Tag: relationships

Through the eyes of others

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The only possibility we have to get a reliable view on ourselves is to look through the eyes of others.

Most of us have the tendency to think we are better than the average. We think we are more intelligent, better performing, more charitable, more careful, even in the face of evidence that we are not.

Or we beat ourselves up for things we did well. We give in to resistance, we feel our work is not yet perfect, our blog post not enough researched, our project not ready to be launched yet.

And so, it’s the others who can be our compass.

Ask those whom you hold dear, listen to their criticism, and act on it. When you are not getting the honest opinion you were seeking, look at facts, events, circumstances that tend to repeat themselves with different people, in different context, at different times. If you often find yourself raising your voice, you might have a challenging temperament; if you are not getting promoted in a series of consecutive gigs, you might have to adjust your professional presence; if you continuously find it difficult to convince others of your views, you might want to start crystallizing important ideas first; if your work is not getting the results you were expecting, you might try setting some relevant metrics to track over time.

The point is, the sooner you get out of your mind when it comes to judging yourself and your work, the more practical and actionable feedback you will get. Be the one who determines where to look, then let others be your guide.

Change is additive

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Change does not wipe away what was. It builds on it.

And when we change, it is often so that what we build looks way too similar to what was. After all, it is easier to fall back on what is known than it is to imagine the unknown.

It is ok, as change is an additive process. It is made of layers on top of each others. Some familiar, some peculiar. While you go, you will realize that change is happening, even when it does not seem so.

That is when you start to appreciate the journey and understand that the destination is mere chance.

Elements of value

Fabrizio1 Comment

It is not enough to say that your company focuses on delivering values to customers.

What is value?

If you don’t stop for a long moment considering this question, you are not focused on value. Value is economical, and it is also technical, social, personal, functional, aspirational. Value takes into consideration material costs, and also possible issues, adoption, expansion, scale. Value is transactional and relational. Value is co-operative.

And once you have identified all the elements that make up your value, you still have two steps to take.

First, you have to understand the why of value. Why does it matter. Not tomorrow, not one year from now, not one day maybe. But now.

Then, you have to build a system that constantly delivers on the elements across the various departments, that captures and measures the elements, that continues assessing them, that creates incremental evidence for them, and that ensures that they are not replicated by competitors and new entrants.

Value is a complex concept, not another organisational buzz word.

The marketer’s dilemma

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Got an interesting newsletter from Peep Laja at Wynter.com this morning, that got me thinking of the marketer’s dilemma.

If a marketer does boring and safe, nobody will object. If they do as it’s always been done. If they use terms like productivity, efficiency, streamlined, best-in-class, seamless. Even when every one at the table has a different understanding and a different experience of what those terms mean, nobody will object. Because who is going to stand up and say “what is productivity?”.

If a marketer does specific and unusual, on the other hand, everyone will panic.

Of course, boring and safe will bring you nowhere, because boring and safe is what 94.97% of companies do. So, the marketer’s dilemma is really between being accepted among their peers in the short term and being well received by the market in the long term.

It is a difficult choice.

Use what you want to run from

Fabrizio1 Comment

Your boss who seems so confident is afraid too.

The colleague who has always something relevant to share is anxious too.

That speaker you love for the way they thrill the audience is nervous too.

The successful entrepreneur you are reading about is worried too.

The point is not making fear, anxiety, and the like go away. The point is using them to your advantage. Can fear push you to get out of your comfort zone and see what is out there? Can anxiety help you run through different scenarios and find them not as scary as they initially seemed? Can nervousness be the reason why you practice one more time? Can worry fire up a need to consult different perspective without getting stuck?

Make the most of what you have, even when at first it seems like something you just want to run away from.