Category: Business

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10 Reasons Your Business Needs Core Values

I’ve been quoted in hundreds of roundups on all sorts of management and leadership questions—from ways to build resilience (Forbes) through identifying toxic cultures (Inc) to warning signs for new hires (Small Business Trends). While looking for the “Philosopher’s Stone” (or the next “Golden Rush”) is a normal human trait, there’s a deeper problem to identify first.   There Are Endless “Right” Answers When I speak about company culture, management traits, or building effective teams, I always refer to the ideal individuals as “proper human beings”. My definition is broad, but it taps into core principles such as honesty, integrity, passion,… Continue Reading
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11 Better Ways to Manage Teams Without Tedious Meetings

As a firm evangelist of the values of asynchronous communications, I’m strongly opinionated when it comes to meetings. Meetings are not all evil. I’ve covered some workarounds for meetings (when necessary) and several reasons to set up a meeting. But beyond that, meeting creep is so prevalent—especially in the context of remote/hybrid environments—that productivity and work satisfaction are almost non-existent right now.  According to a study led by Microsoft, virtual meeting hours increased by 252 percent. As a result, today’s experts (including me), are full of suggestions for improving meetings or simply how to avoid them. I have two businesses… Continue Reading
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22 Ways to Have More Energy (And Boost Your Efficiency)

Resilience is among the mandatory traits for career growth. Regardless of whether you're striving to be an exemplary entrepreneur or grow the career ladder across management and director tiers, sustaining loads of work, weekend deliveries, flying from a tradeshow to an event with high velocity is a prerequisite to building high-performing teams. But maintaining these levels of pressure and both physical and mental load is not an easy feat. Just as the best athletes invest a ton in their physical conditioning, you have to ensure that your body, mind, and spirit work as efficiently as possible, and push them through… Continue Reading
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How to Get Better at Asynchronous Communication

Allocating your time and creative juices on just whatever and whenever you feel like it can be great. However, in most business dynamics, you can’t really escape the reality of having to sync over client meetings - as well as handle communications following requirements in different formats (such as video drips, email threads, screencasts).  In the early days of my career, I worked multiple jobs at a time with more or less flexible hours. My second real full-time job was a promising venture at first - until I remained the only project lead on-site at the office. I worked as… Continue Reading
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5 Reasons Why Multitasking Actually Works (And Supplements Focus Mode)

Multitasking is a habit of many people who want to get many things done at a time.  More specifically, according to the American Psychology Association, multitasking is done by performing at least two tasks simultaneously, switching from one task to another, and working on two or more tasks speedily. But, it is easy to get distracted, tap into your favorite social media, watch YouTube videos, get on the phone with a colleague or a friend, and forget about the core tasks you were supposed to work on. These distractions can negatively affect your focus, meaning that the quality of your… Continue Reading
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Defining Employee Feedback Plans and Pinpointing Areas for Improvement: The Tactical Guide

Why are feedback sessions so important?  For one, companies that carry out regular employee feedback have turnover rates that are 14.9% lower than those employees who receive no feedback at all. Now, here are additional helpful insights from the stats on employee feedback and performance reviews:  Managers who received regular feedback on their strengths showed 8.9% greater profitability. (Source) About 43% of those highly engaged employees receive feedback on a weekly basis. (Source) 92% of respondents agreed that when negative feedback is delivered appropriately, they can be highly effective at improving one’s performance.” (Source)63% of Gen Z employees want to hear constant and… Continue Reading
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Eight Leadership Skills to Develop in 2022

The past year (and, perhaps, a half) has been a great learning opportunity for us. The COVID-19 situation has changed a lot of our working habits and the entire concept of onsite work has transitioned to remote across most of the universe.  This has also led to more opportunities and new ways of living; however, it's not necessarily permanent either—meaning that people have bounced between back and forth, between lockdowns and going to work, between remote and onsite.  This has changed the perception and expectations in any form of long-term planning for the vast majority of people, especially those with… Continue Reading
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7 Ways to Teach Your Staff ROI: The Pivot to Billable Activities

Building a successful organization requires a comprehensive business strategy across each of your departments. It is also closely related to your business model, the industry you belong to, the status of your finances, the available opportunities, and—of course—your team. While your senior management team may be aligned with the company goals and vision, you want to build a culture of self-managed rockstars. Otherwise, you'll fall into the trap of micromanagement. My guiding light is ROI.  Often, your resources are only limited. You do not have all the time to spend and disperse across hundreds of initiatives. There is always a… Continue Reading
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Leadership Development: How to Promote and Grow Your Management Team

According to several independent studies, 80% of leadership positions have no formal training at all. If you run a mid-sized business and promote your management team internally (as the majority of the organizations out there), you likely fall into the majority of the businesses that grow organically. Management, along with leadership, is often taught “on the job”—without an MBA degree or background in economics to help you move forward. Leadership training can help people. Your staff will become more aware of their weaknesses and strengths. Communication skills—along with other critical soft skills for leaders—are improved by learning to clearly express… Continue Reading
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How to Stop Procrastinating: 15 Effective Leadership Strategies

The prevalence of procrastination is horrid—affecting almost single individual worldwide. A sample survey led by Micro Biz Mag discloses that more than 84% of the population is prone to procrastinating on a regular basis - with 20.5% of the respondents postponing activities on a daily basis and 22.1% doing it "often". When it comes to leadership, efficiency and consistency are integral to success. https://www.instagram.com/p/CSHJ5BFlGqa/?utm_medium=copy_link Fighting procrastination is one of the key goals while undergoing different training courses in relation to motivation, building discipline, productivity, or time management. Let's dive deeper into the problem and uncover the possible steps to getting… Continue Reading