Category: leadership

Persuadable

Fabrizio3 Comments

Being persuadable is about actively open-minded thinking. That is to say, it is not enough to be open to evidence that goes against our own beliefs. One has to seek that out.

Some good ways to practice that.

  • Ask yourself why you think a certain way, how you could be wrong, what alternative explanations might there be.
  • Think in shades of gray rather than in black and white – it is easier to update your beliefs incrementally, it is more difficult to completely change your mind.
  • Prepare to kill your beliefs by decatastrophizing – asking what is the worst thing that could happen? has the power to bring catastrophic outcomes down to earth.
  • Make time to consider other people’s perspective (before a meeting, before a talk, before a difficult conversation).

If you do that consistently, you gain in accuracy (getting closer to “reality”), agility (overcoming the status quo bias and the sunk cost fallacy), and growth (using feedback to improve).

And, contrary to common belief, you will not give up autonomy and self-determination.

Autonomy doesn’t mean reflexively resisting all external influences. That would be impossible, not to mention foolish. It means taking actions that “are both personally valued and well synthesized with the totality of one’s values and beliefs” regardless of who suggests those actions.

Al Pittampalli, Persuadable
Persuadable, by Al Pittampalli - Book Cover
Persuadable, by Al Pittampalli – Book Cover

Elements of value

Fabrizio1 Comment

It is not enough to say that your company focuses on delivering values to customers.

What is value?

If you don’t stop for a long moment considering this question, you are not focused on value. Value is economical, and it is also technical, social, personal, functional, aspirational. Value takes into consideration material costs, and also possible issues, adoption, expansion, scale. Value is transactional and relational. Value is co-operative.

And once you have identified all the elements that make up your value, you still have two steps to take.

First, you have to understand the why of value. Why does it matter. Not tomorrow, not one year from now, not one day maybe. But now.

Then, you have to build a system that constantly delivers on the elements across the various departments, that captures and measures the elements, that continues assessing them, that creates incremental evidence for them, and that ensures that they are not replicated by competitors and new entrants.

Value is a complex concept, not another organisational buzz word.

The marketer’s dilemma

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Got an interesting newsletter from Peep Laja at Wynter.com this morning, that got me thinking of the marketer’s dilemma.

If a marketer does boring and safe, nobody will object. If they do as it’s always been done. If they use terms like productivity, efficiency, streamlined, best-in-class, seamless. Even when every one at the table has a different understanding and a different experience of what those terms mean, nobody will object. Because who is going to stand up and say “what is productivity?”.

If a marketer does specific and unusual, on the other hand, everyone will panic.

Of course, boring and safe will bring you nowhere, because boring and safe is what 94.97% of companies do. So, the marketer’s dilemma is really between being accepted among their peers in the short term and being well received by the market in the long term.

It is a difficult choice.

To mentor

Fabrizio1 Comment

You do not have to be a master to mentor. You do not have to be the best at what you do, neither you need to be an expert in what you do. You might have a passion, but that is just a like most of the time. You might feel competent and knowledgeable, but if you are completely honest that’s probably not how you feel in most cases.

If you believe any of the above is necessary to mentor, you are telling yourself a false story, you are giving up to resistance, you are pushing back something you would genuinely benefit from.

To mentor, you merely need to have experience and to be willing to give it away.

And when that is the case, you can start mentoring now. You will get back everything you put in. And more.

Prepared to communicate

Fabrizio1 Comment

If you do not have time, if you are too busy, if you have many things to do, if you are juggling different tasks.

Then avoid sending important messages or giving important speeches.

Effective communication requires time and intentional effort. No, you are probably not a natural communicator, and people will not get it one way or the other.

Depending on your role, communication might have different degrees of importance for you. If you are a leader, or if you are in a position of power, you should probably have it among your key priorities. But unless you can dedicate enough time to prepare for it, silence is your second best option.

[The time it takes me to prepare for a speech] depends on the length of the speech. If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.

President Woodrow Wilson