Tag Archives: Harvard Business Review

Jul25

«Can you hear me? How to connect with people in the virtual world» by Nick Morgan

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This is one of the books I find to be appealing to different audiences in the same clear and friendly language. If you are looking for advice on your online and social media presence, this is the book. Equally, if you work in a more and more virtual working environment, this is the book.

I wrote about my take aways for the working environment on myprojectdelight.com. Here are my take aways for the online social media presence.

“Writing is hard; few of us do it well.” Our modern world requires all of us to become writers.

“Good writing also has authenticity, consistency, transparency, empathy, and connection.”

“In the virtual world, good storytelling is even more important”. Learn from the best and do not frown at hashtags. The shortest story ever belongs to Hemingway. His bet started inadvertently a flash-fiction game that has gone on to this day: six-word stories.

I found an abundance of great advice and tools here: empathy quiz, advice on basic online hygienic package, how to create and manage your online persona, and where to get started, etc.

And a call for action: “We need to reclaim our lost humanity on the web. We need to restore the emotions that all too many of the digital conveniences of the modern world have silently and unthinkingly taken away.”

Jun20

Others’ opinions

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I recently met my schoolmate whom I have not seen in two decades or so. At some point she dropped me a message, when she realised that we live in the same region.

So, on a Sunday afternoon she, her kid and husband were at our door. We love guests, so we soon settled in a nice conversation around some home baked warm goodies. Our kids swiftly immersed themselves into play. It was all lively and lovely.

After we had our coffee, my schoolmate suddenly remembered how much she and her friend laughed at my acting in primary school. I always somehow landed lead roles in school plays.

Her voice was remorseful. She remembered this for decades and seemed to want to say it to me out loud. She remembered some of my roles’ lines from back then. I must have been good.

I was not bothered by her confession. She was 8-9 years old. I loved acting. I was oblivious to their comments. And that was wonderful.

If I would have known and started paying less and less attention to what made me me — my talents, beliefs — and would have started conforming to what others may or may not think, it would have harmed my free expression and my potential.

As adults we tend to listen to and spend time on ruminating over others’s opinions until it spirals into infinite. Thanks to extensive research we can learn to deal with it. If you want to learn more, read “How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You” by Michael Gervais, Harvard Business Review, 2 May 2019.

Apr27

Higher you get, less you do?

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Recent Pope Francis words “the more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly” https://www.ted.com/talks/pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone/transcript?language=en#t-572940 reminded me about something I once heard from a big boss in a big international organisation. He stated loud and clear that his career goal was to get high and do as little as possible. He eventually got pretty high. I kind of wondered about it back then.

To me, higher you get, more you can do. Same is valid for corporations. I like to see performance. I love it more when performance is joined by purpose. Take Apple for example. In 2012,  Apple’s stock market value had neared $625 billion, making it the most valuable company ever. Its underwhelmed social purpose is still to match its extraordinary financial success.

dv1419004Think of all resources one has access to. Let’s take the poorest European country: there were 17000 orphans in 2012. 17.000 was the number of police, intelligence and customs employees. Suppose each of these gets to act as a mentor to each of orphans? Given that these are military structures with people who obey orders, a big boss’s decision has a great chance of being complied with.

Or think about first ladies and opportunities they have to chanel the good and bring to light development issues and influence policy agendas or just meaningfully help on an individual basis. Same is valid, by the way, for husbands of first ladies :).

Or just ordinary people with out-of-ordinary kindness who would make a phone call to a lawyer-friend to ask for a pro-bono involvement, or would open their house door to a charity party to draw attention and collect stuff for needy.

When you get high what is important to me is to keep the connection with the self and your roots and cherish the place you came from. This will keep you away from „the higher you get the harder you fall”. No need to quote unhappy examples here.

“Enjoy your climbing and stay humble”, my reminder for today.