Category: culture

Downtime

FabrizioLeave a comment

The things you do during a period of downtime determine the success of what you will be doing when things get going.

Rest and recharge is an important piece of it, yet it’s only a piece nonetheless.

Downtime is an excellent moment to be delivering your best work, to free yourself from constraints of time and pressure, to explore new venues and new ways, to connect with that person you should really talk to, to give that speech that can change a bunch of minds.

Most things move in cycles, and work is not different. Take advantage of the space you are given to make sure you are ready when it’s most needed.

Unfair practices

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If you are victim of an unfair practice.

You can point the finger, call the perpetrator names, shut them off and strengthen the relationships with those like you, tell yourself and others a story of unfairness and one-sidedness, and demand a change.

Or you can extend your hand, empathize with the motives, see if perhaps in similar circumstances you might have fallen in the same trap, start a conversation around identities and opportunities, prove day after day that the practice is not only unfair, also counterproductive, and be an agent of change.

I have been on both ends of the spectrum, I have changed my mind along the way, and I can still see that there is a solid argument one way and the other.

I can also see that it’s a choice you get to do.

Help is a gift

Fabrizio1 Comment

When trying to help, you have to leave your ego behind.

Because of course, the other person might be listening with no intention to change, your advice might remain unfollowed, your words might actually produce an effect opposite to the desired one.

Giving help is like giving a gift: it’s up to the receiver to decide what to do with it, and we should not let the outcome reflect negatively on the act itself, on our benevolence, on our future actions.

Two failures

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Let me know if I can help.

Of course, this is not really establishing a relationship in which one is going to help the other. It is more of a mantra we repeat to be nice, or because we are in a position in which we are expected to help yet we have absolutely no idea how to do that (nor we want to bother figuring that out by ourselves).

In fact, it is not surprising that when an actual request follows, the person originally offering help often fails to give just that. Not because they are mean, simply because they did not intend to help in the first place. Perhaps they are busy, incompetent, unfit, disorganized, sick, committed (to something or someone else).

Let me know if I can help and the subsequent failure to help on a concrete request are two of the major failures of managers in organisations nowadays.

They are perfect, because they work wonders both in case you are one of those managers who believe it is not your job to serve – I am the boss, I can’t bother, and in case you are one of those modern managers that are all for freedom and flatness – I am very hands off, I am giving your freedom.

Next time try: Here is what I am going to do.

Figuring out what’s to be done is a job for you to complete before showing up in the conversation.

Own the story

FabrizioLeave a comment

The story you want to tell is under your control.

Of course, people might misinterpret, maliciously distort, simply not understand. And yet, at the end of the day, the story you are trying to spread (about yourself, your work, your product) is something for you to first figure out and then to consistently put out there. No matter your mood, the negative feelings, the bad beats, the facts of life, the injustice of the world, the obtuseness of others, the latest trend.

Sitting at your table hoping that others will eventually get it is fruitless.

Actually, it is most likely that by doing so the misinterpretations, the distortions, the misunderstandings will just keep growing out of proportion, until communication is no longer possible.

Always be deliberate in the way you tell your story, the seeds you plant with your actions, the way it translates in how you treat others. It’s the sole way it might eventually get through.