Tag: team work

Prompt response

FabrizioLeave a comment

There are very few cases in which a prompt response is required.

The more infuriating, unnerving, frustrating of messages demand that you take a step back. Clear your mind, go for a walk, take a full night of sleep, pause for a few days if necessary. Process what is going on within you, try to not second guess the sender, talk about it with someone you trust. Honestly evaluate if an answer is really needed. And if it is, when the time comes, craft it as if the person you most love and respect would be the recipient.

The damages made by prompt responses are immense. What is written or said once can never be taken back.

Urgent and change

FabrizioLeave a comment

Urgent usually comes from one person. It is a way to counter a fear, a discomfort, a stressor. It spreads very fast, it gets things done, and it kills motivation.

Change on the other hand is usually a collective action. It is pursued in reaction to a habit, a behaviour, an action, a system. It takes time, it has a non-linear progress, and it gives purpose.

What are you working on these days?

Support

FabrizioLeave a comment

Some people might give you carte blanche, but you have more chances when it is support you ask.

Support happens when you have a plan, a target you want to achieve, some ideas on how to achieve it, and you need somebody to be there with you, along the way. Support is somehow conditional. Not conditional on you getting there, rather conditional on you staying the course.

Carte blanche lets you wander, support gives you focus. Always be mindful what you are asking for and whom you are asking to.

More severe

FabrizioLeave a comment

Should people continue working from home (or from anywhere) after lock-downs and social distancing are no longer necessary, the leadership pains so many complain about are just going to get more severe.

Little communication and transparency, lack of empathy, difficulties in sharing a common vision, finding ways to work together on problems rather than distributing solutions. All of this is going to feel even worst when you do not have the aid of common spaces, shared coffee breaks, chit chats with colleagues and informal conversations.

The world is going to need many better leaders.

The most important moment

FabrizioLeave a comment

There is a time, in every marketing story, when the things you are working on do not deliver the expected results. Perhaps you have overpromised, perhaps the campaign is not effective as you imagined, perhaps a pandemic unexpectedly changed the rules of the game, perhaps your team is not as good as it should be, perhaps your leadership is not as good as it should be. One way or the other, pressure mounts, your job is on the line, your team is on the line, and people around you start to question everything you say.

I believe this is the single most important moment.

Because what is easy to do in such cases is to start blurring the boundaries between urgent and important, following shiny objects that can deliver short term results, draining your team to exhaustion and demotivation, putting more weight on opinions and less on facts, limit communication to a restricted circle of trusted people.

And the difficult thing to do is stay the course, spread your message wide, understand what is happening and involving people in finding solutions, expand beyond your team to tap into new knowledge, measure, defuse the situation, learn from the whole process and repeat.

Nobody forces you one way or the other. It is a choice.