Giving others power.
Empowerment. How it’s commonly understood: to give others power. And just like that, it becomes a tool for command and control, because just as you can give power, you can take it away. It turns into a way to keep people within rails and expect that someone else will take responsibility for them at the end. It comes from the ego “I can empower others”. However… Here’s its definition: Empowerment. “The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life.”…
The extra mile
Talking about underpromising and overdelivering, here’s an exercise for you. 🙂 Take 5 brands/companies you LOVE. Not that you like very much or that they’re quite good. That you LOOOOVE. → Do they underpromise to you? → Or do they make you a promise, keep it and deliver on it? When they go the extra mile for you is not underpromising and overdelivering. It has to do more with their values and capacity. Here’s the thing If/When they can’t go that extra mile, they tell you and you’re OK with…
A different view to hiring (and leading).
Most of the advice you find about hiring is focused or tailored for big corps. For a startup or a growing team? Not really. How do you get to nail hiring and find (and keep) top performers? That’s kind of the million-dollar question. Recently had a talk with friend of the list Anthony Holloway, lead of Talent Acquisition at Woebot Health. His views on how to approach hiring are quite refreshing and clean of HR-BS. And there’s something here I found captivating: Anthony’s directness and…
Balance or Harmony?
Balance. It pulls one side on, or from the other to make things even. It takes from one to give to the other, so it keeps an equilibrium. And sometimes it feels like juggling. Business, work, fam, leisure… Harmony. Many points happening at the same time and working together. Friend of the list Jonathan Stark (musician, coach and on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing) shared this definition of harmony: “Two or more notes played at overlapping points in time that, in combination,…
Allow yourself to rant
It all starts as a rant. What you find nuts, ridiculous or outrageous. Pour your words into it. Be pissed. Be upset. Call out the nonsense. Then, ask ONE question: How could this help the ones I serve? Now, Flip. Brain dump. Reframe. Write and create.
Internal clients. Not.
There’s no such thing as internal customers. A client is someone who pays in exchange for a service/product. A client is considered one who can make your business profitable via their money. For a business to be profitable (and create impact), it needs to be exclusive: to focus on the group that can build profit and exclude the ones who don’t (for a bad fit, incapability to satisfy their needs, not enough acquisition power, etc.) And the most important thing about a client/customer and a…
Prepared-unpreparedness
When going into running a workshop, having a sales call or getting to know a new prospect’s situation, I’ve come to get prepared-unprepared. WTH you mean, Rod? That you come with a rough idea of the context, so you can better grasp the nuances of the situation. However, going in at the same time with the unpreparedness to approach things with curiosity and in spirits of having a conversation. In a convo, you get to listen to understand, to make deeper questions, to challenge what you and your…
UP. It takes you down.
UnderPromising. Friend of the list, AI and Data Science expert, Genevieve Hayes replied to yesterday’s email on OD-ing (bold mine). “Reading this email after yesterday’s email made me realise that underpromising/overdelivering and setting your price low to begin with are actually just two variations of the same thing. They are both risk management strategies caused by a lack of self-confidence in your own abilities, but both are bad in that they create a psychological anchor in the minds of…
Don’t break what’s working
“See how much you can raise your prices without losing customers.Raise your prices, slowly, safe and sound.See how far up you can go.Don’t break what’s working.” How many times have you heard that? However… If you have shit clients, you’ll keep them. Only now with a few (more) cons. They’ll: Argue the price raise Try to squeeze more scope in Complain more Look at how much time you’re putting in Feel scammed Feel you’re squeezing them dry (because you’re “greedy”). Look at every tiny, stupid…
OD-ing
Not overdosing. OverDelivering. “Always underpromise and overdeliver” —Crap advisor We’ve been wrongly taught that using this scam (some call it tactic) will delight our customers. In reality, it’s a way to save our asses and don’t lose face when our guesstimates don’t happen accurately… because they’re —guess what— estimates ????♂️. Underpromising and overdelivering is a… Lie to your clientYou’re not 100% honest with the delivery. Lie to yourselfTo avoid that uncomfortable moment of saying…
