Saying no is a sign of commitment.
When you know that what you are doing matters, you want to dedicate to it as much time and energy as possible. And you can only do that if you have developed the capacity to resist alternatives, to refuse help, to reject opportunities.
Saying no is saying you are on the right path.
Doing work in a group also means acknowledging that different people have different ways to react to and express anxiety, stress, fear.
Most groups respond to the attitude of the person in power, and the person in power wants to get out of the unpleasant situation as soon as possible: more control, more direction, more drama. This often means everyone hides and looks for ways to stay afloat.
Successful groups manage to talk. To air their feelings and find a shared way forward. To take the differences and dig value from them. To step into the unknown together, at the same time.
When you set out to figure out how to control your employees more closely – checking how much time they spend in meetings, measuring how many breaks they take during the day, asking for what reasons they are taking time off -, you have problems that no surveillance system in the world can fix.
Trust leads engagement.
Structure is what gives predictability. You can expect certain things to happen because the script says so. Structure does not like free thinkers and innovators: somebody else already did all the thinking and the innovating, it is now time to march.
Chaos is the exact opposite. You have to figure out what is going to happen because there is no script. Chaos does not believe in bosses and managers: there is no past experience to replicate or resources to carefully allocate, it is time to connect the dots.
Design your habits and practice so that it is possible to move continuosly between structure and chaos.
That is a feat you will need.
The only thing we have moderate control on is ourselves. What we do. How we react. The way we talk about the events of life. Who we spend time with, and where.
And yet, we spend an incredible amount of energy trying to guide what others think, the random events, what others will decide, and whether they want to spend time with us or not.
Focus on what is within reach.
You've got this 