💃 It's Me. Hi. I'm the Problem. It's Me. 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! Tay Swizzle kicking us off today with the fire🔥🔥!

And what does she have to do with our beloved Salesforce?

Humility.

She may only sing about being humble and not actually practice it (they say to never meet your heroes....), but would she have became one of the biggest pop stars in the world by being humble?

Today, we discuss the positive qualities of humility and how it may be utilized in your day to day. We also review cases where it may hinder your career.

All of this while interweaving what, why, and how this is relevant to a Salesforce Professional. Let's go!

Agenda for today includes

• 💃 It's Me. Hi. I'm the Problem. It's Me. 🕺

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

💃 It's Me. Hi. I'm the Problem. It's Me. 🕺

Why is humility such a powerful characteristic to have?

As a Salesforce Professional, we interact with an array of stakeholders - sales people, marketing professionals, developers, other consultants and admins, as some examples.

Although our job description may say that our core responsibility is to develop and maintain a great CRM, in actuality, the more accurate way to look at it is our job is to keep our users happy through giving them an amazing experience with their CRM.

That will require a lot of interaction with the users - troubleshooting issues, gathering requirements, validating design, UAT, training, etc etc.

For our consultants out there, professional services is a people business.

Consultants are the asset; they are the brain, the hammer, the megaphone, the cat herder....with some Salesforce skills thrown in.

The volume and variety of your interactions, in order to be successful, requires you to perform exceptional mental and emotional gymnastics.

An underlying focus on humility will support you having positive interactions. In extreme cases, it can turn hostile situations into something manageable.

What Is It?

• It is respecting ourselves, and not being disrespected.

• It is being self-critical.

• It is giving praise to others.

What It Isn't?

• It isn't taking blame for all the bad things.

• It isn't disregarding our super sexy Salesforce skills. Maybe downplaying, but we're here because we're skilled with Salesforce.

• It isn't putting stakeholders on pedestals.

Why Should I Care?

• You are disarming, a very rare and powerful skill. Bringing humility to a stakeholder meeting where the project is over budget and past deadline is one of the only ways to bring calm or levity to a difficult situation.

• You are respected, because you are less susceptible to hate, to charm, and to other types of influence. That one person on the project who is properly disagreeable will find easier targets to spew vitriol on, rather than the person who brushes it off with humility.

• You are approachable - you don't have all the answers, and neither do the people asking the questions. They feel safe going to you with difficult topics.

How Do I Get It?

• Self awareness is foundational to being humble. Identifying, understanding and control of your own emotions.

• Be an excellent, active listener. Don't interrupt (Pro Tip: if you are having trouble being an active listener, try this - start with focusing on not interrupting. You may find your mind focusing on your audience and becoming an active listener as a result).

• Give out praise. Be self critical. Have a balanced, sensible approach to this. Don't praise bad decisions, as it will encourage more bad decisions. And don't beat yourself up harshly around others.

What's Included?

So you're humble..you have humility..now what? It's a bit complicated. Let's explore the Pros and Cons -

Pros

• You are objectively a better person and pleasant to be around.

• You are an effective learner - you acknowledge what you don't know, and knowing what you do not know is 51% of the battle.

• You are a multiplier - by raising up those around you, overall performance may increase by a multiple of how many people you have impacted. This is hard to measure, but needs to be considered.

Cons

• In some (many?) environments, humility may be seen as weakness.

• History's great leaders are widely NOT humble.

• Because it is not widely recognized as a thing that will make more money, faster, it will take time to compound the gains into something meaningful or significant (a raise and promotion, for example).

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes