Words you should never* use in relationships

Some words can really hurt relationships. They may be part of the dictionary but, they shouldn’t be part of your spiel. Here are a few words you should avoid:

• Again: Forget about the trend, deal with the issue at hand. Bringing back the past will only make things worst and put everyone on the defensive.
• Always: Very few things always happen in relationships. People are rarely that consistent. Why accentuate a trend? For impact?
• Never: A real never requires a lot of observation. A strong word for something you can’t really prove.
• Easy: You may think so but, what’s easy to you is not necessarily easy to other people. Let them be the judge of what they consider easy. It will just make you appear less condescending.

How valuable is your network?

It’s really easy to grow a professional network. You meet people, collect business cards and capture contacts. The more influence they have, the better.

Value of your Network = Number of contacts x Their Influence

You can’t predict what you’ll need in the future or how influent people will become. For that reason, number and variety of contacts makes sense. But, if this is how you’re going to value your network, you might as well stay home, go on LinkedIn and add random people as connections.

Your network’s value is not the number of people you know, it’s the number of people available to help you.

Value of your Network = Number of contacts x Their Influence x Their Willingness to help you

As big as your network might get, it will never be worth very much if no one is returning your calls… A few very good contacts is better than a lot of contacts you can’t rely on.

The value of impatience

There’s a clear line between what society considers a quality and what it considers a flaw.

But, some flaws are sometimes qualities and some qualities are sometimes flaws. You could argue that greedy people are more successful than not greedy people as you could argue the reverse…

Impatience can cause tension in relationships, stress and frustration in everyday life.

Yet, impatience makes you value your own time. It’s a sign of motivation, hunger, drive to success and intensity. All of which, if channeled properly, can be shared with partners, investors, colleagues or clients.

Flaws, like qualities, are part of your toolkit. If you can figure out what your flaws can bring to the table, you can make anything from impatience to paranoia work to your advantage.

What flaws do you have that could have positive upsides?

Further Reading: The Value of being Impatient.

On ‘dealing’ with initiative and passion

To be successful as a leader, it’s important to be able to let go.

Ideas won’t always come from your mouth. Your ego might have to take a hit or two.

To fully leverage your team members’ varied skillsets and point-of-views, you have to be able to get out-of-the-way and let creativity run its course.

If you’re getting initiative from your team, it means you have passion. If you’re getting passion, it means you have commitment.

It’s a good thing. Once you get over the threatening unexpectability of it, you’ll realize that it’s a pretty good position to be in.

Trust your team, their passion and their initiative. If you’re ever uncomfortable, ask yourself:

What does that person’s initiative really take away from me?

Chances are, the answer is: nothing.

Who’s on your A team?

At some point, for a manager or for yourself, you’ll have to hire or build a team. If you haven’t been taking notes, it will be hard finding great fits.

2, 3, 4, 5 interviews might not give you the answers having worked with someone would. You might end up with great hires or you might not.

The best way around this is to start building your A team as early as possible. You might not be able to recruit them in the next 5 years but, if you’ve worked with them, you know what to expect.

If nothing else, being able to surround yourself with high performers makes you invaluable. Take notes of people you’d like to work with again, note where they’re heading and what they can bring to the table. Hiring or not, it’s a good thing to do.

So, who’s on your A-list? On who’s A-list are you?

What you were is what you are

What do Ralph Macchio and Mark Hamill have in common?

Answer: Both were huge early successes before getting typecasted (Think Karate Kid and Star Wars) and almost never acting again.

Turns out, the way people initially perceive your skills stains the opportunities you get later on.

In large companies, where you start is often an indication of where you’ll end. Businesses often have a positive bias towards hiring outside talent. Because companies prefer hiring from outside than promoting employees, jumping from one business to another is often the best way to raise in the hierarchy.

Managers use few points of reference to predict how you’ll evolve. They’re not in your head, they don’t know what else you think about.

Don’t be a one-trick pony. How can you give your colleagues more reference points to assess your skills and potential?

Bring out the pain

Typical project management theory suggests that project managers make conflicts appear as early as possible at the start of projects.

It might be counter-intuitive to seek problems and conflict but, a little pain early on certainly beats a lot of pain when you’re neck-deep in a project.

Benefits of making conflicts appear early on can be:

• Fixing issues before they blow up
• Planning a little better
• Anticipating concerns by understanding people’s priorities
• Knowing what to keep an eye out for
• Not committing too much if things are bound to implode

Good project management advice but, also good partnership, relationship, life and team building advice…

Inflated bubbles burst

When I started University, I was impressed at how often some people had things to say in class. As I started really listening and getting to know the people, I realized that the loudest voices were rarely the wisest voices.

I wouldn’t have thought that this stayed pass University but, turns out, the market is also like that. Some people and businesses we hear about, others we don’t.

But, there’s only 2 main types of people who can really talk about you: peers (colleagues, reviewers, etc) and customers.

Although it’s always great when peers recognize the value and quality of your work, if customers don’t talk (or care) about you, your bubble will burst.

Many businesses focus on the wrong things (how much money a peer gave them, industry reviews, etc) but, even if that helps, you can be successful without peer approval but cannot without customer approval.

Focus on the right things, inflated bubbles eventually burst.