Be efficient with things and effective with people.
S. Covey
It's never a waste of time to put in the time connecting with people.
This morning during my reading time I read about Doug Conant, the CEO who transformed the Campbell's Soup Company. Aside from the amazing transformation of the company's finances, what really stuck out to me is that the man wrote thirty thousand hand written letters to people in his company over the years.
30K! That's a ton of letters, and there is nothing more warm-feels evoking than a handwritten letter. Do you know why? Because it takes time. Time is our most precious commodity, and if someone takes the time to craft a hand-written letter to you, it is the ultimate show of value, your value, to that person. If someone takes the time to write to you they are giving you a bit of their finite time. It shows that you matter.
The idea that a CEO of a massive company taking the time to show that kind of care was a most pleasant thing to read. We live in a time of fast, of instant gratification, of dopamine drip sensation. Everything seems to be swirling around us as the speed of light.
So I see how easy it would be to get caught up in the rush and try to be efficient with people and things, but here is the the thing. People are infinitely complex. One process that may work and empower one person might have the opposite effect with another. This is why it is so very important to build relationships with people, to connect with the individual, to be effective with them through creating a culture of empathy and compassion.
In my notebook I have a few words written and starred.
Empathy = understanding
Compassion = action inspired by empathy
Just having empathy for someone does not make you a good leader. We've all heard the saying actions speak louder than words, and in order for those words you took in, the understanding you express to anyone in your life, be it teammates, employees, family, etc., to have value, you have to express action as evidence that you understand.
If more of us did that, the growth the world would see in all areas would be phenomenal.
Me, I'm an eternal optimist. I believe that people have the propensity to change, especially if the change we want to see is modeled by us. It's so easy to complain about the way of things. It's much harder to identify the change we want to see and start effecting said change through modeling it via empathy and compassion towards others.
One of the most effective ways to do such a thing is to show people they matter, and that can be as simple as handwriting a note.
Because here's the thing, the world's always been a mess, but sometimes that mess lines up in the most beautiful of ways, through the power of connection.
The world needs more leaders, not bleaters.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's as of now not in possession of a sheep bleating ring tone iPhone, the header and footer images were made in Canva.