Talk about what’s holding you back.
Talk about that feeling you feel before speaking in front of others.
Talk about the fear that never let you leap.
Talk about how unease you are when somebody asks a direct question.
Talk about the challenge in putting your work out there.
Talk about how difficult it is to say you were wrong.
Talk about the knots in your stomach before meeting someone you like.
Because as you talk about all of this, you take the first step to make it all go away.
It’s impossible to talk about culture without taking behaviour into consideration.
You can read a book, spend time investigating what type of culture is a winning culture, have consultants come in and tell about the frameworks they have studied. But at the end of the day, culture is what you do. Culture is what the people around you do. Culture is in the actions and details.
That’s why it’s important to build cultures with examples. And in the long term, I am more and more convinced that coaching, both internal and external, is the only way to spread the culture as the company grows and the market changes.
Learning about culture is great, as it gives you the basics to discuss it in your organization and go about it strategically. Yet, remember that culture is not telling and cannot be commanded. Culture is action.
Three ways to address an unusual request from one of your customers.
1. Sorry, we can’t help, you can try over there.
2. We are sorry, we have tried and checked our policies, we can’t help. You can try over there.
3. We are sorry, it’s not perfect, but it should work. No need to pay for this, come back later and we might have a better, more permanent solution.
They are not so different from each other, in fact they stand on a continuum. And it is certainly possible to emphatize with each one of them.
But whether you go for 1, 2 or 3 makes a huge difference in the experience you shape for your customer and the relationship you are building with them.
Whatever you are going to do this year, make sure you can express that in few, concise words. Being able to tell about your project with clarity, inspiring curiosity, unlocking questions that drive the conversation forward. These are features that can give a real edge in a world of short attention span and endless content availability.
If the eyes of the person in front of you wander away, if your audience had doubts you feel you have already adressed, if your visitors drop without any action. You are not there yet.
It takes time and effort, conscious thinking and some rehearsing.
It will be your jump start to the change you seek to make.
If you are a leader and complain about the fact that people in your team are not as committed, as present, as hardworking, as involved as you are, here are two things to think about.
You are the leader, and in most situations this comes with some benefits (not only monetary) that other team members do not get. So, the fact you care more is absolutely normal. You should care more, they will care less.
To change the situation, to some extent at least, you have to put in extra work. And that is an additional challenge. You have to sell a vision, a purpose, a reason (beyond salary) for the team members to feel that they are part of something bigger. You have to make it so that if they follow you they will enhance their public and self-image. You also have to praise them for their work, and to thank them for their contribution. You need to be present for them when they need it, and hide when they can go alone. It’s a difficult balance to strike between freedom and ownership, and it takes trust and time. If you have none of that, you are stuck at point one.
Any other approach to such a natural situation is delusional wishful thinking.
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