The stories we are told about what leaders have done and what peers have done have a strong impact on the way we will behave.
What leaders have done shape our view of what is acceptable.
What peers have done make the acceptable desirable (and achievable) for us too.
Instead of leaving your organization in the arbitrary hands of internal gossiping and politicking, use stories strategically to guide behavior.
Recruitment is customer service.
For many employees, their first contact with your organisation is via your recruitment function. For most people, the only interaction with your organisation is with your recruitment function.
Both recruitment and customer service deal with a high volume of traffic that makes it difficult to identify what matters. And in both cases, this challenge often translates in poor service and missed opportunities.
The fact is, recruitment and customer service are windows through which people look inside the organisation. They might become employees or not, they might become customers or not. But for sure they will leave with a clear impression of what you stand for – an impression that will spread to the people with whom they will share the experience.
Recruitment and customer service are powerful tools for word-of-mouth.
It is worth investing in them with intention and strategy.
You need to be able to discern between different shades and understand that most of what is good happens in the middle.
You can support a candidate even if their thinking does not match yours 1:1.
You can have a conversation with someone even when you do not share the same view of the world.
You can be committed to a project even when it’s a cause of stress and disappointment.
You can love someone even if your heart does not beat faster every time you see them.
You can appreciate a person even though you would not give them certain responsibilities.
Idealizing and romanticizing is the enemy of contentment.
It’s not that the ideas for ways to keep your team engaged are scarce – in fact here are 37 of them.
The point is that managers struggle to understand that these days – perhaps most of the time, but these days in particular -, people do not get excited for a new work project, for the last quarter extraordinary results, or for the announcement of the new CTO.
People seek meaning, and enabling connection with peers and colleagues is one sure way to give it to them.
The fact that with remote work the task is more difficult should merely be an incentive to explore new and creative ways.
Care is something under your full control that can give you an immense edge.
It works on three levels, which are deeply intertwined.
Care is not easy and it cannot be faked.
And when you care, you become unstoppable.
You've got this 