There is a famous saying by Zig Ziglar, "You can get whatever you want, if you help enough people get whatever they want."

Whenever I come across this quote, I'm reminded of The Godfather from the Mario Puzo books.

The Godfather has an operating policy of helping people get whatever they want so that he could call upon them for a return favour when the need arises.

Zig Ziglar certainly doesn't mean it in the way Don Corleone (The Godfather) operated. But, it is a nice way to remember how to act everyday.

The best way to get a good rating and a promotion at work is to help your manager get whatever she wants. The best way to get a good feedback from your subordinates is to help them get whatever they want. The best way to keep your customers loyal is to help them get whatever they want.

And so on.

The trick then, lies in investing the time to understand what exactly it is that all these people want and in figuring out how to help them achieve that.

Chop chop!