It’s easy for most of us to complain about what other people do, the way they treat us, the things they say, sometimes even the thoughts they might have as they interact with us.
But are we as ready to say “thank you!” whenever they do something we actually like?
We shape the behaviour of those around us, and if complaints and criticism is all we give, whether we do that explicitly or not, why should we expect anything different in return?
Change is difficult, of course. But there are two separate challenges that one faces when asking for change.
The first one is psychological. It’s the most common and evident one. It’s the resistance of the mind. We like comfort, we like things the way they’ve always been, we don’t know what we might get into by changing. Perhaps we also recognize that circumstances are not great, and yet we cling to them, as the unknown is scarier than an imperfect known.
The second one is behavioural. This is more subtle. It’s the resistance of the body. We have embraced change on a theoretical level, and yet we keep falling back to old habits, to old frameworks, to old practices. We know we need change, and we are struggling either because nobody has shown us how to change or because nobody is holding us accountable for the little daily things that are needed to fully shift.
Both challenges need to be considered, and one might only be halfway through when everybody nods to their ideas and says: “this is great, exactly what we need!”.
There will always be two ways to build an identity.
The first one is founded on differences and contrasts.
We are different (from them).
Our team is the best performing in the company.
They do not care as much as we do.
When I see them, it makes me want to give my best to beat them.
The second one is founded on unity and commonalities.
We all work to have long lasting impact.
Our teams share the values of transparency and hard work.
We are in this together.
Our organisation wants to be a place in which people of different background can express their best work.
Which one you pick is an active choice, one that needs to be reaffirmed over time, one that you need to be aware of in the first place. So often we slip onto the first option simply because it is the easiest to put into practice. Be intentional.
Buzz is a misleading distraction.
More than 9 out of 10 venture capitalists think that unicorns (startups worth more than $1bn in the private market) are overvalued, no matter if they have one in their portfolio or not. Lyft‘s and Uber‘s stocks have lost respectively 43% and 28% of their value since they went public last spring. WeWork (and its investors) thought the company was three or four times more valuable than the higher point public investors would consider for its stock.
Buzz is misleading, because it generally focuses on one single thing. You always get what you reward, and so if all investors care about is valuation, the company can get to a high valuation (at least in the private market). And it is distracting, because it takes focus away from things that are more important when building an organisation that impacts millions of lives. Things such as the company culture, the business fundamentals, the effect of the product or service on society at large.
Companies can be built without raising money, without a pitch deck, and without a title in the front page of the financial newspaper.
It all depends on what you want to achieve in the long term.
It’s quite challenging to appreciate the impact of our actions on others. Mainly because it takes time to manifest, and we are often too focused on what is happening in the moment.
But on the other end, it is delusional to believe that our actions have no impact. We do not operate in a vacuum, and when we say something, behave in a certain way, choose one option over another, people around us will make a mental note and work on some type of reaction.
The more intentional you are about what you choose to do (and not to do), the more likely the influence on others will be the one you want to have. Unsurprisingly, it all start with awareness.
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