One very simple exercise I do with some clients is to get them to simulate themselves in different positions than their own. I call it 'One click Up, One down'. The reason I do this is so that they can get an understanding of whether they are delivering the expectation they hold of their superiors on to their subordinates. I don't really like those terms but, they are fine for the exercise as it seems to help be a little more objective.
What they often find is that their expectations of others are not completely inline with what they deliver to others. This conflict in thinking means that there is a lack of consistency in their wants and actions. There is a Golden Rule position here and even though following through on this doesn't guarantee reciprocity, it does encourage it.
Some general things people want from superiors are:
- Feedback
- Support
- Clear communication
- Encouragement
- Constructive criticism
- Remuneration
- Listening
Some general things people want from subordinates are:
- Feedback
- Proactivity
- Completion of tasks
- Following protocols
- Listening
- Clear communication
There are many more in both sets that you can think of yourself and if you are in a position like this, I recommend spending time developing your various position, especially if you are looking to get a payrise, be promoted or become an effective manager.
But, taking this idea and applying it to Steemit is also possible and the same kind of structure exists albeit, slightly less hierarchical in nature. If we look at the same concept with ourselves in the middle position, authors above and readers below, we could get an idea of how we should be developing our own content.
What do you expect from the content you read? Do you want to read plagiarised, cut and paste, grammatically poor, nonsensical, overly technical, valueless (in your opinion), badly constructed content? Is that what you would upvote with a clear conscience and say that this is what helps the platform develop and in turn, support me?
When you look at the readers of your own articles do you want useless comments, cut and paste comments, lies about follow, begging, self-voted comments with higher value than the vote on the content (if there was a vote on the content), advertisements and links, massive images for services and resteems you didn't ask for, comments that do not connect with the article, links to unrelated topics, personal attacks.
I think that if we take a step back from what we think we do and inspect what we actually do we may see that there are many inconsistencies in our own behaviours. People talking of not getting support while producing nonsense, while others are producing nonsense and getting upvoted blindly by people complaining about not getting upvoted on their own content. People 'engaging' through cut and paste comments but expecting real comments on their own work. and all the rest of the upvote and follow spam.
When it comes to getting the most out of Steemit in both the short and the long term, it is near impossible to have it be a one way street where expectations are met without delivering anything of value along the same lines. It would do everyone well to spend a little time thinking about this but of course, this is very, important for those who are new or struggling.
Consistency of action is a key success factor and that consistency is not for a day or a week, try looking into the several months range at least and along that path, spend some energy on improvement of what you deliver to your clients, the readers and upvoters of your content.
Enjoy your weekend :)
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]