Tag: growth

The road to change

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People might do what you ask them to do for a number of reasons. It might be your charisma, or the position you hold, or fear, or compliance, or perhaps a new rule you just came up with. It is possible to get people to do things they don’t want to do. In fact, it is not even that difficult. But that is not change.

For change to happen, for it to bring a positive impact on the people around you and your environment, there needs to be a conversation. To build rapport, to draft a common way to view the world, to list a series of actions that might make sense in that world, and to eventually agree on which ones we will pursue that will make that world better.

It is extremely difficult, and that’s why many take the shortcut and jump right into the actions that will make the world better – essentially a list of tasks that they think might be the right thing to do.

It never has a lasting impact.

A culture that matters

Fabrizio5 Comments

People do not seek transactions.

Or better, if what they seek is a transaction – for example, I give you my time and energy and you give me money in return -, they can find it pretty much everywhere.

Of the three sources motivating people, the only one that is independent from the context is the work they do. And yet employers focus most of their engagement and retention strategy on that very same source, therefore failing to differentiate from any other employer in the world.

If you work in HR or if you are an entrepreneur, there is a clear opportunity for your company to stand out. Make space for employees to build meaningful relationships, give them opportunities to get to know each other when not talking about work, build a culture from the ground up – the only type of culture that employees can perceive and buy into every single day. Have your managers and leaders show them that they care.

It is not what used to matter a few years back.

It is the only way forward now.

Along the way, many senior executives will be challenged to reimagine how they lead. The skills that made leaders effective before the COVID-19 pandemic—strong coaching, mentoring, creating strong teams—are just table stakes for the challenge of the months and years ahead.

McKinsey, “Great attrition” or “Great attraction”? The choice is yours.

Reactive or intentional

FabrizioLeave a comment

At work, you can be reactive or intentional.

When you are reactive, you drop everything you are doing every time a new urgency comes in. You are stuck in a spiral of novelty and unfinished work. You feel powerless and you often end your days with the overwhelming impression of not having accomplished anything important.

When you are intentional, you respond to a new urgency with a deep breath. You finish the work you are doing, or at the very least make sure that you have a solid plan to finish it or to delegate it to someone else. You take out your plan and you check how the urgency can fit. You say no. You feel in control and you often end your days with the priceless recognition of being done.

The reactive mode is fascinating, because it gives us (and others) the illusion of being relevant, important, busy. It’s what most people call “good job!”. Of course, in reactive mode nothing ever changes, and in the long term you are simply drained.

The intentional mode is a choice. It might go unnoticed for a while, because you are not waving your arms in the face of everyone. And of course, in intentional mode you can affect real change.

To understand your default mode, take note of what happens next time your boss calls with a new thing to do.

Then, make the choice.

Pumpkins

FabrizioLeave a comment

Which do you prefer?

Having two perfectly carved Halloween pumpkins on your doorstep – you have commissioned a master carver to create the pumpkins, you have paid dearly for them, and that allowed your dear ones to keep busy doing their own stuff.

Or having two so-and-so carved Halloween pumpkins on your doorstep – you and your dear ones have carved them together, you had a good time, you made fun of each others carving skills, and you all cherish the memory when you pass by them now.

It’s the camel dilemma all over again, isn’t it?

And the way you choose one way or the other will tell much of the type of leader you might be.

Follow or not

FabrizioLeave a comment

You can read that your product makes one out of three girls feel bad about themselves, and still comment that it is more likely for it to have positive effects (it’s one out of three, after all), or that the number is only a reflection of what happens in the world.

At the end of the day, the way you choose to interpret the world is up to you.

What is up to us all, though, is choosing if we are going to follow or not.