Tag: change

The people you want to change

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Some problems would greatly benefit from a more customer centric approach.

One of them is cybersecurity. We all laugh at how silly it is to use “1234” or “p4ssw0rd” as credentials to access any type of service, and we all know we should not use the same password on different websites, or stick the password on our computers. And yet, most people do just that. Because keeping in mind more than a bunch of easy-to-remember passwords is taxing, because not all are aware of password managers softwares (they don’t come preinstalled in your devices), and because even when you install one you realize that the experience is not exactly easy – between syncing across devices, two-factors authentication, master password recovery, and whatnot.

If change in the world is what we seek to achieve, we need to be brutally focused on how the people we want to change go about their routines, what they care about, why they should even bother, and what we can do to actually enhance their lives while change makes it course. Resistance and indifference is the other side of the coin, and in some cases it might mean a whole lot worse consequences than the failure of a business.

People is our most important asset

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For founders and start-ups managers, here is a list of things that’s beyond what you should expect of your employees.

Being loyal to your cause.

Being as excited about your cause as you are.

Doing extra work without being paid.

Doing basic work without being paid (fairly).

Being self-motivated.

Doing work without recognition.

Doing work that is beyond the job description you’ve hired them for, or the title you have given them.

Putting up with your lack of vision, planning, communication, transparency.

Participating in every after-work activity for team building.

Interpreting uncertainty and change as a free pass for mean managerial behaviour.

Agreeing to the fact that your busyness is more important than their busyness.

Finding answers to questions you don’t even ask.

Carving their way into career development.

Learning by themselves.

Accept that somebody with more experience will come in at some point and start telling them what to do.

If people is really your most important asset, you could start by having a honest look at this list. Leave your excuses on the side for a moment, and mark the items on which you are failing your employees. Ask how you can do better. And then do it.

Not all the roads

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Annie Duke: We have this trade-off. We can kind of feel the pain in the moment, but the pain is going to be better in the long run, if we use it well, because we are going to be better decision makers in the long run, because we are experiencing the pain.

But the pain in the moment is pain. It doesn’t feel good. We have these competing problems: what’s best for me now, in terms of the way that I feel, versus what’s best for future me, in terms of how my life turns out. I think we can agree that the better my decisions, the more likely my life is going to turn out in a way that is good.

Shane Parris: It’s almost like the hindsight of your future-self becoming the foresight of your today-self.

Annie Duke: It’s getting the future version of you to get involved in the decisions of the present version of you.

From The Knowledge Project Podcast, ep. #37

When you make decisions in the moment, continuosly distracted by what is shinier, within reach, effortless, you often avoid negative feelings. And yet, you lose a little bit of who, deep down, you want to become.

What would your future-self say about what your today-self is doing?

Get that clear sooner rather than later, and accept the fact that not all the roads are going to take you where you aim. It will make it easier to accept defeats, say no, and be kind to yourself when some things will inevitably not pan out.

Presenting

Fabrizio1 Comment

If you are preparing to deliver a presentation that matters (to you), consider the following.

Start with the audience and the change you’d like to see (even when you are just presenting results, you are still demanding a change). List them down somewhere and have them visible throughout the process.

Have the deck ready early, at least a week before the presentation.

Little text on a slide is always better than more. Always.

A list is a list even without a bullet.

Allow enough time to collect and implement the needed feedback. If you get feedback too close to the time you are supposed to deliver the presentation (<24hrs), be brave and disregard it.

Write a script for the key points and the transition between slides.

Rehearse the presentation multiple times, keeping the script at hand, but without reading it.

Few hours before the actual delivery, free your mind and take a break from the presentation. Do something else. The deck is ready by now, and so you are.

Good luck.

Everything you say you’ll do

FabrizioLeave a comment

There are not many things you are asked to do when you lead other people.

Certainly, making sure your team has the needed support. Financial, political, and technical support. Also, truly listening to and caring for your team members, including helping them find a career trajectory they are comfortable with. Finally, taking difficult decisions when things stall or risk to stall, possibly with the aid of a transparent and candid process everyone in the team understands and trusts.

And then, of course, there’s everything you say you’ll do. This is as important as the three points above, as it sets the tone for the type of relationship you are going to build with your people. If you start not delivering on things you yourself have taken ownership for, even worst if you are not open and don’t explain when that happens, why that happened, then the relationship is going to be weak and feeble. And it will be very difficult to turn that around.

Good thing is, you choose what you promise. Choose mindfully.