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Things I Hope I Remember - Be Deliberate

Be deliberate.

When the feeling in my organization is just a little… off; when someone reacts to my words in a way that I didn’t expect; when someone doesn’t come through with that task they said they’d finish; when my organization isn’t cutting it by some metric; when I let someone down; when I get any negative feedback; when I need to give any negative feedback.

Be deliberate.

Do some research about how other folks have handled the situation. If this is a large issue, there may be a relevant book. Find multiple points of view if possible. Read about how well others’ attempts at similar issues have succeeded or failed.

Then, be deliberate about the action you take.

The challenge may be to detect the situations where this is truly called for. Detecting the situations that require serious thought, or are signifiers of a larger issue. The situations that aren’t a one-off, but are actually tied together with multiple other issues.