Reminds me of a Tom Lehrer quote - "Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put into it", although I prefer to ascribe to the Small Faces analogy - "Life is just a bowl of All Bran; you wake up every morning and it's there" (opening line to "Lazy Sunday Afternoon").

Regarding the more serious point, my general feeling is "of course". In almost any form of business, you can't achieve what you want without convincing someone to do some thing for you. Since that means collaboration of some sort, the idea of "we've got to work together" is self-evident. And, as in any form of collaboration, it'll work best if you take the trouble to find out what the other person/people's motivators are.