This will be my last post for 2021 and I wanted to thank you all for supporting my blog posts on LinkedIn so far! The past few weeks has been tough but rewarding. As things start to cool down for the holiday season, I wanted to take time to reflect back at 2021. This time rather than talking about the wins I wanted to focus on some invaluable lessons learned.
An abacus math teacher once told me and my daughter why correction matters.
With that in mind, here are some of the top of mind lessons learned in 2021….
Disclaimer - Firstly, this is in no particular order and some of it may appear as common-sense (and it's intended to be that way). Second, a few in bold are observations I made from Leaders around me that really have influenced me and want to give due credit to such leaders for helping me mature as a better person. And finally, some of these lessons learned also include observations I have made from past (pre-2021) that I constantly need to remind myself.
- My personal favorite - Good intentions don't always work. You need to have the right set of mechanisms (tools, processes or goals) to tackle your good intentions.
- If you see a problem, you own the problem until you find an owner. Don't assume someone else will own it, at the very least find an owner.
- When posed with a challenge, first start with the what and constantly ask why. Don’t solution on how and when until the what and why is clear.
- Maintain a journal of your wins and failures. We are not super-humans and the only way to get better is reading your personal journal often.
- If you have a hypothesis about a topic, don’t stop with assumptions. Always run tests to validate your assumptions and gather the facts/data.
- Anticipate what questions could be asked when you present an argument or talk to a person that best knows the topic for a second opinion.
- Process change always needs a team conversation. Present the challenge to the team, step aside, let them iterate and settle. Be the last one to talk!
And a few tips around general writing.
- An executive project summary should have 3 main sections - Executive Summary, Key Callouts (Wins and Misses), and Milestones (with owner and target date). Less is more in such executive updates!
- The what, why, how, and when are extremely important to a narrative but what makes it even more compelling is emphasis on complexity, impact, and influence.
- Refrain from using a date for a date (commonly referred as DFAD), this just means you are putting off the problem for another day.
- Avoid target date that end on or around December. You are setting yourselves up for failure with such a target date.
- Don’t just read the news. Emphasize to the reader or listener on how you will action on the news.
- Do not use hyperbolic statements.
- Always have a good opening statement and closing statement (not let it hang with “so what” feeling).
- Have a transcriber (text to speech) to read-out narrative, having another person read it out loud helps make your narrative succinct.
And that's a wrap for me. Happy holidays and see you all in 2022!
