More on Differentiation and Importance of Actions

My last post on differentiation led to some more observations and thinking on the subject.

When senior professionals join a new organization, they often try to differentiate themselves (and create a weight around them) by talking big about their past laurels. In fact, it is only because of their past laurels that they were able to secure a position in the new company.

To update people about your past achievements is fine, because people need to know where you come from. But if you constantly refer to your past ways of working/ processes/solutions/events without considering the current problem at hand, you immediately loose respect.

Your past experience should help you solve current problems in the context of current organization. If it does not do that, it does not help talking endlessly about it.

Leadership is a trait people recognize by actions, not just words. Words are important to create a context and actions complement it.

Better strategy then, for senior professionals, is to understand the current context and align parts of their past experience that can help in current context.

The Lesson? 

“Talking big” is fine but if it is not complemented by “doing big”, differentiation does not happen.