Understanding People Through Interests

Between different organizations, what is the relationship between them? Between different roles, what is the relationship between them?

For example, between Organization A and Organization B, is there more cooperation or more competition? What resources can Organization A coordinate? Which higher-level organizations might it be coordinated by? Who supervises it? And who, in turn, supervises the supervisor? This is part of an organizational network and its survival environment.

By becoming familiar with it, you will easily understand which individuals are likely to have developed close personal relationships due to long-term collaboration, and which individuals are likely to have friction, rivalry, and even a desire to see each other fail—where one’s rise depends on the other’s fall.

This is how you identify allies and opponents.

On a private level, who is related by marriage, who has these kinds of ties, and so on. Once you fully grasp these dynamics, the entire organizational structure becomes completely transparent to you.

If people have interconnected interests, if they depend on each other like teeth and lips, then what happens if that person fails to act impartially? What if that person also becomes compromised?

To understand human nature—do not base it on facial expressions; base it on interests. Some people’s success means your success; some people’s failure means your success. Who most wants you to succeed? Who most wants you to fail? Who benefits if you succeed? Who suffers? The world is ultimately made of people. If you do not map out the chain of interests clearly, you naively expect everyone to behave like artificial intelligence—perfectly compliant with procedures, with zero human flaw.

This is not about emotional intelligence. It is not about whether you know how to get along with people. This is actually a universal principle—a general-purpose, widely applicable way of operating.