Category: leadership

The greatest failure

FabrizioLeave a comment

Sheer logic and numbers struggle to convince people that they need to act.

When is the last time you have done something because of a wonderfully illustrated argument? When were you last impressed by the architecture and technology beyond a new piece of software? When have you last felt you belong in a percentage?

If you are anything like me and most of us, you are rarely moved by logic, rationality and utilitarianism. What instead changes our minds and makes us feel as if we want to do something right now are stories and feelings.

While the majority understands this, very few practice it. And this is the greatest failure in businesses nowadays.

Business or people

FabrizioLeave a comment

Is your company about business or about people?

Of course, the former is a given and the latter is claimed by the majority. Yet decisions and behaviour, particularly in difficult moments, tip the scale.

Another way to put the question would be the following.

In the past few weeks, have you asked your people to do more or have you offered to do more for your people?

The fact is, when you offer to do more for those around you it is very likely you’ll end up getting more in return.

Game changer

FabrizioLeave a comment

We are often puzzled by success, as in most of the cases we do average work and expect outcomes to be average at best.

And so, when something extraordinary happens, we invest time in trying to figure out what is the reason, what have we done this time we have not done before, what is the difference. We do this because we’d like to replicate such unexpected success, make it the norm, the future average.

The truth is, most of this type of success is due to a weird combination of factors that we often call luck.

So if you really want to craft your success, at least do it before it happens. Build a practice, be consistent and relentless, use common sense and reiterate. All these things tend to get lost when we look back at success, as we desperately want to focus on that tiny little detail that changed it all (it did not, of course).

Against the wall

FabrizioLeave a comment

Figuring out where you want to go is just as important as understanding what you have to leverage to get there.

If you set goals for yourself (or your team) that are not supported by the resources you have available, you are just making it easier to hit the head against the wall.

In this together

Fabrizio1 Comment

How are you?

How do you feel?

How is your family?

What can I help you with?

What would make your daily routine better?

What do you want to tackle this week?

How would you go about this?

Is there anything on the calendar you want to push back/reschedule/cancel?

One cannot fake empathy. But these questions are a good way to practice and get accustomed to worry more about the well being of your team than the next looming deadline.

We are in this together.