Nobody wants to hear what you have to say.
Everybody wants to share what they have to say.
It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but if you want to be a leader, that’s a distinction you need to have very clear. One that you need to be able to navigate.
If you don’t, you’ll find yourself in a very limiting echo chamber.
Find the strength to cherish both the highs and the lows. One would not be possible without the other, and they both have lessons to teach about who you are.
Most companies want employees to not work in silos. And then, they organise their work in little, hierarchical boxes.
They split the workforce in departments. They assign managers and middle-managers to each of them. They give them goals and agendas and salaries and development plans that are unique. And they get mad because Product doesn’t talk to Sales, because what Marketing promotes is not the story that Customer Success tells, because the Leadership Team meetings are just a battle for budget and recognition, and because their Customers are sick of waiting for the promised improvement.
So, the opportunity for you is to become the person who looks at problems horizontally. To learn about others priorities and spot lateral developments. To become the glue that delivers and the light that shines on colleagues.
If you’ll just stick to your box, you’ll be part of the problem, not the indispensable solution.
People will always try to get things their own way. It’s the shortest path to comfort.
Nobody likes to argue.
Nobody likes to compromise.
Nobody likes to change their mind or their ways.
Nobody likes a difficult conversation.
Nobody likes new.
People will always try to get things their own way, and you will try to get things your own way too.
But there’s no progress with holding onto your way when people around you, repeatedly, say they want something else.
You can still try to get things your way.
And you can go alone.
You have an idea.
And that idea initiates some feelings. Excitement, perhaps. Or anticipation. Or frustration. Or anger. Or fear.
And to mitigate that, you take an action, right there, in the moment.
You send a message.
You ask a question.
You check the status.
You share the idea.
You push for delivery.
You do it yourself.
The point here is that the shorter the time between the idea and the action, the more the action is not about the idea, but about the feeling and your desire to push it away. To clarify, to push it onto somebody else. To give away the ownership of that thing that makes you uncomfortable.
On the other hand, of course, the longer the time between the idea and the action, the more the action is exactly about the idea. The feeling has dissipated by then, and you have probably learned something about yourself, about the feeling, about the idea, and about how to make the action right on point.
Learn to live with your discomfort.
You've got this 