Tag: communication

Alignment

Fabrizio1 Comment

Every single company is on a mission to talk about value. Value proposition, value selling, value chain, added value. And (almost) every single company fails to appreciate what value is.

That’s because value is defined not by your management, but by your customers. It is not about increased productivity or improved workforce efficiency, but it’s about what you enable your customers to do day after day (to increase productivity and improve workforce efficiency).

Value is how, what, and why.

It is one of the most difficult lessons to understand and put in practice. It is the only way to find a unique and consistent way to talk about value across people, deparment, and stakeholders. It is the alignment you are missing.

It is worth it.

Gold

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If you can build relationships across groups, you are worth your weight in gold.

When you are given a task, when you are assigned a responsibility, when you have work to do, it is easy to forget about others. Yet what you do impacts them, and what they do might be significant for what you want to achieve.

Establishing and maintaining relationships with people who work in other departments, in different industries, in rival companies, in apparently antithetical roles is one of the most critical skill for success.

And that is true even if you are working on your own. Particularly if you are working on your own.

Managing up

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We take for granted that people in charge have it under control. And that makes it difficult for us to empathize with somebody who has a better pay, a better job, more power, more status, a bigger house, and the tacit or explicit appreciation of those around them.

Yet, it is so important.

The last person you want to be alone is the one you are reporting to. They need support, they need help, they need ideas, they need clarity, they need feedback, they need sharing, they need to know, they need solutions. They need you.

As part of the infinite wisdom First Round delivers to its readers, they came up with a great article full of practical tips for managing up.

You play a part in every bad boss situation you encounter in your own career.

For everybody

FabrizioLeave a comment

A truly rare skill is the capacity to express challenging concepts in ways that everybody can understand.

Marketers could have a look at Bill Nye and take some notes.

Ramble

FabrizioLeave a comment

Be careful when you speak without having your ideas clear.

Particularly if you are in a position of power.

Too often half formulated ideas, biased opinions, personal preferences become some sort of a norm in a small, vertical group. And the norm is always difficult to challenge and to change.

You owe it to the people around you.

If all you can do now is ramble, now is a good time to let others talk.

P.S.: How worst is this nowadays with the widespread use of tools such as Slack or Teams! It would really be great if companies would stop to look at tools as solutions, and rather train their people in their usage and best practices. Companies are not ready for instant communication.