Building an effective team is hard work. First, you have to select the
right people to be on the team. This involves finding high-performing
, engaged employees with the right skills to do the job. Once youhave
completed this difficult task, you have to handle the even more
difficult task of establishing how work in the team will be done and
how communication will flow. It's still not over after that! Now, you
have the headache of dealing with the conflicts that are almost
certain to arise. Talk about hard work!
We hate to add even more to this already full plate, but before any of
the actual work gets started, you have to earn the buy-in of your team
members. Buy-in is earning the support and dedication of your team
members. It is a fancy way of saying everyone is on board! You need
buy in from everyone and you need to earn it early. Otherwise, you run
the risk that your team members will approach their work with
half-hearted enthusiasm and, in turn, produce subpar work. Team
members with buy in understand why the team's work is important and
they are more likely to do the work enthusiastically and at a
high-quality level.
This buy in does not just appear magically when you form your team. It
has to be earned. Luckily, there are a few steps you can take to make
it happen:
1) Make sure the resources the team needs to succeed are in place.
There are few things worse than being told to accomplish a task
without the money, time, or other necessary support to do it. Your
team may be full of high performers,but they are not supermen or
superwomen. Make sure that the money and administrative support your
team needs to work is ready to go. It is also important to make sure
that the team hasa realistic time frame to complete their work. Be
realistic about setting project deliverable dates so that your team
does not feel the need to rush through important tasks.
2) Tie team goals to company goals. If your team members are
passionate about the work that your company does, that does not
automatically mean that passion will transfer over to each team
project. Sometimes, the day-to-day grind can leave employees jaded.
Remind your team members on a regular basis of how this project helps
the company achieve itslarger goals.
3) Make it clear to employees how they will benefit from achieving the
teams goals. Even if your team members are passionate about the
company's goals, they will still have goals for their own professional
development. Share with individual team members how this projectcan
help them advance professionally. These reasons can include the
chance to meet influential people, learn new skills or travel to
somewhere new. Employees are more likely to be highly engaged in team
projects when there is a way for them to develop professionally.
There are many hurdles to cross in team building, but gaining buy in
from each member of your team is crossing one of the biggest hurdles.
A team that is committed to the work they are doing will be engaged,
dedicated and produce high-quality work. What more could you ask for?
Tuesday
5 secrets for growing your Business
There's no doubt that starting and running a business comes with a
long to-do list. Maintaining your normal activities will keep you
busy beyond the 8-hour day in addition to the administrative
activities that are essential to running your operations. This is
especially onerous if you are the only one and wearing all the hats.
But before you get overwhelmed, know that there are smart tactics and
strategies that you can use to your advantage.
Planning and leveraging strategies for what you anticipate will help
your business run more smoothly and efficiently. There will be
uncertainties and unplanned events alongthe way, but with systems in
place, you will find it less burdensome to deal with these unusual
situations. This will also free up your time to focus on business
development which is essential for your business survival,
profitability and long-term growth.
Here are 5 pointed secrets you can use to grow your business smarter
and faster whether you are a sole proprietor or the one leading the
pack:
1. Create systems so you business can run while you are away. This
will take some ground work but it will be well worth it to have a
structure in place. What happens when you receive a check? What do
you do when it has been 60 days and a client hasn't paid you yet?
What happens when you receive an invoice from a vendor and it needs to
be paid? Determine what the key processes are in your business and
document how these processes should work. For routine transactions in
your business, figuring out what to do should be as simple as
consulting the step-by-step written documentation of the process. Once
this is in place, you can have employees or even an intern help with
carrying out the behind the scenes aspect of your business while you
focus on other initiatives or take a vacation!
2. Train your employees well. Once you begin hiring employees, make
sure their roles are properly defined and they are properly trained.
Take the time to get them acquainted with your business and its
objectives and goals. Show them how to do their job to your
satisfaction; this will be more efficient than you having to make
revisions after an initial attempt. If it is possible and your budget
will allow, have segregation of duties to enable your employees to
become more efficient in their areas of responsibility over time. You
can also alleviate the level of teaching you do if you hire
individuals who are experienced in their roles and have the necessary
skills.
3. Partner with other businesses. There's no reason to do everything
alone. Look for opportunities to partner with other businesses in
ways that are mutually beneficial. You will both save time and money
and will be more efficient. Talk to your clients to find out what
they need help with. If it is something that is beyond your area of
expertise and you know someone who can deliver, make the introduction.
Similarly, develop a relationship with a network of businesses that
do the same for you. This works well with businesses in different
industries since they are not your direct competitors.
4. Leverage established networks. If your business is new and still
small, look for ways to get your name out there. Consider advertising
in established email marketing newsletters or on blogs and websites
that have a lot of traffic. If you have your own blog, consider
writing for other blogs with a larger number of readers. Another
business may have a short-term project that you may be able to use
your skills to assist with so consider such opportunities as they will
also give you access to a wider audience.
5.Find mentors who have been there and done it. There are business
principles that are tried and true. So no matter what industry you're
in, there are basic things that could help your business if you know
about them and apply them correctly. Develop a relationship with a few
mentors who are willing to share their insight with you based on their
experiences. People love to give back and tell their stories. Listen
attentively, ask questions and share your goals so they can help point
you in the right direction.
long to-do list. Maintaining your normal activities will keep you
busy beyond the 8-hour day in addition to the administrative
activities that are essential to running your operations. This is
especially onerous if you are the only one and wearing all the hats.
But before you get overwhelmed, know that there are smart tactics and
strategies that you can use to your advantage.
Planning and leveraging strategies for what you anticipate will help
your business run more smoothly and efficiently. There will be
uncertainties and unplanned events alongthe way, but with systems in
place, you will find it less burdensome to deal with these unusual
situations. This will also free up your time to focus on business
development which is essential for your business survival,
profitability and long-term growth.
Here are 5 pointed secrets you can use to grow your business smarter
and faster whether you are a sole proprietor or the one leading the
pack:
1. Create systems so you business can run while you are away. This
will take some ground work but it will be well worth it to have a
structure in place. What happens when you receive a check? What do
you do when it has been 60 days and a client hasn't paid you yet?
What happens when you receive an invoice from a vendor and it needs to
be paid? Determine what the key processes are in your business and
document how these processes should work. For routine transactions in
your business, figuring out what to do should be as simple as
consulting the step-by-step written documentation of the process. Once
this is in place, you can have employees or even an intern help with
carrying out the behind the scenes aspect of your business while you
focus on other initiatives or take a vacation!
2. Train your employees well. Once you begin hiring employees, make
sure their roles are properly defined and they are properly trained.
Take the time to get them acquainted with your business and its
objectives and goals. Show them how to do their job to your
satisfaction; this will be more efficient than you having to make
revisions after an initial attempt. If it is possible and your budget
will allow, have segregation of duties to enable your employees to
become more efficient in their areas of responsibility over time. You
can also alleviate the level of teaching you do if you hire
individuals who are experienced in their roles and have the necessary
skills.
3. Partner with other businesses. There's no reason to do everything
alone. Look for opportunities to partner with other businesses in
ways that are mutually beneficial. You will both save time and money
and will be more efficient. Talk to your clients to find out what
they need help with. If it is something that is beyond your area of
expertise and you know someone who can deliver, make the introduction.
Similarly, develop a relationship with a network of businesses that
do the same for you. This works well with businesses in different
industries since they are not your direct competitors.
4. Leverage established networks. If your business is new and still
small, look for ways to get your name out there. Consider advertising
in established email marketing newsletters or on blogs and websites
that have a lot of traffic. If you have your own blog, consider
writing for other blogs with a larger number of readers. Another
business may have a short-term project that you may be able to use
your skills to assist with so consider such opportunities as they will
also give you access to a wider audience.
5.Find mentors who have been there and done it. There are business
principles that are tried and true. So no matter what industry you're
in, there are basic things that could help your business if you know
about them and apply them correctly. Develop a relationship with a few
mentors who are willing to share their insight with you based on their
experiences. People love to give back and tell their stories. Listen
attentively, ask questions and share your goals so they can help point
you in the right direction.
Monday
Failure, strongest tonic of success:
What does it take to succeed? Paul Tough of New York Times, in a chat with Dominic Randolph, who leads an expensive, top ranked private school in New York City and David Levin, who is the head of KIPP, found out that the secret to success is knowing how to fail.
Dominic Randolph expressed worries about people’s attitude to failure saying: “These kids don’t know how to fail because they’ve never done it.Therefore, when things get outside their comfort zone, or they first encounter people more capable than they are, they have no skills for dealing with it.
We talk a lot about hard work, but school grading generally ends up being based on how well you did on the test, not about how much effort it took to get there or how persistent someone was.” At the other side of the academic world is David Levin, who is the head of KIPP, a network of charter schools who don’t earn even the$38,500 a year that Randolph’s students pay in tuition.
They focus on inner city, low income kids and have astated goal of having 75% of their students achieve a 4 year degree. (They are currently at 33%, which is considerably higher than the 8 percent average for kids from low income families.) They haven’t reached the stated goal, soLevin is open to the idea that he needs to do things different—accept that in some areas he’s failed.
Levin watched the progress of KIPP alumni and noticed something curious: the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class.
Those skills weren’t enough on their own to earn students a B.A., Levin knew. But for young people without the benefit of a lot of family resources,without the kind of safety net that their wealthier peers enjoyed, they seemed an indispensable part of making it to graduation day. But wait, don’t managers want to hire those people who are naturally brilliant and don’t need a lot of hard work to be successful? Well, sure, except that if they don’t know how to fail they are going to be awfully difficult to work with.
Many parents and teachers saw to it that failure wasn’t an option. Everything was fixed or extra credit given or forgotten lunches brought to school. It’s not a phenomenon limited to the newly graduated, though. “One of my HR colleagues who, at the time, was head of HR for the Research & Development side of a major pharmaceutical company, lamented to me how much he hates the whining at performance appraisal time. ‘I have a PhD from Harvard, so I can’t be rated ‘average,’ they would say.
Never mind that everyone in the department had a PhD from a top ranked school. There wasn’t a whole lot of willingness to find out what changes they needed to make, just the assertion that because theywere considered exceptional in the past, they should still be considered exceptional today.
An ‘average’ performance rating was utterly devastating and difficult to get past.” The ability to bounce back fromfailure is a key point. But, what if you’ve never failed? What if your parents fix every problem you ever have? What if you never gain these valuable skills? Then you’re far less likely to have true success. If you’ve never had to try again and again,are you going to assume that the problem is unsolvable if you fail the first time?
Lots of people live charmed lives as long as their parents are pulling the strings or they put themselves in places where success is almost guaranteed. Except that anyone in the working world today knows that failure is not only a possibility it’s a high probability.
Businesses fail, entire divisions get laid off,regardless of how brilliant any individual employee was.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of trying to figure out what the problem in the darn code is. If you’re a one try and you’re finished type of person, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, you won’t succeed. And what happensif you’re one of those people who have never failed? Never had to face disappointment and pick yourself up by your own bootstraps?
It can be disastrous. But, to succeed you must be able to fail and recover from failure. That means you must be willing to take risks, listen to others, and admit where you could improve. Arguing over a performance appraisal instead of listening to whatyour boss is trying to tell you are key indicators of someone who is unwilling to learn. Not that all bosses’ assessments are accurate, but those appraisals tell you what your boss is looking for. Disregard them at your own peril.
What does it take to succeed? Paul Tough of New York Times, in a chat with Dominic Randolph, who leads an expensive, top ranked private school in New York City and David Levin, who is the head of KIPP, found out that the secret to success is knowing how to fail.
Dominic Randolph expressed worries about people’s attitude to failure saying: “These kids don’t know how to fail because they’ve never done it.Therefore, when things get outside their comfort zone, or they first encounter people more capable than they are, they have no skills for dealing with it.
We talk a lot about hard work, but school grading generally ends up being based on how well you did on the test, not about how much effort it took to get there or how persistent someone was.” At the other side of the academic world is David Levin, who is the head of KIPP, a network of charter schools who don’t earn even the$38,500 a year that Randolph’s students pay in tuition.
They focus on inner city, low income kids and have astated goal of having 75% of their students achieve a 4 year degree. (They are currently at 33%, which is considerably higher than the 8 percent average for kids from low income families.) They haven’t reached the stated goal, soLevin is open to the idea that he needs to do things different—accept that in some areas he’s failed.
Levin watched the progress of KIPP alumni and noticed something curious: the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class.
Those skills weren’t enough on their own to earn students a B.A., Levin knew. But for young people without the benefit of a lot of family resources,without the kind of safety net that their wealthier peers enjoyed, they seemed an indispensable part of making it to graduation day. But wait, don’t managers want to hire those people who are naturally brilliant and don’t need a lot of hard work to be successful? Well, sure, except that if they don’t know how to fail they are going to be awfully difficult to work with.
Many parents and teachers saw to it that failure wasn’t an option. Everything was fixed or extra credit given or forgotten lunches brought to school. It’s not a phenomenon limited to the newly graduated, though. “One of my HR colleagues who, at the time, was head of HR for the Research & Development side of a major pharmaceutical company, lamented to me how much he hates the whining at performance appraisal time. ‘I have a PhD from Harvard, so I can’t be rated ‘average,’ they would say.
Never mind that everyone in the department had a PhD from a top ranked school. There wasn’t a whole lot of willingness to find out what changes they needed to make, just the assertion that because theywere considered exceptional in the past, they should still be considered exceptional today.
An ‘average’ performance rating was utterly devastating and difficult to get past.” The ability to bounce back fromfailure is a key point. But, what if you’ve never failed? What if your parents fix every problem you ever have? What if you never gain these valuable skills? Then you’re far less likely to have true success. If you’ve never had to try again and again,are you going to assume that the problem is unsolvable if you fail the first time?
Lots of people live charmed lives as long as their parents are pulling the strings or they put themselves in places where success is almost guaranteed. Except that anyone in the working world today knows that failure is not only a possibility it’s a high probability.
Businesses fail, entire divisions get laid off,regardless of how brilliant any individual employee was.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of trying to figure out what the problem in the darn code is. If you’re a one try and you’re finished type of person, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, you won’t succeed. And what happensif you’re one of those people who have never failed? Never had to face disappointment and pick yourself up by your own bootstraps?
It can be disastrous. But, to succeed you must be able to fail and recover from failure. That means you must be willing to take risks, listen to others, and admit where you could improve. Arguing over a performance appraisal instead of listening to whatyour boss is trying to tell you are key indicators of someone who is unwilling to learn. Not that all bosses’ assessments are accurate, but those appraisals tell you what your boss is looking for. Disregard them at your own peril.
Unlocking your Productivity
People think that certain problems have to be solved without spending
any money;often, if the solution is important enough, it is a good
idea to spend money on it.
Another thinking trap people fall into is thinking they have to solve
the whole problem; sometimes, solving just one partof the problem is
enough for the time.
A final thinking trap is thinking that it is your problem and you are
the one who must solve it; often, it is someone else's problem, and
the very best thing for you to do is to turn it over to that person
and refuse to get involved.
The first quality of genius is the ability to concentrate
single-mindedly on one thing at a time, on one problem at a time. And
to stay with it until it is solved.
Highly creative people practice focusing on single questions and
single problems, while uncreative people diffuse their mental energies
by trying to do several things at once. They work on this and work on
that. They pick something up and put it down. Then they go on to
somethingelse and come back. Often, they are scatter brained, and if
they do come up with ideas, their ideas are shallow and poorly
thought-out.
The difference between diffusion and concentration in creativity is
the difference between gentle sunlight and sunlight concentrated
through a magnifying glass. It is the difference between light and a
laser beam. It is the difference between a small flame and a welding
torch.
Your job, in increasing your creativity and enhancing your
intelligence, is to concentrate your powers where they can do the most
good.
The second quality of genius is the ability to approach problems systematically.
People who throw themselves at their problems often become frantic and
confused. They take a haphazard approach to thinking, and then they
are amazed when they find themselves floundering and making no
progress.
any money;often, if the solution is important enough, it is a good
idea to spend money on it.
Another thinking trap people fall into is thinking they have to solve
the whole problem; sometimes, solving just one partof the problem is
enough for the time.
A final thinking trap is thinking that it is your problem and you are
the one who must solve it; often, it is someone else's problem, and
the very best thing for you to do is to turn it over to that person
and refuse to get involved.
The first quality of genius is the ability to concentrate
single-mindedly on one thing at a time, on one problem at a time. And
to stay with it until it is solved.
Highly creative people practice focusing on single questions and
single problems, while uncreative people diffuse their mental energies
by trying to do several things at once. They work on this and work on
that. They pick something up and put it down. Then they go on to
somethingelse and come back. Often, they are scatter brained, and if
they do come up with ideas, their ideas are shallow and poorly
thought-out.
The difference between diffusion and concentration in creativity is
the difference between gentle sunlight and sunlight concentrated
through a magnifying glass. It is the difference between light and a
laser beam. It is the difference between a small flame and a welding
torch.
Your job, in increasing your creativity and enhancing your
intelligence, is to concentrate your powers where they can do the most
good.
The second quality of genius is the ability to approach problems systematically.
People who throw themselves at their problems often become frantic and
confused. They take a haphazard approach to thinking, and then they
are amazed when they find themselves floundering and making no
progress.
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