If you have knowledge, share it.
If you have an idea, share it.
If you have a project, share it.
If you learned something, share it.
If you plan something, share it.
If you have a purpose, share it.
If you have experience, share it.
It is the best way to broaden your perspective and actually get things done.
If you only look at what was and what is to shape what might be, things are going to be extremely difficult.
At any point in time, the market is cluttered. It is challenging to compete with incumbents, new players, alternatives, and outsiders. If you want to excel, it is going to be an uphill battle, on many fronts, and more often than we care to admit we do not have a good enough product or service to win this.
If we take a look at the future from any point in time, instead, a wealth of possibilities open up. Among those is the market that is not cluttered now, but will be soon enough.
That is where you want to be.
A meeting is a drain of time, focus and flow. And it compounds the more people are involved.
So, if you are going to have a meeting, make it worth it. Have an agenda, a clear one, even if it is just a sync. Stay on topic. Never go around the (virtual) table to fish for topics, but by all means poke those who speak less and make sure they get a chance to express their opinion. Get to action points in proper time, write them down, and circulate them after the meeting is done. If you have called the meeting, or are in a leadership potion, do a lot of listening and very little talking. And finish earlier.
If you are finding yourself breaking these basics more than once for a particular meeting, the people invited to the meeting are better off if the meeting is removed from their calendars.
They certainly have something better to do.
P.S.: I wrote about meetings a while back also. The rules set out there are still valid for the most part.
If you have a hunch something is not working, pull the plug on it.
And actually, we should regularly pull the plug on the things that take most of our time, and see which ones we are truly going to miss.
This is clearly really applicable when it comes to marketing tactics. If there is something you consistently put your budget behind, pull the plug on it for one month. What happens? When the impact on key metrics is zero (or close to it), you have a great candidate for costs savings.
Who knows where programmatic advertising would be if more companies would regularly pull the plug.
Feedback often creates tension.
I want it this way.
I am not sure what, but something does not work.
Your piece of content misses the bigger picture.
Can you change that part and make it more professional?
I am sorry, I really do not like it.
Tension might eventually take you to a better place, but there are two problems.
First, tension takes time to resolve. Time that could actually be employed improving the outcome, doing something more valuable or even just going for a walk. Tension is difficult to dissipate, it actually tends to escalate. Particularly when the first unclear comment is followed by additional unclear statements that make the whole feedback situation a mess.
Also, tension sticks. When the job is eventually done, tension is still in the air. It does not matter at this point if the outcome is better, something has broken. And that is difficult to recover, even more difficult considering the fact this way of giving feedback is rarely a one-off.
Prepare before giving feedback.
Never let it be the first thing that comes to mind, never let it be an instinctual reaction to you seeing the work of others for the first time.
And if after you have done that, there is still vagueness in what you want to contribute, shut up and ask.
If you would have more time, what would you work on to make it better?
Guide me through your creative process.
What parts of it you do not like?
What would you need to make this the best of your blog posts?
What type of input are you seeking from me?
You've got this 