Category: leadership

Find the challenge

FabrizioLeave a comment

It’s pleasant to hear we are right, to be praised for the great work we are doing, to be surrounded by people who let us do what we believe is worth doing.

And yet, it’s a position in which we should feel uncomfortable.

As nobody is perfect, and most of us are far from it, if all we hear are praises and applauses one of two things is happening: either the criticism and the alternatives are being hidden from us or we are in an environment that lacks diversity. In both cases, we are not hearing the other side of the story, the one that would make our understanding rounder and more effective.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

John Stuart Mill

Reporting relevance

FabrizioLeave a comment

In July, this blog has gotten most visitors in a single month than ever, more than doubling the number from June. Views per day and per post have doubled as well. The reach was expanded to new countries, such as Ukraine, Papua New Guinea and the Netherlands, and viewership in an important country such as Germany was consolidated (visitors increased 1,000% month-over-month). The most popular hour to post is confirmed to be 8PM, as most of this blog’s audience seem to be online then.

This is all true. And of course, it is irrelevant.

With the amount of data we get exposed to nowadays, it is easy to get distracted by numbers and fake successes. We have actually developed an extended capacity to focus on the numbers that confirm what we believe is happening and boost our confidence, without talking about the ones that actually matters.

Why are you tracking what you are presenting? How does that affect the change you are trying to make? Are you closer or farther away from achieving that? Can you measure the final change? Is an history of those numbers, going back at least 12 months, available? Would people react differently if they would see natural numbers rather than percentages?

Those are important questions when preparing your next report. If you don’t know how to answer them, or if you catch yourself cheating while answering them, do everyone a favour and do not press send.

Allocating resources

Fabrizio1 Comment

The ability to move past things is a direct measure of future success.

How long will you keep working on that project that has zero evidence of success potential? How long will you continue with the same strategy when everything around is telling you it’s wrong? How many excuses will you come up with to motivate keeping in the team a person who is no longer the right fit? How far will you push your regret for that promotion you have not been granted against everyone’s expectations? How much is the last big failure going to impact the way you approach your next responsibility?

We have the impression that by sticking to things, plans, ideas, people we commit to them, and if we do that long enough, we will make them better. More often, that is just an excuse, an easy way to hide behind the power of sunk costs and limited possibilities.

Once you have determined that you’ve given the situation your 100%, and yet it is still not working, move past that. It’s not being cold and heartless, it’s not jumping from one opportunity to the next, it’s not a selfish act. It’s allocating the limited resources you have at your disposal at any given time. When you do that by focusing mostly on the past, chances are the future will look grim.

Culture with examples

Fabrizio8 Comments

More often than not, company culture is idealized.

A group of managers sit down and write about their ideal company. And of course, everybody wants an honest working environment where feedback is given regularly, it does not matter if they have never delivered honest feedback once in their careers, and the very idea of doing that scares them.

Next time you are having a conversation about culture, think back at what you and your colleagues have done so far. Certainly write down your ideals, but then challenge the group to identify and narrativize some concrete example that embody the ideals.

If finding those is not a problem, you are on the right track. Own the examples and spread them internally and externally, as they will resonate with people far better than words that have been inflated.

If finding examples is proving difficult, that’s the first symptom that your attempt with culture will fail. You can either proceed with a culture change (changing the way things are done), or try to find ideals that better reflect what is really happening (and for which you have good examples).

Parenting and leadership

Fabrizio1 Comment

I would not go as far as saying that people with no kids cannot make a good leader, and yet certainly being a parent gives an edge on others when it comes to leading people.

There are few things that being a father tought me, and that I could translate basically 1:1 to my leadership roles.

First, it’s not about you. The moment you become a parent, you realize you are the least important person around. You don’t do parenting by being a prima donna, as you don’t do leadership by attracting the spotlights. And there’s more to it. You soon understand that while you are on your way out (not matter how old you are and how recently you have been promoted), the people you are helping develop are the future. The way you teach them will have a tremendous impact on what they will do in the world and how they will do it.

Second, don’t fall in love with your ideas. If you are a parent, you know plans change. No matter how much you want to go to the fair, or to the lake, or to the museum, something will most likely happen, and you’ll have to find an alternative despite your disappointment or anger. Flexibility and open mindedness are key when you are in charge of others, as is setting some kind of distance between yourself, your satisfaction, your success on one side, and your thoughts and ideas on the other.

Third, you have to show up. Parenting, as leadership, is not something you can switch off when you do not feel like doing it, when your head hurts, when you are exhausted (for perfectly legitimate reasons). You can’t hide in a room (or in a office) and pretend things are the way you want them to be. This also means that, as there’s no rest, you need to become good at taking your breathing moments without abandoning the ship.

Fourth, you are looked up to. If you have kids, you know how much of what you say and what you do they assimilate. It is often puzzling to me seeing myself through the eyes of my kids, as they play make believe, or as they react to certain situations in ways that are way too familiar to me. There’s so many people in leadership positions that think that what they say and what they do does not matter, because eventually everyone is free to make their own choices and be their true selves. Particularly in the short term, the way authority behaves is the way people around authority will behave.

Fifth and last, you get to clean a lot of shit. It’s not only a funny ending to this blog post, it’s more about taking responsibility for others’ behaviors. If your kid punches another kid at the park, you don’t say “ok, go clean your mess!”. You make sure the other is ok, you apologize and make your kid apologize, you might go as far as talk to the other’s parent to apologize once again and make sure everything is alright. And you take it on yourself to follow up and explain why that was not good and how kind people behave in that situation.