Category: leadership

Motivated by urge

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you want people to buy into your ideas and plans, you have to be clear about your thinking and decision-making process.

Why is this more important than what we used to do yesterday?
Why was this option chosen instead of the others?
What does this all mean for my work routine?
What’s in it for me, the team, the company if we are successful?
How does success even look like in this scenario?

When you answer these (and other) questions about your new urgency, and you do it publicly, it is much more likely that people will follow, accept new tasks and overtime, understand the reasons of a late night e-mail. When you don’t, on the other hand, it feels like a managerial caprice, something people are asked to follow now for no particular reason other than gut feelings, a breath of wind in a storm.

Nobody is motivated by urge.

Anybody will do

FabrizioLeave a comment

We have spent the past few decades complaining so much about politics and politicians that now we have offered our countries to businessmen, comedians, men on the street on a silver plate.

Being disappointed with part of a category, or even with a category at large, should not necessarily mean discredit that category completely. And definitely it should not mean that somebody more similar to us and that speaks our language could do a much better job and give prestige back to the category. Honestly, that’s just a way to keep complaining about the category in new forms and fashion few years down the road. And to see the category destroyed once and for all.

We could instead try to take back ownership of the category, refine the definition in a way that is more appropriate to our age and times, be absolutely clear on how we want members of the category to behave and what we will or we will not accept of them. And then, be active in guiding the development of the category in the direction we want it to develop.

It’s all about responsibility after all, and particularly these days we should stop thinking that anybody will do for the job but us.

Giving

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Why do you give?

Option number 1 is, because by giving you expect the other(s) to feel obliged to giving you back at some point. For as bad and opportunistic as this sounds, we often approach giving from this standpoint, believing our action will lead to some sort of return at a later moment in time. Working hard to get a promotion is a good and quite common example.

Option number 2 is, because by giving you expect the other(s) to feel inspired to giving back at some point. You have certainly noticed the two tiny yet important differences: first of all, inspiration is a better call to action than obligation; secondly, you remove yourself from being the recipient of the giving back. Working hard to set a high standard for others to aspire to (no matter when, where, and how they’ll get there) is a good and fairly uncommon example.

Option 1 binds others to your plans, option 2 frees them to find their own way to fulfill their act of giving. Option 1 sets you for disappointment and others for dissatisfaction, option 2 sets you for amazement and others for discovery. Option 1 understands work for a reward, option 2 is work for the sake of doing work.

Be mindful when you choose.

Unreal

FabrizioLeave a comment

The expectations we set for others are often so unrealistic that would we set them for ourselves, we would immediately get stuck.

We are not in the best position to say what others should or should not do, what they should or should not believe in, how they should or should not treat us. The most we can do is picture a fictitious setting in our mind, and then play out a scene in which we are deus ex machina. Of course then, what we would do there would be perfect, flawless, impeccable. And again, unrealistic.

Everyone is the main character to their own movie. We should aim at being a gentle one, one that is freed from the hard-wired desire to judge every situation, one that would lend an helping hand rather than point an accusatory finger. In the movie that is life, that’s the type of person you want around.

Early mornings

FabrizioLeave a comment

Of the people I get to talk to, there is not one who does not praise the effectiveness of working early mornings, late afternoons, and weekends.

Clearly, there’s nothing special with early mornings, late afternoons, and weekends. A part from the fact that it’s quite. That you have no meetings, no one calling to ask for a favour, nobody stopping at your desk to tell you about their last weekend, no system updates, no colleague Skyping that customer with a faulty internet connection, no need to sync or strategize.

Somewhere along the way towards openness, transparency and flatness, we have lost track of the importance of focus. Lack of focus is one of the main reasons why employees are not productive, creative and innovative. The way the organization structures their working spaces, their calendars, their updates, and their breaks is a major driver of all this.