We are all taking things far too personal (in business and beyond)

Thursday afternoon and my colleague asks me what I thought about the meeting this morning – which meeting? I had nothing in my diary. Why was I not invited? Thinking about it, Richard who set up the meeting was not too keen about the project I am driving. He for sure left me off the list so I could not get broader buy-in for my project

STOP! While there is no meeting and no Richard, the situation is not uncommon. We see a behavior in others that in not in our interest and more often than not conclude malicious intent: “She does not like me”, “he did this on purpose to hold me back” etc.

The, depending on your point of view comfortble or uncomfortable, truth however is that the world in general does not revolve around us. What we see as an attack against us, is more often than not, just ignorance or carelessness.

There is even a fancy term for this, Hanlon‘s razor: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity”.

So next time, instead of holding a grudge, why not try a simple antidote and just talk to the person?

A colleague who value a lot has just resigned. And I am actually happy for him.

At the same time I am sad because he will be missed. But it would be selfish to try to keep him from leaving because I cannot offer him what he needs to take the next step in his career.

Back in Cambridge, I had started work on a physics PhD, in a great group, with a fantastic supervisor. And because Mete is such a great supervisor, he let me go when I realized that I wanted to work on something with more tangible impact, that I wanted to study what makes human organizations work rather than what keeps metal atoms organized.

Like my department, Mete’s group does work that is demanding, interesting and variied. In both settings there is plenty of room for development. But there are limits to every role and sometimes you just outgrow what a particular place can offer you.

As a leader, sometimes you can help find a next role in a different department. But still, it will be a goodbye – or rather (as you always meet twice) – a see you later.

Rowing taught me … strive to be your best – that’s all you can control.

In my very first year at Cambridge, when I had just learned how to row for my college, I went to see the Boat Races. And as the boats lined up for the starting line, I thought to myself, “they must be so nervous, the pressure, all the months of work they put in, and now is the moment that decided whether it was worth it or not.”

A year later, I sat on the same starting line and was completely calm.

As a crew, we spent the week before the race on site. And I started to become nervous with the big day approaching. But I still remember my crew getting together in a huddle the morning of the race before going out for a last paddle. And at that moment, the nervousness just vanished, and I was calm.

A simple realization that washed out the nervousness was that I had done all I could. I had put in all the hard work over the last months to be the best version of myself I could be that day. And I was part of a group of women who had all done the same. We could not make the other boat go slower; we could only make our boat go faster. So there was no use worrying about Oxford, and we knew we were ready.

We ended up winning decisively.

On the individuality of success

“Asking what makes someone successful is like asking which ingredient makes a recipe taste good. It’s not any single ingredient. It is the combination of many ingredients in the right proportions and in the right order—and the absence of anything that would ruin the mixture.”
James Clear

I love this quote – success is a combination of so many different things: Experience, skills, traits, attitudes, beliefs… and each of us is unique in this regard. On the flip side, this means that each and every one of us has to find our own path to success. Imitating someone else’s path to success is like trying to make spaghetti bolognese with coconut milk and rice.

“Double down on what is working best.”

We are often so caught up on where we need to improve but is focusing on our deficits really the best strategy to become the best version of ourselves?

I am not particularly musical. So should I spend my time and energy on getting better at reading notes, doing my scales …? Will I enjoy this? Will I ever become really good? Probably not.

Would it be a better idea to focus on what comes natural to me? On sports, on connecting with people, on creating visions and strategies? You bet!

Of course sometimes there are deficits that are show stoppers and these you absolutely need to address but to a level that is good enough. Save the mastery for your talents ⭐

🙄 Why telling someone to “stop being such a coward and take more risks” does not work

Earlier this month, I wrote about the need for humans to belong and be liked and how even the toughest of us sometimes need to be told what we do well.

This actually has to do with the different effects of positive and negative feedback.

Far too often when we give feedback, we focus on the bad, on what needs to be done better/differently. Or if we say positive things then make the negative more palatable (the infamous s**t sandwich).

But often negative feedback does not work – or at least not as intended. Negative feedback is very effective in stopping us from doing things – which can be a good thing if you want to stop your toddler who is getting too close to the hot plate from getting burned. But it’s not helpful in getting us to start doing things, to take risks, and be creative. In general, negative feedback inhibits behavior (great to keep that toddler safe), curtails risk-taking and exploration, and, unsurprisingly, generates negative emotions.

Positive feedback on the other hand is enabling, it promotes risk-taking and exploration and motivates us. So praising small steps that go in the right direction is much more effective than telling someone that they are a chicken and need to get their act together.

The problem is that the information content of negative feedback is much higher, as it is crystal clear what you want somebody to not do anymore. “Do not go any closer to the stove” will keep your kid safe. On the other hand, giving less positive feedback will not stop your toddler from running around the kitchen.

If you encourage exploration and creativity through positive feedback, you have to live with the ambiguity that you can not prescribe what exactly the outcome will be. But maybe that is not a bad thing. After all, if you wanted your task done in exactly the same way you would do it yourself, then maybe you should not delegate it in the first place.

What are your experiences with positive vs. negative feedback? If you want to encourage me to write more like this, follow me and ideally also klick the 🔔 on my profile to see my posts in your feed 😁

Do not confuse linguistic styles with conficence

How likely is it that all women on your team(s) lack the self-confidence needed for the next promotion? I assume your answer is “not very”. And yet this (oldie but goody) HBR article starts off with a division head whose senior managers told him exactly that.

Turns out some of this can be explained in differences in linguistic styles, i.e. personal speaking patterns. These include features as directness or indirectness, pacing and pausing, word choice, and the use of such elements as jokes, figures of speech, stories, questions, and apologies.

And also pauses – which is why Germans in Switzerland (where people tend to speak a bit slower and give others longer pauses to take their turn of the conversation) are seen as pushy and Germans tend to find the Swiss a bit shy. The US-centric example given in the article is NYC vs. Detroit.

And these speech patterns do not just vary regionally but also have a gender dimension, especially when it comes to the relationship component of language – briefly summarized, girls learn from an early age communication rituals that focus on rapport, while boys learn rituals that focus on status. Little boys do not mind having a leader for their group, while “bossy” starts being a negative attribute for girls really early on (leading to rituals that tend to minimize or downplay status differences).

Btw this could also explain the stereotype that men do not ask for directions: They are more acutely aware that asking questions potentially signals lower status.

For me the take away of the article is to really pay more attention to spotting communication rituals – hard to do from the insight but a great lens is to analyze differences you spot when interacting with friends or colleagues from other cultures. And that might then also give you some insight into to which degree what to you just feels “natural” is also a particular ritual which might not be shared universally.

I remember one interaction with a British guy I dated. I wanted to go on a weekend trip sailing trip and asked him how he felt about it as he would not be able to join. He said “do what you think is right”. Being the direct German, I took this at face value – and learned a painful lesson that the British linguistic style tends to be more indirect than the German one and what he really meant was “I do not want you to go”

Source: https://buff.ly/3AxSpBE