The importance of context 🧐

in personal and working life

(2 minutes reading)

🇮🇹 👉 Italian version [LINK HERE].

🤌 What is context? How do we define it?

Oxford Dictionary: the situation in which something happens and that helps you to understand it.
The words that come just before and after a word, phrase, or statement, and help you to understand its meaning

The real question is:
👉 why is it as important to me, in my personal & working life?

What I have learnt in these years, reading and debating about this topic is
- the context influences our behaviour: depending on where and with whom we are, we are inclined to behave differently, so to recognise different contexts and to understand how we modify our behaviour helps us to act better.
- the context helps to set the right expectations: so it is important to explain it and have 'common ground' with our interlocutors, because they will be able to understand better what we expect.
- the context influences us, but it can also be influenced: we can decide to accept the situation as it is or try to change it, to change our behaviour and, consequently, the context around us.

Two examples that impressed me on this topic are:

📌 Netflix's corporate culture in which managers lead with context.
Here is an abstract:

"You understand that you are leading happily with the context when your subordinates move the team in the desired direction using the information received from you and those around you to make good decisions themselves."

📖 I read about it in the book “No rules, Rules“ [LINK HERE]

📌 Ted Talk by Chimamanda Adichie: the dangers of a unique story.
Telling his personal story, she talks about how the context in which she lives influences her thinking and the way she tells and writes stories; until she discovers that it is not the only context, the only story that exists and therefore decides to change the way she sees things and writes about them.

📽 You can watch it here

When it comes to Digital Transformation, the context in which you plan to implement it can really make a difference. If your company has a culture of trust, rather than control, everything will be easier.
Talking about our day to day, one thing to keep in mind is that every person has their own story and he/she comes from a context, maybe even a little bit different from ours; if we learn to adapt to that context and empathise, we will be able to communicate better.

📜 👉 Context is really important and knowing that it can be influence and it does influence, us makes all the difference. What do you think?
Let me know in the comments! As always, I'm happy to help you learn more. If you'd like to have a sparring partner or have a chat about this or other topics, feel free to leave a comment and I'll be in touch.

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#BeCurious #BeFocus

Giuseppe