The Platinum Handshake

Golden Rule: Others would like to be treated the way “you” like to be treated

Platinum Rule: Treat others the way “they” want to be treated.

Well, these are the two set of laws which most of the Top Leaders pursue. Not only leaders, but people who have established a definite stature in the society, quite agree with these above mentioned rules. But if we examine the two statements in seclusion, they transmit two separate ideas.

The first rule, the “Golden Rule” is based on the hypothesis that the population would respond in a similar fashion in almost all state of affairs. For example, if confronted with a unconstructive grave proclamation on my outfit, I would have a tendency to retort in the similar way to that of my coworker; or in that case my response to a pleasing and flattering remark would be quite analogous to that of my best friend.

On that contrary, the second rule, the “Platinum Rule”, runs on the postulation that the people would react quite differently when faced with a similar episode. Since people have different set of values, dissimilar interests, their comeback on a particular event would be quite divergent.

The corollary of the Golden rule holds quite true in case of various marketing campaigns. Our greatest Marketing Gurus state that understanding the human behavior, of its target audience, would facilitate an organization to sell its products and services in the most competent and lucrative approach. In short, they segment their product and services for different set of audience and come up with dissimilar campaigns. Well, major corporate giants use this rule for their advertising crusade. For example; IBM came up with their punch line- “Don’t sell what you have, sell what they need”, clearly wanted them to be positioned as someone who understands their customers better that any of their rivals.

I stoutly believe that the Golden rule has become obsolete and it’s time for the Platinum Rule. “Customization is the key”. It is the time when the companies are particularly targeting on the segmentation of the population.

On the personal front, treating people based on the “Platinum Rule” would be the wisest thing to do. Two girls, Anjali and Pooja, best of friends, had a heated argument one day. Anjali was quite a sensitive person and she got furious when Pooja gave a “blunt” healthy advice to her. Pooja, on the other hand, was a very candid and an outspoken person. Her intention was not to hurt Anjali; rather she wanted her to improve in a particular area. Pooja, being a candid person herself, would not feel bad if someone gave a suggestion on her improvement areas. She assumed that, just like her, Anjali would not feel offended by her statement. Consequently the relationship got strained because Pooja was following the Golden Rule, the rule which said that, others would like to be treated the way “you” like to be treated.

If Pooja would have given Anjali the same advice in an ambassadorial fashion, Anjali would not have felt awful.

This fictitious example gives us an idea on how we can improvise on our relationships with our Clients, Our Parents of for that matter, our friends. It’s an era of Customization and the time of Platinum rule is now.