Tag: values

Broken trust

Fabrizio2 Comments

Trust is given, trust is built, trust is broken.

And when it is broken, it needs repairing.

A great way to go about this is to start with “I am sorry”. And honestly stop there. At the very least until the other party signals that they are ready to move forward, under a tacit agreement that trust will not be broken again.

A lazy way to go about this is one of the infinite variations of “it’s not my fault”. For sure, you were busy, a pandemic hit, the circumstances were exceptional, the end of the quarter was around the corner. A wide array of ways to simply say: “listen, I can’t commit, trust will be broken again.”

A bad way to go about this is to pretend nothing happened. To go about your day as if everything was fine, as if no break needed repairing, as if the other person would not be telling you over and over again that there is a problem. This does not lay the ground for any type of future relationship. It is just a loud and clear: “I do not care”.

Three items

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If you draft a list of what is important and you end up with more than three items, that is just a to-do list.

You can focus on one item at any single time, and you can allow one or two more for when that single, most important one is giving you a break. That is it. Anything that you add on top of that is just confusion and distraction, sucking up energies and resources that you could otherwise invest delivering against what is important.

You pick the items on that list. But make it so they are no more than three.

The time for bad

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When a crisis happens, we all want to move on. But if the situation is still bad, just say it is bad, do not try to sell the idea of a positive future that nobody can envision in the moment.

Of course, every crisis bears opportunities, tomorrow will be better, we will all get past it and we will be stronger. The problem is that if your rush past the bad situation, you will delay the time when good will come, you will miss on learning opportunities, and most importantly you will deny all those involved the chance to grieve.

Respect the time for bad.

Where you ought to be

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One thing I like about the competing value framework is that it puts the emphasis on intentional choices when it comes to culture.

You can foster an environment that focuses on results and delivery, and that means you will probably have to forgo the type of company where people work together in harmony. You can prefer to take decisions at the highest levels of the hierarchy and ensure that everything is checked by a manager before it is ready for the public, and that means you will probably not get a lot of new ideas or retain people that seek a purpose in what they do.

Clearly, things can change over time, and extremely successful companies find ways to position towards the center of the matrix. But choices play a key role in defining culture. Whether they are intentional or the product of habits, just do not be surprise when you’ll find yourself exactly where you ought to be.

In these times of change

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In these times of change, we are going to stick to the plan.

Of course, you do not hear that. And that is proof of how poor plans usually are (for those who have plans at all), as well as of how impatient people grow when things do not work right here and right now.

The fact is, it is always times of change. Not always a pandemic, clearly, but a new competitor, a new market, a new boss, a new product, a new opportunity, a new regulation, a new standard, a new consumer behaviour.

Change is a given, in business as it is in life.

Hiding behind it to motivate bending the rules, going against your identity, cutting on kindness, should be done with extreme care.