There are many things that are potentially interesting, many opportunities that could change the course of a life, many ways you can go about business that might make your company the new hyper-celebrated unicorn.
Yet, jumping from one to the next will do you no good.
Give one thing the needed time to grow.
You don’t care!
It just seems as if you don’t care.
When you are late in the morning, I feel like you don’t care.
When you are late in the morning, I feel frustrated, as I get to question your commitment.
The four statements all say the same thing. The way this is done, though, is extremely different. Only the last one opens the listener to what comes next.
And since we too easily tend to project our feelings on others’ behaviours – by judging the things they do under the lens of our own situation -, we need to practice how to give better feedback.
Thanks Ed Batista for the reminder.
Never walk into a meeting in which you have a relevant role – people expect you to present, to coordinate, to moderate, to organise -, without some careful preparation.
When you don’t prepare, you will either be talking too much or too little, the audience will get bored, the conversation will get all over the place, arguments will be shallow and discussions pointless. And there’s not going to be any concrete outcome. If you are not prepared for a meeting in which you have a relevant role, just cancel it.
This is also a great way to keep the numbers of meetings to a minimum. None of us is paid to prepare for meetings.
Experiences matter not because of the results you are getting, not because of the expertise you accumulate, not because of the final outcome, not because of the knowledge you did not have before.
They matter because of the people you share them with.
Make it about people, sooner rather than later.
That’s a way to cherish every moment of the journey.
Messaging is the equivalent of defining. And when you define something you put a limit to it.
If I say tree, everybody understands what I am talking about, but at the same time everybody will have their own image of a tree in their mind.
If I say birch, fewer people will understand what I am talking about, but those who do will have a clear image in their mind.
If I say betula pendula, most people will not understand what I am talking about, but the very few who do will have a very powerful image in their mind, and a very strong connection with me.
Messaging is ineffective for many products because the limit is pushed further and further and further again, until the message itself loses any power to define what the product actually is. And for the fear of losing opportunities and market shares, all you end up selling is trees. Just like anybody else.
If your work involves some messaging, remember that your goal is to limit, not to expand. You can have different messages for different people and for different channels, but each one of them needs to be limited in order to resonate and actually mean something.
The alternative is drowning in an ocean of sameness.
You've got this 