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#63 The Archimedes Principle version 2.0

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You might be familiar with the Archimedes Principle, the relevant point for us is the “aha” moment he had when he was sitting in a bath. The part where he got excited by his discovery and ran into the streets yelling “Eureka!” without putting on his clothes is not relevant. Modern day HR controls how excitement is displayed with a thick binder of workplace rules and guidelines.

Do your leaders get their “aha” moment when they are “immersed” in a problem or do they sit on the sidelines and be a “Monday morning quarterback.” Note: It is not always possible to be immersed in a problem. It may be expensive to immerse senior leadership in every problem they have to understand.

The point is, are you getting your data after immersing yourself in the problem? Or are you listening to someone who has immersed themselves in the problem. The correct answer is “Yes.”

Practical tip: Shut down or walk out of meetings if the loudest people are those who have not immersed themselves or have not talked to those who have immersed themselves in the agenda topic.

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#51 Why didn’t you tell me?

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No one likes surprises. Taking your boss by surprise is career limiting. Taking your stakeholders by surprise will get you low scores for collaboration and teamwork. It also provides cannon fodder to your critics.

If events move at a rapid pace, you have to break the news at some point. A sharp reaction to breaking news is a bad habit. If you point out the bad habit, you will lose points on “friendliness” and “trust.” If you don’t point out the bad habit, your nerves will be raw with all the reactions you get when you share news.

Your main recourse is to not display that bad behavior and hope others will copy that. Meaning, don’t react to news. Find out when the news was available to the messenger and mentally calculate how long it took to get to you. Point that out and praise those who delivery (bad) news quickly. It takes time to transmit a message thru the organization. Those at the lower end of the food chain will get the news later, they just have to get used to the fact.

When you publish (bad) news, let your audience know when the information became available to you. Include the curation and editing and research you did to improve productivity. Put some points on the board so you will get the benefit of the doubt.

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