ARE YOU WORTH IT?
Thursday, April 19, 2012 § Leave a comment
Everything that is true for the briefing business – see post below – is true for personal relationships as well. It’s no good to get all huffy puffy about disappointed expectations that were never articulated in the first place.
You act and feel like a douche/bitch though if you set-out your demands on what needs to happen for you to be satisfied and happy.
“Jump up from the sofa when I come home and look at me admiringly!”
“Buy me expensive things for my birthday!”
“I am your best lover ever! In fact, forget that you ever were with someone else.”
“If push came to shove, I could take him.”
“Never tell your stupid shrimp joke when we are with my friends.” (Lady is coming out of the grocery store, two big shopping bags in her hands. A man in a trench-coat steps out in front of her. He opens his coat and is completely naked underneath. She stops in her tracks and says, ‘Oh! I forgot the shrimp.’)
“Never wear socks in bed!” (if you are not German, you might not have heard that one.)
The business briefing (see post below) that sets all sorts of rules is useless if it doesn’t also address the emotional subtext of the task. The same is true for articulating personal expectations. The example demands above are a cop-out. If you want your emotional needs met, you need to bare exactly those needs, not some stand-in behavior rules.
Baring emotional needs is a scary business. It requires you to inspect your insecurities and then to share them. If you find friends and partners that respond positively, you’ve got yourself a keeper and are building a rewarding relationship. If you don’t invest that vulnerability, you are wasting your time.
DELIVERING ON THE BRIEFING
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 § 1 Comment
It’s easy to give a general direction to your staff member and then be disappointed with the results. “If only my staff would be better, but they just don’t produce up to my expectations,” you might hear a manager say. That’s not an acceptable response.
Sitting down and putting in writing what you expect from a staff-member or supplier takes time and effort. Your staff cannot deliver on a briefing, if there is no briefing.
There are standard things that a brief needs to cover (objectives, resources, constraints, etc.). Crucial though is your soul-searching on what you really want, what you are willing to give and what you are willing to see happen.
The task exists because you want some innovation/change. That means some things that are in place must be torn down and new things need to be built. The task exists because it is not clear what exactly needs to happen – the briefing is not an instruction. To innovate, your staff member needs to get an understanding of the radicalness with which to approach the task and what sacred cows to stay clear of. In most cases there is a bunch of organizational baggage and history attached to what can and cannot be changed.
Those taboos in the organization and in yourself are tough to acknowledge. It takes honest reflection and courage to express them and to commit to what’s allowed to happen.
Delivering that briefing is hard work. That’s what leadership is.
Business Buddhism 