Useless

If one of your core principles is Respect, I doubt there is anybody in your team who feels they are not being respectful. Most likely, there are a few who feel they are being disrespected.

If one of your core principles is Customer Centricity, I doubt there is anybody in your team who thinks they are not putting the customer first. Most likely, there are a few customers who think they are not important.

If one of your core principles is Agility, I doubt there is anybody in your team who believes they are slow and unproductive. Most likely, there are a few who believe the team could achieve more.

There’s a moment when concepts, and values, and principles stop being useful in getting people on the same boat.

That’s why you should use (positive) examples instead.

In every office

There is doing well and there is doing poorly.

And then there is doing nothing, which is the worst of the three.

It goes like this.

Doing well is marginally better than doing poorly. Doing poorly is infinitely better than doing nothing.

There is also knowing about success and knowing about failures.

And then there is knowing nothing, which is the worst of the three.

It goes like this.

Knowing about success is marginally better than knowing about failures. Knowing about failures is infinitely better than knowing nothing.

This is something to remember in every office around the world.

What to control

The anger, the sadness, the excitement, the joy. Feelings are not your responsibility, nor are they your fault.

What you do with them, on the other hand, is within your control.

Letting the negative self talk become the only narrative.

Sending an harsh comment in response to the message of a colleague.

Asking others to stop what they are doing and follow the latest idea.

Focus on this.

No matter what

I wanted to buy a shirt for my son. It was a red one, with one single word on it: “Uff!”. I said it was perfect for him, since he is always complaining and he is never happy with what he is given.

He ended up buying another shirt. An orange one with a dragon on it.

The point being, people rarely want to hear what you think is better for them, who you think they are, where they should or should not focus for their development.

Instead, they want to tell you about what they think. And they want you to find it in your heart to abandon your prejudices and support them no matter what.

At all

There’s not only joy. There’s not only pain.

There’s not only butterflies. There’s not only dullness.

There’s not only raising. There’s not only rising above.

There’s non only failure. There’s not only success.

There’s not only together. There’s not only alone.

And actually, it turns out that most of what we remember is because of the illusions we have made out of the one and the other.

We don’t know extremes. At all.

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
Looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now