Tag: values

More severe

FabrizioLeave a comment

Should people continue working from home (or from anywhere) after lock-downs and social distancing are no longer necessary, the leadership pains so many complain about are just going to get more severe.

Little communication and transparency, lack of empathy, difficulties in sharing a common vision, finding ways to work together on problems rather than distributing solutions. All of this is going to feel even worst when you do not have the aid of common spaces, shared coffee breaks, chit chats with colleagues and informal conversations.

The world is going to need many better leaders.

The most important moment

FabrizioLeave a comment

There is a time, in every marketing story, when the things you are working on do not deliver the expected results. Perhaps you have overpromised, perhaps the campaign is not effective as you imagined, perhaps a pandemic unexpectedly changed the rules of the game, perhaps your team is not as good as it should be, perhaps your leadership is not as good as it should be. One way or the other, pressure mounts, your job is on the line, your team is on the line, and people around you start to question everything you say.

I believe this is the single most important moment.

Because what is easy to do in such cases is to start blurring the boundaries between urgent and important, following shiny objects that can deliver short term results, draining your team to exhaustion and demotivation, putting more weight on opinions and less on facts, limit communication to a restricted circle of trusted people.

And the difficult thing to do is stay the course, spread your message wide, understand what is happening and involving people in finding solutions, expand beyond your team to tap into new knowledge, measure, defuse the situation, learn from the whole process and repeat.

Nobody forces you one way or the other. It is a choice.

Hear the noes

FabrizioLeave a comment

It is up to you to set expectations with those around you.

If you are a leader, this means setting expectations first and foremost with those you report to (upper management, executives, board). Expectations on what can be achieved, in which time frame, at what cost. Saying yes at all cost, whatever the reason for it, will just put you in a situation where all you can accept from those who report to you is a resounding and enthusiastic “yes!”. And a “yes” – perhaps not resounding, perhaps not enthusiastic – is all you are going to get. Ever.

It is the perfect recipe for failure.

Defuse

Fabrizio1 Comment

Caught in the heat of an argument, the challenge is to find the lucidity to defuse. Do that while you are in a position of power, and you will have made real progress.

Going head against head, second guessing, paying back, raising your voice, smashing and controlling. Those are short-lived strategies that will just feed into the next argument.

What is strength?

Sparkles and glitter

FabrizioLeave a comment

As long as you keep running from boring, repetitive, uninteresting, unrewarding, uneventful, average, your chances of actually mastering something are going to be very limited. There’s a wrong perception that success is equivalent to sparkles and glitter, but that only comes after (if at all), and it does not usually lasts for very long.

Find ways to get accustomed to the 99% of your life and suddenly you’ll be a much better human being, parent, partner, leader, or anything else you aim to be.