“It’s not personal; it’s just business.”
Maybe you’ve said this to a colleague or friend, or maybe someone has said it to you. It’s usually meant to soften the blow of a negative outcome for one side of a negotiation or situation, but thinking that business isn’t personal is just plain wrong, says Josefine Campbell, author of Power Barometer: Manage personal energy—not just time and money.
“When you lead, when you’re being led; when you collaborate or when you communicate, you do it through the medium that is you as a person,” she says. “That’s why business is personal. You will never be able to take the person out of the equation.”
Business is personal, but Campbell says it’s not private. While you connect with others through your personality, you don’t need to take it to a private level. Professional and private are entities that are opposites and can be kept separate.
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