Month: June 2023

1:1 with Me

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

There are countless tools and guides out there for having great 1-on-1 meetings. This First Round Review Article is a great place to start (it even has a Notion template with a Question Bank for Better 1:1s).

But I think the tools only work if we show up with the right mindset to these meetings.

This mindset isn’t: it’s my job to update my boss on what I’m up to.

This mindset is: it’s helpful to have a counterpart who helps me stay on track; helps me ensure that I’m prioritizing the right things; and who can help me troubleshoot when I’m stuck.

This framing strips away the trappings of authority that come with the manager:manage-ee relationship.

One way we can do this is by asking: what conversation would I have if I were having a 1:1 with me?

What questions would I ask myself?

What preparation would I do?

What thinking would happen before the meeting?

What sort of feedback would I give me?

Hopefully, your boss has some perspective and experience that you don’t have, and she brings that to the table.

But 70% of the value of the one-on-one is a structured space to have the conversation that you need to have to help you do your best work.

The meeting is for you, not for your boss.

“Para Espanol, Oprima el Dos”

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

We’ve all heard this message, when we’ve called our healthcare provider, or our bank, or what used to be the cable company.

“Push 2 if you’d like to continue in Spanish,” is what it says.

In the last two weeks, struggling with the byzantine American healthcare system, I’ve had recorded voices at the start of the customer care maze say this sentence….with the most outrageously, embarrassingly American accent you could possibly imagine. It’s a caricature of bad Spanish.

Only two things could be happening here, one worse than the other:

  1. The company doesn’t know that the Spanish being spoken is abysmal
  2. The company knows that it is abysmal, but doesn’t care enough to fix it

Think about this: if you press the number ‘2’, presumably the company will have native Spanish speakers for you to speak to. Which means they don’t have an access-to-native-Spanish-speakers problem, they have a caring about the customer problem, or a bureaucracy problem, or a “I just do what the boss tells me” problem.

Both ignorance and not caring are a terrible place to end up, but we don’t get there all at once.

We get there because those in charge enable a culture tolerates disengagement, and because those not in charge decide it’s easier to follow the rules or to hide than it is to take things personally and to take pride in all of our work.

Teaching caring at scale is a hard thing to do.

It’s also the only thing that separates us from the gravitational pull of mediocrity.

Do or Do Not, There is No Try

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

The Princess Bride contains, for me, nearly all of life’s great lessons: about friendship, about love, about never starting a land war in Asia.

But Star Wars, at times, goes even deeper. Who can forget the words of Jedi Master Yoda when Luke is attempting to lift his X-Wing fighter out of the swamp using the Force?

YODA: Always with you what cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say? You must unlearn what you have learned.

LUKE: OK, I’ll give it a try.

YODA: No! Try not! Do, or do not, there is no try.

So often, our language betrays us, illustrating a lack of commitment, a lack of belief in ourselves, a lack of willingness to own our part in creating a problem. As in:

I’ll try to get that you by this Friday. 

I’ll do my best.

I have to _______.

I can’t do that…

I’m sorry that you feel that way. 

Think about the difference in what we communicate when we, instead, say:

I will get it you by this Friday.

I will solve this problem and get back to you with the solution. 

I get to _______.

I can’t do that yet.

I’m sorry that I made you feel that way.

Our language both informs and communicates our thinking. Being more deliberate about the words we choose shifts how people perceive us and shifts our mindset in the face of new challenges.