Category: book

If you’re already skilled and get paid to work, what’s so hard?

In your daily work, did you ever thought about “How hard it is to program?” or to “Make a marketing plan” or “Make a cappuccino” or to “Make a pizza”?

Did you ever thought your basic requirements for working were too high for you? I doubt it. It’s not that. 
What’s hard is communication, is managing people, is finding agreements between the various parts.

But no, working doesn’t belong to this complexity, working is the easy part. Once you learned how to do the basic job, that’s easy. The hard thing is to communicate, to be empathic, to get things moving.

It’s absurd to think that in a world made of people you can leave out people from the equations. They are not numbers they are part of the system and as such you have to learn how to deal with them. How to communicate so that each and every person will feel special in a meaningful way, so that they can contribute.

Your work is 35% work, 65% communication.
Think about it when you want to learn something new.

What happens when your boss comes to you and ask you if you can finish this -superbig project- in 10 days?

You might be tempted to say yes, to please the boss even though you know it’s impossible and it’ll require you to do some extra work.

What would happen then is that one day your boss might come for _another_ job on the same level, and another one, and another one.

That lie will build up until it won’t be sustainable. You’ll be overwhelmed unless you change something in the equation.

This is a common situation if you think about marketing and selling. We’re used to think that to sell you have to lie. To sell things you can’t have because it’s more important to get the client and then “who cares”. Right?

It’s a short term benefit, but not a long term strategy. 
It can’t be a long term strategy because it’s not sustainable. What’s the right answer then if your boss comes over with such complex questions?

Take time. 
Say “Give me 30 minutes to think about it”.
Or maybe it a day, one week, whatever seems enough to get a hold of what you need.
You might not get a perfect answer, but at least you will know that your answer is based on actual information and not because you want to be nice to the boss.

After all it all boils down to say more No’s in life. 
It’s like when your friend come over and tells you a great idea, would you want to partecipate in it?
If you say yes to all your friends you would probably end up doing nothing and be overwhelmed again.

As you see this applies to each part of life.
We have _finite_ time, mind and resources.
Our goal is to make our best with what we have and play for the long run, not the short run.

I know, the short term benefit is appealing, but the long term strategy always outshine any short term benefit as long as you’re going for it.

Think about razors. When they were first invented nobody would ever thought that the money wouldn’t have come from selling the razor. In fact, you could even sell the razor for a lower price because what would be the n°1 moneymaker would be razor blades.

Razor blades, yes, because you would pay them each month, each year, forever.
With one razor you would have a recurring revenue that would last forever. That’s a long term strategy.

But if you played it short term maybe you would have sold the razor at a higher price, lowering the adoption and thus losing the race.

To get that though you have to learn to say no and yes to the right things, taking into account what’s most precious: Your time.

We live in a world filled with people who sell things.
Most of these things aren’t real, some of these things are simply lies.

What are you going to offer to the world? Let’s say you made a mistake in your daily work.
Are you planning to cover it up?
Will you find some excuse to be sure you’re not responsible?
Will you blame someone else?

Or consider this: You did your job. 
Will you pump it up even though it’s not completed?
Will you try to make it look much more valuable even though you’re selling air?

_Anyone_ can do this. 
Anyone can lie, some people can do it better than others. But it’s something the world already knows.

We see it each and every day, when the call center calls you to sell you the new offer for your home electricity and we no there are rarely such good offer.

Would you say these lies improved your life? I bet no.

So be honest.
It’s hard, I know. It’s hard to be judged and not judging. 
To not have a way out.

But if you did a mistake, then accept it. It’s life. The mistake will still be there anytime, but you’ll have an opportunity to learn how to build trust with the people you know.

Lying, on the other hand, is both risky and useless.

Many people in this world tried selling things they didn’t have.
In the short term they get rich, and they seem to get fame, power, whatever.
But it’s not _common_ for them to sustain that in the long term.

Honesty might not be appreciated, and it might require to learn how to share your honesty, which shouldn’t be a radical change, nor a violent one.
But in the end, honesty is a long term choice while lying is always a short term strategy.

So, in case of a big mistake, how can you share the truth without feeling a shit?
First of all: Say you’re sorry. Say it like you mean it.

Then explain the situation, be vulnerable, share what were your goals, expectations, and what you _didn’t_ foresee.

Then tell them you’re going to be sure this won’t happen again and share a plan, a real plan not a fake one, to prevent it or at least limit the damage.

That’s it. Honesty requires courage but no skills.

1. Don’t do meetings.
2. If meetings are required ask yourself “Can I contribute to it?” If not, get out of the meeting.
3. Keep meetings short.
4. If meetings can’t be short split the topics. Unless you’re creating the next Coca Cola you won’t need a long meeting.
5. Arrive prepared. Do your homework, read mails, papers, etc. 
6. Don’t ask for a recap at the beginning of the meeting of what you should know. Arrive prepared or else you’re useless.
7. Don’t ask for a recap at the end of the meeting.
8. No smartphone.
9. At least one person should do the meeting recap via mail, listing all that’s been decided. (If no action will followup the meeting, then the meeting is useless and could’ve been discarded).
10. If no person is defined, be the one. Take responsability and ownership.
11. Let people talk.
12. Respect the time. If a meeting last 30 minutes, 10 minutes before the end a timer should ring and the recapper should both replay for the presents what’s been decided and prepare the email. If the meeting last 1hr do it 15 min before the end. If the meeting last more than 1hr refer to rule number 4.
13. No small talk at the beginning of the meeting. Take coffe together before if you really need it.
14. Arrive prepared (yes, it’s written twice because it’s _that_ important).
15. If you can’t arrive prepared skip the meeting.
16. Be on time or everyone will lose time. Your time is not more important than others, whatever your position.
17. Ask people _beforehand_ if the meeting time is ok. A meeting on a calendar is not a way to block people time.
18. Arrive prepared.
19. Arrive on time.
20. Don’t be a jerk.

This year I made an “experiment”. 
I wanted to know from some people if I had some issues to fix, both technical and non technical, so I sent out a small survey to ask them for help and an honest question.

Not all of them answered but some did and their answer was not what I was expecting.
I first felt nervous because whenever you get some critics comments you are always caught a little bit off guard, even though you asked for them.

Then I detached a little bit and thought about what they were saying to me to understand what could I improve.

Now, here’s the thing: When someone is discussing about _you_ there’s no way you can easily shut down the instinct to say “No, I’m not like that”.
If someone comes to you and have something to argue about what you’re doing or how you’re doing your work it’s hard.

It’s hard to accept that even if that person is right.
My personal howto is to take some time and analyze it by removing all the personal bias from it.

If I’m thinking “He’s saying this to me because _he/she_ doesn’t understand bla bla bla” I’m trying to lower the value of their judgement.
It might help your ego, but it doesn’t help you understanding if they’re giving you a chance to improve or not.

Remove the bias, remove all the judgement coming from your past experience with them. Even if they have some bias they might still sharing you this issue _because_ you don’t know how to communicate it.