Commit to your own work.
And think about how it affects others. What others expect from it, how others can make it better, why others should care.
Since this is extremely difficult to do in abstraction, the surest way you have to make it happen is to actually interact with those who have a stake in your work. Do it frequently, do it methodically, do it with your ears and mind wide open.
The best work happens in the dialogue with others.
Engagement is a pledge.
The deal though is no longer safety, money, and certainty in exchange for work, compliance, and loyalty.
We understand well enough that workers nowadays need to put in something more than mere hours, textbook task completion, checkbox performance. We ask them to be creative, innovative, collaborative, personal, candid, proactive.
What we struggle to understand, instead, is that the way to incentivize that has changed as well.
So, the next time you lead a project, a change, an enterprise ask yourself what your side of the pledge is.
Is it keeping everyone in the dark until the big reveal? Is it making all of the key decisions? Is it allocating five minutes at the end of the next meeting for everyone to share what they think? Is it distributing information to create hierarchies and factions?
Probably not.
Keep telling people about the work you do.
When you don’t, your work is nonexistent. It is not imperfect, it is not in progress, it is not almost there. It is simply nonexistent. Out of any radar.
When you do, you open yourself to your audience. You get to know what they like, what they need, what they would like to see next. You start a cooperative work, whether you realize it or not.
And you might also find unexpected contributors.
The problem with fit is that it tends to average.
And the even bigger problem for you is that it prevents you from being you.
When you try to fit – by using a jargon that everyone else is using, by going through a career trajectory that everybody can recognize, by telling a story that everyone feels comfortable with – you essentially hide your differences for the sake of harmony. It is normal to want to do that, even advisable in some instances.
But what happens once you are in, feel at ease, and attempt to express that part you hid? Here is a strong risk of a life of misery.
There are two things you can do to mitigate that.
First, you have to be selective with the groups you want to be part of. Not all groups are worth fitting in – which is, again, essentially losing a little part of you. Some groups are more open to differences than others – which means having to hide less, or nothing.
Second, you need to work on your story in a way that eases you into fitting in (the groups you selected). You own your story, you choose what to tell about, how to tell about it, and by making your story an expression of yourself, you signal to the group who you are and what they can expect from you.
If you want people in your team to truly work as a team, help each other, keep each other accountable, and achieve common goals, then stop leveraging your position of power to get things done.
When you do that, people will think that the only way for them to get ahead is to take from their peers.
Dominance does not set a good example.
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