Category: leadership

Excuses and reasons

Fabrizio5 Comments

Excuses are what you come up with when attempting to convince about something you did (and shouldn’t have done) or did not (and should have done).

Reasons are circumstances that explain why you have not done something you should have, or have done something you should not have.

Excuses are fragile. They are usually ex-post (they come after the fact). They border with lies, and as nobody wants to think of themselves as a liar, they set up for discordance and self-criticism, and eventually undermine the intention of doing.

Reasons are solid. They are usually ex-ante (they come before the fact). They fire up compassion and kindness towards ourselves, and they do not harm our will to do what we initially set out to do. Perhaps under different circumstances, or better equipped to face the ones that have emerged.

Eventually, only you can say if it’s excuses or reasons you are using to not show up.

Culture is action

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It’s impossible to talk about culture without taking behaviour into consideration.

You can read a book, spend time investigating what type of culture is a winning culture, have consultants come in and tell about the frameworks they have studied. But at the end of the day, culture is what you do. Culture is what the people around you do. Culture is in the actions and details.

That’s why it’s important to build cultures with examples. And in the long term, I am more and more convinced that coaching, both internal and external, is the only way to spread the culture as the company grows and the market changes.

Learning about culture is great, as it gives you the basics to discuss it in your organization and go about it strategically. Yet, remember that culture is not telling and cannot be commanded. Culture is action.

Few words

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Whatever you are going to do this year, make sure you can express that in few, concise words. Being able to tell about your project with clarity, inspiring curiosity, unlocking questions that drive the conversation forward. These are features that can give a real edge in a world of short attention span and endless content availability.

If the eyes of the person in front of you wander away, if your audience had doubts you feel you have already adressed, if your visitors drop without any action. You are not there yet.

It takes time and effort, conscious thinking and some rehearsing.

It will be your jump start to the change you seek to make.

The journey

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When a lot of importance is put on a single goal, there’s a huge risk to lose perspective.

As the goal is set and gets nearer, corners are cut, shortcuts are sought, poor work is normalized. And soon, the initial goal is either discounted or made unreachable. There is no more excitement in getting there.

This is why the way things are done are more important than the things themselves and the places they take us.

Goals are temporary and variable, practices are grounded and stable.

Keep a wide view on the horizon as you put one step after the other, relentlessly, day after day. You might spot new destinations, and at the very least you will have developed the muscles that will allow you to continue the journey.

Take AI down to earth

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A number of things a useful AI could take care of in place of the fallible human.

Understand that tomorrow is a bank holiday and suggest that you turn off an alarm set for weekdays.

Read from a list of favourite sites and actually recommend content from such sites.

Organize the notes you have taken in different articles and suggest connection between them.

Collect the common operations done after a certain meeting (e.g. set up a follow-up, send e-mail with notes, schedule update call) and prepare an automation for you to approve.

Send a notification when it’s time to head out of the office to go to an appointment that is scheduled in your calendar.

Remind that the annual subscription to a service is about to expire.

Break up a single, unique goal (e.g. organize summer holidays) in many different tasks (e.g. book flight, book accomodation, rent car, book train tickets, …) and send notifications when the prices on common booking sites are below the average for the period.

These (and many others) are example of a consumer-centric AI.

Many will tell they are just around the corner. But if you have ever interacted with AI, or even if you have just tried to do some of the above operations with your phone, you know that is probably not true.

It’s about time we take AI in the day-to-day, and for this to happen its promoters will have to forget about their agenda for a while and focus on the consumers pain points.

Who will make this happen?