Tag: fail

A selfish act

FabrizioLeave a comment

There’s plenty of leaders out there these days delivering bad news. And if there’s one thing they should avoid when the time comes, is trying to frame it in a positive light. Particularly if they do not give space to the receiver to digest it all and get there themselves.

Sure, laying employees off can help caring for kids who are forced to stay home, give people the time to take that training, and dedicate hours to the hobby they have neglected.

But if you, as a leader, suggest that, you are merely trying to make it easier for you to deliver the news. It is a selfish act, one that is not needed.

Finite

FabrizioLeave a comment

At any one point in time there’s an infinite number of possibilities around you. The number of possibilities to do good is infinite as well.

Sounds like a positive thing, and it is, but if you keep moving from one possibility to the next, if you are overwhelmed by their numbers, if you lose focus distracted by the closest or fanciest one over and over again, that is equivalent to not having any possibility at all.

The understanding that you are finite and can only commit to a limited number of things in the course of your lifetime is needed to make an impact.

The difference you make

FabrizioLeave a comment

Generosity and kindness work very well as a marketing tactic, particularly in times of uncertainty and discomfort.

If you have something valuable to share, do it. But value is not measured on your income statement, in this case more than ever. It is measured in the impact you have on those you serve, in the difference you make in their lives, in the ways you enhance their capacity to get past such difficult times.

If you have something valuable to share, do it. In all other cases, just continue business as usual. Leveraging the pandemic, covid-19, remote working, social distancing to sell a bunch of new subscriptions and products is not something we feel the need of.

Global threat

FabrizioLeave a comment

A global threat should not be a reason to point fingers, to upsell, to market, to do brand awareness, to interrupt attention, to retract within our ideologies.

It should be an opportunity to come together and together bring the situation back to normality.

Can we do it?

What we are not

FabrizioLeave a comment

What we are not helps define what we are.

Yet certainly, that cannot end there. This is particularly true when we compete, when we try to influence, when we run against something that is already established.

We need to differentiate, and that cannot be done by merely saying “not-the-other”. The more you let this message run, the more steam you are transferring to your adversary’s engine.

Building movements that matter is hard job because they require self-reflection, deep knowledge of the playing field and story building.

All the rest is a shortcut, and short is the breath that will sustain it.