Reflections from a first time Operator

  • Asking for help demonstrates confidence and self-awareness (2/2)

    A continuation from last week…

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  • Asking for help demonstrates confidence and self-awareness (1/2)

    There is a cliché phrase “don’t bring me a problem, bring me a solution”, which taken literally, sends the wrong message: “if you’re struggling, figure it out on your own”.* This concept is often celebrated. As a result, particularly with new leaders or folks who are in a new role, there tends to be a desire to try and always present an air of confidence – “fake it until you make it” – and mask the extent of overwhelm or struggle that might initially be experienced. It’s silly, since every professional has experienced some degree of insecurity or imposter syndrome throughout their career and especially when taking on a new role, challenge, or learning a new skill set.

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  • Start with the most important item

    The meeting starts. You have one hour and 8 topics on the agenda. You look at the list and say… “let’s start with what T-shirt colour we want for our new swag order, that should be really quick”. 45 minutes later you decide black is a safe choice and move on to item #2. 10 minutes later you open your outlook to see when everyone has time for a follow-up meeting to cover items #3 through 8, including such topics as “how do we save client X?” and “next year’s fiscal budget”.

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  • What will your best people think?

    Within every organization, and team… and sometimes a group of friends or family… there tend to be one or two folks who are prone to drama. These folks would never admit it, but they relish in the ‘water cooler’ talk. Of course, it’s a spectrum and ideally if it’s within an organization, you work towards creating a culture where this behavior is recognized as trivial; however, it always exists to a certain extent. There’s a reason many people love reality TV – it’s entertaining!

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  • Invest in the Best

    While working in private equity, I started to notice a phenomenon: within a portfolio of investments, the ones that received the most attention, energy, effort, and mindshare, were always the worst performing companies. The worst performing companies were more likely to miss budget, disappoint customers, and make errors of strategic judgment (or some combination). The management teams at these companies required significantly more direct involvement, and on some occasions, had to be replaced. It was a lot. Sometimes these intensive efforts would continue for years. And unfortunately, all of the extra effort, time, and energy seemed to rarely turn a significantly underperforming investment into a great one. Most of the time, it was about fighting to protect the initial investment.

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  • 6 vs. 9

    My experience as a people leader, and from working with and speaking to many people leaders, is we often default to a normal distribution when it comes to performance evaluation: if we’re evaluating people’s performance out of 10, we’ll say most people are a 7.5, maybe there are a few 9’s or 10’s, and while we hope it’s a rare case, there might be a few people at a 6 or below.

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  • Experience and expertise are very different.

    It took me a long time – much longer than I would like to admit – to realize there is a significant difference between experience and expertise. In my first few years at Avanti, I regularly made the mistake of wrongly inferring more years of experience would translate to a greater degree of expertise. While there should be a strong correlation between the two, it’s certainly not a given.

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  • Judgement: The Antithesis to Curiosity. (2/2)

    We judge people for all sorts of things: their appearances, where they grew up, their educational and professional background, how much money they have or we think they have, if they are single, if they aren’t single, etc. etc. We’re particularly judgemental when we first meet someone. And despite it being a fairly unattractive behavior, it’s seemingly human nature. We all do it.

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  • Curiosity: The Introvert’s Safety Blanket. (1/2)

    I’m fairly shy when I first meet people and prefer to get to know someone a bit before opening up. Those who know me well likely don’t realize it, but I generally identify as an introvert. Because of that initial shyness, I’m regularly placed in social situations that can be uncomfortable or sometimes anxiety inducing.

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  • How it feels.

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  • Ask for Feedback. Do it. Often.

    I have been working in professional team environments for thirteen years and I can count the number of times someone has specifically and directly asked me for feedback outside of a formal review process on one hand.

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  • Your team is not your family (and that’s good!).

    Occasionally, someone will say to me “it feels like we’re a family here”. Or “I feel like I’m part of the family!”. My stomach clenches when I hear those words.

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  • Timebox the Emotion

    During my first year at Avanti, particularly when our team was much smaller (<40 employees), I found it particularly emotional and personal dealing with employee resignations, especially when the departing team member was a strong performer.

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  • Always share context when asking for ’15 minutes to chat’

    I’m willing to bet everyone has lived some version of this experience.

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  • Invest Time in Positive Feedback

    There is so much advice available on how to deliver tough feedback. How to have a challenging conversation. How to support a struggling employee (or friend, or peer). How to explain when someone is falling short of expectations.

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  • Why Blog?

    So why am I starting a blog… in 2023?

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