Tag: self-improvement

What’s happening?

FabrizioLeave a comment

You enter the last week before the delivery of an important project. Your part is mostly done, you are mainly coordinating the work of others to make sure the deadline is met. One of the colleagues involved, talking with some stakeholders from other departments, gathers some piece of feedback that makes them reconsider a sizable part of the work they are doing on the project. They discuss it with you, and you feel put off by such a thing so close to the deadline. If that wasn’t enough, another person who has leverage and influence over the project sides with the criticism, and elaborates thoughts and ideas on how to possibly fix it in the long term. The deadline looms.

What do you do?

  1. You go in the tank. You have delivered your part after all, you are marginally involved in the remaining job, and excuses can be made for the lack of it. At some point, somebody will realize that there’s a problem, and you will be able to clearly explain why that has happened, and that it is not your fault.
  2. You block everything and ask to postpone the deadline. There’s lack of agreement on how to proceed, no reason to force a solution, and it is perhaps possible to open a broader discussion. People will ask about what happened, and you’ll have an explanation.
  3. You go ahead, as it was originally planned. The delivery is more important, having something some people think could be improved is far better than having an incomplete job and having to go around to explain why. You take a note to follow up on the criticism, and see if for the future it is possible to make that part better.

This is not a test.

We all probably go through the same (or very similar) thoughts at the same time. Each one of them has good motivations backing it and some kind of personal, self-interested roots. Eventually we will choose a course of action based on feelings and attitude rather than on concrete elements and facts.

We are all human beings, and it’s important to understand what is going on within us, before attempting to make a decision. That’s what can give us edge in the long term.

Pick three people

Fabrizio1 Comment

Your work would go in a much straighter line without feedback.

You’d just have to agree with yourself, put in the effort, enjoy the ride and deliver when its due. Nobody pointing out how that was tried already and did not work, how the sentence in the second paragraph could be better phrased to reflect the company’s values, how the blue could just be a bit more blue, or how it is fundamental to also feature the last meeting minutes to makes sure everybody is on the same page.

And how would you get out of doing the same thing over and over and over again? How would you get better, be more effective, get closer to your customers, in a single word “develop”?

We certainly get too much feedback, and yet we need feedback. And sometimes, in the rush of the end of the quarter, we just cut feedback out because we don’t have time to filter it, to process it, to act on it.

Pick three people. One you respect, one that is professionally close to you and one that is where you picture yourself in five-ten years. Ideally, they should be exposed to your work, or happy to be exposed to it. As you know them, you know that when they deliver feedback they do it genuinely, honestly and with your best interest in mind. As they know you, they know what type of feedback you are seeking, what your stengths are, your ambitions, your passions, your motivators, and where you want to go (and who you want to bring along). They might grow out of their role (respect is not forever, your role might change, your plans might as well), and that is fine, because other people will enter the stage ready to take their place.

Pick three people. And listen carefully to what they have to say. Absorb and digest their feedback, see what make sense, argument your position without defensiveness, open up and take the time to cherish the learning experience. Test what they suggest, see if it works, make changes and reiterate.

Pick three people. The others will have to wait.

No single way

FabrizioLeave a comment

No matter what you read online, in books, in magazines. No matter what you learn at school, at workshops, at conferences. No matter what your boss tells you, what your teachers tell you, what influencers tell you.

There is not one single way to be successful.

The world is full of companies that made it by being ruthless, and of companies that made it by sharing. Of people who have climbed the ranks by badmouthing all the competition, and of people who have been promoted because they are good at helping others. Of teams that deliver unprecedented results by focusing on control and performance, and of teams that have changed their industry by embracing uncertainty and freedom.

The only thing that matter is your way.

You have to know who you are, why you are doing what you are doing, how you prefer to be treated and motivated, what matters to you, how you define success and what you are willing to do to achieve it. And then, surround yourself with people with which you feel alignment.

Problem is most people skip the self-awareness part and go straight to the quest of finding a job, a partner, a team, a purpose. There is not one single way to be successful, and this is certainly one to not be.

Finding new stories

FabrizioLeave a comment

We often misjudge the relationship between cause and effect.

I have been fine being lazy all my life, but since I started exercising, it’s one injury after the other.

I have always had a job, but since immigrants started pouring into our country, I cannot find anything that’s worth my time.

I have never felt remorse from trying to be better than others, but since I began listening to people, now I am stuck and cannot progress in my career.

That’s what I have always done, so why should I change now?

The reasons we find to justify our behaviour, or the lenses we use to look into the past, are never neutral. We want to feel what we are doing or did is ok, and we do our best to find reasons not to have to change.

The world around us, though, does not matter about cause and effect. Time passes, societies evolve, technology progresses, relationships degrade, people leave, and we might very easily find ourselves in a world that we struggle to comprehend.

And at this very moment, we have a choice. We can find fake comfort in the stories we have told ourselves so far or we can go out with an open heart to find new stories.

I’ll go back to being lazy to make sure I continue staying healthy or I’ll continue exercising, taking into account the fact my body is not used to it, and I might have to take it easier in the beginning.

I’ll fight against immigration to make sure there’s a job for me or I’ll check if I can update my skills to better match the needs of the modern world.

I’ll stop listening and caring about people so to make sure I can get an edge or I’ll make an attempt to help people be better at what they are doing, and who knows what opportunities might open up for me.

If you are brave enough to choose what’s new, that does not mean you have to repudiate the old at the same time. It is part of you, of the person you have become, and there’s no reason to reject of forget it.

Just don’t build around yourself a prison made of what’s been. Use it as a stepping stone to leap into what will be.

Your story

FabrizioLeave a comment

Make sure who you are defines the job you do, and not the other way around.

You might be stuck in a job you do not like, and yet this does not alter the person and the professional you aim to be. If you are treated fairly, you can still do a good work, deliver value in details, lend an helping hand, translate experiences into learnings.

And when it is time to move on, continue on a path of self-definition and self-affirmation.

Never lose track of who you are and what you are here for. That’s what makes your story coherent and worth telling.