Ex Post Facto no. 17: Respect, Flowcharts, & Hard Decisions
We’re back for another Ex Post Facto, the email with 3 things you’ll wish you’d known earlier—just in time for the weekend. Thanks for joining! –Shane
This week has been incredibly hard for a lot of people. I personally feel weird about carrying on with my normal life in the safety of my home when the violent invasion of Ukraine is causing so much unnecessary suffering.
So while this week’s Ex Post Facto focuses on how to deal with hard things at work, I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on how good you have it in life—if you have the time to read newsletters like this instead of fighting for your freedom. (And I hope you’ll consider donating to the World Food Programme or another charity to help the people of Ukraine.)
Now—on to this week’s Ex Post Facto:
One EXcellent bit of wisdom
“Your desire to be liked can get in the way of your need to be respected.”
This quote comes from Chapter 1 of the new book I’m loving called Cues, by Vanessa Van Edwards. It’s about how small nonverbal and verbal things we do can make or break how effective we are at work.
Too often I’m guilty of the above myself: I want to be liked, so I hedge what I’m saying (or don’t say the hard thing) when I should be firm. This is one of many things I’m thinking about as a result of Cues. Check out my post about the book here.
One POST you won’t want to miss:
What To Do When Someone Is Bringing Down Your Team « Speaking of doing the right thing over the easy (selfish) thing, this week I’ve been thinking a lot about some advice I got a long time ago about the choice we make when we choose to do nothing about teammates who make life hard. (And how making life hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing!)
One FACT Of great interest:
You’re able to read this on your computer because of Ukraine!
Turns out, the invention of the HDD hard drive was made possible by a Ukranian scientist named Lubomyr Romankiw.
We also owe the helicopter and our understanding of the human immune system to Ukranian scientists and engineers. And much more.
That’s all for this week. Give thanks for your hard drives, y’all, and pray for peace.
Much love,
Shane
