Tag: bias

Slow down

Fabrizio2 Comments

We have gotten used to fast.

We want the world to move fast, we want change to happen overnight, we seek shortcuts and opportunities behind every corner.

We lose sight of the 99%.

And when that feeling is stronger, the only real thing we can do is look inside and ask how we can slow down.

Sleep.

Exercise.

Meditate.

Connect with those you care about.

Put technology aside.

Get rid of dopamine hits.

Trying to change the speed at which our world spins is pointless.

Trying to change the way we perceive such speed is wise.

Culture is alive

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Culture is not a statement.

It’s not a nice quote on the wall, a deck, or the list of principles on your website. It is not something you can decide in a meeting. It is not something you can survey. It is not something you can benchmark.

Culture lives in what you do. In the habits of the day to day, in what your leadership says, in the things that get rewarded. It’s in all the meetings, in the 1-1s, in the informal chats by the coffee machine. It’s in what you communicate, what you focus your attention on every time you stand in front of the camera and broadcast to the whole company. It’s in the details. It is there when nobody is watching.

Systems

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An extraordinary performer will add little to a toxic environment – an environment that puts results above people, that promotes performance at all costs, that prioritizes external over internal input, that assumes lower ranked people are less important than those higher up.

So before you get to hiring (and firing, and hiring again, and firing again), make sure your internal system is working as you intend it to work. Make sure you have rewards that promote the behaviour you wish to promote. Make sure you have rules in place, or even better norms, that will guide people to speak up, to share ideas, to flag issues, and give them the freedom to follow up.

Shaping systems is a long-term effort that requires high levels of awareness, and not many organisations want to committ to that.

It’s a mistake.

Back on your feet

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Fears build up within us. The reality is rarely as bad as we imagine it to be.

What is the worst thing that could happen? is always a very powerful question. We don’t need most of the things we want, and we don’t want most of the things we have.

Look your anxiety in the eyes and ask: What if I let it go? What if what I fear will materialize? What if the worst case scenario is what I will wake up to tomorrow?

I promise, more often then not, you will still be you.

And then you’ll have all the resources to get back on your feet.

Someone else

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There is always someone else.

No matter how skilled you are, no matter how wonderful your product is, no matter how supposedly unique your culture is. There is someone else out there offering the exact same thing, covering the exact same spot, addressing the exact same problem.

And you have two things to do to mitigate this problem.

First, understand who someone else is – and by the way, this is a decision of those you are serving.

Second, be as specific as possible in figuring out and expressing what you are.

The alternative is most of B2B marketing nowadays: companies with fantastic products and services playing in broad and fuzzy markets to increase their customers’ productivity. All the same type of better, faster, cheaper.

Pass.