Will Larson really got me thinking with his advice on the best ways to push your organization to improve. It’s essential work, but “organizations can only absorb so much improvement at a given time before they reject the person providing the feedback.” We have to balance the feedback about how to improve with guidance on how operate within the existing environment:

When I focused on how the environment could change to make my team more successful, I was usually technically correct, but usually didn’t help my team very much. Because work environments change slowly, it benefits your team more to give them feedback about how they can succeed in their current environment than to agree with them about how the current environment does a poor job of supporting them. Agreeing feels empathetic, but frames them as a bystander rather than active participant in their work.