“Quid Pro Quo And Caring”

Charlie Green wrote a stunning post, “Relationships Are Everything” Some of the ensuing discussion, both in the comments on the post and Charlie and my private notes to each other focused on the transactional nature of so much of what we do. “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”

Quid pro quo is sometimes mistaken as a form of caring.

In Charlie’s post he describes a situation where one of his colleagues demonstrated enormous empathy and caring for a troubled client. And while the situation passed, that client provided Charlie’s colleague with millions of dollars of business. One could jump to a conclusion that business was a “quid pro quo” by the client, in return for the caring act demonstrated by the colleague.

But these are very different behaviors, with profoundly different outcomes.

Daily, we get offers for help. often strangers who are “only concerned about our success.” In extending these offers, they explain how it will impact us and how they want to help us address an issue that’s important to us. And they present themselves as “wanting to be helpful.” But implicit in these offers is an expectation of reciprocity. In these kinds of transactional behaviors the focus becomes on the exchange, not on the individuals.

Some years ago, I was part of an informal group. We liked each others work, we wanted to promote each others work. We might promote it on the social platforms, mention it in some of our own work. Every once in awhile, there were things I didn’t feel comfortable with promoting. I may have thought their conclusions on an issue were wrong, I may have been uncomfortable with some of their ideas. It didn’t happen frequently, but the fact that I wasn’t promoting everything was upsetting to the group. Some of the members said, “If you don’t promote our stuff, we won’t promote yours.” I replied that I was perfectly happy with that. If I presented something they didn’t feel comfortable with promoting, they shouldn’t promote it. That started causing some difficulty in the group and I decided to leave the group. I just didn’t feel comfortable with the quid pro quo obligation. While I was no longer a member of the group, I still promoted much of what they did, because I thought it meaningful.

And we see this too often in our customer engagement strategies and even within our own organizations. Offers to do something, offers to help, demonstrations of caring come with “strings attached.” And however subtle these attached strings may be, they are always painfully obvious.

While these are seldom explicit requests, “I need you to do this, if I do that,”  the quid pro quo expectation is often expressed a disappointment in what some one did or didn’t do.   Or an after the fact comment, “I expected this…..” or “I was disappointed…..”  Or just the lack of the enthusiasm that seemed to exist before. 

Or it’s manifested as some form of score keeping.

Genuine caring is very different. Caring involves giving something or doing something for someone else out of genuine concern. There is no expectation of return. The primary focus of caring is on the individual and what they are trying to achieve, and not on any expectation of reciprocity.

But here’s where it may get confusing. In virtually every act of caring, we get something back, it may be some emotional fulfillment, building a closer relationship, or reinforcing our own senses of purpose. While we express our caring, that act generates within ourselves something that makes us feel better. It has nothing to do with others or their reactions to our caring, it’ how it makes us feel.

Genuine caring is important in every relationship, personal or business. It is foundational to developing relationships, it is foundational to building trust. And it is in building and maintaining that trust, we each find more desire and opportunity to work with each other.

Quid pro quo is never a sustainable strategy in anything we do. While it may help with a transaction, it does nothing in building relationships and trust.

And genuine caring, by itself is so rewarding.

We all need to care a little more.

Afterword, the AI generated discussions of these posts are always fascinating!  Enjoy!