Category: leadership

Break

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you have not yet, now it is a very good time to reach out to your colleagues and team members and ask how they are doing and what they need.

Perhaps initially this work-from-home-with-social-distancing-and-home-schooling-during-a-pandemic sounded like a nice turn of event, something that could help people refocus and companies reorganize e restrategize. More than two months into this, the reality is very different.

So, here is a list of question to start asking consistently during work days. Whether you are one or not, act as a leader, because that’s what people need right now.

P.S.: here is a good example of what a true leader does when they are guided by empathy.

Subtractive

FabrizioLeave a comment

Whenever you make a decision, something is left behind.

Not necessarily something bad. It might be a great idea, a wonderful opportunity, a majestic new era. The better the people around you, the better what is discarded will be. And yet, it needs to be this way, because there is no time, energy, resources, speed for all of it.

Making a decision is always a subtractive process, you have to remove what does not fit (at least this time) until you are left with a plan that makes sense and that can lead forward. It’s a loss, to many people, and it’s important to treat it as such. Mourn, communicate, reach out, grieve. And then, together, execute.

The way you go about this will determine how much people will contribute and how committed their contribution will be.

Signals

FabrizioLeave a comment

The things you say no to – and the things you say yes to as well of course – they signal what you care about. In the day to day, for most things, it might seem not too important (it is). But when you are in a leadership position, there is no excuse. You might have very good reasons to dedicate your attention or energy to this or that, yet eventually you are telling those around you what matters and what you all together are about.

Tread carefully with these kind of decisions, they do not affect yourself only.

Inspiring change

FabrizioLeave a comment

If all you give people are facts, they will take note and move on with their lives.

Give them a story they can feel and relate too, and you will have their long-term attention.

Give them empathy for their own story, and you will have them ready to change their behaviour.

Training

FabrizioLeave a comment

I am glad you did this (for me, for the company, for our family) is not really the best way to express gratitude. It is something to say, at best, when you tolerate what was done, when you think it was not necessary yet did not hurt, when it’s about something you are quite neutral about.

Thank you is more simple and gets to the point instead. Say it often, make of it a habit, and truly mean it. Gratitude is a muscle that can be trained.