Observations on Life - Mr X.

Yesterday, I was sitting at home reading a recently acquired book named " How to fossilise your hamster" when a friend called me. I met this guy about three months ago and we have become friendly. For the sake of anonymity, I will refer to this guy in this article as Mr X.

Mr X. lives here in Hong Kong and is a friendly type of person. He runs a business that employs around a dozen people and has some major accounts in the profession he is in.

In recent times, Mr X. has asked me to meet him for coffee from time to time, or he has called me on the telephone to ask me to provide him with business advice when he is having difficulty making a decision or just wants to bounce an idea of somebody.

Now, I wouldn't call myself any business expert or guru. All I would say is that I have learnt how to run my business the way that suits that business and the things that we do have worked well for us so far. Having said that, I wouldn't guarantee that it would be successful for any other business, it is just successful for our business.

Mr X. has put various scenarios and business problems to me and I listen to him, try to help him clarify his thinking all his decision-making processes and, if asked, I would offer a suggestion as to what I would do if put in a similar circumstance.

The trouble with all this however is that I have noticed that Mr X. rarely stops to listen to anything that I say. What I have noticed is that when I start to speak, Mr X. just cuts me off and talks over the top of me loudly so that he can get his opinion heard, or he can push his new idea on to me. Recently, I have become quite tired of this behaviour.

Last Friday, Mr X. invited me to coffee because he wanted to talk to me about a particular business issue that he was having. In short, he told me that he was leaving the company that he had been with for only a short time and he wanted to know whether I thought that was okay for him to quietly and dishonestly poach some blue-chip clients from his current company to his new company. His justification for this was that he had put in a lot of hard work to secure the business from this client and that he wanted to enjoy the benefit in his new company.

I advised Mr X. that I thought that his proposal was quite unethical and dishonest. I suggested to him that it had been his job in his current company to secure the client for his current company and that he could leave the company on good terms and having acted ethically at every turn. Mr X. wasn't happy with this but, following a phone call that he had in the middle of our conversation with somebody else about the same topic, and receiving the same advice from that other person he capitulated and agreed that he would not try to poach the client.

Yesterday Mr X. called me in the morning. I wasn't that upset about having to take a break from my book, but I did start to get slightly irritated when Mr X. said that he wanted to bounce a business idea off of me and then started to cut me off, disagree with me, justify his unethical and dishonest behaviour, tell me that he was better informed at this particular topic than I, and then went on to suggest that perhaps I didn't know what I was talking about.

That was all fine with me, because, who says I'm right? After all, I am only just the guy having a go and I don't know everything about everything. All I know is that I've been living here in Hong Kong in a luxury apartment for the past two years whilst on holidays because my business in Melbourne is doing well.

Being a big believer in giving away the behaviour that I want back, I thought that I might try this theory in reverse. So, when Mr X. would talk I started to cut him off and talk over the top of him and push my point of view.

Mr X. didn't like this type of treatment at all and tried to butt into the conversation go wasn't having any of that, I just kept talking and talking. I challenged Mr X. about his dishonesty, his lack of ethics, the reason as to why he needed a pat on the back just to doing the job that he was employed to do and generally told him to be quiet what I had my turn at talking.

Mr X. didn't like this at all and the line went dead, I suspect so that Mr X. could go off and ring someone else are who might listen to him and agree with his point of view.

For me, it has been a very valuable lesson in not wasting my time trying to help people who do not want to have an equal discussion or listen to the other person and who only want someone who agrees with their own point of view.

So Mr X., I wish you well, but please, do not call me anytime soon as I'm busy learning how to fossilise my hamster.

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia saying " don't forget to wipe".