Everything you gives attention to, grows

I am working on an assignment for a customer. It is a nice assignment, and I do it together with a colleague. My colleague is smart, funny, a bit chaotic every now and then, but I like that. The customer consists of two different organizations, with a contact person per organization. As the assignment progresses, we notice a few things. For one contact, the glass is always half full. She is always cordial, positive, looks for solutions when something needs to change, is open to our suggestions. For the other contact, the glass always seems half empty. We do more than we were asked, we consult with the customer about every issue in the process, we communicate transparently about everything, but the contact person whose glass always seems to be half empty is micro-focusing on small things that irritate him, and mainly talks about this, when we look back on what has been realized so far. Micro-management to our feeling.

It gives me a double feeling. With one person I am happy that I can work on this assignment, I feel good when we meet each other, while the other person – although I have resisted – is gradually giving me more and more a feeling of resistance. Although it is one and the same assignment, I get energy from one person, while the other one draws energy from me.

I talk to my colleague about it. We wonder if there is something to be done about it, if it is not something personal with the ‘difficult’ customer, something deeper that we cannot touch. And I wonder if I should say something about it. I would love to ask why he cannot be more explicitly happy with the results, and why he makes those small things in the process so big that he no longer seems to be able to look at the bigger picture. Not everything always runs exactly as you want, especially if a lot of people are involved like in this case, even if you are the client.

The question is also: should we be more open to the needs of the ‘difficult’ customer, even if the ‘positive’ customer thinks that everything is going well, and though we think that what he complains about is not so important in the bigger picture? I have learned that everything you give attention to,grows. Are we not going to attract even more negative energy when we let ourselves be sucked into a negative spiral that we ourselves do not bother about?

We decide – for now-  to do nothing. And just be happy with what we have already realized. And we congratulate each other with the results so far, because we think we should also celebrate our intermediate successes, even if we are not perfect and some things can always be done better.