Over the last couple of days, they’ve been posting regarding the delicate relationship between photographers and photo editors. Starting off the week with a blog post titled Top 13 Ways to Piss off a Photo Editor and following that up with yesterdays Top 10 Ways to Make a Photo Editor Fall in Love with You.

Both of these articles are great reads and have some valuable insights into the working relationships every photographer must manage. But beyond that, even if you’re not a photographer, they’re still worth a read. After all, in every field, in every job, it all boils down to relationships and how we manage those relationships.

After reflecting on these two articles, and making sure I hadn’t done anything in recent history that might fall under the “piss off” category, I got to thinking. Managing relationships in business is a lot like dating. Seriously, I’m not trying to make some obscure metaphor, think about it. You meet someone, you introduce yourself, and you go through that intricate dance of figuring out if/ how you can work with that person. And much like dating, a certain element just boils down to chemistry and how you mesh with that person. You can’t force things, you just have to let that relationship grow as it wants to grow.

So give the articles a read through, and think about how you’re managing your relationships. And if you find that you’ve done a couple of things on the “bad list”, maybe you need to go get someone some flowers and chocolate.