Selfishness is usually frowned upon.

Largely because it’s taken to mean looking after my own interests to the detriment of others.
I find this definition a bit too simplistic.

All relationships, all interactions contain a transaction.
While it’s not at all romantic to voice as much ( ask me how I know :-P ), there is something to gain in everything we do.

  • Maintaining a friendship because you get a sympathetic ear.
  • Saying hi to your neighbor so it’s not awkward when you ask them for some coffee.

Sometimes the motive is evident and hurts others (so it’s labeled selfish).
Sometimes it’s more subtle and it avoids detection by this crude filter.

My beef with this definition is not its crudeness though.
It’s that it assumes a zero-sum game.
If I win, you lose.
Which is, again, simplistic and not necessarily true, especially if you are willing to put a bit of work into the matter.

Case in point: Job interviews.
One could argue that it’s me vs them.
They are trying to find reasons not to hire me, I am trying for the opposite.
We have conflicting interests.
Within this frame, all kinds of unsavory behaviors have room to fester.

How else could it be though?
The way I’ve been framing this lately is mid-term alignment.
The worst outcome today is not that the company doesn’t hire me.
It’s that they hire me and six months down the road, either one party or each party individually, realizes that it was a bad fit.
Then I’m starting to look for a new position and the company puts out a new job ad.
This is a bad outcome for both.
Six months down the road we have aligned interests, let’s focus on that!
Both parties are still looking out for their own self-interest, but now it’s not needlessly adversarial.
We can focus on determining mutual suitability.

  • Is this how it’s usually done? No.

  • Does it require a level of trust that may not be there? Yes.

  • Can it be applied to all persons and situations? No. If I’m desperate for a job I might not care for any kind of alignment, just a paycheck.

But it doesn’t need to be always true to be valuable.

If we remove the guilt from healthy selfishness and tentatively trust the other party, we can create the conditions for a much healthier experience and a likely better outcome.

It’s not always a zero-sum game, or at least it doesn’t need to be.

Why mid-term alignment? If you focus on the now too much, you revert to the unsavory behaviors I was trying to avoid. To focus on long-term you need actual verified trust, or it’s one hell of a big risk. So split the difference. Give a bit of mid-term trust so you can make the now more palatable :-)