Where is your attention?” “” “A common mistake for beginners at downhill sports like mountain biking or skiing is to stare at the rock they want to avoid. Unfortunately, they then tend to steer straight into that rock, as our bodies go where our attention goes. It’s difficult to learn to overcome that natural tendency…
Continuing my discussion of soft skills, I’ll share a trick that can help to navigate the space of murky interests and multiple stakeholders, which is building a stakeholder map. ” “” “Identify your key stakeholders (peers and execs), and write down the questions they ask and the comments they make at every meeting you attend…
A difficult transition I’ve noticed for my clients is going from doing the work to defining the work. At the start of a project, the goals are murky, ownership is murky, and there’s very little alignment or clarity. One of my clients said he didn’t like that, and wanted things to be defined with clear…
How do you think about getting others to do something?” “” “One model is to use power – either be or influence the person who can “force” them to do something through the threat of firing them if the work doesn’t get done. Each interaction in this model becomes a zero-sum power struggle with a…