Tag: relationships

What do others get?

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What do other people get if you achieve what you want?

If you have a target, and you are committed to it, the best way to approach it is to first figure out what others have to gain. Your colleagues, your boss, the other managers, your company, your stakeholders.

It’s a great exercise to keep your wants in check. Is this really the best thing in this situation? Does it still make sense after so much time? Am I being too selfish, unreasonable, unrealistic? How many people are going to end up better off after I win?

And it is also a way to start thinking how to get buy-in. You always need buy-in, you do not operate in solitary. Having an argument that goes beyond “because it’s good for me” (or any variation of it) is a huge step towards getting it.

Leadership is not

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Leadership is not a title. A leader might have a title, and yet not having a title does not mean you cannot act as a leader. Seeing something that others do not see yet, and taking them with you on the path to discovery.

Leadership is not telling others what to do. On that path, the leader might actually benefit much more from listening and observing rather than telling. Each path is different, so applying other path’s rules and frameworks might often prove to be only limiting.

Leadership is not getting things your way. A leader treats the rare occasions in which this happens as mere coincidences, as they know discovery can only really occur when different perspective meet to shape not only the path, but the destination itself.

Leadership is not being better and faster. If a leader happens to be so, they will have to slow down and make sure everybody is there and has everything needed to carry on. Getting somewhere sooner and in a better shape is a Pyrrhic victory, as very few, if any, will have shared the path.

And most importantly, as should be clear by now, leadership is not the point of arrival. Many end up seeing, and yet only few manage to make others see as well, while taking them along on the path to an improvement for the whole group.

Great communicators

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There’s a general belief that a great talker is also a great communicator. That might be true, and yet I find that most often it is not.

The way I see it, there are three core qualities of a great communicator (that a great talker not necessarily has).

First, great communicators craft their messages carefully. I mean this in the broadest possible way. A good framework to look at it through is Grice’s maxims: quality (a message that is true), quantity (a message that is no more than what required), relevance (a message that is pertinent to the discussion) and manner (a message that is orderly, polite and clear).

Then, great communicators are consistent in their messages. They are not afraid of repeating, as they are aware that different people absorb information at different paces. Furthermore, having the message well-crafted allows them to experiment with channels and formats in ways that benefit the spreading of the message in the long term.

Finally, great communicators have profound understanding of their audience. This is also true in a broad way: they know who they are communicating with before the communication actually happens; they are awake and aware to signals from the audience while the communication is undergoing; and they are capable of redesigning (without losing consistency), learning from feedback and sentiment they perceive after the communication is over.

If you want to be a great communicator, talking a lot and well is not enough. Establishing a relationship aimed at some type of change is much more important. And much more complicated.

Adjusting expectations

Fabrizio1 Comment

It is very easy to hide when we can’t deliver.

When we have promised to do something, and then things changed unexpectedly, the most trivial thing to do is pretend the promise was not made in the first place. Not explaining what went wrong. Not answering to the request of clarification. Not showing up the next time.

Hiding.

And yet, we owe the people around us a “why” and a “what now”. Expectations can be adjusted, but trust is not easily given a second time if we fail it from the get-go.

 

Shifting attitude

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Everyone who is involved in a business, has the interest of the business at the top of their mind.

Of course, this is rarely 100% true. And yet, we should assume it is, and act as if. This would open us up for opportunity. Instead of spending our time trying to second guess others and protect our position against invisible threats, we could approach things from different perspectives, learn something about our colleagues, their work, their priorities and how they believe the business should move forward.

It’s a shift in attitude that would greatly enrich our view. It is worth making.

By the way, if you replace “business” with “family”, “friendship”, “community”, “team”, “neighbourhood”, and so on, it still works.