Category: culture

Not acting on feedback

FabrizioLeave a comment

Never act on every single piece of feedback. And be aware that not acting on feedback is a strong signal you are sending.

What are you going to say when asked about it?

Option number one. “I forgot”. It can certainly happen, and what you are basically saying is that the relationship with the person who delivered the feedback is probably not as important as they thought. Not necessarily a bad signal to send, but one to go about extremely carefully.

Option number two. “I considered it, and did this instead”. It shows reflection and thoughtfulness, nonetheless it will probably not buy you any additional points with the person who delivered the feedback. Make a strong argument and possibly support it with facts. It will at least solidify your reasoning for going a different way.

Option number three. “I don’t care”. The person who delivered the feedback is not your audience, somebody you care about, somebody your work is for. It is actually positive to make this decision every now and then, be extremely mindful about it.

Where did you stand the last time you did not act on feedback received?

Tension breaks down

FabrizioLeave a comment

You are never the best judge of your own work. You cannot be.

Sometimes it is because of sunk costs, other times because of laziness, more often than not simply because your perspective is narrow, as it takes an incredible effort to see the world as others might. And so, we are often in tension between judging our work too harshly or too softly. Either way, it is never an appropriate measure for how we are doing.

This is valid also for groups. Going beyond the boundaries of what is known, liked, achieved is extremely difficult. Sometimes, we can mitigate this with diversity, and we should certainly try. But in the long term, a group will always appreciate their work with some degree of distortion.

Of course, this should not stop us from doing the work. Actually, it is an additional reason to put our work out there as soon as we deem it good enough. To see if there’s a fit, if it resonates, if it works, if it can spread. And if the answer is no, go back and repeat.

What we should never do, on the other hand, is protect the work from others, from feedback, from criticism, from admiration. We should not become executors that see a delivery (or a missed one) as the final stage. What we should never do is give that tension too much power, because eventually tension breaks down. You might be too far, too lost, too blind by that time to get back on track.

Systems

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In the urgency of now, we often make the mistake of looking at systems as if they were uniform and uncomplicated.

Technology increases the chances of such a misunderstanding. We are led to believe that tools and apps magically solve incredible problems as we look at their success ex post, failing to consider the various factors that have contributed to it, or the pains they have brought about, or the multiple reiteration they had to go through.

And so, nowadays, when we have a system that does not work, or that could work better, we usually look at technology for the solution.

The problem is that by doing so we focus our attention on a manifestation of what is going.

Change rarely starts at a superficial level. The only way to make it effective is to start from the roots of the problem, moving gradually horizontally and laterally, preparing for what is about to happen and managing the different circumstances.

There is nothing magic in such a process.

Double reminder

FabrizioLeave a comment

News, magazines, social media, broadcasters, experts, webzines, blogs, radios.

They are all out there fighting for our attention. And of course they exaggerate the things they say and they write.

Here’s a double reminder, particularly useful in these days of overexposure and quick bursts of fear.

As consumers, we can decide what to dedicate our attention to. It’s often not easy, but we can concentrate on the job we are here to make and cut out all the rest. No matter how dramatic, alarming, important the news of the moment is framed to be.

As content creators, we have a choice to make between trying to shout louder and use a softer tone of voice. If we decide for the latter, it will be tougher at times. But when we go for the former, the message we want to share will simply fade in the overwhelmingly buzzing noise that jams our audience’s ears at all times.

Simple and difficult

FabrizioLeave a comment

The first step to achieve most things is figuring out what you want to do.

It is true for life, for career, for relationships. It is true for values and purpose too. It is true when deciding what to study, where to go on holidays, whether or not you should move abroad.

I know it might seem trivial, but many times what we end up doing has little relationship with what we want to do. And so, it’s good to dedicate time and energy to figuring out the first step.

Ask difficult questions.

What do I care about?

What type of person do I want to be?

What do I see when I look ten years from now?

What does success look like for me?

Once this is clear, then the second step is to go all-in.

This is where the challenge starts.

The moment you have made up your mind is the moment you start to be distracted and seduced by a million other possibilities. And the longer your resolution stands, the easier it will be to get demotivated and disappointed, as the path unfolding is never immediately, exactly the one you had imagined.

There is no shortcut though. You can’t achieve much by investing 10%, 50%, 99% of the effort. You can’t change course at the first opportunity, or falter in front of the umpteenth challenge. You can decide to go somewhere else, sure, but you have to go back to step one for that to be effective. And it won’t be any easier.

How simple is this to understand. How difficult to practice.