Category: culture

Looking inside

Fabrizio1 Comment

When you start looking inside, it’s possible that you won’t like what you find.

It’s a mixture of feelings, thoughts, ideas, memories, plans. Some land close to the picture of ourselves we have created culturally and relationally, some land quite far away. And that’s ok.

Looking inside, though, gives you quite a different perspective on the outside as well. When you begin to appreciate that deep down you are that insane and chaotic mixture, the good and the bad, the expected and the unexpected, the acceptable and the unacceptable, you realize that people around you are just the same. Their intentions are mixed, their feelings are mixed, their thoughts are mixed. They change trajectory within the same breath, they are insecure, scared, unprepared, variegated. Just like you are.

And so, what to do?

Most of us, spend their days fighting this, suppressing and denying what they do not recognize and cannot appreciate. Eventually, they bring the battle outside, because it’s easier to see the fault in others and pursue it relentlessly rather then acknowledging it in each one of us and make peace with it.

Few simply let go. They stop clinging, they stop holding on, they stop wanting to change, themselves and the others, they accept things for what they are, they navigate life to the best of their current possibility, making the most of each situation, realizing that it might not last (and in fact, it probably won’t).

Is this giving up, or is this the only way we have to actually change the world?

Just a story

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Somehow we’ve all bought into the story that marketing is about tactics, hacks, posts, optimisation and measurement.

It’s an interesting story, one that somehow feeds both our need to stay ahead of the curve and our tendency to aimlessly complain when things don’t work.

The genius of Google and Facebook as platforms is that they are impossible to master. Can anybody name a company that has developed long term sustainable advantage from the mastery of Google and Facebook? … They have not become tools, they have become taxes that every one needs to pay.

Scott Galloway, PIVOT podcast ep. 188

It’s an interesting story, yet a story nonetheless.

The reality is very different: it’s made of mistakes in the very same metrics we have become accustomed to measure our marketing success by, it’s made of businesses that make money inflating those metrics with no top or bottom line benefit for the advertisers, it’s made of pointless efforts to optimise the unoptimisable while the platform owner brings the whole thing in a totally different direction.

What’s next for marketing is hopefully a reckoning that it’s not the platform, or the channel, or the single tactic, or the brand new hack that builds a meaningful, long-term connection. What’s next is hopefully a return to the lost fundamentals, and an increased awareness that there’s not a single way to reach that person that matters so much. Always start from them and you will win.

Everything you say you’ll do

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There are not many things you are asked to do when you lead other people.

Certainly, making sure your team has the needed support. Financial, political, and technical support. Also, truly listening to and caring for your team members, including helping them find a career trajectory they are comfortable with. Finally, taking difficult decisions when things stall or risk to stall, possibly with the aid of a transparent and candid process everyone in the team understands and trusts.

And then, of course, there’s everything you say you’ll do. This is as important as the three points above, as it sets the tone for the type of relationship you are going to build with your people. If you start not delivering on things you yourself have taken ownership for, even worst if you are not open and don’t explain when that happens, why that happened, then the relationship is going to be weak and feeble. And it will be very difficult to turn that around.

Good thing is, you choose what you promise. Choose mindfully.

Walk the walk

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It’s tough demanding somebody to do something you are not doing yourself in the first place.

Try ask your kids to spend less time in front of the screen when that’s all you do as soon as you have a moment of free time. You can play the “I’m-the-adult” card for a while, and yet in the long run your request loses significance.

The same thing is valid in organizations. You might ask your team to be innovative and come up with new ideas, and you can still hide behind the urgency and contingency of the moment to always opt for the safe path. Yet eventually you’ll lose the commitment and they’ll bring their creativity elsewhere.

It’s as easy as that.

Leading juniors

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When you hire somebody junior in your team, there are few things you need to make sure of in order to have this person develop, perform and be more than a cheap source of labor.

Allocate time to support them. In small teams, this can be complicated, and yet a junior member is most likely not going to learn and develop independently, and surely that is not going to happen in a way that can be beneficial to the company. Give them the appropriate attention, guide them, if necessary match them with a mentor, or an advisor, somebody you trust and is committed to what you are trying to achieve. Invest in their learning (online courses are great, peer group even better), and be absolutely sure they are not feeling on their own on a difficult journey.

Set some boundaries to their responsibilities. And make sure what’s in the job description is achievable with the support mentioned above. It’s funny to see how many students or new graduates are made “managers”, or “specialists”, setting them up for failure already in the way they are presented. It’s ok to be a “junior”, or a “coordinator”, or a “responsible” for a while, and then grow the list of responsibilities as more confidence is acquired.

Understand the way you behave will shape theirs. Contrary to more experienced people, who might have their own style, their own work routines, their own rhythm, junior employees usually don’t have any of that. You have the chance to help form such things, and you better do it consciously and with a clear plan. Think about the type of person you’d like to have in your team five years down the road, the type of colleague you’d be glad to work with, and then be mindful about how you measure their performace, how you talk to them, deliver feedback, give them guidance.