, business and love, it’s worthwhile taking note of them as we learn to build and maintain relationships from a Covid-appropriate distance.
If you liked... Enlightenment Now
A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence by Kartik Hosanagar (Viking Press) Kartik Hosanagar takes an eyes-
wide-open look at AI, balancing examples of where it went wrong (a Microsoft chatbot that rapidly developed an aggressive personality) with the possibilities it offers. As the subtitle – How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control – indicates, he also sets out how we could avoid becoming puppets to algorithms.
DO YOU OWN
A STARTUP OR
HAVE A SIDE
HUSTLE?
Read Nine Yards, a brand-new magazine for small-business owners, to find out how other entrepreneurs did it, what their obstacles are and expert advice for moving forward.
Best of all? Nine Yards is free. Read it here.
ISSUE 1 2021 | 5
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