Do Not Give Up on Your People so Quickly
I had a bad habit of labeling my team members unfit for a job too quickly.
A few weeks back, I wrote an article titled — Entrepreneurship is a mindset as well as a skillset.
Last week, I came across a few situations that showed my mindset shift.
Before sharing more details on these situations, let us do a brief and humble introduction about myself.
I am one of those perfectionists who can scare most of her colleagues by her standards of perfection. In my opinion, a person not performing well in their job is considered a bad employee.
Sometimes, I get so carried away by my quality benchmarks for a task that I fail to see any positive quality in someone who fails to live up to my work standards.
But that was my older version in employee mode. I always tried to give more than 100% to my work and expected the same from my team. I always label people as good employees if they can deliver as per my expectations. If they fail to do so, I label them as average employees by my standards.
I used to form an impression about a person too quickly without giving them more than one chance to prove their capability. My ex-boss told me, “Do not give up on your people so quickly .” At that time, I could not implement this advice wholeheartedly.
I had a bad habit of labeling my team members unfit for a job too quickly.
“Most people’s problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.”— Gabrielle Zevin
But these days, I am observing a subtle shift in my mindset related to this habit.
Now, I no longer categorize people as good or bad. Instead, my mind recognizes a positive trait of that person and overlooks all the other behavior I marked earlier as negative.
Or, if the result of an interaction is positive, then I no longer worry about the intermediary discomforts caused by that person.
The first instance is an interaction with a friend. Together we had been planning a short trip. This friend had done an extensive analysis of checking with different travel partners to get the maximum discounts.
Finally, we selected a hotel for our stay. The rates were increasing each day, so I advised my friend to make the hotel booking quickly. But she kept on doing more analysis instead of completing the booking.
Finally, I told her that I am fatigued with this much analysis and by spending one hour daily on this analysis paralysis stage. I told her it was not worth wasting our time to save a few thousand bucks.
Had it been my earlier self, I would have quickly labeled her as an indecisive miser and would have also kept this label indefinitely.
Fortunately, my friend did not pay heed to my time management advice. And, she managed to book the hotel at a reasonable, discounted price.
Here is my mindset shift as an entrepreneur. First, I acknowledge this friend’s excellent negotiation skills. Second, I am not clinging to the analysis paralysis image of my friend. Instead, I am only looking at the positive results, i.e., money saved due to her excellent negotiation skills.
The second instance is about a friend working as a soft skills trainer. As I had recently released my online training course on Udemy, I requested him to check my course and share his feedback.
I had attended some of his training and found him a skilled trainer with good communication skills. He agreed to check my Udemy course and provide feedback.
A few days later, he suggested he wanted to give me the offline feedback (face-to-face) rather than writing it online. I agreed to meet him this coming weekend.
I got swamped with my work and forgot to connect with him for this meeting.
But this person sent me a reminder to schedule our meeting. I immediately responded to his message. I called him and explained my inability to have an in-person meeting due to my traveling for the next few weeks. I suggested postponing our meeting to the end of this month.
Had it been my older self, I would have labeled this person as pushy. But now I see this as a good quality — to get clarity on others’ commitments and to be proactive in your communication.
Instead of waiting for the other person to revert to your request, proactively remind that person of their commitments. It will help you make quick decisions and save you from speculations about that person’s inactions to your requests.
In the third instance, I approached a few of my friends to give me a positive rating for my Udemy course. A good rating will help my course to get more traction. But some of my friends did not share their ratings even after a month.
I felt bad, as I have always helped my friends whenever they needed me. Even if I get busy with my other responsibilities, I always take my friend’s request at a higher priority.
Hence, I expected a similar reciprocation from my friends; i.e., they would also prioritize my request and quickly give the ratings on my Udemy course. But this did not happen.
My older self would form the impression that my friends do not care about me and my growth.But my entrepreneur mindset shift told me that people get busy with their lives. Hence my request might have skipped their minds. And, it is ok to remind them about it.
I should not judge my friendship by the completion of some tasks.
With these thoughts, I reminded all my friends who had not yet given me the ratings. I was surprised that everyone responded immediately and filled in my course’s ratings.
These three instances in the past week confirm the mindset shift inside me on this startup journey.
- Now, I acknowledge other person’s good qualities rather than sticking to one of their not-so-positive behavior.
- Now, I understand that being proactive is not equivalent to being pushy. In some cases, it helps in quick decision making
- Now I realize that sending reminders to people is not always annoying. Sometimes it helps people who are victims of procrastination.
And if it helps to save your money and time, then this mindset shift is definitely worth it.
“To change your life, you have to change yourself.
To change yourself, you have to change your mindset.”
Wishing you a great week and hope you make a positive mindset shift this week.
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