I attended the funeral of an old family friend the other day. I listened with the rest of the people gathered together as; one after the other, family members got up and told stories and lessons learned from their father and grandfather. The service lasted for nearly two hours. That is quite long as far as funerals go. You would think it was dragging by the end. Let me assure you it was not. It was one of the most uplifting and reflective events I have attended in some time.

I have known the man who was being eulogized for over twenty years. He was quite a guy. Professionally he held a couple of positions. When I first met him, he was a private investigator for a trial lawyer. This is not the kind of job that would endear you to people. You are snooping on folks, digging up dirt on them, squeezing information from them that they would rather not tell anyone. You’ve seen this kind of person in the movies. He is the guy you’d rather not meet in the back alley. You would think someone in this line of work would be the biggest jerk you had ever met. Not true of my friend. He actually got people to talk to him by a rather novel idea: he befriended many people, asked good questions and listened. He was good with little details, and little details led to the trail of guys who had skipped town, left someone else holding the bag, etc. He knew that a little sugar goes a long way.

One of the things that person after person said about my friend was that he knew how to read people. It was a kind of sixth sense and it is almost a lost art today. I say that because reading people cannot be done by texting them or friending them on Facebook. It requires spending time with them, getting to know them well enough that you can read the subtle changes in their expression as a change in attitude occurs. As far as sales and marketing goes, this is one of the most important indicators that a representative of your company, having contact with your customers, needs to learn to do. It is the red flag that a shift is necessary in the way you are dealing with your customer in order to maintain that relationship. If you don’t have any face time with your clients, change the way you are operating to make sure that happens. No one likes doing business with a complete stranger. I like it when my vendors anticipate my needs and are one step ahead of me. That will never happen if you don’t know who you are dealing with.

The other thing that became clear at the funeral was that this man truly cared for the people around him. His conversations were not just surface talk. He had a keen mind for remembering the details. One lasting memory I have of him was a conversation we had years ago. I had befriended his son-in-law and daughter. I had no idea that there was a lot of unrest in the soul of his son-in-law at the time. We found ourselves involved in the same circle and became good friends. This man approached me one day and I noticed he was crying. He shook my hand and simply said, "Thank you for being a good friend to my kids. You don’t know what that means to us.” I will never forget his sincere gratitude expressed in those few words. It makes me wonder how many times I have passed someone by without a simple hello and they were in need of a friend. You never know when the simplest act of human interaction will have a far deeper impact on the person than you ever realized. It is far too easy to think of the people you interact with on a "professional” level to be part of the apparatus of business; just a part of the machine and something less than human. If the social sciences and modern psychology have taught us anything, it is that human beings have an innate need for each other. The smart person is the one who understands this and builds relationships, doesn’t shirk from interacting with people at work, and treats clients with the same kind of dignity that they would give a friend.

That leads me to a third thing that really made me reflect on the life of my friend at his funeral. He never let himself be defined by the boundaries someone else put on him. In many ways, he was a person who stepped over the line. I don’t mean that he broke the law. What I do mean is he pushed back on the societal expectations that define generations. At age 86, he was still learning. His family reflected on his love of gadgetry, especially computers. The stories were told of him sitting down with his grandchildren to talk about a new interactive online site he had discovered or to understand the latest broadband WiFi connectivity. He exercised religiously every morning with a jump rope. He read all the time. He had strong political leanings, but often read books from the other side of the political spectrum just so he could gain a perspective from their viewpoint. He had strong opinions, but did not take himself so seriously that he could not get in another person’s shoes just to take a look at life from their perspective. When men twenty years younger were retiring and putting in a hard day’s work on the golf course, he was still seeking new information, trying new things and growing as a person. I find that inspirational.