Many people working in large companies speak business-buzzwords as a second language. Business language is full of pretty meaningless words. I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore article tells that the language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. There are several strains of this epidemic: We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things, acronymitis, and Meaningless Expressions (like “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation”). This would all be funny if it weren’t true. Observe it, deconstruct it, and appreciate just how ridiculous most business conversation has become.
Check out this brilliant Web Economy Bullshit Generator page. It generates random bullshit text based on the often used words in business language. And most of the material it generates look something you would expect from IT executives and their speechwriters (those are randomly generated with Web Economy Bullshit Generator):
“scale viral web services”
“integrate holistic mindshare”
“transform back-end solutions”
“incentivize revolutionary portals”
“synergize out-of-the-box platforms”
“enhance world-class schemas”
“aggregate revolutionary paradigms”
“enable cross-media relationships”
How to talk like a CIO article tries to tell how do CIOs talk, and what do they talk about, and why they do it like they do it. It sometimes makes sense to analyze the speaking and comportment styles of the people who’ve already climbed the corporate ladder if you want to do the same.
The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon article tells that the stupid business talk is longer solely the province of consultants, investors and business-school types, this annoying gobbledygook has mesmerized the rank and file around the globe. The next time you feel the need to reach out, touch base, shift a paradigm, leverage a best practice or join a tiger team, by all means do it. Just don’t say you’re doing it. If you have to ask why, chances are you’ve fallen under the poisonous spell of business jargon. Jargon masks real meaning. The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon article has a cache of expressions to assiduously avoid (if you look out you will see those used way too many times in business documents and press releases).
Is Innovation the Most Abused Word In Business? article tells that most of what is called innovation today is mere distraction, according to a paper by economist Robert Gordon. Innovation is the most abused word in tech. The iPad is about as innovative as the toaster. You can still read books without an iPad, and you can still toast bread without a toaster. True innovation radically alters the way we interact with the world. But in tech, every little thing is called “innovative.” If you were to believe business grads then “innovation” includes their “ideas” along the lines of “a website like *only better*” or “that thing which everyone is already doing but which I think is my neat new idea” Whether or not the word “innovation” has become the most abused word in the business context, that remains to be seen. “Innovation” itself has already been abused by the patent trolls.
Using stories to catch ‘smart-talk’ article tells that smart-talk is information without understanding, theory without practice – ‘all mouth and no trousers’, as the old aphorism puts it. It’s all too common amongst would-be ‘experts’ – and likewise amongst ‘rising stars’ in management and elsewhere. He looks the part; he knows all the right buzzwords; he can quote chapter-and-verse from all the best-known pundits and practitioners. But is it all just empty ‘smart-talk’? Even if unintentional on their part, people who indulge in smart-talk can be genuinely dangerous. They’ll seem plausible enough at first, but in reality they’ll often know just enough to get everyone into real trouble, but not enough to get out of it again. Smart-talk is the bane of most business – and probably of most communities too. So what can we do to catch it?
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers have finally figured out how receiving commands from authority figures alters our brain activity.
Study Suggests Why People Are Capable Of Committing Atrocities When Obeying Orders
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/study-suggests-why-people-are-capable-of-committing-atrocities-when-obeying-orders/
Back in the 1960s, a scientist at Yale University called Stanley Milgram conducted one of the most famous psychological experiments of all time, revealing how people are perfectly capable of administering excruciating electric shocks to innocent victims when ordered to do so by a superior. More than half a century later, researchers have finally figured out how receiving commands from authority figures alters our brain activity, thereby enabling us to go against our moral scruples and inflict pain on others without feeling guilty.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.kreapal.fi/palvelut/verkkokurssi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Know where to draw the line.
STARTUP LIFE
8 Defining Moments When You Should Push Back on Your Boss
You give enough at the office–know where to draw the line.
https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/8-defining-moments-when-you-should-push-back-on-your-boss.html?cid=sf01002
Your relationship with your boss is perhaps the most important one in your life, outside of family and friends, and everyone has a boss (even founders have boards to report to). You want your boss to be your advocate. You want to earn his or her appreciation. Or, you might just be trying to cope with him or her. Whatever the case, there must be boundaries.
While you owe your boss (and your company) much, like your best effort and integrity, there’s a distinct list of things you don’t owe. These are the relationship defining moments when you should push back.
1. When 24/7 availability is expected.
2. When you’re asked for an explanation for why you need personal time off.
3. When perfection is implicitly expected.
4. When you find yourself sacrificing your health and well-being to keep up.
5. When perpetual agreement is implicitly expected.
6. When admiration and advocacy are implicitly expected.
7. When your loyalty is implicitly expected.
8. When your identity rests too much on what your boss thinks of you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Great share-A leader should be able to explain why an idea or project matters to the company and its customers. By forcing your boss to explain their thinking, it may help them get more explicit on the reasoning behind their decision and how they anticipate it impacting your organization and customers…https://rplg.co/c0cf3410
How To PushvBack When Your Boss Asks For Something You Know Won’t Work
The art of the pushback is a subtle but effective way to stay engaged at work and thrive!
https://rplg.co/c0cf3410
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Say ‘No’ Without Coming Off Like a Jerk
‘No’ doesn’t have to mean hard feelings.
https://www.inc.com/levi-king/how-to-say-no-without-coming-off-like-a-jerk.html?cid=sf01002
In the words of former British Prime minister Tony Blair, “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes.” I’ve found that to be true. The difficulty of saying no decreased as I gained experience, but I still follow the same six guidelines today that I painstakingly figured out two decades ago:
1. Lay the foundation beforehand.
Your employees will take a ‘no’ much easier from you when they believe you appreciate, admire, and respect them. If they’re on the fence about that–if you give them mixed messages or ignore them–they’ ll take a no as a slap in the face.
Of course, some people are going to take a ‘no’ as a slap in the face no matter how you treat them
2. Don’t be everybody’s best friend.
At the same time, don’t equate being respectful and appreciative with being everybody’s best pal.
I’ve learned the hard way, however, that boundary-setting is a crucial leadership skill.
3. Embrace your awkward side.
Our fear of awkwardness harkens back to grade school. Awkwardness makes us feel vulnerable and dumb, so we avoid it like the plague.
When faced with a particularly bad, face-to-face request, make awkwardness work for you.
Give yourself plenty of space before saying no. Even better, wait till the other person breaks the silence–chances are that they’ll reconsider what they’ve asked and simply answer ‘no’ for themselves.
4. Use deadpan humor.
I thought quickly but couldn’t think of anything to say. Then my brain turned off and I spoke automatically: “Uh, how about … no.”
He paused for a moment and then we both burst into laughter. He reworked the idea into something less insane and provided this anecdote with a happy ending. Brutal honesty can be funny, and humor has a tendency to defuse otherwise tense situations.
5. Don’t get used.
Every so often, you’ll hire someone who’s too clever for their own good. Ambitious, smooth, and manipulative, they’ll use their dubious gifts to climb the ladder and put their own desires ahead of the team.
6. Embrace your inner procrastinator.
If you can’t say no on the spot, feel free to put it off until later. Your colleagues know that your time is precious, and won’t begrudge you a reasonable request for space to think.
Use the space to consider the best approach–after all, you now have five great ones to choose from. Broach the topic with them again when you’re ready and deliver your judgment. Even if they’re disappointed, they’ll be happy you gave it some thought before turning it down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PRODUCTIVITY
What Separates True Achievers From People Who Just Stay Busy
https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/what-separates-true-achievers-from-people-who-just-stay-busy.html?cid=sf01002
Just because you put a lot on your plate doesn’t mean you’ll have a lot to show for it later.
Doing a bunch of stuff is not the same as accomplishing meaningful, intentional, and disruptive goals, however. And if you want to be happy and avoid burnout, then you need to be extremely careful that you strive to do the latter.
How to Become an Achiever
To become an achiever rather than a doer, for everything in front of you, you must ask yourself not only “What difference will this make?” but also “Why does that difference matter?” You must quiet your ego and consider others as much as yourself, and you must prioritize legacy over paycheck and immediate gratification.
In the United States and other areas of the world, culture sends a strong message that being busy is the same as being successful
Your concern as a leader should be to ask yourself what tasks can sustain, strengthen, and grow you and others, and to focus your energy only on those. It is the significance of the job, not the number of jobs, that ultimately wins admiration and protects you from burnout, so stay focused and don’t anything distract you from your intended or desired purpose.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What will be the top challenge for your business in one year? What will be your top digital sales channel in two years?
No guess of the future is perfect. In this blog we discover the ina and outs of scenario-based strategy planning and why it is a powerful tool. Especially in creating compelling visions to act towards for the future.
The power of alternative futures
https://www.columbiaroad.com/blog/the-power-of-alternative-futures
What will be the top challenge for your business in one year? What will be your top digital sales channel in two years? How much data will you be responsible for in three years? There is only one feasible answer: “It depends”. And it is typical to examine only one aspect of it.
Day-to-day realities seldom allow exploring the dependency trees with sufficient depth. However, there are situations where a systematic approach to all visible possibilities merits focus and energy. Done right, it is possible to create adaptive solutions that can be scaled up or down depending on the situation.
No guess of the future is perfect. Which is why there are many benefits in considering alternative possibilities and responses. These alternative futures are more commonly called scenarios. Scenario-based strategy planning is a powerful tool especially in creating compelling visions to act towards.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alexa von Tobel: Eliminating risk is the key to building a startup during an economic downturn
https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/27/alexa-von-tobel-eliminating-risk-is-the-key-to-building-a-startup-during-an-economic-downturn/?tpcc=ECFB2020
Tomi Engdahl says:
We’ve heard that “Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results”? But a new model helps app makers guesstimate what the future holds.
Predicting the Lifespan of an App
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/predicting-the-lifespan-of-an-app
The number of apps smartphone users have to choose from is daunting, with roughly 2 million available through the Apple Store alone. But survival of the fittest applies to the digital world too, and not all of these apps will go on to become the next Tik Tok. In a study published 29 July in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, researchers describe a new model for predicting the long-term survival of apps, which outperforms seven existing designs.
“For app developers, understanding and tracking the popularity of an app is helpful for them to act in advance to prevent or alleviate the potential risks caused by the dying apps,” says Bin Guo, a professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University who helped develop the new model.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“VPs of Engineering spend most of our time translating between two parallel universes. We’re citizens of both while not fully belonging to either.”
Tips for translating between engineering and executives
A lot has been said about how lonely it gets being a founder/CEO of a startup company, you can probably pick any Ben Horowitz quote here about the struggle or the cold sweat in the middle of the night and you’d be right.
Right now it is especially hard to be CEO. Every single person in the organization needs more and different support than they did a month ago.
But there is actually one position that can be even more cruel than being CEO. Being VP of Engineering is lonelier. In fact your VP of Dev is probably the loneliest person in your company.
I did not get a single day of grace in my new role and, if that wasn’t enough, I had to deal with 3 frustrated developers that told me how stuff is broken because all the execs care about is delivering new features and how they will never understand what technical debt is and how if you slow down and build things right you will eventually move faster.
The picture was clear in my head then…
As VP of Engineering we spend most of our time translating between two groups of people in two parallel universes. We’re citizens of both while not fully belonging to either.
I was not really one of the developers. I was once, but not anymore. I constantly had to remind the team of the realities of developing software inside a business with goals that are a lot more around revenue, customers and deadlines. Some of them got it. But to many I was now just another executive.
I was not really an executive either. I certainly tried to be. I tried to fit in with my new peers. I spent hours listening to the VP of Marketing and VP of Sales on what would help drive more business. But every time I tried explaining back to them and to my boss (the CEO) how building software at scale is a complex mission that has to maintain a delicate balance between the delivery of new value and the investment in non-functional infrastructures and quality initiatives that will enable the business to keep on moving forward with fast and reasonable pace, I felt that they nodded their head with (fake) understanding and went back to ask about feature delivery dates the next week.
Even in good companies with good culture, there is not a strong desire from either side to understand the other.
So this big gap exists. And that gap is where we (VPs of Software Development) live. To close the gap, you need to build a bridge. Speaking both languages is not enough to build the bridge. You also need to understand both cultures. When you have both, you have a chance to earn the respect you need from both sides to close the gap.
Successful VPs of Engineering are great translators
The best VPs of Software Development embrace their role as a translator. They know their company won’t reach their potential if they don’t create a bridge between the people that develop software to the people that directly interface with customers.
Here’s how the best VPs of Engineering translate on a day-to-day basis:
They bring data to the weekly management meeting. The VP of Marketing has dashboards from Marketo or Hubspot about the number of MQLs and SQLs. The VP of Sales has reports from Salesforce about how many deals are in each phase of the sales cycle. The VP of Customer Success pulls up Gainsight to show customer engagement and renewal metrics.
Great VPs of Software Development have their own dashboards. And they focus on leading indicators that monitor the quality of the process rather than focusing on outputs and trailing indicators like how many lines of code the team wrote or even how many bugs were found.
They draw a clear connection between dev KPIs and the overall goals for the business.
Want to predict how fast we are shipping new value to customers? They show cycle time.
Want to predict how satisfied customers are with the quality of the product? They show you the quality of the process with PR review coverage and review depth.
Bringing consistent metrics to the staff meeting each week will help elevate the development process from being an enigma to being a well-understood function in the business.
They teach the CEO and their peers how to understand the development process. The most common question a VP of Dev gets is “is feature XYZ shipping on time?” This seems like a fair and obvious question to ask her. But look more closely. After a while the CEO would stop asking the VP of Sales “hey, are we going to hit our number this quarter?” because they already know the answer to that question. They can look at the revenue dashboard
Part of the VP of Devs job is to teach the CEO and the other business leaders to look at their department in the same way. And although forecasting is a tough task if they want to know if feature XYZ is on time, they can look at the dashboard.
Over time the CEO and the peers will develop the data-driven intuition (yes, this is a thing – just read Malcom Gladwell’s Blink) to understand whether we are currently in hitting / missing / over achieving trajectory. So instead of asking “are we going to hit our date” they’ll say “It looks like you are slightly behind schedule compared to last week / iteration. What can I do to help?”
Instead of saying “customer XYZ really needs the new feature to work so no bugs this time” they can gain confidence that VP of Dev will shift resources to handle risk when there are too many high-risk items open that generate more technical debt.
That’s the goal. To help the CEO and their peers understand how they see their business so they can be a more active participant and so they can start measuring the process of software development, not just the outcome.
They meet 1:1 regularly with their peers.It takes a long time to teach someone to speak a new language. It requires patience and constant practice.
They build strong relationships with their peers and use the rapport to constantly reinforce the message.
When they ask only about outcomes like feature delivery deadlines or bugs, great VPs teach them about the world of software development like how to quantify the impact of changing priorities last minute and why devs don’t reply to email quickly.
They also learn from their peers. To be a great partner we have to understand what motivates those teams and what KPIs they care about most.
They start every morning by looking at data to determine the health of their business. Not just any data. The best VPs start with cycle time which is the most accurate indicator of process efficiency, then look at the team WIP to validate that the team is not in overload. They also look at other leading indicators like PR pick-up time and PR review time to detect bottlenecks that can affect the team’s current sprint and their performance over time.
By using consistent metrics to measure the dev team’s process, they are ensuring the entire team speaks in a consistent language about what they do. This is the first step in being able to speak a common language with the rest of the business.
In times of extreme change (like right now) they focus on the process. Your outputs metrics are probably down (ours are). Measuring the process helps your team focus on what they can control and gives you the ability to celebrate a lot of little wins to keep morale high.
They translate business to their team. Seeing the customer perspective and the big picture are critical skills for developers to acquire. The best VPs of Engineering help her team acquire these skills several ways:
Creating a common lexicon:
Sales cycle time is the length of time it takes a sales rep to close a deal on average.
Engineering Cycle time is the length of time it takes a dev to deliver a work item on average.
High risk deals are important deals to the company that may not close.
High risk branches are important work items to the company that may not get finished.
A lot of this stuff is the same and it helps devs to see that the rest of the business thinks about their day-to-day work
Connecting the dots between code and customers:
Developers should talk to customers. Directly. If that sounds scary to you, think of how much scarier it is to rely on a developer to create a product for someone they don’t understand.
Translation is lonely. And also rewarding.
When the VP of Software Development masters this translation, not only do they deliver more value to customers, but the whole company thinks and feels differently.
The CEO gains confidence that forecasting software development is possible or at least with the same accuracy you can forecast marketing MQLs or sales revenue.
The executive team shows interest in the software development process and metrics and understands the implications and trade-offs of their requests.
Developers feel like they work for someone who truly has their back.
The business as a whole thinks “Our VP of Dev really gets it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
“VPs of Engineering spend most of our time translating between two parallel universes. We’re citizens of both while not fully belonging to either.”
Tips for translating between engineering and executives
A lot has been said about how lonely it gets being a lfounder/CEO of a startup company, you can probably pick any Ben Horowitz quote here about the struggle or the cold sweat in the middle of the night and you’d be right.
Right now it is especially hard to be CEO. Every single person in the organization needs more and different support than they did a month ago.
But there is actually one position that can be even more cruel than being CEO. Being VP of Engineering is lonelier. In fact your VP of Dev is probably the loneliest person in your company.
I did not get a single day of grace in my new role and, if that wasn’t enough, I had to deal with 3 frustrated developers that told me how stuff is broken because all the execs care about is delivering new features and how they will never understand what technical debt is and how if you slow down and build things right you will eventually move faster.
The picture was clear in my head then…
As VP of Engineering we spend most of our time translating between two groups of people in two parallel universes. We’re citizens of both while not fully belonging to either.
I was not really one of the developers. I was once, but not anymore. I constantly had to remind the team of the realities of developing software inside a business with goals that are a lot more around revenue, customers and deadlines. Some of them got it. But to many I was now just another executive.
I was not really an executive either. I certainly tried to be. I tried to fit in with my new peers. I spent hours listening to the VP of Marketing and VP of Sales on what would help drive more business. But every time I tried explaining back to them and to my boss (the CEO) how building software at scale is a complex mission that has to maintain a delicate balance between the delivery of new value and the investment in non-functional infrastructures and quality initiatives that will enable the business to keep on moving forward with fast and reasonable pace, I felt that they nodded their head with (fake) understanding and went back to ask about feature delivery dates the next week.
Even in good companies with good culture, there is not a strong desire from either side to understand the other.
So this big gap exists. And that gap is where we (VPs of Software Development) live. To close the gap, you need to build a bridge. Speaking both languages is not enough to build the bridge. You also need to understand both cultures. When you have both, you have a chance to earn the respect you need from both sides to close the gap.
Successful VPs of Engineering are great translators
The best VPs of Software Development embrace their role as a translator. They know their company won’t reach their potential if they don’t create a bridge between the people that develop software to the people that directly interface with customers.
Here’s how the best VPs of Engineering translate on a day-to-day basis:
They bring data to the weekly management meeting. The VP of Marketing has dashboards from Marketo or Hubspot about the number of MQLs and SQLs. The VP of Sales has reports from Salesforce about how many deals are in each phase of the sales cycle. The VP of Customer Success pulls up Gainsight to show customer engagement and renewal metrics.
Great VPs of Software Development have their own dashboards. And they focus on leading indicators that monitor the quality of the process rather than focusing on outputs and trailing indicators like how many lines of code the team wrote or even how many bugs were found.
They draw a clear connection between dev KPIs and the overall goals for the business.
Want to predict how fast we are shipping new value to customers? They show cycle time.
Want to predict how satisfied customers are with the quality of the product? They show you the quality of the process with PR review coverage and review depth.
Bringing consistent metrics to the staff meeting each week will help elevate the development process from being an enigma to being a well-understood function in the business.
They teach the CEO and their peers how to understand the development process. The most common question a VP of Dev gets is “is feature XYZ shipping on time?” This seems like a fair and obvious question to ask her. But look more closely. After a while the CEO would stop asking the VP of Sales “hey, are we going to hit our number this quarter?” because they already know the answer to that question. They can look at the revenue dashboard
Part of the VP of Devs job is to teach the CEO and the other business leaders to look at their department in the same way. And although forecasting is a tough task if they want to know if feature XYZ is on time, they can look at the dashboard.
Over time the CEO and the peers will develop the data-driven intuition (yes, this is a thing – just read Malcom Gladwell’s Blink) to understand whether we are currently in hitting / missing / over achieving trajectory. So instead of asking “are we going to hit our date” they’ll say “It looks like you are slightly behind schedule compared to last week / iteration. What can I do to help?”
Instead of saying “customer XYZ really needs the new feature to work so no bugs this time” they can gain confidence that VP of Dev will shift resources to handle risk when there are too many high-risk items open that generate more technical debt.
That’s the goal. To help the CEO and their peers understand how they see their business so they can be a more active participant and so they can start measuring the process of software development, not just the outcome.
They meet 1:1 regularly with their peers.It takes a long time to teach someone to speak a new language. It requires patience and constant practice.
They build strong relationships with their peers and use the rapport to constantly reinforce the message.
When they ask only about outcomes like feature delivery deadlines or bugs, great VPs teach them about the world of software development like how to quantify the impact of changing priorities last minute and why devs don’t reply to email quickly.
They also learn from their peers. To be a great partner we have to understand what motivates those teams and what KPIs they care about most.
They start every morning by looking at data to determine the health of their business. Not just any data. The best VPs start with cycle time which is the most accurate indicator of process efficiency, then look at the team WIP to validate that the team is not in overload. They also look at other leading indicators like PR pick-up time and PR review time to detect bottlenecks that can affect the team’s current sprint and their performance over time.
By using consistent metrics to measure the dev team’s process, they are ensuring the entire team speaks in a consistent language about what they do. This is the first step in being able to speak a common language with the rest of the business.
In times of extreme change (like right now) they focus on the process. Your outputs metrics are probably down (ours are). Measuring the process helps your team focus on what they can control and gives you the ability to celebrate a lot of little wins to keep morale high.
They translate business to their team. Seeing the customer perspective and the big picture are critical skills for developers to acquire. The best VPs of Engineering help her team acquire these skills several ways:
Creating a common lexicon:
Sales cycle time is the length of time it takes a sales rep to close a deal on average.
Engineering Cycle time is the length of time it takes a dev to deliver a work item on average.
High risk deals are important deals to the company that may not close.
High risk branches are important work items to the company that may not get finished.
A lot of this stuff is the same and it helps devs to see that the rest of the business thinks about their day-to-day work
Connecting the dots between code and customers:
Developers should talk to customers. Directly. If that sounds scary to you, think of how much scarier it is to rely on a developer to create a product for someone they don’t understand.
Translation is lonely. And also rewarding.
When the VP of Software Development masters this translation, not only do they deliver more value to customers, but the whole company thinks and feels differently.
The CEO gains confidence that forecasting software development is possible or at least with the same accuracy you can forecast marketing MQLs or sales revenue.
The executive team shows interest in the software development process and metrics and understands the implications and trade-offs of their requests.
Developers feel like they work for someone who truly has their back.
The business as a whole thinks “Our VP of Dev really gets it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://strivingstrategically.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
FAST, CHEAP, OR GOOD. YOU CAN ONLY PICK TWO.
https://strivingstrategically.com/2018/08/fast-cheap-or-good-you-can-only-pick-two
Many people have heard me say this ad nauseam but it’s probably one of the most important rules you can consider when developing something.
Fast and Cheap = McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Carl’s/Hardees.
Fast and Good = Your deluxe fast-casual burger bar. TAG in Denver or Nick’s in Portland; M.L. Rose in Nashville or Blockhouse in Greenville, S.C.
Cheap and Good = Freddy’s, Five Guys, Smashburger. Burgerville? Maybe.
Your project, hamburger or otherwise, will fall in one of these categories.
https://fastgood.cheap/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Töitä tehdään syksylläkin koronan ehdoilla – työterveyspsykologi: “Tämä on maratonmatka, pikajuoksutaktiikalla ei pääse pitkälle”
Jaksamista ja stressinhallintaa helpottaa, kun keskittää omat voimat niihin asioihin, joihin pystyy vaikuttamaan.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11508693
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Do You Know If You Work for a Toxic Manager? They Will Do Any of These 8 Things Daily
One study finds that 50 percent of employees leave their job to get away from their manager
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/how-do-you-know-you-work-for-a-toxic-manager-they-will-do-any-of-these-10-things-daily.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual meetings shouldn’t feel like presentations, but rather open forums to bounce ideas and invite feedback. via Fast Company
Stop presenting and start a dialogue. 10 tips to make virtual meetings more interactive
https://www.fastcompany.com/90540740/stop-presenting-and-start-a-dialogue-10-tips-to-make-virtual-meetings-more-interactive?partner=forbes
Capture audience attention and fuel a productive discussion during virtual meetings with these best practices.
Remote presentations aren’t going away anytime soon. Zoom, Skype, and WebEx gatherings are the new normal. Business leaders and their employees need to learn how to replicate in a virtual environment the interactions and two-way dialogue that make in-person meetings meaningful. One of the biggest mistakes presenters make is talking too much and not engaging the audience—in virtual meetings and even when everyone is in the same room.
Whether you are speaking with one or hundreds, planning for interaction will help you better connect with your audience, and enable you to learn what your viewers are really thinking—crucial for effective communication that leads to action.
Here are 10 best practices to help leaders and managers capture audience attention and fuel a productive discussion during virtual meetings:
DON’T SAVE QUESTIONS FOR THE END
SOLICIT FEEDBACK IN ADVANCE
USE ELECTRONIC POLLING
LEVERAGE THE RAISED HANDS OR CHAT ROOM OPTIONS
BUILD IN TIME FOR ENGAGEMENT
ELIMINATE THE PHRASE “ANY QUESTIONS?” FROM YOUR VOCABULARY
BRAINSTORM BEFORE THE PRESENTATION
KEEP THE DIALOGUE GOING
KNOW YOUR STUFF
NO GREAT MEETING EVER ENDS WITH A QUESTION
People are craving live interaction as most continue to work remotely. With advance planning, striving to make a virtual presentation a dialogue will enhance your relationships and make a greater impact. And here’s an added bonus: these techniques will also serve you well when we get back to “normal” and in-person meetings are resumed. Remember, talk less, and interact more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Three Positive Mantras To Help Power Through The Pressure Of The Interview Process
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/02/11/three-positive-mantras-to-help-power-through-the-pressure-of-the-interview-process/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Malorie/#6d616c6f7269
The interview process is a uniquely uncomfortable and contrived activity. We are forced to meet with—and perform in front of—a number of total strangers. You must maintain this act over a three-to-six-month time frame. During each interview session, you will be required to continually sell yourself to this audience. As you enthusiastically run through your background experience and skills, you’ll be met with blank stares and endure the discomfort of these people making critical judgments about you that could change the trajectory of your career, future and life.
The following three easy-to-implement mantras will keep you positive and allow you to stay the course and succeed in the interview process. A mantra is a motivating thought or chant, usually associated with Zen Buddhism, continually repeated in your mind to help inspire and push you forward toward your goal.
1. “I am the right person for the job and I will get this job!”
2. “I will get the job. This may take long, but it will happen! I will not give up!”
3. “I have the courage to seize the opportunity and massively succeed!”
Take a deep breath and say to yourself, “Yes, there are unknowns, but that’s okay. I’m confident that I will succeed. There will be headaches and problems that arise, but this is a great opportunity and worth the risk. I will make more money and have a better chance to advance my career. I will not let fear dictate my success!” Just think, “This is the right job for me. I have the courage to seize the opportunity and massively succeed!”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Self-Confidence Leads To Success In Your Job Search And Career—Here’s How You Can Start
http://on.forbes.com/6180GoQ1K
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emotionally Intelligent People Know How to Earn Respect. Here’s How They Do It
To earn respect, you’ve got to give respect. Here are five steps that will help you do both.
https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/emotionally-intelligent-people-know-how-to-earn-respect-heres-how-they-do-it.html?cid=sf01002
It seems that the ability to show respect is becoming a lost art.
Sarcasm and cutting remarks have become the default reaction, at work, at home, and online. A fractured political and racial climate fuels fear and suspicion. Further, when we get caught up in emotion. it’s easy to forget the principles of common courtesy.
In the real world, not everyone will automatically give you the respect you deserve as a human being. But there’s a simple principle that will almost always help you to earn that respect:
To earn respect, you have to give respect.
1. Acknowledge them.
Even before you say a word to someone, you can show respect by acknowledging the person’s presence. A slight nod of the head, a smile, or a simple hello can go a long way in making a first impression.
When discussing a topic on which you disagree, learn to acknowledge your partner’s points. Thank them for being open and sharing their perspective. If you don’t follow their reasoning, ask follow-up questions. To clarify, try rephrasing their points in your own words, and ask if you’ve got it right. All of these practices help others feel heard.
2. Get the full story.
Be careful about jumping to conclusions based on events or situations you didn’t witness firsthand. In such cases, there’s a big chance that details and context have been lost in the mix.
3. Set the tone.
If you approach people in a calm and reasonable manner, chances are much higher that they will respond in the same way. Acknowledge their difficulties and challenges and they’ll be much more willing to listen. In contrast, if you begin with biting sarcasm, or by yelling, you’ll send the other person’s amygdala into overdrive.
4. Keep a balanced view of yourself.
People quickly lose respect for those who appear arrogant or conceited. But the other extreme is also dangerous: If you lack conviction or confidence, you’ll appear weak and be labeled a pushover.
Instead, strive to achieve a balanced view of yourself in relation to others.
5. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Known as the Golden Rule, this principle has been around for thousands of years. But in today’s divisive world, it’s more important than ever.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The coronavirus pandemic has forced some companies which were previously hesitant to embrace change. Because it’s clear now that only agile businesses who’ve been quick to adapt are going to survive – and thrive – in this period of massive upheaval.
The pandemic has exposed just how flexible companies need to be
The firms which have coped best with the pandemic, and which will continue to thrive on the road ahead, are the ones which have been agile and quick at adapting
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-technology-companies-accenture?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Paid_Social&utm_campaign=Wired+Accenture+Traffic+Campaign+August+-+September+2020
Tomi Engdahl says:
COVID-19: Improving your remote team’s efficiency
https://thorgate.eu/blog/covid-19-improving-your-remote-teams-efficiency?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Ads&utm_campaign=Coronavirus+relevant+content&utm_content=How+to+work+efficiently+when+remote
The COVID-19 outbreak has changed the way most companies work, pushing teams to close offices and work remotely. Chances are that if you have not switched to remote working yet you might have to in the near future. It is a major step that can negatively affect efficiency levels in most organisations unless handled carefully. Luckily, at Thorgate, efficiency, smart working and productivity has seen positive changes since we made our entire team remote. Therefore, we believe that our processes could help and inspire other teams in this time of crisis.
Creating the right rituals to keep up work productivity and having optimal communication is essential in the current situation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Do this long enough and you’ll be shocked.
If You’re Too Busy for These 5 Things, Your Life Is More Off Course Than You Think
https://www.inc.com/benjamin-p-hardy/if-youre-too-busy-for-these-5-things-your-life-is-.html?cid=sf01002&sr_share=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2xke_ikuWPPJ6hRlr4GjM7b8XKW3We9rJN4kbNsRy2RzSNW6WGU_OQ8Zo&fbclid=IwAR10UrCfY8SDODCl4INfGx7zGxjg0fQSaTqf0R8ZPpilAD5Upmax90NMUew
Despite turbulence and other conditions keeping airplanes off course 90 percent of flight time, most flights arrive in the correct destination at the intended time.
The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple – through air traffic control and the inertial guidance system, pilots are constantly course correcting. When immediately addressed, these course corrections are not hard to manage. When these course corrections don’t regularly happen, catastrophe can result.
Small things – if not corrected – become big things, always.
How are you piloting your life?
What feedback are you receiving to correct your course?
How often do you check your guidance system? Do you even have a guidance system?
Where is your destination?
When are you going to get there?
Are you currently off course? How long have you been off course?
How would you know if you are on the right course?
How can you minimize the turbulence and other conditions distracting your path?
1. Organizing Your Life
Life is busy.
It’s hard to keep everything organized and tidy. And maybe you don’t want to have an organized life. But moving forward will require far less energy if you remove the excessive baggage and tension. Everything in your life is energy. If you’re carrying too much – physical or emotional – your progress will be hampered.
Stop what you’re doing and get organized
Getting organized and conscious of your present circumstances (e.g., your environment, finances, relationships, purpose, and time) puts you in a position to build toward the future you want.
The fastest way to move forward in life is not doing more. It starts with stopping the behaviors holding you back.
2. Plan and Invest in Your Future
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese proverb
Very few people consciously plan and design their life. It’s actually startling how few Americans are investing in their future. Most Millennials are terrified of the stock market and long-term investing. Most Baby Boomers never developed the discipline to invest, but instead maintained an addiction to American consumption.
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” – Benjamin Franklin
3. Tracking Important Metrics
“When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.” – Thomas Monson
Getting organized and investing in your future are futile if you’re not tracking.
“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.”
if you’re serious about improving upon the foundation of your life, track your priorities. For example:
Your key relationships
Your business and finances
Self-improvement (such as health or how you use your time)
4. Prayer and Meditation to Reduce Noise
“I have so much to do today that I’m going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done.” – Martin Luther
There’s a lot of emphasis on hustle these days.
Hustle, hustle, hustle.
But all the hustle in the wrong direction isn’t going to help you. Yes, by hustling you can fail often, fail fast, and fail forward.
“People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”
This happens way too often. We get caught in the thick of thin things. Far too late do we realize that in our mad rush, we were pursuing someone else’s goals instead of our own.
While praying or meditating for a large portion of time, the level of your thoughts will elevate. And interesting things will begin happening. If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of miracles, you can think of it as luck.
5. Move Toward Your Goals Every Single Day
How many days go by where you did nothing to move toward your big goals?
Probably too many.
Life is busy.
If you don’t purposefully carve time out every day to progress and improve, then without question, your time will get lost in the vacuum of our increasingly crowded lives. Before you know it, you’ll be old and withered, wondering where all that time went.
As Harold Hill has said: “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.”
After you’ve gotten yourself organized, made plans, started tracking, and gotten into the habit of prayer or meditation, taking action and hustling will be automatic.
You’ll be focused on the right thing and in the right frame of mind to actually execute.
Its good practice to do these kinds of things at the beginning of your day before your willpower depletes.
If you take just one step toward your big goals every day, you’ll realize those goals weren’t really far away.
Conclusion
It’s really easy to get off course in life. Like airplanes, we constantly need to make course corrections.
But we can ensure we get where we want in life by organizing ourselves, planning for our future, tracking our progress, heightening our mindset, and hustling.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Got a new book, blog or podcast and want more exposure for it? Here’s a PR expert’s take on how to connect with the media to help you build more success and engagement for your thought leadership.
How To Land Great Media Attention For Your Thought Leadership
http://on.forbes.com/6186GUb50
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 Signs You Possess a Skill Most Don’t Have (and How to Capitalize On It)
https://www.inc.com/carol-sankar/3-signs-you-possess-a-skill-most-dont-have-and-how-to-capitalize-on-it.html?cid=sf01002
When you recognize where your gifts are, you’re one step closer to finding ways to leverage them in business.
There are many things that can give entrepreneurs an advantage over their competition. Unique life experiences. Strong leadership capabilities. Or even being able to assemble a high-performing, driven team.
But like so many other aspects of life, you are your most valuable asset. This is especially true when you bring unique skills to the table–abilities most people don’t have.
here are three signs to look for to start the process.
1. You fly through current tasks with ease.
Does your current workload seem almost too easy? While being able to quickly get through tasks may help you feel more productive, easy work rarely leads to long-term job satisfaction.
2. People are constantly coming to you for advice.
A key sign that you’re uncommonly gifted is when you are the one that people rely on for help. You could be receiving these requests from coworkers, neighbors or even family members. Sometimes, it may be for something related to your industry or business. Other times, it could be related to a hobby or other talent that comes naturally to you.
side hustles can eventually grow into a full-fledged brand.
Identifying the areas that people regularly come to you for help is an easy way to identify where you have natural abilities that can be used in an entrepreneurial way.
3. You frequently find better ways to get things done.
Talented people aren’t content with the status quo. They look for ways to innovate within their niche. Success largely stems from looking for new ways to solve problems and being willing to try things that haven’t been done before.
If you are unusually skilled in a particular area, chances are you’re constantly thinking of ways you could make improvements.
you want to try new things that make a difference.
One way to achieve this is through developing a beginner’s mind–or a willingness to let go of old constraints that lead to conventional answers. Skilled individuals are looking for new innovations, which can give you the spark needed to start your own business or the leverage to advance your career at your current company.
you want to try new things that make a difference.
One way to achieve this is through developing a beginner’s mind–or a willingness to let go of old constraints that lead to conventional answers. Skilled individuals are looking for new innovations, which can give you the spark needed to start your own business or the leverage to advance your career at your current company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
8 Things You Should Not To Do In Meetings
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2019/10/14/8-things-you-should-not-to-do-in-meetings/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Malorie/#6d616c6f7269
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Common Mistakes That Identify Someone With Bad Leadership Skills
For starters, it’s time to ditch the formal, yearly performance review
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/4-common-mistakes-that-instantly-identify-someone-with-bad-leadership-skills.html?cid=sf01002
4 Common Feedback Mistakes
Intentions may be good when it comes to feedback, but often things leaders believe to be helpful, in fact, are not. If you’re in a leadership role now, Chandler has four tips to identify your feedback mistakes and what you should try to do instead.
1. DON’T rely on simple platitudes. DO provide specific and relevant details.
2. DON’T try to “fix” someone. DO offer feedback as a helpful tool they can use.
3. DON’T indulge only in “manager tells.” DO engage in conversation.
4. DON’T rely on traditional annual reviews. DO make feedback part of an ongoing relationship and continuous conversation.
If we want someone to grow, why are we waiting an entire year to offer them help? Feedback is about asking and receiving useful advice and insights on a continuous journey toward our goals. It’s about building trusting relationships and knowing that help is there.
When we get it right, feedback lifts us up, helps us understand our strengths, shows us pathways to achieve that next step, and sometimes even changes the course of our lives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You may wind up being very happy you did.
The Best Leaders Promote People Who Lack Confidence
It’s why Best Buy’s turnaround CEO Hubert Joly tapped Corie Barry as his replacement.
https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/leadership-promotion-confidence-uncertainty-best-buy-hubert-joly-corie-barry.html?cid=sf01002
Need to fill a leadership role in your company? Your first instinct may be to give the job to the candidate who seems most confident and sure of his or her own abilities. But before you make your decision, give serious consideration to a less confident applicant. You may wind up being very happy you did.
Most leaders’ first instinct might be to hire or promote the confident person. After all, your employees are likely to be better judges of their own abilities than you are. You might assume the confident employee has given the job a lot of thought and already planned out what the first priorities should be. And you might assume that the less confident person is aware of shortcomings that could hamper his or her performance.
Here’s why you should at least seriously consider giving the job to the employee who isn’t certain of being ready for it:
1. You’ll avoid promoting people based on their gender.
2. Too much confidence is a sign of stupidity.
3. No one really has the answers.
Someone who goes into a leadership role feeling less than completely confident is likely to recognize those uncertainties and draw on those resources earlier rather than later. But someone who takes the job feeling certain that he or she has everything figured out may try to do it all alone. Which would you rather have in a crucial role?
Tomi Engdahl says:
As people work, teach, worship, party, and even get married over Zoom, CEO Eric Yuan, SEP ’06, credits the company’s success to its singular goal—keeping customers happy.
https://stanford.io/31vF3UJ
Eat, Sleep, Zoom
In the months since his company became a global verb, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has never been busier. Or more exhausted. Or happier.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/eat-sleep-zoom?sf127165607=1
Tomi Engdahl says:
When resigning, here’s why you should never accept that counteroffer
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/resignation-tips-why-you-should-never-accept-that-counteroffer.html?__source=facebook%7Cmain
It takes a lot of guts to quit your job.
Often it means stepping into the unknown. So, it’s not surprising that it can be tempting to stick with the status quo, especially if your boss promises to up their game — and possibly your salary — in a counteroffer.
However, once you’ve expressed your desire to move on, going back on that decision could be one of the worst moves of your career, according to recruitment specialist Oliver Cooke.
“If you’re a good performer in your business, the likelihood is your current employers will try to counteroffer (when you quit). You should be prepared for that,” Cooke told CNBC Make It.
“But the reality is that they didn’t value you in the first place and they’re only thinking short term,” he said, adding that employers will often be thinking about the costs and risks involved in finding a replacement.
“You have to ask yourself: If they think you’re worth that now, why weren’t they paying you that earlier?” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Founders pitch VC’s at every available chance, which is why they develop skills to identify if someone is offering them an opportunity or wasting time. https://tcrn.ch/2R5ueTr
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Sara Blakely’s best advice on how to become fearless.
3 Billionaires’ Best Advice for Getting Over Your Fear of Failure
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/elon-musk-richard-branson-sara-blakely-failure-advice.html?cid=sf01002
Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Sara Blakely on how you can dare to chase your wildest dreams.
Perhaps one of the oldest and most oft repeated chestnuts in the startup world is that you shouldn’t fear failure.
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough,” Elon Musk told SpaceX employees in the company’s early days, for instance.
Or how about this classic from Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Entrepreneurs are bombarded with the message that getting over your fear of failure is essential for success, probably because it’s true. But that doesn’t make it easy. Failure feels terrible for most normal humans, and it’s natural to worry about the social, economic, and business costs of falling on your face.
But just because fear of failure is hardwired into us, it doesn’t mean we can’t overcome it.
“Something that can be helpful is fatalism, to some degree,” Musk explained. “If you just accept the probabilities, then that diminishes fear. When starting SpaceX, I thought the odds of success were less than 10 percent and I just accepted that actually probably I would just lose everything. But that maybe we would make some progress.”
Calling failure “one of our greatest learning tools” Branson recommends those in the grip of anxiety think about all the things a seemingly negative experience is teaching them.
Switching your lens in this way will shift your focus from the short-term discomfort of failure to the long-term gains. That should boost your courage.
Self-made Spanx billionaire Sara Blakely has made a similar observation about failure: While it feels horrible, it often leads to wonderful things down the road. It’s just hard to remember that in the moment. Blakely suggests a short writing exercise can help remind you of this truth.
Next time you’ve experienced a setback and it stings, get out a pen and paper and try to write out all the positives that are likely to come out of the experience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
6 Daily Habits That Will Make You Look Smarter and More Powerful
http://on.inc.com/EkeeYch
Building your executive presence now will be a tremendous advantage to your career in the future.
Executive presence is the combination of communication skills, technical competencies, perspective, and temperament that instill a sense of confidence in a leader’s viewpoints and decisions. For those seeking leadership positions—especially in the C-suite—executive presence is an essential set of qualities needed to progress, influence others, and get results. Often, it’s getting a strong sense of who’s in charge the moment you walk into a room—even before people introduce themselves and share their titles.
The tricky thing about coaching people on building their presence is that, while there are similar characteristics that make up an executive, each person adds their own unique personality and perspective to the equation.
If you have aspirations of earning a promotion within your organization, starting to build your executive presence now will be a tremendous advantage in the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
11 Habits of Genuinely Likable People
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/11-habits-of-genuinely-likable-people.html
How to make a great first impression — and a great lasting impression.
There’s a formula to making a great first impression: Smile, make eye contact, be engaging. But first impressions can also quickly lose their impact, especially when there’s no substance beneath the surface glow.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/toxic-boss-signs.html?cid=sf01002
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alizalicht/2020/07/28/how-to-transform-a-corporate-culture/
Tomi Engdahl says:
If You Can Truthfully Say ‘Yes’ to Any of These 5 Questions, Your Emotional Intelligence Is Lower Than You Think
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/if-you-can-truthfully-say-yes-to-any-of-these-5-questions-your-emotional-intelligence-is-lower-than-you-think.html?cid=sf01002
Even if the answers are yes, emotional intelligence is something anyone can develop.
EQ accounts for nearly 90 percent of what moves people up the ladder.
EQ is responsible for 58 percent of your job performance.
People with high EQ earn $29,000 more per year, on average, than those with low EQ.
EQ is one of the top 10 job skills required for workers to thrive in 2020.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://auntie.fi/5-nakokulmaa-esihenkiloiden-uupumukseen/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toxic or healthy, a culture sets the tone of how individuals communicate, interact and work as well as the beliefs, behaviors and values they embody.
6 Common Misconceptions About Workplace Culture That Are Hurting Your Employee Experience
http://on.forbes.com/6180Gq7GI
Building a strong and healthy workplace culture takes time, consistent action, a commitment to communication, transparency, and buy-in from everyone at all layers of the organization. Many organizations believe having a mission, vision and value statement will bring their culture to life. Thus, they remain hands-off with the expectation their employees and formal statements will do the work for them. This is how toxic cultures manifest and spiral out of control resulting in a publicized scandal that destroys a company’s reputation.
Here are six common misconceptions companies have about workplace culture that are harming their employee experience.
1. A Fear Based Culture Creates Instant Results
2. It’s Only About Social Events And Fun Perks
3. It Needs To Come From HR Not Leadership
4. Culture Doesn’t Require A Lot Of Effort
5. Celebrating Milestones Is A Waste Of Time And Money
6. Culture Forms On Its Own From The People Hired
Putting the responsibility on employees to build a culture is unfair and promotes division. It’s up to HR and the hiring team to ask the right questions to make sure the individual will add to the culture and those who are already employed to invite the new hire in and make them feel welcome.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Burnout is on the rise among remote workers. New studies show the whopping new statistics and 6 steps remote workers can take to prevent burnout.
How Remote Workers Can Recognize Burnout And 6 Actions To Take
http://on.forbes.com/6188GSUvo
Burnout is nothing to hide or be ashamed about. It’s a topic to be aware of and talk openly about so you know the signs and can prevent it. You’re not alone. And studies continue to reveal that a huge portion of the remote workforce is suffering from this medical condition. Burnout is more serious than job stress. You can’t cure it by taking an extended vacation, slowing down or working fewer hours. Once it takes hold, you’re out of gas, more than mere fatigue. The solution is prevention: good self-care and work-life balance to stop burnout in its tracks before it hits home in the first place. As Americans continue to work from home, new research shows that the risk of burnout is on the rise.
According to a July 2020 survey of 1500 respondents by FlexJobs and Mental Health America (MHA), 75% of people have experienced burnout at work, with 40% saying they’ve experienced burnout during the pandemic specifically. 37% are currently working longer hours than usual since the pandemic started. Having flexibility in their workday (56%) was overwhelmingly listed as the top way their workplace could offer support, well in front of encouraging time off and offering mental health days (43%). Other highlights include:
Employed workers are more than 3 times as likely to report poor mental health now vs before the pandemic (5% vs 18%).
42% of those employed and 47% of those unemployed say their stress levels are currently high or very high.
76% agreed that workplace stress affects their mental health (i.e., depression or anxiety)
51% of workers agreed that they had the emotional support they need at work to help manage their stress.
People are eager to attend virtual mental health solutions offered through their workplace, such as meditation sessions and virtual workout classes
67% of those working remotely feel pressured to be available at all hours of the day
65% admitting to working longer hours than ever before.
Six in 10 respondents fear that their job would be at risk if they didn’t go above and beyond by working overtime.
63% agree that time off is generally discouraged by their employer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“If they don’t have the latter, the first two will kill you.”
Warren Buffett Says This Is How You Can Instantly Spot a Great Leader
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/warren-buffett-says-this-is-how-you-can-instantly-spot-a-great-leader.html?cid=sf01002
The Oracle of Omaha says if you’re hiring someone without this leadership trait, you want them lazy and dumb.
We look for three things when we hire people. We look for intelligence, we look for initiative or energy, and we look for integrity.
And if they don’t have the latter, the first two will kill you, because if you’re going to get someone without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb.
Here are six reasons you should consider basing your leadership hiring decisions on people with integrity.
1. An orientation toward the truth.
2. Practicing what they preach.
3. Giving others credit.
4. Being generous with their time.
5. Cutting through conflict to solve problems.
6. Putting away the mask.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 ikivihreää strategiaa, jotka auttavat valmentajia ja asiantuntijoita menestymään 2020-luvulla
https://www.digivallankumous.fi/5-ikivihreaa-strategiaa
20% tekemistäsi asioista tuottaa 80% tuloksistasi.
Näin kuulee usein sanottavan, mutta mitkä oikeasti ovat ne 20% asioista?
Monet yrittäjät päätyvät etsimään kaikkein tehokkaimpia taktiikoita ja menetelmiä…
Mutta se johtaa vain tähän ongelmaan:
“Monella ei valitettavasti ole hallussaan perusteita menestyvän liiketoiminnan rakentamiseen. He säntäilevät jokaisen uuden kiiltävän esineen perässä ja olettavat, että se on ratkaisu kaikkiin heidän ongelmiinsa. Se, että ottaa käyttöön taas yhden sosiaalisen median kanavan kaiken muun lisäksi, ei ole ratkaisu mihinkään. Harvoin kyse on siitä, että yrittäjä tai yritys tekisi liian vähän asioita. Mistä lähtien lisää on ollut ratkaisu siihen, että on jo valmiiksi liikaa?”
~ Henri Liljeroos, CEO, Campwire
Yksittäisten taktiikoiden sijaan suurin este valmennus- tai asiantuntijabisneksen menestyksen tiellä on strategisen ajattelun ja bisnesosaamisen puute.
Ne muodostavat ikään kuin talon perustuksen. Jos perustus on erinomainen, on sen päälle helppo rakentaa seinät ja katto erilaisten menetelmien, taktiikoiden ja työkalujen avulla. Jos perustus on puolestaan hutera, yrittäjä on aina töissä ja kasvu junnaa paikoillaan.
Tämä on erityisen tärkeää nykypäivänä, koska elämme murroskautta valmennus-, koulutus- ja asiantuntija-aloilla.
Yrittäjät, jotka eivät osaa esim. valmistaa, myydä tai markkinoida etänä tehtäviä verkkovalmennuksia, ovat löytäneet itsensä umpikujasta.
Vanhat toimintamallit eivät toimi enää samalla tavalla kuin ennen koska mm. kasvokkain tehtäviä valmennuksia rajoitetaan koronan takia.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Myynti voidaan jakaa kolmeen kategoriaan:
Tyrkyttävä myynti, jossa tyrkytetään tuotteita ja palveluita ihmisille ja jossa pyritään antamaan lisäarvoa vain rahaa vastaan. Esim. puhelinmyynti.
Opettava myynti, jossa pyritään houkuttelemaan asiasta kiinnostuneita ihmisiä omaan vaikutuspiiriin blogaamalla ja somettamalla itsensä uuvuksiin. Oletetaan, että ihmiset kyllä ostavat kun heitä auttaa tarpeeksi paljon.
Näkymätön myynti™, joka yhdistää ihmisten auttamisen ja tehokkaan myynnin täysin erilaisella tavalla kuin mihin suurin osa yrittäjistä ovat tottuneet. Olemme sen avulla kaksin- tai kolminkertaistaneet myyntilukumme.
https://www.digivallankumous.fi/5-ikivihreaa-strategiaa
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lose the elevator pitch.
6 Things Smart People Do to Have Really Interesting
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/6-strategies-smart-people-use-for-having-really-interesting-conversations.html?cid=sf01002&sr_share=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2-7OPocFr1ZoMB_BTp2lw3g1KB_VhioeVyaDgyf_vEobCq21zlWfjOu8g
ConversationsHate small talk? Tired of the same old questions? These six approaches will make you that much more interesting.
Next time you go to a traditional networking event, a cocktail party, or a dinner, do us all a favor: Lose the elevator pitch. That approach is quickly losing relevancy in making authentic connections that could open doors for you.
Instead, your first order of priority is to take the attention off yourself and put it squarely on the other person sitting or standing across from you. You start by asking the right questions and listening more than you speak
1. Become genuinely interested in the other person.
2. Show those pearly whites.
3. Give the gift of a “five-minute favor.”
4. Listen more. Speak less.
5. Make the other person feel important–and do it sincerely.
6. Tell a good story.
So now that you’ve captivated the person you’re talking to, they probably want to know about you, so it’s your turn to shine. Rather than boring them with work or with business-related lingo (that will come later), it’s good to have a few go-to stories you can pull out of your hat to keep the momentum going. Have stories you can share that have been tested with other audiences and found to be reliably funny,
entertaining, informative, or engaging
Tomi Engdahl says:
The best way to make someone successful.
4 Things Great Bosses Say to a New Employee That Most Bosses Never Think to Say
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/4-things-great-bosses-say-to-a-new-employee-that-most-bosses-never-think-to-say.html?cid=sf01002
Want a new employee to truly hit the ground running? Say these four things.
You work hard to find, interview, and hire the right employees. They have great skills, great experience, and great attitude. So once they’re hired and in the door, all you need to do is set them loose, right?
Not so fast. Knowing how to do a job is certainly important, but approaching a job with the right perspective and right mindset — in short, understanding the why — means everything.
Many bosses assume the conversations they have during the interview process are enough.
They aren’t.
Here are four things great bosses say on an employee’s very first day to make sure that person gets off to a great — and focused — start.
1. Thoroughly describe how the business creates value.
New employees need to learn how to do their jobs, but first they need to thoroughly understand your company’s underlying value proposition and competitive advantage.
2. Map out the employee’s internal and external customers.
Every new employee has external customers, even if he or she never meets them, and every new employee definitely has internal customers.
3. Set immediate goals — and explain that you will start giving feedback right away.
Successful businesses execute. Set a productivity tone by ensuring that every new employee completes at least one job-related task on his or her first day.
Why? Not only do you establish that results are all-important, but also, every new employee will go home feeling a sense of personal achievement.
4. Reinforce the reasons you hired them.
Every employee is hired for one or two specific reasons, but often those reasons get lost in all the fluff of the interview process. (Be honest: It’s nice to find a well-rounded employee, but most of the time you really need an employee who is a superstar at doing X.)
Don’t just assume that reason is understood. Tell your new employee why you hired her — not the role she will fill, but why she is such a great fit for that role. Praise her skills and experience, and praise her attitude and work ethic.
More important, you’ll reinforce the connection between her skills, experience, attitude, and work ethic and the actual job you hired her to perform.
Don’t let new employees lose sight of what makes them different. They possess qualities and attributes other candidates didn’t. Explain what those qualities are and how they helped you make your hiring decision.
Few statements are more motivating and set the stage better than “We hired you because you’re absolutely awesome at developing and empowering people, and we’re all excited about the huge difference you’re going to make for our employees.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
9 Hidden Signs You’re About to Be Fired
http://on.inc.com/wLSpmUy
These red flags warn when it’s time to find another job … or start your own firm.
If you’ve been getting lousy reviews, complaint letters in your file, and glaring “one more mistake like that…” remarks, you know what’s coming. You’re gonna be fired.
But layoffs are different and insidious. Top management keeps a layoff secret, because they want to decide who goes and don’t want top talent to depart before the storm.
Getting laid off is the worst way to get fired. If you’re blindsided, you hit the streets (and end up competing for a new job) with the rest of your clueless co-workers.
Lucky for you, I’ve been through half-a-dozen layoffs and kept my eyes opened as they happened. Here are the hidden signs that one is imminent:
1. A merger or acquisition.
2. Off-site management meetings.
3. A sudden increase of HR bustle.
4. A corporatewide hiring freeze.
5. Unexplained visits to China or India.
6. A memo about corporatewide office supply usage.
7. No more free coffee.
8. Any delay of normal financial activity.
9. Management denial of layoff rumors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Want to Be Much Happier? Science Says Always Do Any 1 of These 8 Things
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/want-to-be-much-happier-science-says-always-do-any.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/126000117413375/posts/3825336174146399/
//Time to update resume when:
a) Fixed typo in Linux kernel README (I am a kernel contributor)
b)Turned on & off LEDs using Raspberry PI ( I am an expert in device driver and low level programming)
c) Wrote 10 blog posts last year (I am a founder and CEO of my blog empire)
e) I have sql injected my own code (I am cyber security expert)
d) wrote a hello world program in the new programming language I’m learning (senior developer in language X)
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Signs You’re More Persuasive and Influential Than You Think
Which means you’re a better leader than you think.
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/10-signs-youre-more-persuasive-influential-than-you-think.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-check-if-centos-rhel-needs-a-full-reboot/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Remember That Company With the $70K Minimum Wage? 5 Years On, the Results Suggest More Businesses Should Follow Suit
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/remember-that-company-with-70k-minimum-wage-heres-how-its-doing-now.html?cid=sf01002
Looks like Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price proved the doubters wrong.
Remember how five years ago, Dan Price, the CEO of Seattle-based payment processing company Gravity Payments, raised all of his 120 employees’ salary to at least $70,000 a year, taking a huge pay cut to make it happen?
In short, the company is doing just fine, thank you, and as Stephanie Hegarty reports, not just by the usual financial metrics:
The headcount has doubled and the value of payments that the company processes has gone from $3.8bn a year to $10.2bn.
“Before the $70,000 minimum wage, we were having between zero and two babies born per year amongst the team,” he says.
“And since the announcement–and it’s been only about four-and-a-half years–we’ve had more than 40 babies.”
There have been other benefits besides this baby boom. “More than 10 percent of the company have been able to buy their own home, in one of the U.S.’s most expensive cities for renters. Before the figure was less than 1 percent,” Hegarty adds.
Another way to put that is employees are now actually living secure, middle-class lives and reaching markers of success like owning a home and having kids that were once assumed to be within grasp of most dedicated full-time workers. In short, Gravity Payments put the American Dream back within financial reach for its employees.
Employees responded to this largesse not by slacking off but by working harder. “When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you’re doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you,” one told Hegarty. Senior staff say they’re less stressed than before the pay hike.