Category: culture

When does feedback matter?

Fabrizio1 Comment

Feedback is important, and as I wrote before the only thing to say when we get it is “thank you”.

Yet, we should not fall into the trap of taking action on every piece of feedback we get. Feedback is about the person who is giving it much more than it is about the person who is getting it. If I tell somebody “you should be more productive”, that simply means that the person does not fit into my idea of productivity. If somebody tells me “you should listen more”, that simply means that from where they stand, they are under the impression I am not listening enough.

Consider three things when you get feedback.

Who is giving it? Is that a person you care about, somebody important in your life? Is that your customer, or somebody your work is not intended for? Is that a friend, a family-member, somebody who knows you intimately?

What channel is it coming from? Did they bother picking up the phone, sharing their thoughts face-to-face, at least letting you know who they are? Or is it an anonymous feedback, something you are reading on social media, the starred opinion of a faceless and nameless reader?

What are they saying? Is it something you are hearing for the first time, or something somebody else has already noticed about you in the past? Is it a piece of advice you can act on, or just an opinion, a feeling, a thought? Are they sharing kindly, from the bottom of their heart, or are they being mean, malicious, trying to elicit any kind of reaction?

Once you have considered all this, of course still say “thank you”. And take action only if it makes sense. Otherwise, move on and continue delivering your best work.

Free throws

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Rick Barry was the best free throw shooter the NBA had ever seen when he retired. The last three seasons of his career were his best seasons from the line, he even registered a high of 94.7% in his second to last season. Even today, 40 years on, he is number seven in this particular all time list.

The fact is, Rick Barry had a very peculiar way of shooting free throws.

Sometimes, you can achieve excellent results by doing something new, something unexpected, something others might actually laugh at you for. If you persist and you are good enough, you can prove there’s another way, a better way, and pass it on as a sort of legacy.

For all others, there’s the way everybody knows. Both are fine, and it’s up to you to decide how to excel. The key is to be comfortable with what you choose to do.

 

Some things work

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Before you set out to change something, make sure it needs changing.

Elevators, for example, probably do not need dramatic improvements. Particularly in their user experience, they work fairly well. You are at a certain floor, you press a button to call the elevator, you enter it, you select the floor you want to go to, it moves and stop, you exit the elevator, done. It is a pretty well oiled dynamic, and trying to make it more efficient – say by asking people to select the floor they are going to at the same time they call the elevator – might create funny confusion and make the process slower.

Similarly, the process of listening to music on a mobile phone was fairly smooth without needing to remove the jack and forcing people to use bluetooth headphones. Of course, improving the user experience was not primary in this case, and so eventually the whole process now feels more clunky and unreliable.

Not everything needs changing, not everything needs improvement. And if eventually your decision is that yes, this thing does really need to be better, put the users first when designing the betterment.

We know what to do

Fabrizio1 Comment

We know what to do in most situations.

We know that when we approach a potential customer, we should focus on their story, not on our.

We know that when we plan which channels to use for our marketing tactics, we should be selective and carefully craft our messages.

We know that culture eats strategy for breakfast, and that employees are attracted by purpose and leadership, and that losing a talented person is much worse than losing the manager that made them quit.

We know we should be nice with each other, do not fill our calendars with appointments, be respectful of other people’s agendas, avoid showing up late and being distracted by our phone when somebody is sharing something with us.

We know a great deal of things. And yet, most of us fail at the same very things.

There are different reasons why this is so. It’s certainly partly due to our laziness. Partly it’s the fact our focus is misplaced. Partly it’s because we get carried away and we lose control.

And the biggest part, is us feeling we are special. There’s certainly something we know and that all others before us have missed. Our situation is unique, and we will succeed where everybody else has failed. This time, this time only, it is going to be different, and the rest of the world is going to see what I am, where I am at, why it’s important and follow me blindly.

Open your eyes. That is (almost) never the case. If you just stick to doing it, you will still end up a whole lot better off. And people around you will as well.

Good job

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Good job is like good customer service. Nobody notices it.

If you show up on time, at the right place, properly dressed, prepared and ready to deliver your presentation, nobody is going to praise you for that.

And yet, it is still important and valuable. You have not let others down, you have not taken them to the breaking point, you have not made them complain about your lateness and unpreparedness.

Be sure you understand when to expect an explicit praise and when the praise is implicit. Better still, just deliver your best job without ever expecting a praise.