When you engage in a new connection, expect friction.
You are trying to tie-in two (or more) parts that were separated before, and therefore it is granted there’s going to be misunderstanding, resistance, overreaching and suspicion.
Your role is to not misinterpret all of that as a signal a connection is not needed or wanted. Building bridges is the only way to progress, and you have to keep motivation high and fear low to gather people around a vision, a concept, an idea.
Hang in there.
Diversity is a tough sell because in the short term it only adds complexity.
In a context in which all that matters is what you achieved yesterday and what you are going to be doing tomorrow, adding someone to the team that might have different habits, different thoughts, different ideas, a different language, different ways of doing things is only problematic.
What is everybody else going to say? How are they going to adjust? How can we deliver against the targets if most of our time is spent aligning our views? Wouldn’t it be easier to just hire somebody like us, someone we don’t have to explain everything to?
Of course, if your mind is set on the long term, instead, the benefits of diversity are very easy to understand.
What team do you want when everything you have done so far is not going to work anymore (I promise you, it will happen)? How many points of view are you going to consider when that difficult problem nobody can crack is going to be presenting itself once again? What background should your organisation have the next time an interesting new market is going to open up in front of you?
Diversity is always enriching, you just have to give it time. As with most good things, truly.
When you are in an argument, understand this: as long as the two sides stand firm in their respective positions, no progress is possible.
If you just keep repeating your view, even with different words and from a different perspective, even if in time that view gets substantiated by additional facts and events, even when you get to the point in which you raise the ante certain it’s going to be the final move, most likely nothing is going to happen. Except, the other part is probably going to be even more convinced you are wrong.
Get into every argument open enough to be able to say “you are right”. Accept that the person in front of you is not idiot, delusional and mean. At the very least, try to ask questions to understand what they care about, what’s their sets of values, how is it so that they see the world so differently from you.
And then, try to build on that. Find common ground, things both of you find important, see their arguments as an opportunity for you to learn something, thank them for raising your awareness on something you were totally blind to.
Should that really not be possible, change the narrative. Run from the argument, reach for a topic that is not so directly in contrast with the other’s point of view, focus on explaining what you want to achieve.
Staying in the argument would just be a waste of time.
.. is much more important that what gets done.
That is to say, if culture eats strategy for breakfast, tactics are not even on the menu.
If still somebody has doubts about this, after all that has happened with Uber and WeWork these past 12 months, here is a statistic that further supports the importance of culture (and of executives and management promoting culture with their own behaviour) on organisations’ and personal success.
In 2018, 39% of the CEOs losing their job were ousted because of unethical behaviour (vs 35% because of poor financial performance).
It was the first year in which unethical behaviour led the list of reasons why CEOs get fired. And it is an additional sign that more and more people, even at board level, start taking culture seriously.
The way things are done is much more important that what gets done.
Consistency is about understanding what matters to you, and then relentlessly act in agreement with that.
Of course, not all the things can matter. What is important to you? Is it punctuality, honesty, openness, candour, performance, trustworthiness, impact, family, work, relationships, knowledge, expertise, power, generosity, compassion, empathy, confidence, independence, audacity, heroism, harmony, challenge, … . How do you define that in a way that makes it important to you?
That is the first step, one that is often overlooked. Be careful with your choice, because the second part is going out there in the world and showing up every day, in private and in public, in agreement with whatever you have chosen.
If you value punctuality, you should not be late, and when you are, you should apologise and repair.
If you value generosity, jealously clinging to what you have is probably not your thing.
If you value power, you might not want to turn and wait when somebody is left behind.
It sounds difficult, and it is. But the alternative is changing the way you act when the wind changes, following the mood of the moment: demanding openness today and complaining for getting it tomorrow; promoting honesty in the morning and lying in the afternoon; building a career on audacity and charisma and pretending people will believe you are a considerate leader that seeks harmony.
We know how this feels, so the work needed to achieve consistency is worth it.
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