You’ll never get it

If after 15 months of covid crisis your organization does not have a plan to promote virtual get-togethers with colleagues, it failed.

If the only meetings are work-related meetings, if the participants rarely are from outside your team, if 1-1s keep being cancelled and postponed – because, you know, managers are busy -, it failed.

If there are no conversations around mental health, well-being, separation between work and personal life. If it is not offering some sort of incentives for therapy. It failed.

If the only times the company and the teams meet, it is the managers doing the talking, and all the other employees listening, it failed.

If what gets rewarded is still achieving personal goals, if cooperation is not actively stimulated, if teams are just a way to build walls rather than a way to reach out and help, it failed.

Just because your numbers are cool, it does not mean your people are too.

If you have not understood this during the past 15 months, you’ll probably never get it.

The lives of others

We are experts on how to live the lives of others.

We know exactly what others should do, say, wear. We know how they feel and what motivates them. We tackle their problems better than if they were our own. We plan, argue, debate for them. We know everything, we hear everything, we understand everything.

And when it is our turn, we are stuck.

We are wonderful spectators and mediocre actors.

Because being under the spotlight is never easy. It is not for us – and indeed, we come up with many excuses when that happens -, it is not for those around us.

Start here to develop empathy.

Start here to get going.

Superior

Acting as if you are superior – because you know more, because you are more integrated, because you are more skilled, because you are righteous – will most likely achieve little.

Leveraging your (supposed) superiority to elevate others, on the other hand, has the power to change behavior, improve lives, and spread around you. Of course, the action assumes that you do not feel superior at all. Few have the capabilities to take this stance.

Criticism

What you do is always going to be met with criticism.

Not everybody is going to like it, not everybody is going to agree with it, not everybody is going to want to hear, read, listen more.

The way you approach this basic fact is going to determine how much you are going to achieve. Make it a focus, try to change minds, invest in proving them wrong, and you will be depleted in no time. Take it as an assumption, filter what can help you, muscle through the rest, and you’ll have a real shot at unleashing your potential.

You are not here to please everybody.

Imperfect

You are probably not the strongest.

You are probably not the smartest.

You are probably not the most fearless.

You are probably not the nicest.

You are probably not the greatest.

You are probably not the most positive.

And yet you are here. With the responsibility to make something strong, smart, fearless, nice, great, positive happen.

Work with your limits and don’t let them hold you back.

The world needs you.

Imperfect.