Category: leadership

Relationships over ideas

FabrizioLeave a comment

Start something new with a relationship, not with an idea.

Whether it’s a new job or a new project, a new role or a new country, a new company or a new responsibility. Identify the ones who own a stake in what you are going to do, sit with them, and listen. Gather their problems, their expectations, their motivators, their goals, their ambitions. Be friendly and genuinely interested.

With this knowledge, you can shape the work in a way that serves a real purpose. At the very least, you will have found supporters and sponsors for what will come next.

Measuring life

FabrizioLeave a comment

There’s so much in this article by Clayton Christensen. So much to relate to and to learn from.

And most importantly, there’s this.

I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted this disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched. I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.

Clayton M. Christensen, How will you measure your life

Questions that start

FabrizioLeave a comment

What type of questions do you ask more often?

There’s the question that stops.

To answer this question, the other person needs to stop what they are doing, collect some type of information, and copy-paste it for your perusal. It’s often annoying to be asked this kind of questions. First, because the information requested is usually publicly available, or at least obtainable by the one asking with a little effort. Second, because it does not really add anything to our common knowledge of the world, as the responder is essentially moving information around.

Think about questions such as When did we agree the deliverable should be ready?, or Can you sum up your report in one sentence for my presentation?, or Can you send me the link to the latest version of the brochure?, or even Do you have the notes of the meeting we had yesterday?.

Then there’s the question that starts.

To answer this question, the other person needs to venture in unknown territory, do resarch, come up with ideas, network, draft a solution, scratch it, draft another one, ask for feedback, find out some more, and then attempt something. It’s both exciting and empowering to be asked this kind of questions. They put things in motion, they enhance your understanding of the world (and our common knowledge of it), and the responder actually ends up building some piece of information that was not anywhere before.

Think about questions such as How would you tackle this?, or What can we do to increase our sales by 20% next year?, or Would you help me with this problem I don’t seem to be able to crack?, or again What would you do if you would be in this position?.

Chances are, you get to ask both questions in your work.

The more you ask questions that stop, the more the work of your team will be fragmented, undirected, demotivating, dissatisfactory, unproductive, and task-oriented.

The more you ask questions that start, the more the work of your team will be fresh, exciting, unprecedented, necessary, sought after, and problem-oriented.

Primal instinct

FabrizioLeave a comment

Some crises are ok to be handled quickly and instinctively. A central brain takes control, and gives instructions to the rest of the body on what to do.

If the building is on fire, an alarm will ring to tell everyone to get out.

If a person points a gun at you, you take cover.

If you see a red traffic light, you stop.

If the boat is sinking, the personnel takes the lead and everyone follows.

If the deadline is tomorrow, you stick to the plan somebody else might have drafted.

Most of the crises we meet day after day, though, are not really this kind of crises. They involve multiple people, they feature moving pieces, feelings, and opinions, they depend on personal preferences and environmental circumstances.

They are complex.

Of course, we still want to react quickly and instinctively. We want to take control and centralize decision-making, pass on instructions (to ourselves and others), and make the crisis go away. We do want that so much, that often we frame as “crisis” even fairly normal situations, just so that we can avoid thinking and start (re)acting.

That’s seldom the best thing to do.

Most crises and difficulties are actually the right moment to open up.

To ask questions, explore possibilities, hear what others would do or have done in similar circumstances, try something and possibly change direction if it’s not working, make mistakes and learn.

By all means, a decision will have to eventually be taken, and actions will have to follow. But to overcome the first, ready-made decision the brain is offering, you’ll have to be as open as you possibly can.

So, if your marketing campaign is not working, if sales are stagnating, if your product gets more negative than positive feedback, if customer service cannot keep up, if a team member is unhappy, if you did not get the funding you were expecting.

Move past your primal instict.

Story and evidence

FabrizioLeave a comment

A downside of the amount of data and information we live with nowadays is the fact that one can cherry pick the metrics that better support their story of the day.

Story and evidence go hand in hand, and story-building is also about choosing what to measure and what to focus on. If tomorrow that has a negative trend, you can only defend the story by going out there and try to explain the reasons why it is so. When you present a different set of data, the story changes, inevitably.