Archives For change the world

The Mine Of Being Undermined

13/05/2013 — Leave a comment

As I’ve said before, “The truth is we all want people to think of us as more capable than we really are”. It can be gravely damaging to let people hold on to such perceptions, especially to the extent to which we get entrusted with something on the premise that we are perfectly capable.

Honesty is the basis of integrity. Being one with who you say you are and what you’re capable of and letting your actions match with that…

Related: The Grading Tango | Honest

The other side of the coin, however, is being undermined. Undermined not in the sense of being patronized. Undermined when people “grade or perceive” us as less capable than we really are.

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you can draw value out of being undermined

Irony: We generally hate being undermined yet we can let people “grade” us higher than we deserve. In fact, we’re often infuriated when we are said to be less, in whatever way, than we are. We go into tirades. After all, it is justified. How can we be undermined and disrespected in such a way?!

Whatever you do, you have to choice to how you respond to being undermined. Before you launch your counter attack on being undermined consider the mine that you could dig:

Expectations

Being undermined comes with less expected of you. Thus, whatever you deliver above whatever was expected of you makes you exceptional. It will bring attention. Which is what you want anyway, right?

Show

Instead of talking about how much you are more than what you are said to be, show it. Action still speaks louder than words. The proof of the pudding is still in the eating.

Pressure

Rather be undermined than overrated. When you’re undermined the pressure is less than what would be on you if you were overrated. Use the obscurity being undermined provides you to deliver even better, no greater than what you were said to be.

Challenge

Use being undermined as a reminder that there is always room to be greater. The more you learn, the more you’ll realize how much you don’t know. The higher you climb the more you’ll realize there is still higher to go.

When you’re undermined allow it to remind you stay humble. Let it remind you to stay hungry. Let being undermined drive you closer to getting better than you are already. Don’t let it take your focus to addressing the people who’ve undermined you. As, I’ve already said, let your work speak for you.

Point

People are not always going to have an accurate estimation of your capabilities. Be careful how you respond those estimations. When they’re overrated don’t lie and go along with them. When your capabilities are undermined mine the mine of being undermined; let it work for you and not against.

[ image by Max0rz | cc ]

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The Grading Tango | Honest

10/05/2013 — 1 Comment

Everyone will have a perception about your abilities. Sometimes they’re unfounded. Some are accurate… you know the rest…

We have an idea of our capabilities and we’d like those around us to be as accurate as possible in their asses them. The truth is sometimes we really want people to see our capabilities as higher than they really are.

Leaders want their teams to admire them for how smart and great leaders they are. Team members want their leaders to overrate them so they seem a tad bit better than their colleagues. They want to be further acknowledged by having greater responsibility inferred on them.

weight The Grading Tango | Honest

be secure enough about yourself to be real. THAT is integrity and the basis of credibility

Who are we fooling? The sad truth is that when we portray ourselves to be better at something than we really are, we set our teams and ourselves up for failure. There is a fine line between stretching yourself and misrepresenting yourself. Misrepresenting yourself includes you not correcting people who rate your abilities as greater.

I don’t deny, being ‘graded’ better than you really are can present an opportunity for you to go up to ‘the next level’. There is a greater risk of failure. The stakes are higher and the reputation that you’ve worked for years to build could be destroyed in an instant.

Be honest about your abilities. Firstly, to yourself and to those who attempt to enlist you with a perception that you’re greater than you are. Be honest that you aspire to the quality they’ve graded you to and state exactly what you’re doing to get there.

Related: Wine | Why You Must Love Obscurity and Structure | Why You Must Love Obscurity

This will give you credibility with people. Integrity is when your words and your actions are one. This is a character we want everyone around us to have. The irony is we, ourselves, are willing to compromise this when it comes to us. We want everyone else to be truthful about his or her abilities while we want to seem greater than we really are.

Stop trying to get ahead through the image and be the real deal. Leaders, teams respect and will follow a leader that is real. Leaders love team members that are honest about their capabilities.

The danger of being dishonest cannot be overstated. It will be obvious that you’re incompetent when it matters most. And those are the defining moments. Those critical moments when you’re required to deliver at the level you’re not are the times people are either catapulted further up or taken down to even lower depths.

Don’t be smug; be real. Don’t undermine yourself; say exactly where you’re at. There is nothing wrong with being on a lower rung on the ladder as long as you’re working on getting better. Be honest.

[image by: pasukaru76 | cc]

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Diversity Celebrated | Interview With Craig Makhosi (Part 1)

09/04/2013 — Leave a comment

I was privileged to interview Craig Charnock (aka Quite a White Ou). He’s a great guy with a great story.

(Unfortunately I will not be able to share everything about Craigie but have drawn portions of our conversations into small bites to challenge us and hopefully cause us to reach across the things that separate us. This goes deeper than just colour…)

He teaches Mlungus (white people) to speak Xhosa and Zulu all over Mzantsi (South Africa). In his debut single, Ndingumlungu, Quite a White Ou teaches isiXhosa through his rap lyrics. He’s loudly and proudly South African.

Understanding others and diversity means immersing ourselves, in one way or another, in other people’s worlds

Quite a White Ou (aka Craigieji Makhosi by day) runs Ubuntu Bridge, a company that has been teaching Xhosa and Zulu language and culture courses since 2005 to the public, corporates, NGOs and schools.

Press PLAY and let’s connect after the conversation

play audio Diversity Celebrated | Interview With Craig Makhosi (Part 1)

Check out Quite a White Ou’s video…

Also see Craig’s TEDx Talk

What does diversity mean to you? What are some of the, small yet significant and practical things you think we can all do to strengthen unity in diversity? Leave a comment.

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Sweat The Small Stuff

05/04/2013 — Leave a comment

Small hinges swing big doors ~ Mike Murdoch

People care about the small things. Not all big problems have big causes or need big solutions. We miss out a lot in terms of delivery when we only think the solution has to be big.

In all your planning and thinking through how you serve the people your organization serves how often do you ask the question, “What is the small stuff we may be missing”.

Strike a balance between thinking big and small. Remember, it is the small foxes that spoil the vine…

For people and organizations that have served you, what are some of the small things that made a big experience for you?

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Leaders and Blue-sky Days

02/04/2013 — 1 Comment

There is no leadership without vision. Vision is what gives purpose to all effort and activities. A leader without vision is a captain who takes people on a road trip without a destination and map to it.

Clear vision inspires action. Not keeping vision in clear sight creates a toxic team and organizational environment. Keeping vision in front is necessary for keeping the main thing the main thing.

Leaders are dreamers. They are dreamers for the organization and subsequent change the organizations’ activities bring to the world at large.

Leaders have to bridge dreams for their organizations and the world with the action that makes them happen. They cannot and must not stay in dream mode but also move into action mode.

They must also be careful not to get stuck in action mode but remember that they constantly need to dream.

In order to dream, they need to create space for what Bill Hybels calls “Blue-sky days”. They are days where they just dream. Where they just imagine and dream for their organization and the value their organization adds to the lives of those they serve.

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every leader must make sure they never let the pragmatic leader in them cloud their blue-sky days

 

Blue-sky days are moments of dreaming without any limitations. Imagining possibilities without getting hung up on how to make them happen.

In dreaming leaders must fight the temptation to cross over to their action mode. When you switch to action mode, that is, already try to figure out what it would take to make some dreams happen while you drew, you cripple your capacity for dreaming.

Already trying to figure out how you’re going to make something happen while you’re dreaming smothers possibility of what could be.

Do not kill your dreams before they’ve even had a chance to live by trying to figure out everything in the dreaming stage. Consider the dreaming stage as the womb of dreams. See it as the cradle of vision.

Plans and goals and how you are going to make vision happen is only secondary. Starting a new enterprise? Do you need to bring about new life into your organization?

Call your team together and have blue-sky day. Imagine the possibilities. Dream about what you could make happen. Do not entertain the pragmatic leader in you.

Give space for your dreams to come out. When dreams for your organization and those you are save are powerful enough, you will find a way to make it happen.

Make provision for blue-sky days. Let them be, so that you better serve your organization and its stakeholders. Blue-sky days are also incubators of innovation. Let the blue skies be.

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