Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
The WhatsApp message you want to receive
|
The dream accomplishment is not a promotion. Sorry. I know LinkedIn wants you crying in front of a cake with the company logo… so that you produce lots of likes. “After 17 years, I am humbled to announce…” Lovely. Very touching. Very corporate. Very LinkedIn… But no. The real dream is a WhatsApp message. “Can you jump on a call? We have a problem.” That’s it. No fireworks. No orchestra. No posts in social media with 46 hashtags. Just one message. Because someone, somewhere, in a project that is starting to smell like burnt plastic, thinks: “We need him” That is the dream. To be the person they call before the problem becomes a newspaper article. Before the claim becomes a war. Before the meeting becomes a funeral with PowerPoint. Titles are cute, I reckon… I had nice ones. But when the time comes… Can you help when things get difficult? Can you see the issue? Can you explain it? Can you make people move? Can you stay calm when everyone else starts producing “alignment decks” to hide the fact they have no idea what to do? That is the real accomplishment… Being useful. Being trusted. Being the obvious choice. And yes, maybe later comes the promotion. The money. The better role. The better project. The nicer chair where your back does not slowly die. Bla, bla, bla… But first… Your name needs to be the first in their heads when there’s a problem. That is what The Room is about. Becoming the kind of professional people want in the room when the room actually matters. Click below. ​The Room​ PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
They wanted to save money. Of course. Because nothing says “excellent public procurement” like taking a complex, mission-critical system and pretending the cheap option is also the clever option. In 2007, the Queensland Government in Australia needed a new payroll system for Queensland Health. Not a tiny organisation. Tens of thousands of employees, multiple awards, complex rosters, allowances, overtime, penalties, shifts… The kind of payroll system that makes normal payroll systems cry in...
Let’s say you want to get in shape. You can buy a gym membership. Fine. You pay the fee. You get the little towel. You walk in pretending you know exactly what you’re doing. Then you start lifting weights like a chicken “sin cabeza”… no head. A machine here. Some dumbbells there. A bit of treadmill because you saw someone else doing it. And then you hope willpower, motivation, and the fitness gods do the rest. Good luck with that. Now, if you’re serious… Really serious… You hire a personal...
Alicante, Spain, around 2007. A young engineer was working on a large transport project… a toll road. Not the boss. Not even a “deputy”. Not even close. His job was mostly coordination. Trackers. Minutes. Interfaces. The glamorous stuff nobody respects until it goes wrong. One week, there was a problem with a utility diversion. Nothing spectacular. No collapse. No newspaper headline. Just one of those boring issues that can quietly destroy a programme… and with that… a project… and some...