Is your company about business or about people?
Of course, the former is a given and the latter is claimed by the majority. Yet decisions and behaviour, particularly in difficult moments, tip the scale.
Another way to put the question would be the following.
In the past few weeks, have you asked your people to do more or have you offered to do more for your people?
The fact is, when you offer to do more for those around you it is very likely you’ll end up getting more in return.
We are often puzzled by success, as in most of the cases we do average work and expect outcomes to be average at best.
And so, when something extraordinary happens, we invest time in trying to figure out what is the reason, what have we done this time we have not done before, what is the difference. We do this because we’d like to replicate such unexpected success, make it the norm, the future average.
The truth is, most of this type of success is due to a weird combination of factors that we often call luck.
So if you really want to craft your success, at least do it before it happens. Build a practice, be consistent and relentless, use common sense and reiterate. All these things tend to get lost when we look back at success, as we desperately want to focus on that tiny little detail that changed it all (it did not, of course).
The fourth blog post.
The second month in an important project.
The tenth episode of your podcast.
The sixth year in your wedding.
The eleventh year of being a parent.
The fifth exam at the university.
The twentieth cover letter you customise.
The third year in your job.
That’s where the real challenge lies.
Getting started takes mindset and effort, but the adrenaline of “new” might make up for a lack in both. It’s when you have to keep going with no cheers at every turn that things get tough.
The pain that we feel, the fear that stops us, the worry that keeps us up.
They rarely go away for good. They are hardwired into our brains and they tend to come back as the circumstances around us shift towards something we have already experienced in the past. Somebody who hurt us, a sudden scare for our wellbeing, an highly anticipated event.
We must be happy when we manage to put them in their place.
Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We cannot lose any of them, and yet as we progress, their relevance diminishes in front of the full picture.
How are you?
How do you feel?
How is your family?
What can I help you with?
What would make your daily routine better?
What do you want to tackle this week?
How would you go about this?
Is there anything on the calendar you want to push back/reschedule/cancel?
One cannot fake empathy. But these questions are a good way to practice and get accustomed to worry more about the well being of your team than the next looming deadline.
We are in this together.
You've got this 