Category: leadership

Practical and emotional

FabrizioLeave a comment

Take care of what is practical. Ensure there’s food on your table, there’s cash in your bank, there’s future for your business, there’s a salary for your employees and a product for your customers.

And take care of what is emotional too. Ask how people around you are, support them with kindness, help them address their needs, be there for them often and completely.

It is your responsibility as a leader to make space for both practical and emotional. If practical takes all of your time, you are doing it wrong.

Inexpensive

FabrizioLeave a comment

People around you most likely do not care about your role, your salary, the amount of money in your bank account, how many square metres your house is, in which neighbourhood you live, the cost of the suit you wear or of the car you drive.

What matters to most, instead, is presence, love, attention, affection, care. All things that are inexpensive and available to everyone. Their value is immense.

The effort of others

FabrizioLeave a comment

Remember that your wins, your successes, your accomplishments are always built on the effort of others. Those who have covered for you, who have supported you, who have motivated you, who have done what you didn’t want to do, who have kicked you when you needed a kick and hugged you when you needed a hug.

Do you know who they are?

And most importantly, are they the first you think of after you have achieved what you wanted?

Facade

FabrizioLeave a comment

This is an historical period that is completely out of the ordinary.

Exceptions are made, circumstances are raised, needs are shaped. Yet, we should be careful using all of this as an excuse to deviate from our path.

In most cases, we can still continue pursuing what we were pursuing before. The values, beliefs, rules we have set at the indivual level do not necessarily have to be questioned.

Unless of course those were just a convenient facade.

A good way to understand this is by counting how many times we say “considering the current circumstances” to excuse ourselves for what we are about to say and do. It could be telling.

What else do you care about?

FabrizioLeave a comment

The way companies communicate and engage with their employees in this time of crisis is going to have long term effects on motivation.

It is understandable that managers and leaders are focused on business continuity (no business = no employees). Nonetheless, if that is the only thing they talk about, the rationale behind every action taken, the excuse to ask people to give more in a time when there’s little to give, that can turn out to be extremely counterproductive. Not many are happy to work for top and bottom line only.

Few examples of companies that have taken corageous actions to signal they care.

Whitbread, a British hotel operator, has decided to not pay out dividends this year and instead guarantee full pay to the employees that are forced not to work.

Workday, maker of the popular HR and finance software, will pay two weeks of bonus to most of their employees (executives and VPs excluded) to make sure they have additional support during this difficult period.

Walmart, the American retailer, has implemented a number of measures to make sure employees who cannot work, and even those who are not comfortable working, can safely take the decision to stay home.

Buzzfeed, the new website, is going to cut pays in a progressive way, starting from 5% for lower salaries up to 25% for certain executives.

Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, had the CEO forgo their salary for the rest of the year, to support a bonus for 1,200 restaurant general managers and provide initial support for an employee medical relief fund.

And close to home, in Finland, also Mapon’s CEO decided to not be paid for three months so that the company can at least delay laying off personnel.

If you are a business, the fact you care and worry about cash, revenue and profit is a given. Now is a great opportunity to show what else you care about.