Category: culture

What matters

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It’s normal to want to please others. It’s naive to try to please everybody.

Eventually, you’ll have to say some nos, whether you’ll do that explicitly or implicitly. The different commitments you have taken are going to clash with one another, and at least a bunch of them are going to be left behind. Your work is going to put off some people, and in the attempt to smooth the corners, you’ll end up losing those who used to like it as well.

When you try to please everybody, it’s highly likely you’ll please nobody.

Instead, start by asking some uncomfortable yet important questions. Who am I trying to serve? Who/what does matter to me? Who do I think highly of? What should I do today to achieve what I set out to do tomorrow?

It sounds counter intuitive that by looking for answers within ourselves we’ll end up serving others better. You should give it a try.

Are you engaging?

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Around the world, only 16% of employees say they are fully engaged with their work (see also here).

It is possible that your company is an exception, and yet research shows that it is a whole lot more likely it is not. This means, most of your employees approach their work as just a job.

How do you turn this around? How do you make sure that people you hire remain motivated in the long term and do not start planning their next career move within the first six months?

Leaders need to take a step back.

The power they have is not in telling others what to do, or arguing they have the right answers, or playing games to favor their ascent. Nor it is in hiding behind “busy”, in travelling 90% of their time, in delivering what is not necessary and failing to deliver what is, in being late to meetings.

They can bring people together around a purpose, and then work from the sideline to support team members at every stage of the journey. The power they have is in making others better, not in making themselves better.

It is a radical shift that still has to concretize. And who gets there first, will have a considerable competitive advantage for a long time.

Dismissals

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There is one important thing to keep in mind when someone in the team has to be dismissed: the impact on those remaining.

For what I have seen so far, there are two reasons why a team member is let go.

The first one is behavioural. The person does not get along well with the rest of the team, is not in line with the company’s culture, generally speaking does not fit well with the work environment. Sometimes, the person is openly toxic and is poisoning the atmosphere for everybody.

The second one is operational. The person is not performing up to the standards, they are not doing their job, they are taking other people’s time in the attempt to catch up. Sometimes, the person is openly slacking, not delivering on their promise and failing to meet even the most basic expectations.

Behavioural dismissal is usually more accepted from those remaining in the team, mostly because the team has felt on their own skin that the relationship was not going well. Operational dismissal is usually more prone to objections, and in most cases it leaves a bitter taste and a sense of fear (“who will be next?”) in those remaining.

On way or the other, there are few things you have to do as a leader to try to mitigate the impact of a dismissal.

First, you have to be crystal clear in setting goals. What is expected of the person, how you are going to measure that, and what are the check points that you’ll go through together. This is valid both for behaviour and performance, and yet I argue that particularly for employees in new situations, the way they relate to others in the team and in the company should be on top of the list of goals.

Second, ask a lot how you can help and make sure to follow up on that. You are the leader, you own the failure and the missteps of your team members. There’s no one in the world that can simply start a new job or a new role and be ready to walk on their own. And this can be extended to all changes that happen in a company or a group.

Third, give ample warnings. If numbers and facts show that the person is not meeting the goals you have set together, despite your continuous and genuine help, be open and tell that. Be direct when you do that, deliver the seriousness of the situation, elaborate a plan together to get past it (you can start from point one and point two), and eventually make sure the person is aware of where they stand.

If you do that confidently, at the very least the dismissal will not come as a surprise. Of course, you cannot be open to the ones remaining regarding the reasons for the dismissal, and yet they will trust that there’s a reason (because you are following a process) and that they are not in danger (because you are going through the same process with them too).

Consider future costs

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Everything you do is a trade-off.

When you are lucky, it’s between two options. More often than not, it involves multiple options, some of which are equally appealing.

If you go to the movie, you cannot stay home with your family or spend time reading a book. If you buy a new car, you’ll have to refrain from other big expenses for a while. If you accept that offer, you won’t be able to pursue your dream of being a freelancer or a full-time YouTuber.

It’s self-evident, I know. And yet, there are two things about trade-offs that is worth keeping in mind and reminding when appropriate.

First of all, the nature of a trade-off is that you leave some stuff behind. Regrets, while natural, are kind of pointless, as you know you would still be missing something, one of the options, would you have made another choice. It’s intrinsic to the idea of decision-making.

Nonetheless, and this is point number two, that does not mean you cannot change your mind. Even if the other options are no longer available, the fact you invested (time, energy, commitment) into your choice, does not mean you have to stick with it even in front of clear evidence it is not working. What you have to keep in mind is not what you put into the option you’ve pursued, but what you will put into it from now on. Is it better putting that bit into something that is not worth it anymore, or in something new, perhaps something you still have to discover yourself?

This second one, of course, is the basic idea of sunk cost. One of the easiest economic concepts to understand, one of the most complicated to put into practice.

A reminder

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What would be of your marketing if tomorrow you would be left without behavioural information, pixels, tracking, preferences, and so on?

Just a reminder that the tools you use today to deliver your message are just tools. Much more important is what’s behind that: what you stand for, what your customers stand for, what your products stand for. Once you have that clear, the rest will come no matter what.