Category: culture

Harsh

Fabrizio2 Comments

You can resort to raising your voice to establish a power dynamic in an argument you are having, but you will not make the argument go away.

You can rush telling your piece before the other person has even done speaking, but you will not appreciate what the other has to say.

You can shout to get the attention, but you will not keep it to change minds and behaviours.

Relationships are never built with harsh manners and rude self-centrism.

And it is relationships you want to build, throughout all your life.

On hold

Fabrizio1 Comment

When we hear, read, or consume content, all we get is often about us.

Our fears, expectations, experience, knowledge. What we think about the author, about the medium, about the source. The day we are having, the day we are not having. Likes and dislikes. How confident we are today, what we have been told yesterday, where we are going tomorrow.

In order for us to learn, we need to be able to put all that on hold. To make it about the one delivering the message. To suspend our reaction and just be hearing, reading, consuming content in the moment.

If we do not that, everything will just be a confirmation of what we already know.

Forcing

Fabrizio1 Comment

Nobody is forcing you to stay where you are.

Somebody perhaps asked, or maybe it is exactly where you wanted to be, or it might be that it is fear that’s sticking you to that seat. You might feel the responsibility. You are probably telling yourself there is no other option. You are asking others to validate your desperate attempts, and the faintest nod makes you double down on your fragile certainty.

But the truth is, nobody is forcing you.

So, if it starts feeling wrong. If people around you tell you that it is wrong. If you can’t find peace of mind, despite the desperate attempts and the faint nods. If anywhere you look is despair, rejection, sadness.

Move.

Nobody is forcing you to stay there.

No solution

FabrizioLeave a comment

Caring about others, about a situation, about an outcome it’s not finding an immediate solution.

It is more about persistence.

Asking how someone is, inquiring about the status of a project, ensuring people who come to you with issues, fears, troubles, complaints feel heard and respected, coming up with ways to help and continuing doing that when help is rejected, truly listening and deeply caring. Doing this over a period of time, regularly, without waiting for others to ask, without missing an opportunity to show that it matters to you, without assuming that having nothing new to say is having nothing to say at all.

We are all very good at offering our support. We are also equally good at finding any possible way to escape from having to actually give it.

Would you take it?

FabrizioLeave a comment

Are you into leadership because of the power, the role, the status, or because of the challenges, the responsibility, the people that allow you to lead?

It seems like a trivial question, and the answer is probably, for most, somewhat in the middle.

But I can’t count the leaders who stop at the prestige and forgo the difficult part.

What if we would start presenting promotions into leadership roles in a different way? And so, instead of saying.

You did well so far, here is a promotion, a new title, and a salary raise.

We would say.

You did well so far. Here is a chance to take this team and make it awesome, to listen to their ideas and ensure the ones that make sense get developed and the others are put on hold (perhaps forever), to raise their engagement with the company and their role even in the face of bad news – especially in the face of bad news. Do you take it?

Managers do really need to start thinking at leadership in a different way, otherwise it will continue to be the professional graveyard of people with monetary and status ambitions.