H2 is always.. yeah. Reflective, scrambling and furiously propelling us into Christmas in a way that feels almost faster than a Porsche can hit a wall going 60mph. Since mine starts now, I’m taking today to reflect the top three themes I encountered during H1 2019 (and what’s rattling in my brain coming down off the busiest 6 months of the year).
First up: Does it really hurt that much to trust that someone has better intentions for you (than maybe even you do of yourself) at work?
Don’t come for me. I know, sometimes it can bite you at work, I get the hesitation, believe me. I’ve been bit by the snake, burnt by the fire, and dragged through the dirt when my back was turned if I wasn’t careful. The truth is that trusting another person (a manager, a coworker) to lead you into situations with your best interests at heart doesn’t always work out, even if everyone involved had the best of intentions. We’re humans. Some things can’t be stopped from hitting the ground in the chaos, and naturally, it feels bad when it doesn’t work out the way you originally wanted.
With the right group of people or the right person vouching for you, the ends when you take a trust fall can be worth the gritty means. Remembering that trust isn’t built overnight, that its earned over time and experience, can give you the fuel you need to calm the doubts inside your head. Be careful, though. Leaning too far into the grit can grind you down to dust if you let it, but leaning just enough can give you the traction you need to climb higher than you originally planned.
Choose your path however you see fit and do yourself a favor: commit and give it what you’ve got. At worst, you fail and learn how to do it better.
Next up: Mindset is important, but so is reality.
Sometimes, mindset can be the biggest change agent in the situation above. I’ve entered every new professional opportunity with the pre-set mindset and expectation that it will expire, and it will always expire sooner than I imagine it to, because that’s just the reality of the nature of business. Is it a little pessimistic? Maybe. But from my agency days, I learned that everyone wants everything yesterday and leaders are increasingly making critical decisions based on data and numbers — sometimes at the expense of human capital.
Like I mentioned above, I cut my teeth in small, scrappy agencies that fought for every contract we won, and scrambled on the lean months to get more — the mindset to accept high levels of change into our realm with the trust that we had the best of intent for each other was the fuel that kept us going when we had to keep digging for business, and it paid off. It allowed those agencies to curate the models that would keep them in business for years to come.
Am I neglecting to touch on the human capital aspect? Absolutely not. It’s a subject I wrestle with when I think about my aspirations as a leader. Sometimes we lose people we’ve grown to love working besides, and sometimes we survive to fight the next battle. (It’s why they call it a war room, no?) The saving grace, it seems, is the mindset of the people going into war.
Something something dark side? I couldn’t find a great gif of war/soldiers so, enjoy.
We live in a short term, quick change, experience economy. Is it ideal? Hell no! But it’s the world we have to mitigate as professionals if we want to survive long enough to break the cycle.
Last up, a universal truth: If you’re going to invest yourself into something, you have to trust the people you do that something with for it to work out in the end.
Back to trust — I’m paraphrasing here, but Joan Jett credits her success (in the “Bad Reputation” documentary) to finding people she knows have her best interests at heart and taking that trust fall with them. (I’m paraphrasing the quote here from the frantic notes I took on my Delta flight home last week, please forgive any inaccuracies)
While watching “Bad Reputation” after 12h of storm delays and two airports, I nearly lost it when she drove past my office talking about the dynamic between herself and her team. My seat mates were not amused.
“It’s all of us — we all get support and love and strength from each other and feel like.. To be able to feel vulnerable to the people you work with, and that they’ve got your back.”
It resonated with me for two reasons: one, because she was driving past my office in the scene, but two, because she’s fucking right. If you don’t trust fall with your team you’ll never accomplish anything of value. We failed more times than you can count, but we also succeeded — together — and so much more.
Some of my best work has followed taking a trust fall. There’s something energizing about a clean slate.
Forbes Council Post wrote a great article in 2018 about whether or not vulnerability really helps your situation at work that still has some sound reasoning on why vulnerability is difficult to execute:
“Most leaders want their staff to tell them when they have a problem. But in order to admit that you’re not hitting expectations, you often need to be vulnerable. This is where the problem starts for employees. They don’t want to appear weak, they don’t know where to begin and they certainly don’t want to cry.”
There’s a way to accomplish this vulnerability without sacrificing personal dignity. I can equate it to the argument of being nice vs being polite. Nice means you skip the details you don’t want to admit. Politeness means you bring them up in the right context with the right delivery and tone.
Use politeness, respect and empathy to your advantage when bridging tough subjects, especially when it comes to yourself. Being able to empathize with others and yourself is an emotional intelligence trait worth having for everyone, in my humble opinion. It also returns back to the trust fall — you have to trust fall to be vulnerable with your teammates.
Couldn’t find a good gif for “foundation” either, so enjoy the goddess of Fenty Beauty herself.
In the end, I’ve learned that a strong foundation starts with an opportunity mindset combined with trust (with just a pinch of follow through to spice things up). It’s been key to any success I’ve had working across all the new types of teams that are popping up across industries.
Don’t forget to remind yourself that you’ve got this, whatever it is. Nobody is ever qualified to do something until they’ve gone and done it. Now go do something amazing.
– spark