Tag: change

Not one single line

FabrizioLeave a comment

The things you did in the past.

The people you have been around.

The way dear ones have treated you.

The level of education you have achieved.

The jobs you’ve had.

The knowledge you have accumulated.

The places you have visited.

The trauma you barely talk about.

The experiences you have shared with others.

The missing praises.

The undeserved rewards.

All we’ve been so far influences our behaviour, thoughts, feelings in the moment. And yet, they are not the moment. It’s a fundamental difference.

Life is not a straight line. It is not even one single line. You are not stuck on repeat, there’s actually plenty of choices on where to go next.

A step sideway

FabrizioLeave a comment

Categories help us make sense of the world.

And they are solid and merciless prisons.

We use categories to define ourselves and others, and we fail to understand, for the most part, that while they are a useful tool, they are fictitious. It’s way too easy to take on our shoulders the burden a full category carries with it, and it’s even easier to accuse others of misdeeds perpetrated by a generic (and often illusionary) category.

Take a step sideway the next time you use a category, whether it’s to label what you feel you are or what you feel others are. You will spot a lot more variety and will see clearly the immense power categories have on the way we perceive the world.

Picking

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you are waiting for someone to notice your work. If you are hoping tomorrow your boss is going to praise the project you are leading. If you desperately want somebody to enter the shop and admire your craft. If you believe your effort is not getting the attention it deserves.

If you are waiting to be picked.

Remember you can be the one starting it.

You can notice a colleague’s work, praise a peer’s project, enter a shop and admire someone’s craft, give the appropriate attention to those around you.

You can be the one who picks.

It’s contagious, and once you get in the habit, not only others are going to pick you more often, but you are also going to pick yourself with a lot less effort.

That’s the final goal, by the way.

Communicate or manage

FabrizioLeave a comment

Most change happens inadvertently. Some things, or more often than not many things, evolve and stop to be what they were in the beginning. Gradually, you change as well, and at some point you stop, look back, reflect, and realise that change has happened. It’s nobody’s fault (or merit), just the nature of things.

Some change happens because of an agent. That’s when a situation is no longer sustainable, and some person, or more often than not a group of people, decide to bring about change. At the beginning, it’s probably not very clear where they are going to land. But the intention is there, and eventually the context and its features are modified. Whether the agents are successful or not.

One way or the other, the people that are touched by the change rarely want to hear “this has happened”. They are often scared, they don’t know what’s going on, they see some of the fundamentals in their worldview shaken. And they want a forum where they can express all this and get some sort of reassurances. This process is part of the resistance to change, and it will happen, one way (in an organised, public way) or the other (in a dispersed, private way).

It’s the difference between communicating change and managing change.

Overlooked

FabrizioLeave a comment

One of the most overlooked pains in (growing) organizations is that of great performers promoted into leadership roles.

Accepting that executing and leading require two completely different sets of skills, and accompanying the transition with coaching and mentoring, would save companies a lot of money in the long run.