Tag: failure

Not many people

Fabrizio1 Comment

After becoming a leader, there is a choice you have to make.

As you are in the middle, many think the choice is between siding with management and siding with your team. But the truth is, the two sides are not at war. And a huge part of your responsibilities as a leader is to not act as if they were.

The tension is instead between you and your team.

Every request from the people you lead will cut into your time, energy, and focus. You will not be able to do what you were doing before, what you were good at before. They will ask, demand, pretend, guess, second guess, and ask some more. They will push you to do things you are not used to. They will force you to have conversations you would normally avoid. They will expect that you raise above yourself, often without any guidance, and act as the leader you are paid to be.

And so the choice is between being who you are and being who your team wants and needs you to be.

Not many people are willing to let go – of their ideas, of their ways, of their habits, of their responsibilites, of their work, of their ego.

Not many people are good leaders.

Winners

FabrizioLeave a comment

We read of winners, and somehow we convince ourselves that if we will apply the same tactics we will be winners too.

Of course, those tactics have been used by a countless number of people, in a countless number of situations, and they did not work. We just do not hear about that.

Success is fascinating. Not only because it puts us under the spotlight, but also because it makes others blind to the sweat, stains, and tears that have put us there. There is no magic recipe. Just a story that we craft among immense difficulties and that often gives us back much less than we expected.

Enjoy the journey. It’s the only way.

Stretching further

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you are not making mistakes (i.e., missing a deadline, delivering a project that is not ready, failing to achieve your goals, being rejected for a role you care about), one of two things is true.

Either you are covering up your mistakes or you are not stretching further enough.

The point is not being flawless.

The point is using mistakes to do three things.

  1. Prepare a space to grow into. A mistake tells where you cannot go yet. It is space to fill up, a beacon pointed in the direction of growth.
  2. Build more resilient relationships. A mistake tells you are a fearless peer. I am sorry unlocks deep empathy and fortifies the ground beneath you and those you care about.
  3. Add to your story. A mistake tells you are not done yet. When you put it into words, it becomes an inspiration and a model.

The receiver

Fabrizio1 Comment

In University, I was taught that communication, in its most basic form, is the cooperation between a sender and a receiver to get a message through a shared environment.

And while that certainly holds true still today, I am more and more convinced that in business, communication is in the hands of the receiver.

Think about marketing: the receiver is forced through a myriad of messages and decides what to dedicate attention to in a matter of seconds. Think about internal communication: the receiver can call bullshit on any message management is sharing if that does not reflect their day-to-day experience. Think about presentations: the receiver is so fed up with bullet points and animations (particularly after one year of virtual meetings) to the point they can check emails or write a report while you are struggling to make a case.

The receiver is central in any form of corporate communication.

And the fact that we spend so little time trying to figure them out is the most widely overlooked device a professional has to leverage to get their messages through.

Questions and answers

FabrizioLeave a comment

As a leader, the surest way to have your team contribute is to speak when a question is needed and to shut up in the process of finding the answer.

The problem is that we often get this all wrong. And so direct reports ask questions and managers give answers, nurturing an organization that is bottlenecked, does not grow, and demotivates.

Leaders, be vulnerable and let go.