One of the things people misunderstand about average is that it is not necessarily stable over time.
Average can scale, it can get things done, it can make a difference in the long term.
It’s just a matter of consistency and perspective.
Tag: resolutions
Just easier
Knowing yourself – what you stand for, what you want to achieve, how you like things done, what you want to avoid – is important mainly because it saves you from the frustration of not being able to have it all.
You can have control and you can have agility. You can’t have them both.
You can have family time and you can have a glorious career. You can’t have them both.
You can have independence and you can have stability. You can’t have them both.
When you know yourself, you know what matter, and letting go of things is just easier.
Note: of course, there are exceptions. Some people can have one and the other. But exceptions are rare, and betting on them is often conducive to further frustration.
Indicators
A change in focus requires a change in indicators.
If you decide to focus on employees well-being and retention, why are you still talking about growth rate?
If you decide to break down the silos, why are you still setting goals and reporting results by department?
If you want to spend more time with your family, why is your salary still the measure of your success?
A change is a change.
Talking about it
If you have something you care about – an idea, some work you have done, a job, a project, a new product -, it’s fair for you to assume that nobody else will get it. And it’s your responsibility to explain it, sell it, evangelize it, adjust it, combine it, market it.
That means two things.
First, that we can’t assume that we will hit the mass on day 1. Overnight success is a hoax, but you know that already.
Second, and most importantly for this post, that your role very soon gets much more complex. Because if you want to buy people into whatever you are doing (that you care about), you need to spend a large amount of your time talking about it.
And I guess that the bad news is that nothing is self-evidently great.
And the good one is that everything can be.
Mental shifts
When I was a teenager, and computers where just starting to become common things in Italian households, I remember a family friend used to be convinced that they could transmit viruses that where dangerous to people.
What happened is that he probably heard about computer viruses, and he just stuck to his own definition: viruses are a danger for human beings.
This challenge in making new ideas fit into old mental concept and ideas is very common. And if you fall into that, you are not an idiot or uneducated. You simply still have not had the mental shift.
And for that, you are pretty much always in time.
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