Category: leadership

Gold

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If you can build relationships across groups, you are worth your weight in gold.

When you are given a task, when you are assigned a responsibility, when you have work to do, it is easy to forget about others. Yet what you do impacts them, and what they do might be significant for what you want to achieve.

Establishing and maintaining relationships with people who work in other departments, in different industries, in rival companies, in apparently antithetical roles is one of the most critical skill for success.

And that is true even if you are working on your own. Particularly if you are working on your own.

Recognition

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You can’t heal if you do not recognize you are hurt.

And of course, this is valid for teams, groups, and communities as well. The more people involved, the more challenging and long the process of recognition is going to be.

Have you told everyone how you feel? Have you shared with them what has happened? Have you signaled you are committed to a different future? Have you shown your own vulnerability and accepted the vulnerability of others?

Even a deep crisis can be an opportunity to build something better and stronger.

But if you approach it hoping that things will turn around because of luck, because of a new year, because what is not working will suddenly start to work. That is just wishful thinking.

The third reason

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What is the third reason why someone does something?

The first reason is almost instinctive. It is generally about us.

The second reason is a mirror. We often make it about them.

The third reason might open up some empathy, as it has the power to be about the context.

This is how it goes.

A colleague does not answer your email requesting help.

The first reason: they do not want to help me.

The second reason: they are selfish and only care about their work.

The third reason: it is the end of the quarter, they might be busy.

Another example.

A company is not coming back to you regarding your application.

The first reason: they have rejected me.

The second reason: their HR is lazy and unprofessional.

The third reason: they have a recruitment policy in place and they are simply following it.

Thinking through the third reason makes two things possible: it moves us from a natural tendency to look at the world as if we were at the centre of it, and it builds some rules that are actually applicable to everyone. It allows more compassion for others and for ourselves. It unloads us of a burden.

Make an effort to get to the third reason. After a while, that will become your new nature.

Managing up

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We take for granted that people in charge have it under control. And that makes it difficult for us to empathize with somebody who has a better pay, a better job, more power, more status, a bigger house, and the tacit or explicit appreciation of those around them.

Yet, it is so important.

The last person you want to be alone is the one you are reporting to. They need support, they need help, they need ideas, they need clarity, they need feedback, they need sharing, they need to know, they need solutions. They need you.

As part of the infinite wisdom First Round delivers to its readers, they came up with a great article full of practical tips for managing up.

You play a part in every bad boss situation you encounter in your own career.

The right thing

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When we do the right thing we often tend to think in terms of output.

I spoke of the injustice so they would see and fix it.

I called out that person for their behavior so they would be punished.

I studied hard for this exam so I would pass.

I have shared my experience so you would not make the same mistake.

But doing the right thing is more of a matter of input.

It is your values, your story, your purpose that you feed into the thing to make it right. What happens after should really not be that important.