Category: culture

The journey

FabrizioLeave a comment

When a lot of importance is put on a single goal, there’s a huge risk to lose perspective.

As the goal is set and gets nearer, corners are cut, shortcuts are sought, poor work is normalized. And soon, the initial goal is either discounted or made unreachable. There is no more excitement in getting there.

This is why the way things are done are more important than the things themselves and the places they take us.

Goals are temporary and variable, practices are grounded and stable.

Keep a wide view on the horizon as you put one step after the other, relentlessly, day after day. You might spot new destinations, and at the very least you will have developed the muscles that will allow you to continue the journey.

Wishful thinking

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you are a leader and complain about the fact that people in your team are not as committed, as present, as hardworking, as involved as you are, here are two things to think about.

You are the leader, and in most situations this comes with some benefits (not only monetary) that other team members do not get. So, the fact you care more is absolutely normal. You should care more, they will care less.

To change the situation, to some extent at least, you have to put in extra work. And that is an additional challenge. You have to sell a vision, a purpose, a reason (beyond salary) for the team members to feel that they are part of something bigger. You have to make it so that if they follow you they will enhance their public and self-image. You also have to praise them for their work, and to thank them for their contribution. You need to be present for them when they need it, and hide when they can go alone. It’s a difficult balance to strike between freedom and ownership, and it takes trust and time. If you have none of that, you are stuck at point one.

Any other approach to such a natural situation is delusional wishful thinking.

Harmony

FabrizioLeave a comment

Harmony is rarely a first choice.

As humans, we are wired to seek for friction, to look at the world from our perspective, to burst when somebody does not agree, to focus on one negative even when it comes with one hundred positives. We never shy away from a challenge, and then we try to escape the distress that comes with it by crafting stories that point the finger or tell about how inadequate we are.

Harmony is almost never the first choice. Yet, it’s still a choice. One that requires effort, commitment, groundlessness, humbleness.

It needs to be chosen every day, until it becomes the only possible choice to move forward. Are you up for it?

A step sideway

FabrizioLeave a comment

Categories help us make sense of the world.

And they are solid and merciless prisons.

We use categories to define ourselves and others, and we fail to understand, for the most part, that while they are a useful tool, they are fictitious. It’s way too easy to take on our shoulders the burden a full category carries with it, and it’s even easier to accuse others of misdeeds perpetrated by a generic (and often illusionary) category.

Take a step sideway the next time you use a category, whether it’s to label what you feel you are or what you feel others are. You will spot a lot more variety and will see clearly the immense power categories have on the way we perceive the world.

Communicate or manage

FabrizioLeave a comment

Most change happens inadvertently. Some things, or more often than not many things, evolve and stop to be what they were in the beginning. Gradually, you change as well, and at some point you stop, look back, reflect, and realise that change has happened. It’s nobody’s fault (or merit), just the nature of things.

Some change happens because of an agent. That’s when a situation is no longer sustainable, and some person, or more often than not a group of people, decide to bring about change. At the beginning, it’s probably not very clear where they are going to land. But the intention is there, and eventually the context and its features are modified. Whether the agents are successful or not.

One way or the other, the people that are touched by the change rarely want to hear “this has happened”. They are often scared, they don’t know what’s going on, they see some of the fundamentals in their worldview shaken. And they want a forum where they can express all this and get some sort of reassurances. This process is part of the resistance to change, and it will happen, one way (in an organised, public way) or the other (in a dispersed, private way).

It’s the difference between communicating change and managing change.