Category: leadership

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Stop Punishing Your Best Performers! Build a Culture of Employee Development

I have worked for a company where I was assigned to a manager who was treated like this by his manager and by the CEO, and I could tell very early on that they wanted/expected me to be just like him in every way–including allowing them to punish me for competence.

It would be nice if supervisors, managers, directors and so on would read this article and use it to seriously make changes. But this is what goes on in workplaces, and I’m pretty sure that’s never going to change. My situation is more like the second setting described in the article, but I absolutely see the day I resign for good going exactly as described in the first situation impotenciastop.pt. It’s amazing how employers regularly punish the best employees and then act shocked when they leave.

Gems:

Because this individual is so valuable to the manager, the manager rewards the individual by giving him or her more work, which in essence precludes the employee from earning or seeking other opportunities for promotion. The manager “claims” that the individual has a bright future with the company, but that he or she just needs to be “a bit more patient.”

 

When the employee does offer his or her resignation, the manager is shocked and responds, “I had no idea you were this unhappy. Why didn’t you say something?” … The superior employee leaves because he or she no longer trusts the manager. The real victim is the company…

 

In its early stages, weak managers punish better performers, who already have a full plate of work to do, with additional work that weaker employees either cannot or will not do. The weak manager usually approaches the better employee with requests such as, “I know you’re busy, but can you take care of this. Blank just doesn’t know how to do it?” Or, “Can you handle this? We are pressed for time, and I know I can depend on you to get this done.”

 

The first step is prevention. Have a clear picture of the type of person you want to hire. This profile should include not only the skills and experience needed for the incumbent to succeed but a description of the type of person who will fit into the culture of your company.

 

Make sure that all of the members of your team know what they are supposed to do, how to do it…the “why” of what they do–i.e. how it fits in to your company’s operation–and how the performance of their duties impacts the jobs of their teammates.

 

Stop Punishing Your Best Performers! Build a Culture of Employee Development

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How to be an entrepreneur: 6 ways entrepreneurs think differently

Did not know UPS had a “Startups” program. Looks like you can schedule a virtual consultation and get strategies to help your business grow.

Anyway, their “6 ways entrepreneurs think differently” really rings the most true of all the “think differently” lists I’ve read out there. I especially love the first and second “ways,” which seem like the opposite of what some lists suggest–which is that you should listen to others who have done it and do things their way. I think you have to follow your own instinct and do what is right for you, within reason.

Gems:

When someone says “This is how so-and-so did it” or “We have to do it this way because,” it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to an entrepreneur. A willingness to break the rules and strike out on your own comes with the territory.

Entrepreneurs have their own way of doing things and do not always feel the need to seek consensus. Research from Jason Greenberg of New York University and Ethan Mollick of the University of Pennsylvania found that business ventures launched by solo founders survive longer and generate more revenue than those started by teams.

 

Contrary to popular belief, most entrepreneurs are not bet-the-ranch gamblers. They do have a willingness to take the right kind of risk at the right time, though.

Always consider the benefits and downsides to a difficult decision, but don’t be afraid to follow your instincts.

Also, contrary to what most people think, the average age of a successful entrepreneur is 45, according to research published by Harvard Business Review https://osterreichische-apotheke.com/k../.

 

There’s also evidence that founders with prior business experience in their field are more likely to succeed. Perhaps not surprising that, on balance, experience matters when it comes to what makes a good entrepreneur.

 

The ability to bounce back from failure is a key characteristic of successful business owners, especially in the beginning. Some venture capitalists and angel investors won’t fund entrepreneurs who haven’t had at least one failed business.

Rather than become discouraged, entrepreneurs tend to capitalize on opportunities to acquire new knowledge.

 

How to be an entrepreneur: 6 ways entrepreneurs think differently

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Bosses, Get Out of Your Employees’ Way

It has been a while, but I have still been reading and collecting articles to post! It looks like my next couple will be from The Wall Street Journal, perhaps, which tends to require a subscription to read. But there are some great quotes and takeaways in this article. Really love it–every boss, manager, supervisor, etc, should read it. Because not everyone can read the article, and because the article is long, I will include a few more quotes/gems than usual. My favorite quote/gem is in red below!

Some of the gems:

First, bosses need to understand the damage they do by interfering when they ought to stand aside. Second, bosses need to know when getting out of the way is best and how to do it. And third, employees need to know how they can reduce the damage when a stubborn or clueless boss continues to engage in misguided meddling.

 

comprar casodex…even leaders who use the much-ballyhooed practice of management by walking around—known as MBWA—who devote big chunks of time to observing front-line work and asking employees to identify problems and solutions, may do more harm than good.

 

…when leaders used MBWA for complex and vexing problems (such as excessive lead times for lab test results), employees reported that chats and meetings with bosses interfered with their productive work and rarely solved the problems. On the contrary: These futile discussions had enduring negative repercussions because they drew attention to their leaders’ failings.

 

One boss in a nonprofit organization told me that she hones such self-awareness by seeking out and developing rapport with local critics and complainers—people who are quick to criticize her and spread bad news about her missteps…[T]hese grumpy employees provide her with more useful information. That includes tips about meetings she calls that ought to be eliminated or shortened, and about times when she is seen as a micromanager rather than helpful coach. She believes that these naysayers and critics make her a better boss.

 

 …too often bosses won’t dial down their scrutiny, advice and demands, even when it undermines progress and drives people crazy. It isn’t that they are being malicious, as was evident in Prof. Pfeffer’s experiments. Rather, they think interfering is what being a good boss is all about.

 

They elected to resist, ignore and undermine their bosses’ authority because they wanted to do what was best for their organizations, colleagues, and customers.

 

Bosses, Get Out of Your Employees’ Way

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Cold Hard Truths About The Workplace I Learned The Hard Way

I don’t 100% agree with this article, but I mostly do (love the third one). The last “truth” generally applies to me but it has only been recognized by an employer while I was still their employee once, and even that recognition can’t keep me in “the workplace”. But it’s the only thing that makes working for other people even semi-tolerable.

Some gems:

Just don’t look at your co-workers as friends because you expect too much from them. It’s a whole different dynamic. At work, people are there to earn a living.

 

So you decide to speak your mind. You listen to them and try to be honest with your feedback. What happens? Suddenly, you become an enemy. A defector https://ed-hrvatski.com/kamagra/. Someone who doesn’t fit in.

 

Every firm, business unit, and team has a John or Johanna. Someone who’s accountable for the majority of the results. Someone the company relies on. Naturally, Johanna is favored and gets special treatment. And what happens? Others get jealous and say it’s not fair.

Sure, most businesses are very obvious about the way they reward their Johns. They could be more subtle. But when they do that, they risk that John or Johanna leaves their company. And when that happens, the company loses. You can cry or complain about it. But you’re not helping your company or yourself.

 

Cold Hard Truths About The Workplace I Learned The Hard Way

 

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The Chobani billionaire who turned a $3,000 loan into a yogurt empire calls himself an ‘anti-CEO’ and thinks other CEOs should do the same

Common sense strikes again, folks.

Gems:

“Today’s playbook says the CEO reports to the board,” [Hamdi] Ulukaya said. “In my opinion, the CEO reports to the consumer.”

 

Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, said in June that prioritizing customers’ desires also helped businesses craft a stable corporate strategy, Business Insider‘s Julie Bort reported.

“You can work on those things with the confidence to know that all the energy you put into them today is still going to be paying you dividends 10 years from now,” Bezos said.

 

Ulukaya received a $3,000 loan from the Small Business Administration in 2007 and used it to buy an old yogurt plant in Norwich, New York https://impotenzastop.it/. Chobani now sells over $1 billion of yogurt annually and is America’s most popular brand of Greek yogurt, Forbes reports.

 

The Chobani billionaire who turned a $3,000 loan into a yogurt empire calls himself an ‘anti-CEO’ and thinks other CEOs should do the same

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How To Tell If Someone Is Truly Smart Or Just Average

Although I don’t necessarily buy that all of these entrepreneurs and successful men think the way they’re described as thinking in this piece (I definitely don’t believe Bezos thinks of Amazon as being at “Day One”–not literally, anyhow), I do believe that exceptionally intelligent people think differently than everyone else. That generally creates more issues than not, but it seems to separate the best entrepreneurs from everyone else.

A bit of an odd article, but I think the overall point and some of the sub-points are noteworthy impotenciastop.pt.

A few gems:

I’ve applied Ray Dalio’s root-cause analysis approach to our company. Now, throughout the week, everyone on our team logs any problems they’re facing. Then, we have a weekly phone call to discuss our biggest, recurring problem and its possible root cause.

 

After five years of emulating the leaders I most admire, I realized something surprising was happening to my thought process. I wasn’t just learning new strategies or hacks. I was learning a deeper and fundamentally different way of understanding reality — like I’ve accessed a hidden, secret level in the game of life.

 

Over-applying models is no different than a carpenter trying to build a house with one single hammer. All models, no matter how brilliant, are imperfect. The beauty of using multiple and diverse models is that many of the imperfections cancel each other out, allowing you to create a new “emergent” model that transcends all of the other models.

Great thinkers improve their thinking by taking in a larger quantity of information and developing a greater diversity of models.

 

The more unique our mental models are compared to other people, the more we can think in ways that they can’t even fathom.

Through constant and diverse learning, we can organically build better and more varied models of reality. And those models will help us navigate the world far more effectively and creatively.

 

How To Tell If Someone Is Truly Smart Or Just Average

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What 13 highly successful people like Warren Buffett and Donald Trump read every morning

I’m not endorsing anyone in this article, but I just thought it was interesting to see the link drawn between reading and being successful, particularly in relation to entrepreneurs.

Gems:

…[President Trump’s] staff collects articles from newspapers ranging from the New York Post to the New York Times, and even prints out stories for him to read. President Trump likes to underline, star, and circle anything he reads.

 

[Kara Goldin] says she heads straight to her inbox at 5:30 a.m. because “doing this gives me a clear understanding of what the next 12 hours are going to look like and what my priorities are once I get to the office.”

 

[Kat Cole]…wakes up every morning at 5 a.m. and checks her calendar, all of her major social media platforms, news sites, blogs, emails, and any other messages that may have come in overnight.

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“I’m looking for relevant news, urgent business and team needs, updates from startups I invest in, or anything awesome to get my brain going and know what’s going on in the world,” she says.

 


What 13 highly successful people like Warren Buffett and Donald Trump read every morning

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From Bankruptcy to $87 Million in Funding: How Tamara Mellon Saved Her Namesake Brand

Not the slightest bit interested in luxury shoes, or fashion. But this is an amazing article about an unshaken belief in a vision and doing things differently. This article also encapsulates all of my core business values–professionalism, innovation and diversity (PID).

Gems:

[Tamara Mellon] could do things the way they’d always been done, or she could blaze her own path, despite the discomfort that was sure to follow edlekarna.com/.

She chose her own path. “And that,” she says, “is how I ended up in Chapter 11.”

But it would be worth it.

 

She’d stop focusing on retailers and instead build an exclusively direct-to-consumer model. That way, she could finally release products as often as she wanted — while also cutting out the middleman, enabling her to slash prices.

Investors balked. They wanted her to follow retailers’ rules. She refused. “I knew the ultimate vision was right,” she says.

 

Soon after, a company-wide Slack channel dubbed “Crazy ideas” was introduced as a judgment-free zone; it’s produced some of their biggest hits. “Someone suggested letting customers return shoes whenever they want, with no time limit, and we rolled that out,” Mellon says. “Old luxury is intimidating; we want people to feel welcome.”

 

Today, Tamara Mellon is 42 people strong — 35 of whom are women. Tom Dean, CTO, is one of seven men. And it’s been an education.

“The ladies tell me when I’m being a dumb ass,” he says. “We were working on a damaged-product sample sale, and I said, ‘Ladies, don’t catfight.’ And [integrated marketing senior director] Caitlin Bray looked at me and said, ‘Don’t be a misogynistic dick.’ And I was like, ‘OK! Fair enough!’ ”

 

From Bankruptcy to $87 Million in Funding: How Tamara Mellon Saved Her Namesake Brand

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Proof That The Most Successful Entrepreneurs Are Older Ones

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about how we’re all given the perception that you have to be male, white and–in particular–young to start a hugely successful business. Specifically, I’ve been reading a lot of articles and books in which the authors say this is not so, and that these ideas that are perpetuated about successful entrepreneurs are damaging to different demographic groups.

This article presents a paper, a survey and quotes that focus on “older” entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs.

Some gems:

“We…find no evidence to suggest that founders in their 20s are especially likely to succeed. Rather, all evidence points to founders being especially successful when starting businesses in middle age or beyond, while young founders appear disadvantaged.”

 

“[W]e found that work experience plays a critical role. Relative to founders with no relevant experience, those with at least three years of prior work experience in the same narrow industry as their startup were 85% more likely to launch a highly successful startup.”

 

“With their greater work experience and confidence, such [midlife] women are more likely to see opportunities for a new business — customers whose needs are not being filled and gaps in product categories,” Eddleston said. “In turn, their work experience often gives them the networks to successfully launch a business at this career stage. They also often have the financial resources to support a new business.”

 

Proof That The Most Successful Entrepreneurs Are Older Ones

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Managers, You’re More Intimidating Than You Think

Such a great, necessary article. Managers, supervisors, directors and CEOs can come off as delusional people because many think they have and/or foster an open, honest environment and that they’re approachable or that any employee with something on his/her mind will say it/talk about it–simple. The truth is that there are clear power dynamics that generally prevent these things from being the case…no matter what they say or what they ask you. In most cases, if I speak my mind with someone in a leadership position at work, that means that I can accept possibly losing my job (and probably already have one foot out the door anyway). I’m talking about problem situations at work and those times when your ideas clash with what is already being done and/or what others want to hear https://impotenzastop.it/.

I also must point out that 95% of the time when I’ve spoken to someone in a leadership position at work about anything, I’ve experienced some form of dismissal–even if the leader did ultimately try to do something positive/helpful as a result of the conversation.

I could quote several gems from this article, but let’s go with the following:

If employees are afraid to speak up, engagement suffers, learning moments go unrecognized, misconduct goes unquestioned, and innovations go unrealized.

 

…you can be friendly and well-meaning, but certain labels you carry with you can override those characteristics and define that relationship for others.

Those labels might be job titles, such as “boss,” “head of HR,” or “CEO.”…Even as organizations pride themselves on being nonhierarchical, these social strata persist.

 

Reacting negatively to being challenged — with overt anger, dismissal, or disinterest — means that you’ll be challenged less often in the future.

 

Managers, You’re More Intimidating Than You Think