Too detailed

Check the specifics and stress over the big picture.

Too often we instead stress over the specifics and don’t even pay attention to the big picture.

One example: check business metrics weekly, even daily, and do it in a way that informs the steps to take next week, next month, not today. Report business metrics quarterly, and do it in a way that links them to a clear, overarching business strategy. Stress only if the quarterly numbers consistently miss the mark, and do it in a way that informs a new strategy.

Risk and reward

Some people do good work. Some people do poor work. Most people do average work.

And the reasons for that are two: risk aversion and reward seeking.

To do good work, you need to be able to deviate from the norm, find new ways, expand the possibilities. In most organizations, this is a risk, and most people prefer not to take it.

To do good work, you also need to be rewarded and recognized for both the success and the failure. In most organizations, average gets rewarded, and most people adapt.

If you are designing how your team will work, keep in mind risk aversion and reward seeking. And remember that if you do what everybody else is used to do, you (and your team) will probably fall in the middle.

The next meeting

The outcome of your next meeting is going to be dependent on the following much more than it will be on your communication and argumentation skills.

  • Whether you are usually the one who gives others work to do or the one who takes work away from other people’s shoulders.
  • Whether you are usually the one who points fingers and assigns responsibilities or the one who brings others together to find a solution.
  • Whether you are usually the one who gossips behind other people’s back or the one who stops a gossip the first time they hear it.
  • Whether you are usually the one who does things at their own terms informing as little people as possible or the one who seeks involvement and promotes open communication.
  • Whether you are usually the one who is close to any type of feedback or criticism or the one who appreciates other people’s input and improves based on that.

Our little self

We’d like to control others. What they think of us, what they do in the projects we lead, what they care about when it’s time to buy, how they feel when we are together.

We’d like to control others, situations, circumstances, luck, misfortune, talent, success.

We’d like to control all of that and all we can control is our little self.

Better become good at that at least.

Colleagues

If you are constantly in a situation where you know and your colleague does not.

Where you have the answers and your colleague does not.

Where your job is better than the job of your colleague.

Where your opinion matters more than the opinion of your colleague.

Where you understand while your colleague doesn’t really get it.

Where you have all the expertise while your colleague really just is a junior.

Where you make decisions while your colleague waits for your decisions to be made.

How can you really expect to build a relationship with them?