Tag: communication

Strength

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Next time, try this.

“I am sorry, my mistake, I could have … . Let’s move on.”

It works beautifully in any situation in which there’s friction. It unlocks empathy (most likely you’ll get a “no worries” from the other side), and it allows the conversation to move forward.

It’s better than blaming the alarm clock, the traffic, the person who’s there to serve, the colleague who’s trying to help, the boss who’s learning the ropes, the partner who’s going through your same difficulties, the bystander who seems to not get it.

And it’s true.

There’s a variety of circumstances that causes what is going to happen. Chances are there’s something you might have done to avoid causing yourself trouble.

Recognising a mistake is not the same as putting an additional burden on your fragile identity. A mistake does not mean you are bad, mean, stupid, malicious. Quite the opposite, in fact. “I am sorry” means you are present enough in the situation to care about taking the next step. It’s about owning what’s happening and being ready to shape it going forward.

“I am sorry” is a strength.

Making decisions

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There are two fundamental flaws in how companies make decisions.

The first one has to do with the amount of information available to make the decision. A balance is needed between decisions made with zero information (“based on my opinion …”, “our manager wants it this way …”, “I strongly believe …”, “it worked at my previous company …”) and decisions made in the pursue of perfect information (“I want to schedule another meeting with …”, “let’s delay this until we get to know …”, “could you please review this one more time?”).

The second one has to do with the duration of the decision taken. The world changes, the information we have available changes, the players change, technology changes. And yet, organisations find it incredibly difficult to say “we were wrong”, or even “let’s try this instead”.

Of course, the first one leads to the second. If the decision was made with zero information, it was a personal decision, and that person (and often the people close to that person) will find it very difficult to change course along the way. If the decision was made after a long process, in search for perfect information, everybody involved got so fed up with going through the details over and over again that most likely they will close an eye and pretend all is ok, rather than start back from scratch.

The trick is having the right amount of people involved in making the decision (make it three to five – never one, never ten) and well defined parameters on which the decision is taken, with checks along the way to see if any of those parameters have shifted.

In all cases, have a process.

Keys and locks

Fabrizio1 Comment

Most people, when starting a relationship, tend to be all about themselves.

Here is what I do, here is what I think, here is where I go, here is what I like.

The hope, in this case, is to have someone on the other side of the table that finds what we have to offer interesting and that is ready to commit to it. It can happen.

The effectiveness of this approach tends to decrease as the relationship develops. And as we are not really talking about amourous relationships (though some basics are similar), even if we attempt to find more people interested and ready to commit, the self-centered tactic is clunky. Seth Godin explains it well when he compares this situation to owning a key and having to go around looking for the lock (or locks) to open.

Alternatively, we could just sit at the table and listen to what the other has to say. Understand their background, what they do, what they think, where they have been, what they like, and where they are headed. See if there’s a match, and if anything of what we’ve heard made us click, go back and continue working to make it work, until next time. In other words, finding the lock and fashion the key (always Godin).

Traditionally, the first is the way of sales and the second is the way of marketing.

I am not sure nowadays the distinction about the two departments should still be relevant (it is in many organisations, unfortunately), but certainly the difference between having the key or the lock first is fundamental when you think about going to market.

It’s the difference between being one of the many and being the only one.

Your choice.

Alone

FabrizioLeave a comment

The problem with attacking those who don’t see the world as you do, with fostering an environment where outrage is rewarded, with speaking against those on your side who attempt to be moderate, with listening to others in wait for misstep, with glorifying factions and vilifying commonalities.

The problem with all of this is that soon enough you’ll end up being alone. Because when you are there, it is much easier to extend the behaviour to all those that, sooner or later, will disappoint your perspective rather than revert it to welcome different views down the line.

Even though today it might feel different, even if it might feel there are thousands who are on your side. Are you prepared to be alone tomorrow?

Lost and never found

FabrizioLeave a comment

A while back, I was asked to express the importance of taking a more customer-centric approach in messaging our product.

The best thing I could think of was a slide with these.

Seamless and secure collaboration.
Simple upgrades at no charge.
Connecting data from across the business.
Automated business workflows.
Cloud accelerated ECM.
Security and compliance for all industries.
Secure access to complete information.
Enrich content and gain valuable insights by leveraging artificial intelligence.
Seamlessly navigate the entire process in one place.
Use groups feature to create and manage lists of members.
Rapid automation of manual, repetitive processes.
Digitize and organize business critical information.

People did not immediately understand what I meant, until I mentioned that none of these claims was from our marketing. They could have easily been, but they were actually taken from competitors, alternatives and (some) from generic Saas companies.

Now, imagine you are a customer and you start surfing around for a solution. Imagine how lost you would be by stumbling on this type of messages, and by trying to figure out which product is best for you. And by the way, no. The situation does not improve with more granular and detailed content you can find in the body of the webpage or in other collaterals.

Everybody can say they can do more or less great and amazing things. But very few manage to meaningfully connect to their audience.

Value is how, what and why.

If you stop at what the next time you write copy for your product, expect a result similar to the above.