Tag: values

Ready

FabrizioLeave a comment

When a crisis hits, the human tendency is to focus on the crisis itself. Finding ways to mitigate it, get past it, sometimes leverage it.

But if you have a system, a strategy, a story you have built throughout the years, the focus should not be on the crisis. How does the system/strategy/story changes? What can you keep, what do you have to put on hold, what will you add? What can you do today that serves it and how will the crisis enhance all of this?

When you take this longer term approach, you’ll be ready to go once the crisis is over (instead of depleted of energy). It takes time, and it’s worth it.

Signals

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The things you say no to – and the things you say yes to as well of course – they signal what you care about. In the day to day, for most things, it might seem not too important (it is). But when you are in a leadership position, there is no excuse. You might have very good reasons to dedicate your attention or energy to this or that, yet eventually you are telling those around you what matters and what you all together are about.

Tread carefully with these kind of decisions, they do not affect yourself only.

Candidate position

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What is currently happening in American politics is a matter of positioning.

Trump (the incumbent) is going after Obama in an attempt to reposition the previous administration as corrupt and indecent, in order to extend such a label to the democratic candidate that is going to challenge him in November. Biden (the challenger) is indeed approaching the election with two main topics: “I am not Trump” (not a great idea, by the way, positioning-wise) and “I was part of one of the most successful and popular administrations in the US history” (that in terms of positioning could be seen as a sort of “line-extension”, again not a great idea). And so, Trump is going after Obama to go after Biden, attempting to undermine the image of integrity and likeability the two (but mainly Obama, to be fair) have established.

Now, what Trump is doing is a legitimate strategy. Will it be effective, though? The fragility of the story Trump is building is probably not on his side. You can tell another product is inferior, or has flaws, or is not up to the task, yet that’s not something you can base on hearsay and speculation. Most of all, though, I believe what Trump is doing is not a winning strategy because he has decided to play in the challenger’s field. Instead of leveraging topics that are common to his admistration and to his past success, he is going after something new, a domain (integrity and likeability) that is not really his own.

Curious to see how this will develop in the coming months.

Training

FabrizioLeave a comment

I am glad you did this (for me, for the company, for our family) is not really the best way to express gratitude. It is something to say, at best, when you tolerate what was done, when you think it was not necessary yet did not hurt, when it’s about something you are quite neutral about.

Thank you is more simple and gets to the point instead. Say it often, make of it a habit, and truly mean it. Gratitude is a muscle that can be trained.

Hiding

FabrizioLeave a comment

When we attempt to second guess people behaviour. When we want to figure out why somebody is acting in a certain way. When we do read the room to understand who likes us and who does not. When we catch a phrase, a movement, a gaze and we interpret it as a judgement on what we are doing or who we are. In all these cases, we put ourselves at the center, as if everything would gravitate around us.

When somebody needs a comforting word. When there’s need of a new perspective, a new approach, a new idea. When we have not heard from a person for a long time, and we miss them. When it’s time to jump on a stage and make a difference. In all these cases, we diminish ourselves, as if there’s nothing our unimportant self can do to change things.

We continuosly move from one extreme to the other, and it’s just hiding.