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A majority of salespeople are to the point, fast paced, and results oriented. Those qualities tend to serve them well in the work environment. However, at home it may be a different story. Imagine that one spouse is trying to describe to the other some events that took place that day. The results-oriented spouse says, “Is there a point to this?” Of course, the spouse who was relating the events wasn’t exactly looking for that type of response.

I don’t know about you, but I find the issues that I face at work are easier to manage than the issues I face at home, even considering the complicated dynamics that take place in the typical work organization. I think the challenge at home arises from the intensity of feelings we have with people we live with and our expectations of them.

A big part of the challenge we face is that when we are at work we have to be “on” all the time. That takes energy. So when we get home, we want to unwind and relax. While we may be constrained in how we handle ourselves at work, we may feel we have more freedom at home to say what’s on our mind or do what we really feel like doing. We expect others to understand.

Of course, the people you live with deserve to be treated as tactfully as the people you work with. The reality is that they are more important to you than your work colleagues, even though they willingly accept the sacrifices you make at work. Unfortunately, you can’t behave exactly the same way at work and at home. The expectations aren’t the same, and neither are the expected outcomes.

So what is the answer? If we can’t simply use the same behaviors at work that make us successful there and can’t just unwind and be ourselves at home, what should we do? The answer lies in understanding human behavior. To be successful, stop focusing solely on what you want and how you feel and instead factor in a response to the other person. In other words, give that person what he or she needs or wants in the way he or she prefers it. If this sounds familiar, it is. It is exactly what the most successful salespeople do for their customers.

The most successful salespeople reach out to customers and extend themselves to make sure customers get what they want in the way they want it. The salesperson who discounts what customers value, doesn’t listen, or even argues with customers isn’t going to get the sale or keep the relationship for long. Even if the salesperson is right, it won’t matter.

So why should the situation be any different at home? Why shouldn’t you treat the people who mean the most to you at least as respectfully as you treat your customers? Why not consider your family to be another group of customers, just under a different set of circumstances? Do you think that might change the dynamics in the relationship? This might involve going outside of your preferred mode of behaviors, but it will likely result in your preferred outcomes.

Why is it easier to see the mistakes that other people make and the problems that other people have than it is to see our own? The answer is not simple. Being too close to a problem emotionally, or too afraid to admit a mistake, may make it impossible to see your situation in the same way that others do. Once I was listening to some people talk about problems they were facing, and it seemed so obvious to me what they should do to resolve the problems. I thought, “Why don’t they just do it?” But when I happened to describe a problem I was having, even though it was almost the same as the ones that I had heard other people describe, the answer didn’t seem so obvious.

My wife, Terry, who has a lot of wisdom about people, gave me an idea about how to handle these personal situations one time when I was perplexed about what I should do. She said, “If one of your clients approached you with the same problem, what would you tell them to do? Do whatever you would have told them to do.”

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