We have just seen the important qualities to look for in a good long-term partner who can support your efforts. But what if you’re the prospective partner—in other words, what if you’re a Watson working for a Holmes? How can you leverage the relationship to not only help your Holmes succeed but also achieve your own goals as well?
Let’s go over a few more qualities you’ll need to become the perfect Watson:
1. Have a genuine interest in your partner’s work. You can’t be supportive of someone else’s dreams if you don’t believe in them or, worse yet, find them boring. Watson was intrigued by Holmes’s occupation, and he got a real thrill out of helping him solve cases. Watson’s own medical background also came in handy from time to time. Although he wasn’t as devoted to crime solving as Holmes, it was fulfilling enough to keep him coming back for more.
2. Don’t want what your partner has. If you’re the junior partner, so to speak, it helps if your goals are different from the other person. If you want to be that other person—have all of his or her talent and power—then your role as a supportive partner is shaky to say the least. Jealousy can begin to creep in to the relationship, and you might find yourself subconsciously undermining your partner to show that you, in fact, have what it takes to be Holmes. The key is to want to succeed on your own terms and to recognize the benefits of being the second-in-command: What can you learn from your position that will help you achieve your own unique goals?
3. Have other interests outside of your work. In other words, have a life. Watson was married and had a successful medical practice. Whereas Holmes put all of his eggs in one basket and combined his life with his work, Watson, as the junior partner in the enterprise, maintained a healthy distance. This stance—having one foot in the real world and one foot in the adventurous world of Holmes—kept Watson grounded. He was able to play devil’s advocate and view Holmes’s theories through the prism of practicality and common sense.
4. Challenge your Holmes for the right reasons. One of Watson’s most admirable qualities was that he never grew envious and embittered over Holmes’s incredible talent. When he challenged one of Holmes’s assumptions or questioned his modus operandi, he did so out of a genuine sense of concern (or just plain curiosity), not ego. Like Holmes, Watson had an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
5. Use your talents to fill gaps in the partnership. If you want to succeed as a right-hand man, you will need to do an honest inventory—not only of your own skills and shortcomings but of your Holmes’s strengths and weaknesses, too. You probably already have a good idea of what you do well and not so well. Now, how can your talents complement your partner’s? No one’s perfect, after all. Holmes was a genius, but he was also overly rational and emotionally cold, often devoid of almost any human feeling. Watson recognized this and used his own compassionate and generous nature as a counterbalance.
It’s not easy being a good Watson, but learning to be a supportive partner is important. At one time or another in our lives, most of us will have to serve in an apprentice role, either to learn a new skill or simply to assist someone else do an important job. And by learning what it takes to help another person succeed, we’ll be better able to choose our own Watson down the road when the roles are reversed.