For anyone who isn’t glued to the TV every Monday night, House is a TV show about an extremely obnoxious doctor who makes life difficult for everyone around him. He’s manipulative and vindictive. He has no faith in the concept of basic human goodness, and he goes out of his way to embarass and ridicule everyone who crosses his path. Did I mention he’s a drug addict? He gets away with all of this, though, because he is brilliant and able to arrive at medical diagnoses that no one else is capable of acheiving.

Should you be more like Dr. House? Yes, if you possibly can. Now I’m not trying to say that you should be spiteful, difficult, or adopt any of the other character flaws of this character. But if you did, would people still work with you? Are you so talented and capable of producing at such a high quality that people will work with you despite any reason they may have not to? Because there’s always some reason not to work with you.

Hopefully the reason isn’t that you’re a big jerk. But maybe you have a different set of technical skills then what they envisioned for the project. Maybe you won’t be available for three more weeks. Maybe you are perfectly capable but don’t have any experience with the type of work that client needs. Maybe you’re a part-time freelancer with a 9 to 5 job that can’t take calls or schedule meetings during regular business hours. Maybe you cost more than all of your competition.

Whatever the “downside” is to working with you, are you so brilliant that customers are willing to work with you anyway?

filed under: Finding Work, Project Management, Running a Business