If the information can be shared in a Slack message, calling a meeting to discuss it will not make it more important.
If the product feature can be described in three words, writing four paragraphs to go through the ins-and-outs will not make it easier to sell it.
If the team is performing poorly, trying to shift the focus to a different subject, or goal, or KPI will not help them improve.
Keep things simple.
Anchor your thoughts, feelings, opinions to facts. For as much as it is possible to do so.
If you think that your team is on the right track, anchor that thought to some solid evidence.
If you feel that things could be better, anchor that feeling to some solid evidence.
If you believe that version A is better than version B, anchor that feeling to some solid evidence.
Numbers, money, events, external input. Go there to find confirmation, and go there often and repeatedly.
If you don’t, you live and act in a fictitious world.
The longer you can be without defining a situation, a person, a thought, an outcome, the more you can enjoy the moment.
When you define you draw boundaries. You set differences between what is good and what is bad. You start aiming for something different while at the same time clinging to the desire that the definition will always be valid. You build, for yourself and others, a world that is much smaller than its potential.
Defining is natural, it’s an attempt to take control of the unknown.
And the longer you can be without it, the more chances you will have.
Sometimes you listen because you want to know. Sometimes you listen because you care.
It might seem like a minor distinction, but the questions, the attitude, the subjects are very different whether it’s one form of listening or the other.
When you listen because you want to know, your questions are direct and closed. You look for easy answers, answers you can process and understand instantly. It’s usually about trivial topics, and the act of listening is in fact a way to reassure yourself that everything is as it should be.
When you listen because you care, your questions are wide and open. You are not even looking for answers. If they come, they will probably impact the person giving them much more than they impact you. It’s usually about deep change, and the act of listening is a way to unlock new potential.
When everything is important, nothing really is.
Because people have a limited amount of resources to dedicate to you and your agenda. And so, if you aim at keeping their attention high at all times, with one request after the other, all in the same tone, with the same gravitas, delivered with the same sense of urgency, you will eventually exhaust them.
Choose what is important carefully and dedicate to it most of your (and others) efforts.
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