Category: leadership

Get satisfaction

FabrizioLeave a comment

When we are close to something, it’s difficult to notice progress.

Just as you can’t see your kids grow day after day, it’s difficult to see your career develop, your relationship evolve, your project build the right momentum, when you are so involved.

Take a broader look, take an outside look if at all possible. Consider a longer time frame, list down all the achievements, own your own narrative, master the capacity to frame what you see today in a wider picture.

That’s the key to satisfaction.

More than

FabrizioLeave a comment

Customer service is more than answering customers’ questions and complaints.

A community of users is more than setting up a forum where they can communicate with each other.

Customer focus is more than interviewing your customers on a regular basis.

Customer experience is more than asking customers how likely they are to recommend your brand.

And yet, that’s where most companies stop.

Because you care

FabrizioLeave a comment

Sometimes you listen because you want to know. Sometimes you listen because you care.

It might seem like a minor distinction, but the questions, the attitude, the subjects are very different whether it’s one form of listening or the other.

When you listen because you want to know, your questions are direct and closed. You look for easy answers, answers you can process and understand instantly. It’s usually about trivial topics, and the act of listening is in fact a way to reassure yourself that everything is as it should be.

When you listen because you care, your questions are wide and open. You are not even looking for answers. If they come, they will probably impact the person giving them much more than they impact you. It’s usually about deep change, and the act of listening is a way to unlock new potential.

When nothing is important

FabrizioLeave a comment

When everything is important, nothing really is.

Because people have a limited amount of resources to dedicate to you and your agenda. And so, if you aim at keeping their attention high at all times, with one request after the other, all in the same tone, with the same gravitas, delivered with the same sense of urgency, you will eventually exhaust them.

Choose what is important carefully and dedicate to it most of your (and others) efforts.

Uncomfortable

FabrizioLeave a comment

When you feel uncomfortable, the first immediate reaction is to point the finger and fix something outside of your reach. You might yell, give clearer instructions, take ownership, write a negative review, demote, reject, shut down.

But of course, that works (for you, perhaps) only until the feeling is back – for the same reason, or a different one.

And so, a better approach is to ask: What is this? Where does it come from? What can I do to make the feeling bother me less? (vs. What can I do to make the feeling go away? – which often leads to one of the reactions above.)

You might even end up getting rid of the feeling altogether, but that is not the point.

The point is being with, letting go, accepting.

Because, in the end, it’s not that bad.