Empathy Archive - Page 4 of 39 - This Moment Counts

Dear younger me

Dear younger me,

What exciting times you live in.
You’re bursting with ideas and you want the world to notice.
Leave your mark. Make a dent.

And you’ll have plenty of opportunities for it.

But here’s something I wish I had learnt sooner:

Impressing people is not to be confused with making an impact.
Sounding smart is not the same as making sense.
And polishing your words won’t fix the gaps in your thinking.

What works is simple:
Say what’s true.
Say it plain and simple.
Use words that help others see it.

When you do, they’ll trust you.

You’ll spend your life helping others see that, too.
And it will be worth it.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

The Story Hijack

(This post is available as a podcast episode. Click here if you prefer listening.)

You’re in the exec meeting. You finally have the floor and share a story you’ve chosen carefully, something that proves a point, that shows what’s really going on.

But halfway through, a colleague jumps in: “Oh, that reminds me of when we…”

And suddenly, it’s their story. Their airtime.
Your point vanishes into thin air.

So frustrating, isn’t it? “Why do they always have to hijack the story just to make themselves look smart?”

Honestly, it stings. It can feel like they’re trying to undercut you.

But are they?

Here’s what might be going on:
In leadership teams, airtime is currency.
It signals relevance, influence, status.

So when someone hijacks your story, it’s not necessarily to undercut you. Often, it’s a move to prove they belong. It’s insecurity wrapped in performance.

And if we’re honest, it’s not even unusual.
Every one of us has done it at some point.

You hear a story, it triggers one of your own, and you can’t resist. You jump in to contribute, to connect, to show you’ve got something valuable too.

Seen through that lens, the hijack is less about malice and more about need. The need to be heard. The need to be seen.

So what do you do?

You don’t win by fighting for airtime harder. You win by using your airtime to turn the spotlight around.

Instead of keeping it on yourself, you point it forward.
Onto the team. Onto the path ahead.

Making them feel seen. Nurturing a sense of belonging.

As long as airtime feels like it’s about individuals, people will fight for it. But when you turn it toward the group, the fight disappears.

Because when people feel the spotlight includes them, they stop grabbing for it.

Keep lighting the path!

PS: Join us tomorrow for an exclusive live session on How to Lead with Clarity, even when “the system” doesn’t seem to want it.

The people in the system

When we talk about the system, it’s easy to picture some faceless machine. Cold. Rigid. Against us. But the truth is the system is made of people.

And I deeply believe that most are well-intentioned. They’re not trying to sabotage clarity. They’re simply doing their best, just from their very own perspective.

Think of that colleague who says, ‘Let’s not open that can of worms right now.’

To you that sounds like denial.
But to them it might be self-protection.

Maybe they got burned the last time they spoke too plainly.
Maybe they’re carrying pressure from their boss that you don’t see.
Maybe they’re just terrified of being the one to break the bad news.

So while you hear resistance, what’s actually happening is coping. What looks like jargon to you might feel like a shield to them.

The default reaction is to push back.
After all, you’re right and they’re not.

Or are you?

And more importantly, does it matter? Is it helping? Are we really playing for who’s right or are we trying to get it right?

Together.

If you treat them like obstacles, you’ll push harder.
But if you see them as humans with fears, ambitions, and scars, you’ll search for resonance instead.

You’ll look for ways to lower their defenses. Something they can align with.

Clarity doesn’t have to expose them. It can protect them.
It can give them words that feel safe enough to use.
It can light a next step that doesn’t humiliate them but invites them.

And when you do that, you stop pushing against the system and start aligning with the people in it.

That’s when things finally start to move.

Keep lighting the path!

PS: If you want to dig deeper and learn how you can apply that in your meetings, join us on Sep 4th for an exclusive live session: How to Lead with Clarity in a System That Won’t Let You.

Love, according to marketing

No-one ever gets tired of hearing “I love you”.
But marketers? They say: “Love me!”

Followed by: “Have you subscribed to my newsletter?”

Hm. What could possibly go wrong?

Love doesn’t work that way.
Neither does marketing.

Keep lighting the path!

Terrifying clarity

You walk into the meeting thinking:
“Finally. A clear explanation. A bulletproof case. No one can argue with this.”

But here’s what “the system” hears: RISK, RISK, RISK!

No wonder the conversation goes sideways.
You thought you served a gourmet idea.
They tasted nothing but alarm bells.

So instead of moving forward, the system freezes. Or worse, they revert to their favorite game: politics.

The painful truth is that clarity doesn’t always move the system.
Sometimes it triggers defense.

Because clarity shines a light. And what people see when the light is on can feel super threatening.

Even if that’s totally irrational. Well, especially then.

Progress begins when clarity feels safe. When the light is not (only) on the terrifying terrain but also on the safe steps through.

That’s when people stop protecting themselves and start moving.

Keep lighting the path!

This is going nowhere – or is it?

You’re in a meeting. The conversation circles back again and again. The same arguments keep getting made. The same concerns keep getting raised.

And no-one except you seems to notice.

In your head you think: “We’re stuck. Why can’t people just stop repeating themselves?”

It feels like failure. As if people don’t get it. Or worse, as if they’re blocking you on purpose.

But here’s what’s really going on.
Groups often get stuck not because the idea is unclear, but because the stakes are high.

Moving forward means someone takes a risk.
Someone loses control.
Someone exposes themselves to blame.

And so the safe move is no move.

Silence.
Circling.
Delay.

That’s not sabotage. That’s human.
We all do it when uncertainty feels bigger than clarity.

Pushing harder now rarely works. It’s like a knot. The more you argue, the more each side pulls, the tighter it gets.

But how do you get unstuck?
Not by adding more force. But by investigating the knot.

In other words, stop seeing stuckness as an enemy to defeat and start seeing it as a signal. A signal that something underneath hasn’t been resolved, hasn’t been spoken yet.

Maybe it’s fear.
Maybe it’s doubt.
Maybe it’s just exhaustion.

Once you see it that way, the work isn’t to “break through” with sharper arguments. The work is to create space for what hasn’t been voiced. To let people bring the unspoken into the open.

Which means that getting unstuck is usually not about pushing harder but about looking for (and listening to) what’s in the way.

Keep lighting the path!

PS: This post is also available as a podcast episode. Click here if you prefer to listen.

Rock the boat

What do you say when your team asks for direction but what they really mean is “Don’t rock the boat”?

That’s one of the hardest moments as a leader.

You are asked for vision.
You speak with clarity.

And then you watch that clarity get pushed back because it stings a little too much.

But then again: The very fact that they ask for vision means there is a crack in the wall. A part of them knows they need something better than what they have.

Your job is not to bulldoze through their comfort.

Your job is to make the next step so clear, so obvious, that saying yes feels safer than staying stuck.

Start smaller than you think.

Show them, in one corner of the work, how much better it gets when clarity leads. Let them see the results with their own eyes.

Once they see that spark, the same people who pushed back often become the ones who fight for the bigger change.

It feels slow at first.

But that is how you light a path in a system built to keep things as they are.

Keep lighting the path!

Two different kinds of clarity

This is one of the big misconceptions about clarity:
You think the problem is they don’t get it.

But sometimes they do.
And just don’t care.

We tend to blame misunderstandings when things fall flat.

So we explain it again.
Argue why we’re right and they’re wrong.
Persuade harder.

But what if the problem isn’t clarity but relevance?

They understood you just fine.
They just didn’t see why it mattered.

What would need to change in your message to feel impossible to ignore?

Keep lighting the path!

The cost of persuasion

What’s wrong with persuasion?

It works. When you do it right, apply all the tricks and psychological hacks, chances are you’ll win them over.

It gets you the agreement. They say yes. You’ve clearly won.

And that’s the problem.

Because persuasion gets you what you wanted.
But did it get them what they needed?

You wanted their approval.
But did you get ownership?

You wanted them to act.
But did you get commitment?

So later, when it gets tough,
when the doubts creep in,
when priorities shift…

Will they stick with it? Or delay it?
Or simply do something else?

That’s the cost of persuasion.

It feels like progress.
But it’s not the kind that lasts.

Because it was always your idea.
And never fully theirs.

Leaders who light the path don’t bother with persuasion.

They aim to speak so clearly, others see for themselves why it matters.

To them.

And once they do, they’ll act.

Keep lighting the path!

Status Update Day

It’s Monday. Status update day in many teams.
But listen closely …

you’ll hear a lot of words that sound like progress but without any actual progress.

Because somewhere along the way, “status update” stopped meaning “how far we’ve come”.

And started meaning “how good we sound”.

It’s about protecting (if not pushing) personal status, rather than monitoring project status.

No wonder real problems stay hidden.

What does “status update” mean in your team?

Keep lighting the path!

Posts in Tag: Empathy