Relationships

How to Speak Up in Meetings and Disagree Tactfully

August 22, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you find it challenging to speak up in meetings, especially when disagreeing, here’s a helpful framework:

Restate the objective, even if it seems obvious: “Let’s clarify what we aim to achieve here…” This restatement sharpens the focus on the purpose.
Paraphrase someone’s point: “So, if I understand correctly, you’re suggesting…”
Express your concerns or alternative perspective: “I have concerns because…” or “While I see your point, how would we address…”
Be the last to contribute: Your silence piques curiosity and makes your statement more impactful. Incorporate the best ideas expressed and avoid obvious mistakes.

Following this approach, you can tactfully express your thoughts with the right tone and words while seeking common ground.

The Surprising Power of Low Expectations: The Secret Weapon to Happiness?

August 17, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Stephen Hawking once said, “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

Happiness depends not on how well things are going but on whether things are going better or worse than expected.

As the Buddhists propose, lowering your expectations—at least right-sizing them—raises your joy. But be careful not to lower them so much that you become apathetic and lack enthusiasm. Find a happy balance between satisfaction and aspiration.

Idea for Impact: You needn’t always do more, be more, aspire for bigger and better, rush, hustle, and accelerate, as the world will tell you. If all you really want is a simple, pleasant, gentle life, why can’t that be enough?

Book Summary of Erich Fromm’s ‘The Art of Loving’

June 21, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Erich Fromm‘s The Art of Loving (1956) is a philosophical and psychological exploration of the nature of love. It begins by questioning whether love is an art that requires knowledge and effort or merely a pleasant sensation that one “falls into” if lucky. Fromm argued that most people believe the latter, while he subscribed to the former. As an art, love necessitates practice and a certain degree of maturity to succeed at it.

Fromm posits that people misunderstand love for several reasons. First, they tend to focus not on loving but on being loved—striving to improve their desirability by becoming more affluent, famous, or attractive instead of learning to love. Second, they think of love as finding an object to love rather than a faculty to cultivate. They believe that loving is simple, but finding someone to love is challenging, whereas, in reality, the opposite is true. Lastly, Fromm points out that people often confuse “falling” with “standing” in love, which involves care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.

The initial rush of emotions when two previously isolated people suddenly discover each other may be exciting, but these feelings are fleeting. True love involves “standing” in love, a skill that takes years of hard work to develop, just like any other art or skill. Fromm argues that love is not something we stumble upon but must actively learn and cultivate over time.

In the end, Fromm emphasizes that despite the difficulties in learning and practicing love, it is a most valuable pursuit, surpassing material possessions like money, fame, or power. The mystery of existence can only be uncovered through our relationships with nature, purpose and meaning (through fruitful work,) and, most crucially, with other people. Hence, to fully experience the richness of life, it is necessary to cultivate the art of loving in all its forms.

Read The Art of Loving. It’ll deepen your appreciation for the complexities of love and human connections.

What to Do When Your Boss Steals Your Best Ideas

April 10, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Be thankful that your boss is stealing your ideas or getting credit for your work because the best way to make your boss love you is to make her look good.

It’s surprising how well this ensures a steady and trusting working relationship. So suck it up, buttercup!

Your boss’s opinion counts more than anyone else’s in your career trajectory. So the last thing you want is to put yourself in an adverse situation with your boss.

Credit for ideas is way overrated, anyway. The core of your job isn’t to sit in a cubicle and think up ideas. It’s carrying out those ideas—that’s what you’ll list on your resume—projects done, money saved, marketing campaigns led–not your bright ideas.

Don’t go over your boss’s head and protest. Your boss’s boss doesn’t pay attention to who stole whose ideas. If your boss is mean and nasty, your boss’s boss will eventually figure it out without your help.

Idea for Impact: Is it that awful that your boss takes credit for your ideas? Think of it as unselfishly donating some ideas in exchange for a good relationship with your boss.

The Hidden Influence of Association

March 16, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The “Law” of Association, a maxim popularized by motivational gurus Jack Canfield and Jim Rohn, implies that you’ll become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

This is to say, empirically, everything about you is the average of the five people you hang around most. For instance, your happiness level will be the average of the five of your best mates.

If you want to raise the quality of your life, rub shoulders with people already living the quality of life you aspire to. To become a better communicator, hobnob with great communicators. If you want to be more positive, mix with more optimistic individuals. If you want to be a fabulous parent, spend time with parents who’ve mastered the art.

Birds of a feather flock together … because they share a common vision, and they’re all going in the same direction. So if you’re pursuing a goal, find the people who’ve already attained that goal or are well along the path to achieving that goal. Then be with them, hoping some of their principles rub off on you.

Idea for Impact: In regards to relationships, we’re greatly influenced—whether we like it or not—by those closest to us. Get out there and connect with those whose lives you want to live. Those connections can pay off careerwise and personally.

Managerial Lessons from the Show Business: Summary of Leadership from the Director’s Chair

March 13, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Notes on Directing: 130 Lessons in Leadership from the Director’s Chair (2008) explores the parallels between directing the stage and managing projects. The shared themes include ad hoc teams, one-off goals, tight time frames, limited budgets, nebulous chains of command, shared objectives, etc.

Compiled by writer Russell Reich from the notes of British stage director Frank Hauser, this tome contains 130 meditations on casting actors, rehearsing, stage-setting, supervising the production units, and handling critics.

Organized temporally from a director’s initial encounter with the play’s script to its final production, this slim volume is so much more—it’s not just for stage directors.

#7: “Learn to love a play you don’t particularly like. You may be asked—or may choose—to direct a play that, for any number of reasons, you don’t think is very good. In such cases it is better to focus and build on the play’s virtues than attempt to repair its inherent problems.” Idea for Impact: Focus on virtues and strengths, not weaknesses. Spend more of their time reinforcing the good performers than dealing with untrainable performers—i.e., you can never remediate grievous weaknesses. Position the person somewhere else where her talents are a better match.
#33: “Every scene is a chase scene. Character A wants something from Character B who doesn’t want to give it.” Idea for Impact: Productive relationships with balance and joy call for continuous concession and managing one another’s expectations. Work hard to ensure that all sides feel contented with a negotiated compromise.
#73: “Know your actors. Some like a lot of attention; others want to be left alone. Some like written notes; some spoken. Get to know them. It doesn’t have to take long. It’s a good investment that will pay enormous benefits later.” Idea for Impact: Embrace individualized management. No two employees are alike—their temperaments, qualifications, experiences, and backgrounds shape them into thoroughly unique people who’re persuaded, challenged, and inspired in different ways. So why treat them all the same way?

Recommendation: Read Notes on Directing. It’s a worthwhile meditation in managing people, projects, and yourself. Anyone who must get things done through people will find insightful meditations on getting to the core of the narrative, handling people with diplomacy and nuance, and navigating conflict.

Trust is Misunderstood

February 24, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Trust isn’t just about “them” out there; it’s also about you. Trust is different things for different people.

Trust is a skill and way of operating that concerns choices and judgments, and opportunities and risks. Trust doesn’t transpire like an on-off switch. It’s something you create and nurture. The less trust between the two sides, the more challenging it is to get anything done.

And the hard part isn’t creating trust; it’s sustaining it. Trust isn’t won once but must be re-won constantly—often by affirming the positive and not allowing the win to become more important than how it’s achieved.

You Can’t Serve Two Masters

February 6, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Learning to “serve two masters” and managing multiple supervisors is a vital skill in today’s work world. Organizations have increasingly embraced matrix structures, with “dashed line” reporting (you work under a supervisor who doesn’t do your performance reviews) and “solid line” reporting (the true boss who evaluates your performance.) Do your best to accommodate the latter, but don’t overlook the other(s.)

Further, with cross-functional teams, it’s common these days to have multiple team-based supervisors, each overseeing your work on different projects. If you’re not cautious, it’ll become all too easy for each supervisor to regard you as if you have no other commitments, and you can end up letting them both down.

The key to managing expectations at odds is insisting on boundaries. If you aren’t too careful, you could become totally overwhelmed—each boss isn’t mindful of what the other’s sending you. Each ends up pushing their own agendas regardless of what you already bear on your plate.

To resolve the two-boss dilemma and try to please everybody, take the initiative and get your bosses to cooperate and liaise regularly:

Create and maintain one master priority list of everything on your plate. Update it at the beginning of every week, and make sure both bosses have a copy. This should help each understand how any emergent task would jibe with the other items on your list.
When one boss drops an urgent task on your lap, refer to the master priority list and ask, “If you want me to do this, what is it you want me to take off the list because I also have three other deliverables due in the next few days.”
Establish a daily 5- or 10-minute standing coordination meeting (“scrum”) with all the bosses. In the meeting, point out your current and impending priorities. They can adjust their relative preferences for you.
Don’t be the “go-between” and agree to speak on behalf of one boss to the other—especially if they aren’t speaking to each other. There’s much ambiguity, and managing conflict can become a significant challenge for you.

Even if you have multiple supervisors whom you take direction from, you’re likely to have one boss who’s ultimately responsible for their career. This boss will judge your performance and decide about your compensation and promotions. Tell her about your double bind and see if she can work out an acceptable arrangement with her colleague.

Idea for Impact: Remember to maintain good relations with everybody you work with. Personnel changes are widespread and frequent in most companies, and you never know who’ll be your next boss. Don’t strain your relationships with the other.

Why Your Partner May Be Lying

January 30, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Honesty builds trust and intimacy. When one partner conceals information or has secrets, it erodes a trusting relationship.

One non-obvious reason people lie to their partners is that they don’t feel safe telling the truth. Their head goes into a defensive mode, thinking merely about the short-term benefits. They fear rejection or disapproval. If such are the consequences of telling the truth, they believe it’s expedient to sidestep it, especially if they expect they’re unlikely to be caught.

If you reckon your partner is lying, first seek to figure out the reason behind the lie. Reflect on the last time your partner lied to you. How would you have responded if they’d spoken the truth? Would you have reacted with anger—even yelling or starting a fight?

When your partner lies, focus first on the one aspect you have total control over: your reactions. Have a “trust chat” with your partner. With no suggestion of judgment or shaming them, reveal your concerns and talk to them about honesty, trust, and secrecy.

Nudge your partner to be more candid with you. Let your partner know you’d always prefer to know the truth, regardless of the situation. Then, when your partner speaks the truth, thank them for being forthright and telling you the truth, even when they know that the revelation may leave you disappointed or angry.

Idea for Impact: Negative reactions like criticism, contempt, sarcasm, or aggression can make your partner more likely to hide the truth, causing a relationship to embitter even further.

Relationships

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