The dysfunction of personal brands
A brand is the gut feeling a person has about an organization, product or service. Not about a person. Here’s why Because from a functional perspective, an organization, product or service adapts to the market, even when that means they need to change the core of themselves.A rebrand. The way they adapt is by either adding, changing or eliminating features and characteristics. It can make them take radical pivots to their core, even to change or disappear completely while keeping its…
A thing
As humans, we want things to look human to us, so that they become familiar. Hence, the use of language, mascots, adding personality traits to businesses/brands, cartoons, etc. It makes them non-threatening. However, it doesn’t go the other way around: making people things. Well, unless you’re a psycho or run an exploitative way of “biz”. That’s why also, the whole HR thinking and leadership has been shifting from Resources and Capital into Talent and Development. Because a thing, becomes a…
You won’t be the best in the world
Well, not for everyone. You can be your best version of yourself —and do the best you can, while trying to be better than the day before. Being the best is something subjective and arbitrary, when applied to life or business, as they’re infinite games and have no set up rules. Who’s to define who the best is? Here’s the thing “Great work” is not what makes the difference. Your clients can’t really tell what’s great work and really good work. They don’t know the nuances. They’re not trained to…
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…
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.
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,…
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…
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…
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…