Tag: problems

What makes us miserable

FabrizioLeave a comment

Acceptance is not about taking what makes us miserable, shutting it in the closet, throwing away the keys, numbing the feelings that inevitably it will keep us giving, and pretending as if that does not exist.

Acceptance is taking what makes us miserable, understanding it, putting it front and center for a while, making friend with it, finding a way to go about our days despite it. Until eventually it will go shut itself in the closet by itself.

The former approach will make misery expand and take new forms. The latter will make it go away once and for all.

Two different ways. Two very different outcomes.

Folly

FabrizioLeave a comment

Companies have a strong tool they can leverage to influence behaviour: rewards.

The problem then is not that companies cannot figure out how to increase employees collaboration, how to break down silos, how to foster innovation, or how to build a safe space for feedback. The problem is that the focus is – sometimes unintentionally – on a contrasting behaviour, which gets strenghtened with rewards.

Steve Kerr 1995 – On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B.

The change you want to see

Fabrizio2 Comments

Be the change you want to see in the world.

It’s great advice. But if feels difficult, sometimes vague, often out of reach.

To make it more concrete, consider this.

You work at a company that fosters a toxic environment. Everyone is only focused on achieving a reward, to the extent that people barely greet each other when they meet in the corridors, actively hide information to get some edge, and only put a smile on their faces in the presence of a manager.

You can’t take it anymore. You are close to burn out, you are tired of being treated as a machine, and you dread the meeting to set your next goals way more than failing at them.

You have some options.

You can quit. Some do that, not many though.

You can muscle through. Most do that, and of course while doing that they lose energy, enthusiasm, well-being.

You can put up a shield of cynicism and sarcasm. I have done it myself many times. Become the one who has a witty response at the ready, a negative comment for every situation, a superior attitude that eventually will make it impossible for others to take you seriously.

Or you can reach out and ask: “how are you?” Very few do that. Despite the awful situation, very few understand that what is most needed in difficult circumstances is connection. Very few understand that they can be the initiator of something that is going to grow around them. Very few understand that they can indeed be the change they want to see in their world.

It is difficult. It can be done.

Comment section

Fabrizio3 Comments

Why do you commit to a heated discussion in the comment section of a social media post?

If it is to share your opinion, display your wit, dispense your humour, a better way is to create your own post, article, story, and share it with the world.

If it is to change minds, a better way is to engage in a one to one conversaton, and be prepared to be changed as well.

If it is to spend some free time, a better way is to read a book, go for a walk, watch a movie, reach out to a friend, play with your kids, or really anything else.

If it is to avoid work you don’t want to do, a better way is to find work you actually want to do.

There’s really no reason why one should commit to a heated discussion in the comment section of a social post. Yet those happen every day. And people lose their energy, focus, and minds to this activity.

Get back control.

Never be the same

FabrizioLeave a comment

The best way to approach anything new is by putting aside what you know about it.

We have been taught that experience matters more than anything else. And since today everything needs to happen now (even better, yesterday), we augment the importance of experience and try to get farther by doing more of what we have done so far.

That rarely works.

Experience matters, for sure, but it is not a good predictor of the success you are going to have in your next endeavor. And it does make sense, since the world is complex and ever-changing. What you truly need is not experience, but the capacity to put that aside and learn something new over and over again.

Your next gig might be similar to the previous one. It will never be the same.