Humanizing your enemies? Surely you can’t be serious.

Oh, but I am.

There are a few things you must know about your enemy.

They’re only human. Unless they aren’t. Machines, data, a bad market, these are all valid enemies that present a challenge worth solving.

Humans are fallible and full of follies. They aren’t worth your time “solving”, because the problems you see, they face.

It’s still okay to point a problem out. What isn’t okay is to expect other human beings to implement a solution immediately and with the exact brevity of execution as you can see them doing it.

Point is, it’s pointless to wish someone was different in the exact way you wish they’d be in your head.

But what if you need someone to help you tackle on a big problem, and they’re not interested in seeing things your way?

This is where you begin to see, that they’re not the enemy, and humanizing your enemies becomes a valuable persuasive asset to add to your social navigation skillset.

You have a few options here:

• Up your persuasion game. There is almost always a better way to put things across, repair burnt bridges, and nurture the right response.
  
• Win without them. Not all problems are worth solving, and not all of them can be solved. But you began at some point without needing your enemy by your side, so you can always do just that. Sometimes, winning might mean losing a battle to win the war. The Chinese know this as a common wisdom. (Although yes, common wisdom is too tricky to templatize in all situations, and that’s why there are multiple options here)
  
• Win with them. Sometimes, it’s easy to carry someone over the hill.. Or for a more relatable example, make them go out for a fun night even if they’re feeling too low to do anything about their recent social reclusion. They’re not the enemy here, but their circumstances might be. And they could use a friend, not an enemy, to help them get over it.

Sometimes, that’s all a person needs. But make sure to communicate persuasively and let them know what you did, so they can do the same for someone else. Or maybe not, just point them to this blog.

What was once a cycle of hatred can turn into a thread of kindness. Remember that.

Until Next Time.