In my last newsletter, I promised you my 3 mistakes in managing a campaign.
2024 is a big election year. So in the spirit of sharing learnings, I shared with you 3 consulting skills I used in campaigning and a podcast episode on my 9 lessons from managing an election campaign.
And so here are my top 3 mistakes in managing a campaign:
- Not communicating enough internally. It's the classic challenge of a fast-growing organization in a fast-paced environment. When you think you've communicated decisions, the plan, your requests and you feel like repeating yourself, when you think you've involved everyone or given them a chance to have their voice heard: it's still not enough. It's not generally true or even wise, but when it comes to communicating, typically 'more is better'. Even more so in democratic politics, especially when you set out to be more participatory than established parties.
- Not embracing diversity more. The significant advantage in our core campaign team came from having diverse perspectives that we managed to integrate. We complemented each other. But while that may sound nice, it's not easy. It's not easy to expose yourself to very different ways of thinking and working; it requires you to adapt your ways, to be patient, to get into and out of conflict, put in extra work to meld together diverse perspectives. And it's only with some distance that I truly see the value in that; in the moment, it felt more like a necessity. So: embrace diversity - and pay the price for it, willingly and happily.
- Not documenting the journey. We documented best practices & lessons-learnt after the elections were over. But I think, documenting the journey, as you go along, would have been helpful for future campaigners, and perhaps inspiring, funny, embarrassing for viewers, but I think all together insightful and engaging. It goes hand in hand with mistake no. 1 above. So, just take out your phone, record, and publish more often. And yes, the competition may be watching (probably not). And while they are watching, you are campaigning.
Good luck in whatever campaign you are a part of.
🎙️ My latest podcast
🚀 NEW episode: I explore the topic of how to focus on what matters most.
The reason it's so difficult to answer: it's not 1 question, it's several questions.
Here's the episode 👇
Daniel Matteo
What has helped my coaching clients and me: peeling away the layers to see what question we are actually trying to answer.
This is the breakdown:
- Where to Direct Your Attention
- Defining What is Important to You
- How Do You Know What Matters to You
- Understanding the Meaning of Focus
- Applying the 80-20 Principle
- Prioritizing with a 25-Item List
- Focusing on Different Life Areas
- Shifting Perspectives to Find Focus
- Building Habits and Systems to Maintain Focus
- Learning Through Doing
📚 What I read & listen to
Still reading & digesting this one:
Beside a shift in perspective that we negotiate more than we think, this book is full of practical tips.
This is the book on negotiation, written by the former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss. Completely shifted my understanding of negotiation: it's less the hard bargaining and more the showing of empathy. Less the rational give-and-take, more the emotional 'I see you'.
Will write a book note on it as well.
📚 Here are all my book notes so far.
🖋️ My favourite quote
"Rules for Happiness: Something to do. Someone to love. Something to hope for." Immanuel Kant (or Alexander Chalmers, or someone else?)