Welcome to the Deploy Yourself Newsletter. Every two weeks I share what impactful leadership looks like to show your own power. I also share the most insightful lessons and stories I encountered in the last two weeks. You can also read this issue online.
Hey,
She told me that she was not a good leader. I told her I am not buying that.
“I have been trying to prove myself my entire life”, she told me during our first coaching session.
I often have similar conversations with high-performing leaders. I continued to listen to her story.
“I experience guilt for letting myself down. I am constantly anxious that I will let my team down. I am struggling and each day feels like a lonely battle. I am not a good leader”, she added.
I was really intrigued and surprised. You know, I had googled this leader before our conversation. Here is what I had found –
“She has been a social entrepreneur and running her organisation for the last 7 years.
Her enterprise is tackling a taboo and highly sensitive issue in a traditionally conservative society.
She is all over the media for her accolades and the work her organisation has done.
She has been awarded multiple awards and had been recognised by national and international organisations for her leadership.”
And she told me she was not a good leader.
I told her I understand her story but I am not buying into what she has been telling herself.
I told her that “I see you for who you are”. I see told her she is one of the most inspiring leaders I know.
I told her that I was anxious before our coaching conversation because of her accomplishments.
We did some deep work in the 6 months I coached her to understand her emotions of guilt, shame, and fear. We worked together to channel her emotional energy into furthering her cause and her leadership. Considering the kind of challenges (including mental and physical harassment) she faces in her mission, she started asking for support and opening up to her team. She saw herself for the powerful leader that she was – which the outside world already knew.
She is one of the most extraordinary leaders I know. I told her it is my privilege to coach and support her.
Cheers, Sumit
PS – As a coach, it is my job to serve people and not to please them.These conversations are often not comfortable or easy. But they can be magical and transformative. If you want to make a massive impact with your leadership and are brave enough to seek support, I have only a few 1-on-1 coaching spots available for 2021. Write to me.I read and respond to every reply.
Articles and Stories Which Have Fascinated Me
One
5 Unconscious Ways We Limit Our Own Freedom
Freedom is not something to be given by others. People are as free as they want to be. However, it is very easy to be un-free, and most of the time we do not even realize that we are limiting our own freedom.
As Daniel Kahneman points out in the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” our fast and unconscious thinking brain helps us survive by making quick decisions. It is then a paradox that the same part of our brain limits our freedom in so many ways before we can consciously intervene and make our own choices. Conscious thinking and reasoning are very tiring for our brains, and hence most of our decisions are made unconsciously or in our brain’s autopilot mode.
Let’s find out 5 unconscious ways in which we limit our own freedom
We are not clear about what we want.
We are unaware of our own false stories and beliefs (like the person in the story above)
Organizations frequently waste effort by pursuing too many conflicting goals. Metrics focus efforts and get everyone on the same page. The power of ambitious goals to improve productivity has a long history in industrial psychology. Making the goals public both encourages alignment and makes people accountable for their outcomes.
Doerr, for his part, concedes that it can be problematic when goal-setting becomes an obsession. To avoid the potential downsides of metrics, Doerr suggests:
Do not tie metrics to compensation.
Be willing to change your metrics if they turn out to measure the wrong thing.
When both quality and quantity matter, add more metrics to balance your current ones.
Metrics both inspire effort and encourage corruption. They allow for progress on easily quantified goals and may be damaging to more qualitative ones. Like a potent medicine that cures disease and also creates side effects, each metric needs to be carefully considered in light of the trade-offs.
Leaders often see fear as an enemy. For most of my leadership journey, I have also seen fear as a weakness or something to overcome. However, in just the last few years I have come to believe that fear is our friend as a leader because of the below 3 reasons –
Fear tells you what is important to you. You do not feel fear about something you do not care about. Fear reveals what is important to you. As such, it is an important signal that you must not ignore. Seen this way, fear can guide you towards meaningful results over the long-term.
Fear shows up at the edge of your skills. You do not experience fear because of what is up against you. You experience fear because you do not YET have the capacity to deal with it. Fear is an invitation to learning and growth. Once you take the next step and learn, your capacity to act will increase. You will still experience fear but only when you face the next level of challenge.
Fear invites you to manage risk. It stops you from doing stupid things. Fear tells what are the risks that lie ahead. It is an invitation to prepare and manage those risks, not to shy away from them.
I used to say for the longest time that I could not act because I lacked courage. What I have realised after multiple leadership adventures is that courage is not the absence of fear but instead acting in the presence of it.
The opportunity for courage only arises in the presence of fear. There is no courage possible without fear. In other words, strong leadership is not possible without the constant companionship of fear. Fear has a lot of energy. You just have to learn to channel it in a constructive way.
That’s it for now. If you have any questions or feedback, or just want to introduce yourself, hit reply. I read and respond to every reply. All the best,
“The new CEO is no good. Look at what he did in his previous company.”
While the above sentences don’t directly mention “responsibility”, all of them are blaming people for not taking responsibility for what they are accountable for. These kinds of statements are all too common in the world we live in today.
Most people talk about “responsibility” lightly, and it is thrown around in random conversations. It can cause a lot of blame, grudges, and grievances because someone else has not been “responsible”. Yet, when it comes to ourselves and our own responsibilities, we rarely stop to think about what “responsibility” means, what it demands from us, and what is the price of accepting responsibility or not.
In this article, I want to share my thoughts about what accepting responsibility means, and how accountability and responsibility are different – especially for leaders.
Years ago, I was approached by a colleague who wanted my help in setting up an alumni program for the company we were working for. Here is how the conversation went:-
I – “Why do you want to set up this program?”
He – “Because there is no such program for our alumni currently.”
I – “Has management given you this task to create such a program?”
He – “No, they haven’t. I hope to convince them soon though.”
I – “If the management is not interested, then why are you making this up?”
He – “I just told you – for our alumni to have a way to connect, support and help each other in the future.”
I – “If you are not responsible for this project, then why do you want to pick up this additional burden?”
He – “I have benefited from alumni networks of my previous companies. And it sucks when I see that we don’t have one. I am not accountable for creating this network, but I choose responsibility for it because this matters to me. It is not a burden, it is a choice and a privilege.”
What Is Accountability?
The above conversation led me to distinguish responsibility from accountability – which I have seen is confusing for most people. Accountability is simply being answerable for certain results which you have committed/promised to produce. Responsibility, on the other hand, is a choice. You can take (or choose) responsibility even without any agreement or promise.
Let me elaborate. When you take on a role or make an agreement, you are accountable for certain results and outcomes. For example – If you become a team leader at work, then you are accountable for all results the team produces, as well as other intangibles like culture, relationships, etc which impact and influence those results.
You can be accountable for something without accepting responsibility for it. I often meet people who are accountable for their team and its results, and yet they refuse to take full responsibility for it. They continue to blame others and act like a victim despite having made an explicit commitment towards producing those results.
Responsibility Is A Choice – To Respond Or To React
What is Responsibility?
Responsibility is our ability to respond to any given situation. And we always have this ability, though whether to use it or not remains our choice. To be responsible means to acknowledge that you are responsible “not” for the situation you find yourselves in, but for acting in the face of the situation.
Responsibility doesn’t mean you are “responsible” for all the situations, circumstances, and challenges in your life. However, it does mean that you choose to fix the situation and move in the direction of your desired results.
Embracing responsibility will demand a shift in behaviour compared to the normal way of doing things. When you understand what accepting responsibility means, you can’t make excuses or play the victim. Instead, it demands that you stand up and do whatever is needed to produce the results you have taken responsibility for.
Responsibility Is A Privilege And A Choice
Responsibility means looking at your contribution to the problem. Why do you have to do that? Well, you don’t. If you don’t want to. That is why I want to repeat that responsibility is a choice, and it is perfectly ok to not choose responsibility in a given situation. There is nothing wrong with not choosing responsibility. It is just not effective for leadership and producing results.
However, acknowledging that responsibility is a choice gives you the freedom and power to move forward despite the circumstances of your life. If I pick up my phone and drop it, it will fall on the ground. Why did the phone fell? Did it fell because of “gravity”? Or did it fell because I dropped it?
Both the above reasons are true. Taking responsibility is to choose the second answer. The phone fell because I dropped it. Yes, there is gravity, and it would not be wrong to say that the phone fell because of gravity. But at the same time, it would not be very powerful when it comes to taking action and doing something about it.
Acknowledging that the phone fell because you dropped it gives you the power to do something about it. That is what I mean by looking at your contribution to the problem. How did you contribute to the situation you find yourselves in? What could you have done earlier to prevent the situation? What could you do now to move towards creating the result you want to create?
While this may seem like a burden, responsibility is a privilege. It is not taking or accepting the “blame” for the situation. You are not responsible for the circumstances or situation you find yourself in. However, you can choose responsibility in the face of your circumstances.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
Responsibility is Results Oriented
You take responsibility to produce the results that matter to you. Not to look good or to prove you are a good leader. Not because it is the right or fair thing to do. Responsibility is always oriented towards a particular result you want to produce in the future. You choose responsibility because it will help you and your teams move toward that result. As simple as that.
In any given situation, we can choose what actions to take so that it moves us forward towards our desired results. Or we can choose those actions which come easily to us or are more comfortable to us and our peers. Responsibility is about accepting that you always have the choice to choose your actions. Responsibility allows you to do something to solve the problem.
Choosing responsibility doesn’t mean that you have to have all the answers. You do not have to know the entire way to the results you desire. Responsibility includes acknowledging uncertainty and finding the way to where you want to do. Responsibility means starting on a journey even when you don’t know the complete route to your destination.
Choosing responsibility also doesn’t mean that you become “heroic” and can now trump any challenge. Responsibility includes acknowledging your humanness and limitations. It includes asking for help when required, seeking an apology when you make a mistake, and renegotiating a previous commitment that you know will not be kept.
Are You Choosing Responsibility?
Responsibility is Always Unconditional (You Can’t Play Victim)
“Did you see what he just did? He just messed up the whole assembly line.”
“Let us help him identify his error and prevent production and supply chain problems down the line.”
“Wait. Why do you want to do that? We are not responsible for that. He messed it up. Let him pay the price.”
“It’s not about who is responsible. It is about who suffers in the future. If the production is delayed, then our customers suffer. Our company will suffer, and as a result, all of us (employees) will suffer. We must take action to avoid future problems.”
“But we didn’t cause the problem. It is not our fault.”
“You are right. And doing something about it doesn’t mean accepting responsibility for causing the problem. It just means that we do what is necessary now to create the results that we say we want in the future – which in this case is on-time delivery to our customers to keep our commitments.”
It is so easy to go into blame when things don’t go as expected or planned. Blame is part of the culture in many workplaces. When things go wrong, fingers are pointed as people look to escape responsibility (often subconsciously). Unfortunately, this could destroy opportunities for individual and team learning, growth, and success. However, if you accept responsibility, you can’t play the victim anymore.
It is important to clarify that accepting responsibility doesn’t mean you go on to blame yourself instead. No blame means you do not get to blame somebody else (your manager, wife, friend, colleague), something else (your company, traffic, circumstances), or yourself.
This means that when mistakes and setbacks happen, you have to take ownership of the results produced and not produced instead of passing the buck. Taking responsibility will put you on a path of problem-solving rather than an endless game of blame and guilt that offers no solutions. It will require you to identify what you can do now.
Pointing fingers rarely solves anything. The energy you waste by blaming others is better spent on finding solutions. When a leader plays the victim card, they risk being marginalized and ignored. Blame also leads to mistrust in the team. People don’t feel safe and have to constantly watch over their shoulders.
When you distance yourself by claiming that the situation was out of your control or it is not your job, you miss out on the opportunity to exercise your choice. You relinquish your power as a leader. There is no time for excuses when you choose responsibility as you would instead be looking for what to do next. Each time you take responsibility, you become better at exercising choice (to focus on the future and not the past) and inspire the rest of your team to do the same.
The Opposite of Responsibility – Blame and Judgement
Every time you blame others, you refuse to acknowledge your contribution to the problem. Blaming and judging others incentivizes people to deny ownership and inhibits learning and growth. The opposite of responsibility is not irresponsibility or indifference. The opposite of responsibility is accusing and blaming something else, someone else, or yourself.
Like a drug, blame only gives you temporary relief and then leaves you in a state of righteousness and inaction. It fails to address the problem from a long-term perspective and can even exacerbate the situation. In the worst-case scenario, it prevents the team from performing by creating distrust. Blame focuses on only the symptoms while it ignores the deep underlying problems.
Blame looks to simplify the situation by finding someone or something to blame when the reality of human interaction is much more complex and everyone plays a part in whatever failure or success a team achieves or not. Taking responsibility discourages the culture of blame and judgment and promotes introspection, growth, and learning.
Blame pulls people apart while taking responsibility brings them together. You not only boost your immediate performance but also contribute to improving your organization’s long-term health.
You Are A Bystander or A Victim When You Do Not Take Responsibility
If you do not choose responsibility then you are either a bystander or a victim. For example – If I am worried about climate change but decide not to take responsibility to make things better, then I am a bystander. Nobody is going to hold me accountable for climate change (as I have no official accountability for it).
However, if I have official accountability for managing climate change due to my position, for example, as a head of a state, then I become a victim if I do not choose responsibility for climate change. In an official role, people will hold me accountable for the results I have committed to or they expect me to deliver. The only choice I have is whether to choose responsibility or not. If I do not choose responsibility, I automatically become a victim.
Responsibility Requires You To Focus on the Future At All Times
After surveying thousands of people on the subject of leadership qualities, Barry Posner and Jim Kouzes found that forward-thinking is the most admired trait in leaders after honesty. Being responsible means focusing on the future and what you can do in the present moment to move your team/company towards the future you aspire.
Mistakes and setbacks are part of work-life and will happen along the way, but dwelling on the past distracts from the only thing you can impact – the present moment. Instead of wasting time and energy assigning blame, concentrate on learning from the mistakes and do what you can do to offer solutions to ensure the mistake doesn’t happen again.
Being responsible demands you to focus on the future and not endlessly stay stuck in thinking about what happened in the past – whether it was 5 minutes ago or 5 years ago. The past has a way of holding you back when you dwell on it for too long.
As Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
Thinking about the future we want to create, and exploring ways to get there together with the team saves time that would have otherwise been lost blaming yourself or others. It also helps prevent similar problems in the future.
Where are we going? How will we get there? What do we need to do to move from point A to point B, given the state we are in currently? These are some of the questions you should ask yourself if you want to choose responsibility.
Choosing Responsibility
You Can Choose To Be Responsible For More Than What You Are Accountable For
You can always take responsibility for your team, department, or company even if you are just an individual contributor. Every team is bound to experience challenges along the journey. For example, when individuals with varying viewpoints, skills and knowledge come together, conflict is inevitable.
As a team member, you are not accountable for the entire team’s performance. That is the team leader’s accountability. But you can always choose that responsibility and act in the interest of the entire team. If you do that (and take care to not step on others’ feet while doing so), you will soon find yourself in the job you voluntarily choose to be responsible for.
Ask yourself – Where are you resigned or disempowered in your life? Where do you feel emotions like frustration, apathy, or a lack of engagement in your life? Whenever I ask myself this question, I find out that I am not taking responsibility where I feel a lack of energy or empowerment.
Ask yourself the above questions and see what emerges? Are you not taking responsibility in areas where you feel disempowered? What could be some alternate choices in those areas that could allow you to move towards the future, no matter how unlikely or difficult that might be? Responsibility is not having all the answers to fix what you face. It is about taking the next action that you can take in that direction.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
Final Thoughts
There will always be friction, no matter what you are trying to achieve. But it can either grind you down or give you energy. When you choose to be responsible, friction will never demotivate you. Instead, it will encourage you to learn, grow and set a high bar for yourself as well as for others around you.
Accepting responsibility for our actions is a choice. It often leads to joy, satisfaction, pride, and peace regardless of the outcome. When things are going as planned, you will be more satisfied knowing that your hard work had a role to play in it. Also, when things don’t work as expected, you will accept what is so, learn from the mistakes, and continue on the journey.
Marketing, since the beginning has been all about telling a customer a story about a product, brand or company, that will entice and enamor him and ultimately result in a purchase. All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin aims at giving insights about the world of marketing, how marketers think, and above all, how telling customers stories that are meaningful and authentic, and should be aimed at creating lasting relationships.
Additionally, it delves into marketing practices that – for better or worse – often rely on fibs and frauds in order to tap into the minds of consumers, and how these practices impact people.
Marketing A Believable Story
How can a story make marketing powerful?
The fundamentals of good marketing are about telling customers a story that is believable. Let’s take the example of George Reidel. Reidel is a 10th generation glassblower. Apart from his other glass products, his wine glasses are popular to effect that people swear by their quality.
Reidel believes in stories, and this belief makes his products connect with his consumers. He says that every wine has a message; and the glass through which a person drinks it, is the medium that conveys the message. While scientific comparisons have proved that there is no difference between other brands and Reidel, wine enthusiasts and experts world-over insist that wine tastes better in a Reidel glass.
A story, is thus, powerful enough to change the taste of wine!
Consumers all over the world today, buy what they want as opposed to what they need. And thus, marketers who cash in on the power of a story achieve success. Today, marketing sells if a story sells. Take an example of a woman who buys a pair of Puma shoes for $125. While these shoes were produced in China at a cost of a mere $3, her purchase is based on how the shoes make her look and feel, as opposed to the value or the comfort they offer.
All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
Feeling The Customers Worldview
Each and every individual has their own needs and thus, their own worldview of what they want in life. This worldview is based on their own assumptions, biases, and values. Therefore, one’s upbringing, parents, school, current surrounding environment, as well as the different places he/she has resided in influence one’s worldview.
For example, the impression of a person who has been cheated at a second-hand car dealership will have a different view than one who has had repeated success at buying cars at dealerships.
Now while not all customers are the same, they aren’t entirely different either. For example, two people with similar environments and backgrounds will have similar worldviews – at least to some extent. Hence, it is the responsibility of a marketer to find the similarities and the similar people in the audience and market their story to them accordingly – a story that will resonate with this shared worldview.
Thus, the group of new mothers will look for products that help prioritize the growth and safety of their babies, and stories that appeal to this common worldview will attract new mothers. For example, in 2004, Disney’s division Baby Einstein sold $150 million worth of videos to parents of newborns, who thought that the videos would make their babies smarter. It was a combination of a brand name, an aggressive campaign, and the common worldview of having the best for their babies that worked.
Tailoring To The Worldview
Once the common worldview of the target audience is known, marketers next need to create a story or a framework that matches that worldview and resonates with it meaningfully.
Twinkies and Wonder Bread’s Interstate Bakeries went bankrupt when Dr. Atkin’s low-carb diet became famous. People wanted a healthier alternative for their children. Their worldview had changed!
During that time, General Mills cashed in on this worldview and tweaked their story by aligning with the ‘carbohydrates are unhealthy’ worldview. They started using 100% whole grains in all their cereals.
Therefore, in addition to understanding customers’ worldviews, marketers should also be able to identify those who are willing to shift their worldview and open to hearing a new story and tailor their messages accordingly.
Thus, if the marketer of a salty snack has to change the perception/worldview of mothers who consider salty snacks unhealthy, they would have to create stories that shift the focus from the salty potato snack to ‘made with soy’, or say that they are low-fat, with healthy sea-salt, etc.
Understanding How The Brain process New Information
A shift of story focus amounts to new information that customers will have to understand and process. Thus, it is vital that marketers understand how the human brain works too and how consumers process information.
Firstly, humans are attuned to change. Whenever they see something new, they immediately compare it with the information they already possess about that concept. The moment they notice the ‘new’, the brain works to process and understand the difference, and people look for explanations for the change because the brain becomes restless with the ‘newness’ and the randomness. Thus, for example, if a person sees a broken window, the brain instantly tried to find the explanation of what could have broken it and the eyes instinctively get directed to the floor in search of the object.
Therefore, for the target audience has to be able to wrap their brains around the new information the marketer gives them, the marketer has to be able to tell their story, or present the new information with authenticity. Authenticity will enable the customers to make sense of the shift in the worldview that is brought about by the story.
The Resounding Impact Of Authentic Stories
Purchasing decisions rely on the judgment people make about the brand, company, story, campaign, product, etc. Therefore marketers have to ensure that their targeted customers make the right judgments about their product when they are first exposed to it.
At the same time, there is a vast difference between a first product contact and a first product impression. While marketers often get confused between these two, the first contact is just that – the customer’s first contact with the product or brand. It isn’t necessary that the first contact gets a reaction from the customer, however, the first impression most certainly will – and will generate a meaningful reaction.
For example, a new online e-commerce store sends out promotional emails to customers. This email will be the first contact. While some would ignore the email, any customer who makes a purchase and has a bad experience due to damaged delivery will have a first impression – and a negative one at that!
It is impossible to ascertain when and how a product or brand can create a first impression. Thus it is essential that marketers endeavor to create a positive one. This can be achieved with authenticity. Authenticity is seen when the product, the message, the business, the marketers, and down to the last employee of the company are aligned with the story.
For example, if a company has a great product and a great message, but the salespeople and staff are rude, neither will the message be coherent to the customer, nor will the story, or brand, or product seem authentic. Thus it is vital that all the first points of contact the customer have with the company/product/brand resonate with the message that needs to be conveyed.
The Fine Line Between Fibs And Fraud, And Never Crossing It
Marketing is rooted in understanding the irrationality of buying behavior. Consumers do not always make rational buying decisions. With the fight of want over need, everyone is guilty of buying an overpriced product or making a purchase without having proper information about price or quality.
And marketers understand this well and exploit this irrationality to the fullest. Some marketers resort to using fibs and frauds to sell their products. While fibs can be small harmless leis that focus on making a story seem authentic, frauds are outright overt lies that do harm consumers.
Reidel for example is a fibber. His ‘honest lie’ makes his products sell, despite scientific evidence that his wine glasses do not make wine taste better. The customers’ belief in his story makes his fib true.
Nestle, for example, had committed fraud, some year ago, when they advertised that bottle-feeding is better than breastfeeding, a piece of information that has, according to UNICEF, inadvertently resulted in the deaths of a million babies. A simple shift in their target audience (new mothers who could not or had trouble breastfeeding) could have averted the disaster.
Conclusion
Telling a story – an authentic and a meaningful one – is a sure way to reach out to the right customers. Marketers have to understand the concept of ‘worldview’ and adjust it to fit it with the audience they wish to target. Additionally, they should be able to align every aspect of their business with the story they are telling their customers, and at the same time avoid fraudulent stories at all costs!
We are living in a knowledge economy where the next big idea and quick solutions become benchmarks for success. The motto of ‘work hard, work smart’ just doesn’t cut it anymore. Corporates are continually demanding more out of employees, whether it responding to ever-changing business needs or experimenting with ideas. It’s a dynamic as well as a demanding environment.
Amy Edmondson’sThe Fearless Organization (2018) is a guide to how one can build up the confidence to share their ideas in pursuit of success. It introduces the concept of ‘psychological safety’ and how leaders can incorporate it in their work culture to encourage openness, experimentation, and questions that will benefit the organization to learn and innovate.
Through examples and research, it helps tackle the fear of failure, unapproachable superiors and judgemental colleagues.
Worrying About Perceptions
How often does it happen where employees keep ideas to themselves rather than risk others thinking that they are no good? The opinions and perceptions of others have, since childhood, thwarted many from sharing ideas and thoughts out of the fear of looking weak, silly, or even not cool enough. By the time one becomes an adult, restricting oneself from sharing ideas, posing questions and even concerns becomes a habit.
Frances J. Milliken, Patricia Hewlin, and Elizabeth Morrison conducted a study in 2003 on people speaking up at the workplace. Their study found that about 85% of participants were unable to approach bosses about work concerns, mainly because they didn’t want their superiors to view them in a negative light.
Business innovator, Nilofer Merchant though labelled a visionary by CNBC and winner of the Future Thinker Award by Thinkers50 in 2013, quoted in a 2011 Harvard Business Review article, ‘“I would rather keep my job by staying within the lines than say something and risk looking stupid.”
The problem of the inability to speak up at work thus can affect even seemingly confident individuals. This problem is a disadvantage not only to individuals but to organizations too. Organizations lose out on innovative ideas, especially in an environment where success is proportional to innovation.
The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmonson
Benefits Of Psychological Safety
Consider an ideal scenario. An employee shares his idea in a meeting with the confidence that the bosses and colleagues respond well to it. They tell the employee if they like the idea, or give constructive feedback if the idea doesn’t hit the mark.
Such an ability to confidently share ideas, make an error and even ask for help from colleagues without fear of negative feelings is psychological safety. The concept was first noticed by the author while studying medical errors in hospitals in the 1900s. While it was surprising to see so many medical errors, even from the best teams, a closer look revealed that they were not making more errors, but were open about them. These reports actually helped the hospitals to discuss better ways of working.
Psychological safety also aids creativity and innovation. In a 2012 study conducted by Chi-Cheng Huang and Pin-Chen Jiang, two Taiwanese researchers studied 60 research and development teams, whose work encompassed creative, innovative and out-of-the-box thinking. They found that teams having psychological safety performed better than those where members were afraid of rejection.
A New York Times article in 2016 shared Google’s research on what factors determined the best teams. The study too found that the most important factor is psychological safety.
Working in a culturally diverse team with different personalities can be a tough order for innovation, which is difficult anyway. However, psychological safety makes it easier to work around these issues.
It all comes down to communication. Professors Cristina Gibson and Jennifer Gibbs of the University of Australia and Rutgers University respectively studied innovation teams all over the world and found that communication was better and more open with psychological safety. The ability to openly share thoughts and work through them together enables teams to tackle challenges better.
The Absence Of Psychological Safety
Sadly fear is considered by many a good leadership quality. Often employees with harsh bosses tend to agree with them and not say anything about their mistakes or even keep mum about something noticeably wrong at the workplace due to fear.
Such an atmosphere can have severe consequences, where people can resort to dangerous or extreme methods to get the work done.
Wells Fargo, in 2015, was a leading bank in America with impressive community banking sales. Every customer had an average of 6 banking products, double the industry standard. However, these numbers were due to sketchy sales tactics and extremely pressurized employees who had a target of 8 products per customer. Open ridicule and even getting fired was the norm for those who didn’t meet targets.
The fear of failure led employees to open accounts for customers without permission or lie about products being package deals. More than 2 million accounts and credit cards were set up in this manner, and when this was found out, Wells Fargo lost $180 million in settlements due to the scandal.
Workplace fear prevents employees from being open about work challenges and stops organizations from finding solutions to them before it’s too late.
While in the 1990’s Nokia was a global leader in cell phone manufacturing. However, by 2012, they had lost the spot in addition to 75% of the market share and about $2 billion in revenue. This happened because the executives in Nokia did not openly communicate the threat from companies such as Google and Apple. The engineers and managers were unable to tell the bosses that their products were unable to compete in the technological evolving market, making the organization miss the opportunity to innovate.
Psychological safety, rather the absence of it can create huge losses to companies.
Reframing And Redefining
We need to change our perspective of failure. All through life, we are told to do our best. From school, university, right down to the workplace, people are encouraged to give it their best shot. No one discusses the virtues of failure.
Being comfortable with failure is often the first step towards creating a fearless environment. People become more comfortable and open to taking risks and coming up with new ideas. Moreover, when bosses and managers encourage the thought of failure as a learning opportunity, employees become comfortable with discussing their mistakes too.
Failure, though, being the opposite of what nay company wants to achieve, many organizations have found success in accepting it as a key part of the process. Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar always tells his teams that every movie is a failure in its early stages. This makes them more open to feedback and reduces fear. Pixar, today, has made 15 of the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time.
Similarly, Christa Quarles, CEO of OpenTable, a restaurant reservation company, tells her team to fail early and often, so that they can come up with better strategies, quicker.
Some colleges in the US including Smith College even offer courses to students to understand failure and accept it as a step towards learning.
Along with failure, the practices of giving instructions and judging how well they are carried out need to be redefined too. In a fearless workplace, the leaders not only set goals and steer direction but also encourage employees to contribute with ideas.
For example, the former CEO of Anglo American mining company Cynthia Caroll wanted to reduce the number of injuries and deaths caused due to mining. Rather than issue orders top-down, she chose to get insights from thousands of employees about safety. Implementing these ideas helped reduce mining deaths between 2006 and 2011 by an impressive 62%.
Curiosity And Admitting Lack Of Knowledge
The perception at the average workplace is that the boss knows best. Indeed, when leaders and bosses think they know it all, they tend to intimidate employees resulting in unwillingness to share ideas and insights.
Hence, the next key factor of a fearless organization is to have leaders and bosses who are not only curious but also admit to not knowing it all. It shows employees that their bosses are open to learning from them, thus increasing their confidence to share thoughts, opinions, and knowledge.
For example, Anne Mulchay, the former CEO of Xerox was very comfortable admitting to her employees that she didn’t have all the knowledge. This resulted in the employees having more confidence in sharing ideas to tackle challenges, bringing the company back from the brink of bankruptcy.
To encourage such an environment, leaders have to ask questions that will show a genuine interest. Leaders should ask questions that push employees to reflect and think creatively, rather than just giving a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Furthermore, leaders should know and understand which questions suit which situations.
For example, to widen one’s understanding, leaders should ask employees what they think is missing or include people with different perspectives to share thoughts. To gain a deeper understanding of an issue, leaders can ask employees to share the reason for their thinking and even share examples.
Focus groups, workshops, and meetings can be used to create a culture of participation.
Groupe Danone, the food company, started holding regular conferences to encourage idea sharing between different departments. This led to the employees not only get comfortable with sharing and generating new ideas, but they also became comfortable with asking for help.
Feedback And Psychological safety
Once people start sharing and giving inputs, the feedback they receive is essential to maintain psychological safety. If leaders don’t respond well to employees’ suggestions and do not give positive feedback, employees can easily get discouraged from trying again.
Leaders should start with appreciating the courage of the employee who has shared an input, irrespective of whether the idea works or not. Thanking employees for their inputs helps maintain psychological safety.
Just as inputs require the right responses, failure to needs specific and correct responses based on the situation. When a new idea fails, leaders should encourage them to share their experiences and their learning from failure. At Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company, failures are celebrated with parties. While it may seem extreme, it cements the idea of failure as positive and also ensures that employees don’t pursue the failed idea, wasting time and resources on something that isn’t going to work.
It is also important that people learn to prevent failures. Foreseeing failure and taking steps to prevent it also amounts to learning. Putting certain systems in place and having training help achieve this. However, if failure is caused due to ignoring these set systems and boundaries, or by sidelining company values, fair consequences like suspensions, sanctions, or even firing is a fair response.
Psychological safety is also dependent on employees knowing that certain failures will garner fair consequences and that they will always receive fair feedback.
Anyone Can Help Create A Fearless Environment
Often, not having the authority to change or improve certain things at the workplace, especially if they are visibly incorrect, can be frustrating. However, a fearless organizational culture enables employees to make small changes even if they aren’t in a position of authority.
For example, one can ask colleagues that they are curious to know what their opinions are. One can slowly create a safe space for them to open up. Asking them for opinions regularly, directing questions to specific individuals, will help them speak their minds.
Another tactic is to speak up at a meeting and hand over the baton to a colleague one knows has an opinion to offer, and pointedly ask them what they think.
Actively creating an environment of listening is as important as getting colleagues to speak up. Giving a speaker respect and attentively listening to them, whether one agrees or not, can also help boost psychological safety. Showing interest and appreciation for their inputs helps, as does building on their ideas and giving feedback.
Finally, asking for help when one needs it and letting colleagues know that help is available to them also safeguards psychological safety at the workplace. When people at the workplace know that help is always available and that their help is valued, they will be open to sharing ideas.
Conclusion
Today, sharing ideas to help innovate is one of the requirements to achieve success in the workplace. However, in a work culture where employees are afraid to share thoughts and ideas due to the fear of failure, achieving this can be a challenge.
Therefore, it is essential that leaders and employees alike help create an environment conducive to sharing opinions, thoughts and ideas. Moreover, it is vital to encourage colleagues to accept and learn from failure. Giving positive feedback and letting colleagues know that help is always available and needed in turn will help nurture psychological safety, taking the individual as well the organization towards achieving success and reaching their full potential.
There is a certain negativity surrounding the proverb ‘Jack of all trades, and master of none.’ However, is being a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ really so bad?
Evolution has made humans capable of nurturing various skills and abilities. By nature, humans are multi-talented and multi-faceted. However, the culture that prevails currently, pressurized us to focus on a single field of study and specialization. All through school, college, and university, a child is encouraged to choose a specialty and trudge down a single career path.
The Polymath (2019), by Waqas Ahmed, takes a different route, explaining how hyper-specialization can stifle one’s creativity, development, and even self-fulfillment. It encourages people to trust in their polymathic qualities and their innate human potentials to work, learn, and think in varied ways and in multiple fields.
Polymathy Leads To Realization Of One’s Full Human Potential
Ahmed argues that humans are all inherently polymaths. If we zoom into the past, humans in the early societies needed to have practical generalist qualities. The need for survival in, and adaptation to a hostile environment meant that man had acquired a wide range of skills in order to keep safe from diseases, or not perish from starvation or even stay safe from predators and wild animals.
The need for survival helped in developing skills and instincts that helped man heal, hunt, build safe structures of shelter, etc. These instinctive capabilities made humans polymathic, a trait that we can see naturally in children too.
Children are able to play, sing, draw, read, etc. as a natural response to their curiosity to explore their surroundings and the world around them, and to understand it from multiple angles. Their abilities to be a naturally polymathic point to the inherent human polymathic capacities and the innate needs of humans to be able to express themselves in multiple spheres.
The former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft Nathan Myhrvold is a perfect example of a polymath. Media organizations at TED Conference have nicknamed him the ‘professional Jack of all trades’. In a 2007 TED Talk, he described how it was essential for him to pursue his polymathic capabilities, and how it helped him reach his full potential.
Myhrvold is a techie, a wildlife photographer, a professional chef, and an inventor with multiple patents to his name!
The Polymath (2019) by Waqas Ahmed
More Meaningful Contributions To Society
If we scan through history, we will find that the people who have made some of the biggest contributions to society, were polymaths. Around 15 to 20 of the world’s most important scientists were polymaths.
Shen Kuo, a remarkable scientist of the Chinese Song Dynasty had made major contributions in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, astrology, geology, and optics. He was the one who discovered that the compass actually points to the magnetic north pole and not the actual north. Kuo was, additionally, a keen statesman, an accomplished poet, a musician, and a painter too.
UK’s erstwhile Prime Minister, Winston Churchill was another polymathic prodigy. He is famously known for the crucial role he played in defeating Hitler during the Second World War. However, he also was an accomplished writer and had received a Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1953. In fact, his many talents were integral to his success as a political genius.
If we fast-forward to recent times, Apple’s Steve Jobs is a great example of a polymath. He was well known for his excellent grasp of all the aspects – right from IT, visual design, engineering, finance, to marketing, etc. And it was his polymathic ability to combine and process his knowledge in all these fields to revolutionize technology and people’s interaction with it.
If a person plans to do something for saving the planet, the person will require an understanding of the advances in science and technology, know political policies and be able to grasp smart economics. Essentially, the person will need to have interconnected thinking.
Why is specialization the focus then?
The Cult Of Specialization
The monotony of occupation hits everyone at some point in life. Specialized jobs make one crave variety, and today’s sedentary ‘desk job’ culture can lead to inhibition of one’s physical wellbeing. A sedentary lifestyle has led to over 30 million lost workdays in 2018 in the UK due to neck, back, and muscle problems.
The physical manifestations of a sedentary lifestyle, stem from the fact that our bodies are made for movement and not for staying immobile in a chair for forty hours a week.
A sedentary lifestyle can affect mental health too. There is evidence of people being unhappy in their jobs. In fact, a 2010 UK study revealed that a mere 20% of employees found contentment in their existing jobs, leaving a huge 80% discontented. A similar 2008 UK study showed that 50% of employees working felt disengaged or under-stimulated to work.
Another survey that spanned 18 countries from Europe to South America, found workers feeling that their jobs were not challenging enough, breeding frustration.
All these surveys point to the fact that unfulfilled desires for variety are the cause for disillusionment and unhappiness, and that people are seeking change and challenges in work.
A study by The School of Life, an educational organization, established by author Alain de Botton, shows that these feelings of escaping monotony are very common. The study indicated that about 60% would choose to follow a different path if they were able to start their careers again. The same study found that about 20% found that they never had roles that really suited them.
Sedentary lives, desk jobs, and specialization are limiting, mentally and physically draining, and lack challenge. These statistics are proof of the fact that today’s working culture isn’t really working!
Limitations Of Specialization
In sociobiologist, Desmond Morris’ book The Naked Ape, a comparative study of animals with a limited variety of habitation and diet, versus those who do not, found that the koalas of Eastern Australia, who have a limited diet of eucalyptus leaves available only in that region, are endangered.
On the other hand, raccoons, which have a diet ranging from eggs to berries and can survive in weathers, mild and extreme, from regions ranging from Central to North America, have better chances of surviving.
Evolutionary biology shows that the ‘generalist’ raccoon has better chances of survival than the ‘specialist’ koalas. Raccoon numbers are far more robust than the dwindling number of koalas.
This is also true of humans. Polymaths or people with a wider skill range and varied talents are far better able to adapt and survive the volatile environment of today’s working world. Moreover, considering that jobs today are more insecure than they used to be earlier, the ‘job for life’ model that was shaped by the traditional culture is slowly but surely disappearing. Secure and sure jobs such as university teachers, today have less security than they did earlier.
Yuval Noah Harari, the historian and bestselling author of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century also argues that adaptability is an essential trait for the employees of the future as the bonds of job security weaken due to the uncertainty of economic times.
Additionally, the rise of artificial intelligence will add to the losses of jobs available. In the US itself, it is estimated that about 47% of jobs will be automated in the coming decades. Specialized tasks such as machine operation, data processing, and collection will face the most risks. Considering the inevitability of automation, those with jobs that require interconnected thinking will persevere, and those with polymathic skills whose occupations will be hard to define will survive the AI age.
Developing A Polymathic Mind
One can develop their minds to inculcate polymathic traits by developing traits such as individuality, curiosity and intelligence.
To begin with, one has to develop the unique individuality that lies within. The ancient Greek philosopher Hippias of Elis advocated the concept of Auterkeia –the ability to be self-sufficient and independent. It affirms the value of individuality as a polymathic virtue.
American transcendentalist, poet, and polymath Ralph Waldo Emerson, nearly 2000 years later, emphasized the importance of individuality in his essay ‘Self Reliance’. He said that only by shunning conformity could a person uncover their true selves and embrace their individuality.
The next trait that is essential is curiosity. Humans are evolutionarily predisposed to curiosity and search for knowledge. It is a trait that makes humans, humans, and uniquely capable of polymathy.
Some of the world’s greatest polymaths are known for their endless capacity for curiosity. Leonardo da Vinci’s penchant for curiosity was the basis of his genius, as was Einstein’s. Both these geniuses were well-known polymaths.
The third trait needed to develop a polymathic mind is intelligence. How does one develop intelligence, though?
Intelligence can be improved when one diversifies their interests and takes part in many activities. In other words, polymathy itself helps in acquiring intelligence.
Versatility, Creativity and Unity
Life is full of changes and transformations. Everything, right from our bodies, to the environment and relationships, changes. When one embraces change, one develops the ability to be versatile, which is vital for developing a polymathic mind.
The human brain is wired for change too. According to the neuroscientist David Eagleman, the neurons and their connections are dynamic, constantly evolving, or dying. They are constantly re-generating, responding to new experiences and new information received. Furthermore, exposure to new things keeps the brain young and refreshed.
Exposure to new things, experiences and pursuits, and indulging the brain’s inherent capacity for change lead to more original ideas. Thus creativity, a vital trait for polymathy develops.
Felipe Fernández-Armesto, the author of Ideas that Changed The World, writes that major creative breakthroughs happen when ideas and experiences from different fields are applied and synthesize into one idea. According to psychologist Robert Root-Bernstein’s study on polymaths showed that the ability for making creative breakthroughs was due to their broad fields of interest.
Martin Kemp, the expert on Leonardo da Vinci, said that da Vinci never saw divisions between different fields of interest. This view of different fields not having any divisions is how polymaths think.
For example, when Leonardo da Vinci was studying the anatomy of the heart, he was simultaneously thinking about how water flows, which led to him thinking about how hair curls. These different thoughts were actually linked by his interest in motion.
Thus to be able to see the full picture, one has to unify different concepts in order to see things holistically.
Education Should Encourage Children’s Innate Polymathic Capabilities
The education system needs to encourage a child’s innate polymathic capabilities. Today’s education system has much to improve.
Jared Diamond, the Anthropologist, studied children from indigenous cultures. In the traditional cultures of Papua New Guinea, he found that children do not attend classes. In fact, their education takes place as they interact and ‘play’ amongst each other and adults. Social life gives them knowledge and an unstructured manner of education gives them a holistic view of how to apply what they learn in real life.
This approach, according to Diamond helps in nurturing a child’s innate creative polymathic abilities.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Nobel Prize winner in Medicine/Physiology in 1906, who was also a distinguished artist observed that a child’s talents are strengthened when its pursuits and interests are more varied. Therefore a non-structured, non-specialized, wide-ranged education, promotes polymathy and therefore helps consolidate a child’s innate abilities.
Similarly, the 18th-century German poet, physician, and philosopher Friedrich Schiller advocated for a broader and more diverse education system for children, arguing that only with a broad-based learning – and not specialized education – could children achieve their full intellectual and creative potential.
To understand the roots of the word ‘university, it is derived from the Latin ‘universitas’, meaning ‘universal’, or ‘whole. Thus holistic learning is the original purpose of higher education, where it brings together a wide range of disciplines and fields.
Sadly, universities all over the world are pushing students towards specialization, completely neglecting the original purpose of bringing together ideas from broad fields of study. This practice inhibits creativity and curiosity.
Pursuing Multiple Careers To Nurture Polymathy
We never stop growing and learning in life. Even in adult life, one continues to grow and evolve as interests and experiences change.
Embracing polymathy in adult life requires embracing varied interests. One can incorporate practicing polymathy in their professional life by making and actively seeking career changes. For example, Albert Schweitzer is a renowned philosopher and theologian, as well as a celebrated organist. Additionally, in his thirties, he decided to study medicine and became a physician in his later life.
Similarly, Japan’s Takeshi Kitanoestablished himself as a filmmaker in his forties, before which he was known as a comedian. Rabindranath Tagore, one of India’s famous poets, was well in his sixties when he started painting. While these are examples of pursuing polymathy sequentially, one can turn to a portfolio career, that is simultaneously pursuing different careers, juggling a number of projects at the same time.
Polymathic careers, according to author Barrie Hopson, who co-wrote 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career, prove to be safety nets, especially where finances are concerned.
However, not many can juggle many projects at the same time. choosing a polymathic profession is then another option available. A career in journalism, for example, accommodates many fields from economy to entertainment to religion and politics, etc.
Politics itself is a polymathic career, where one has the option of working in different departments such as art, education, economy, welfare, etc.
Entrepreneurship also involves pursuing polymathy. For example, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, both needed to have an understanding of different aspects like consumer psychology and markets, technology, finance, marketing, design, etc. of creating successful brands.
Conclusion
Specialization is highly limiting. Fulfillment and success are highly dependant on one’s ability to function as a polymath, where one can embrace and hone a wide range of qualities, activities, interests, and inspirations. The trick is to be open to learning something new, take a calculated risk, or even simply educate oneself about topics that are out of one’s field of work.
Being a Jack-of-all-trades can after all be lucrative!
Welcome to the Deploy Yourself Newsletter. Every two weeks I share what impactful leadership looks like to show your own power. I also share the most insightful lessons and stories I encountered in the last two weeks. You can also read this issue online.
Hey,
Are You Playing Too Small?
You might know that it is dangerous to play big and take risks. Today I want to say that it is even more dangerous to play small.
Ask yourself – why would you aim small when you can achieve something bigger? It just doesn’t make sense.
We think you are scared of failure, but many times we are scared of our own greatness and success. We have allowed others to decide our limits too low in an illusion of safety.
Abraham Maslow said, “We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments… We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves… And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities.”
What we are really scared of is that if we played big, we would have to accept responsibility. If we really played big, then we can’t hide behind our comfortable fears. When we dream and play big, then we are exposed to the unknown. Then we are out there swimming for ourselves. And that can be scary.
But once we are out there, it can also be tremendously liberating. It can lift all the heaviness and stress that comes from not living the life we know we can. Once we are out there, we can feel complete aliveness and joy – even in the face of challenges.
I invite you to swing for the fences. I invite you to believe that you are worthy of playing big. Give yourself the permission to play and LIVE big.
Join me in this journey of playing BIG, swinging for the fences, and having fun along the way. Reply right now with your BIG DREAM which has been “on hold”… I read and respond to every reply.
Articles and Stories Which Have Fascinated Me
One
What Efficient Mentorship Looks Like
In the face of a pandemic with no end in sight, we must preserve our fuel supplies while we mentor others. Mentoring should not burn and drain energy. It can be fuel-efficient and effortless. Look for ways to communicate expectations, schedule effectively, and consolidate mentees.
A good place to start is clarifying the baseline expectations. To start, mentors must realize their own preferences. Consider your expectation of mentees’ responsibilities, then draft a document of standards and save it for future use.
During your relationship, you can revisit the document together and optimize further. Provide context, informing the mentee that these standards will provide organization and leadership skills, and keep you, the mentor, focused on their larger needs.
If you are a new subscriber and want access to the reports I shared the last time, just reply back.
P.S. – If you know where you are headed, or if you have a dream which has been “on hold”, and if you want to discover how powerful you are, I invite you to my coaching programs. I am opening the last coaching group (4-6 people only) of 2021 in Nov. It’s a €4900 investment for one year – in your life and growth. Reply if keen.
That’s it for now. If you have any questions or feedback, or just want to introduce yourself, hit reply. I read and respond to every reply. All the best,
Meetings can be among the biggest time and energy suckers in an organization if you let them be. According to a survey done by the Harvard Business Review, over 70% of senior managers consider meetings to be unproductive and ineffective. Additionally, 65% of the respondents said meetings routinely hindered them from completing their own work.
What’s more, meetings can be not only time wasters but also money wasters. According to a study carried out by Bain & Company, weekly meetings of mid-level managers cost organizations up to $15 million a year in lost productivity.
Nevertheless, meetings have their place in organizations. They can be the birthplace of groundbreaking ideas or solutions to major problems. That is because meetings allow you to take advantage of the combined creativity and experience of your team in a single room.
If one member has a half-baked solution, the other members’ creativity can help take that idea to the next stage. What’s more, the brainstorming and collaboration that can happen in a meeting save a lot of time and effort.
If that is the case, why are meetings considered unproductive? For starters, most meetings are unnecessary, to begin with. Having a meeting should never itself be the goal. You should not hold a meeting just to pass information, which, unfortunately, is the reason for most meetings taking place. A meeting should have a specific goal in the larger context of making the business successful.
How To Run Effective And Quick Meetings?
How to Run Quick and Effective Meetings
An unnecessarily lengthy and ineffective meeting is a waste of crucial resources. Also, a meeting that ends up solving an irrelevant problem is ineffective and unjustifiable. The following are 8 steps to run an effective meeting.
Set The Agenda and Expectations Before the Meeting Begins
What is the purpose of the meeting? Are you looking to gather information, generate new ideas, or make a decision?
Remember, if you are not sure about what you want to accomplish in the meeting, you can be certain you will achieve nothing. As such, the most crucial factor for a productive and successful meeting is having a concrete agenda, a clear goal or objective you want to accomplish.
Therefore, the purpose of a meeting should never be to share information – that is what emails are for. In the same light, a meeting is not a social gathering.
At the very least, the purpose of a meeting should be to provide an avenue for a productive discussion that cannot be held asynchronously via email. However, the most critical function of a meeting should be to create an idea, solve a problem, or make a decision collaboratively.
Therefore, evaluate your agenda to see whether it is worth the resulting cost in lost productivity from pulling people off their desks.
Circulate the agenda, any preparatory documents, and any important proposal before the meeting.
Once you have a clear agenda, distribute copies of the agenda, as well as other documents in advance to all the relevant parties. Make sure to enunciate the goal of the meeting and the anticipated outcomes.
Doing that allows team members to prepare talking points, ideas, and potential arguments, resulting in a productive meeting. Circulating the agenda in advance also prevents the meeting from veering off track, allowing you to stick to the time limit.
Some of the items to include in the agenda include:
Time and location
A brief summary of the meeting’s objectives
A list of the attendees
Topics to be covered
Who will address each topic
Any other information the attendees should know beforehand
Everyone should come to the meeting only after reading the agenda and other required documentation. This ensures the time spent in the meeting is only on discussions and tasks which can’t happen asynchronously.
For impromptu meetings, consider allowing the participants between 10 and 15 minutes to digest the meeting’s agenda and other preparatory documents before beginning it officially.
Invite only those people who are needed
Meetings are expensive, as they use the productive time of every participant. Therefore, you want to keep the number of attendees at a minimum. Nonetheless, you also want to have diverse perspectives and ideas in the meeting.
To find that balance, only invite people whose skills or knowledge is beneficial to the agenda. As mentioned, the purpose of meetings is to create solutions, not share information. Consequently, inviting people who cannot make significant contributions to the meeting’s topics is simply a waste of time.
Consider using Jeff Bezos’ Two Pizza Rule, which states that a meeting should not have more participants than can be fed by a pair of pepperoni pies. Having fewer people in your meeting not only allows you to save time and money but also promotes faster decision-making.
Managers should also ensure decision-making is delegated to their team and responsible people. If this is done well, the manager need not attend every meeting of their team and can focus their time on other important issues. A delegation of decision-making not only increases autonomy and accountability it also makes meetings shorter and smaller.
Keep the meeting short.
You will note that your team’s attention typically begins to wane about 30 minutes into the meeting. It is not that they are distracted or bored; there are simply trying to process everything. Consequently, the longer the meeting goes, the less productive it becomes since people are no longer actively engaged.
According to studies, the longest time people can remain genuinely engaged in a subject is 52 minutes. Therefore, one of the best ways of improving the effectiveness of your meetings is by keeping them short.
Do not do standard 1 hour or 90-minute meetings as is the norm in many companies. Schedule meetings for the time you think are appropriate – even if it is 10 or 20 minutes. A duration of 15 to 45 minutes is sufficient for 95% of the meetings you might want to have if you have done the other steps in this list well.
What’s more, short meetings force you to condense your agenda to only topics that matter. Keeping your meetings short also shows your team members that you value their time. Most importantly, it ensures that you do not lose many productive hours in the process.
End every meeting with a few action points with clear owners. Who is responsible for what by when?
Too often, people come from meetings feeling like they were just in another social gathering, as they have no idea who will work on what to bring the meeting’s objectives into fruition.
Therefore, to prevent that from happening, make sure to assign actionable follow-up tasks at the end of the meeting. Be specific about each person’s responsibilities so that everyone knows what they are accountable for.
When people know there are follow-up tasks after each meeting, it brings clarity and accountability. If a group of people is responsible for doing something, then no one is responsible. Ending meetings with action points also helps team members to prepare for any follow-up meetings.
Meetings Can Suck Time And Energy If you Let Them
Have follow-up discussions and feedback via email asynchronously before organizing another meeting.
How many times have you walked out of the same meeting with your colleague, only to discover you came out with entirely different interpretations of what went on? Needless to say, it is a common occurrence since human beings are subjective beings.
Different interpretations, when left unclarified, can be a huge impediment to the company’s progress, as everyone needs to be on the same page for the organization to achieve its goals.
Therefore, it is important to document all the important discussion points, assigned roles and responsibilities, and deadlines, and share with everyone via email. While at it, ask for feedback about the meeting. This will allow you to know whether everyone is on the same page.
It is also a good idea to let your team know that you (or an assigned note-taker) will be distributing that information after the meeting. Doing that will increase engagement tremendously, as it will free them from having to take notes during the meeting.
Use clear and crisp language. Do not tolerate vague statements full of jargon.
As mentioned earlier, people can come out of the same meeting with different interpretations of what was discussed. One of the biggest causes of misinterpretations is the use of vague statements and jargon.
Unfortunately, the use of business jargon and technical language is common. That is because people mistakenly believe that using fancy terms makes them sound well informed. As such, many people use jargon to impress others rather than bring clarity.
As you can imagine, jargon is a hindrance to productivity. The following are some of the reasons why jargon and vague statements should be avoided in a meeting.
Jargon Causes Confusion
Often, people overuse jargon to a point where one statement can mean different things. For example, while phrases such as “burning platform” or “drinking the Kool-aid” might be familiar to your team, they may not know what to make of them since those phrases carry both positive and negative connotations.
Unfortunately, more often than not, people will not ask you to explain what you meant. Consequently, they end up deriving their own conclusions from what they think you meant.
Jargon Can be Offending
The unfortunate thing about most jargon is that most people learn it from others and start using it without looking deeper into its origins. As a result, people use several terms and phrases in the workplace innocently without knowing they are highly offensive to some individuals.
It can Lead to Costly Mistakes
To avoid confusion and misinterpretations, explain to your team members that jargon is unacceptable in meetings or work documents. Encourage them to strive for clarity and simplicity instead of trying to impress. Doing that will ensure smooth and effective communication.
Be strict with start and end times. Keep a no-distractions rule. No coffee or electronic devices. If required, remove all chairs from meeting rooms to keep the meetings crisp and to the point.
Meetings are expensive. Therefore, you want to make every minute spent in a meeting count. One way to do that is by being strict with start and end times. Doing that will let people know that the designated meeting time is to be respected.
Distractions are one of the biggest hindrances to productive meetings. Distractions typically result from the need to multitask. For instance, some people might use their time in the meeting to respond to emails or check their phones while thinking they are not missing out on anything.
According to experts, multitasking makes an individual less effective, increases their stress levels, costing the global economy approximately $450 billion a year. And that’s not all. According to a Harvard Business Review report, multitasking can lead to a 40% drop in productivity and a 10-point drop in IQ.
Take steps to proactively prevent distractions in your meetings, as they can have a significant impact. You can do that by:-
Assign Roles
Give each member a task to perform in the meeting. For example, one could facilitate the meeting, and another can take notes. Assigning roles ensures everyone stays focused on the proceedings.
Have a Timed Agenda
Give each discussion point a timeframe to ensure that all issues are discussed within the meeting’s timeframe.
Discourage Phone and Laptop Use
Unless required for the meeting itself, ask people not to engage with any devices during the meeting. This will eliminate distractions from notifications from new emails or messages unrelated to the topic of the meeting.
It might sound like an extreme step but you can remove all chairs from meeting rooms to shake people off their bad meeting habits. Standing meetings convey urgency, forcing people to develop ideas or make decisions quickly. As you can imagine, you are less likely to be distracted when you are in a stand-up meeting.
Conclusion
Meetings can provide an avenue for collaboration, allowing team members to brainstorm and come up with practical solutions which are not possible individually. However, meetings can also be one of the biggest time and money suckers in an organization without the right approach. The above steps will help make your meetings quicker and more effective at the same time.
We all have childhood memories of begging our parents to buy that particular brand of cereal simply to get the ‘free prize’ inside. While most elders thought it was a cheap gimmick adding to the junk in the house, for the children, it was nothing short of finding a treasure!
While this marketing strategy had its ethical concerns of advertising to children, it still was a brilliant strategy that boosted sales without companies needing to change their core product, boost their advertising campaigns, and barely cost anything to boot. Such a ‘free prize’ idea could skyrocket sales and make a brand, product, or service irresistible to customers, without today’s high expenses of marketing and advertising, minimum resources and risk are invaluable.
Seth Godin’s Free Prize Inside(2004) delves into the power of small-scale innovations that can help marketers break through the white noise of advertising and make their products truly stand out.
Big Innovations And Expensive Advertising Is Redundant
Any product, service, or company that is at the brink of stagnancy resorts to the one thing that has earlier proved its mettle time and again – launching a major ad campaign.
However, today, traditional advertising has lost its mojo. The reason is simple – too many adverts and alternative forms of media available as platforms for these ads are bombarding the consumer every second. It is thus natural that consumers simply tune out.
Secondly, any company that wished to revamp its image and re-win customers would traditionally resort to a ‘big-innovation idea’. Such innovations would make the company or product a ‘one-of-a-kind’ in the market and rake in the customers and the moolah – at least until the competition would be able to catch up. The thought process here relies on the fact that the bigger the innovation, the bigger is the potential payoff. However, big innovations need big investments, and it is always a gamble considering the probability of the success of the innovation.
Essentially, not every product becomes the iPod of its category. The higher the expenditure on the big innovation, the higher one raises the threshold for success, and in turn, the higher are the risks of failure.
Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin
Small-scale Innovations Are More Suited For Today Economy
Innovation is still the key to success. However, it is also believed that innovation needs a ‘big idea’. No one really gets excited with a small innovative change like a slightly better processing speed in a computer. However, does one need a revolutionary innovation to really grab the attention of customers?
The answer to the question depends on how ‘revolutionary’ is defined. For example, Edison’s bulb was a revolutionary innovation of the time. However, since then, technology has advanced at a turbo speed, and thus an equivalent of Edison’s innovation today, would be a big-innovation idea, that would then increase the expense and thus success threshold and the risk of failure.
However, thankfully, looking for small-scale innovations within one’s industry or product line are effective methods. For example, smarter smartphone pricing can go a long way in an already saturated market, or purple ketchup could do the trick! Such small-scale innovations are not only easy on the budget but also have higher achievement feasibility.
Small-scale innovations, also known as soft innovations, are clever ideas that done need gigantic budgets or R&D. any organization can implement these with the right know-how. However, soft innovations can vary in innovativeness, and thus most of them aren’t very successful.
Making The Soft-Innovation Succeed
Considering most soft-innovations are a flash-in-the-pan, how does one ensure that the innovative idea has credibility for success?
We have already seen that mainstream advertising today, doesn’t have the credibility it once did. Today, word-of-mouth is a more powerful medium. However, the challenge lies in getting customers to spread the word. And for that, one needs to have a remarkable and desirable product or service that people can’t resist talking about.
For example, a ski resort that houses a great Mexican restaurant will piggyback on the word-of-mouth success of the restaurant. Ideally, the ski resort’s primary function – that is to provide visitors with a skiing experience – will function irrespective of the restaurant. Just like the toy in the cereal box, it is the great experience at the restaurant that will make the ski resort and the experience of the stay remarkable.
The ‘added remarkability’ of the extras – like the toy in the cereal or the restaurant at the ski resort – gives people an experience. Customers crave an added valued experience more than simply a product or a service. Hence, the ‘free prize’, or the added experience of the extras often influence consumers’ buying decision.
Therefore, marketers have to look for soft innovations that make a major difference to the actual product by adding remarkability. While these soft innovations become a ‘side benefit’ for customers, for the company, it is a boost in sales.
Edgecraft
Finding that perfect soft innovation that will boost sales and help the product stand out, all at a cheaper cost feels easier said than done. However, it is actually a simple strategy called edge craft, or simply put, the art of giving a product or services an edge.
How does one give a product or a service an edge? Let’s consider a security services company. It could be challenging to make the service edgy. Now imagine if the guards of the security company dress up in trench coats and shades like the characters of the movie The Matrix, as opposed to regular guards uniforms. All of a sudden you find that interests are piqued.
Making a product or a service edgy requires taking aspects of the product or services as far as one can go in a new direction– or stretching it to the edges. Now anyone product could have many aspects and many edges defined. The marketer has to be able to identify these, select one of the aspects, and stake a position on it.
If we consider a restaurant as a product and customer dining experience the aim, we can find innumerable aspects that can be changed and redefined, such as, the location, the menu, the décor, etc. let’s say, for example, the restaurant owner chooses to make the wait staff aspect edgy. He could choose to have all the staff dress up in cosplay, maybe hire only exceptionally good-looking staff, or hire only twins.
The idea is to be as edgy and steer away from safe. Safe equals boring equals ‘doesn’t sell’!
Thinking Outside the Box And Even Industry For That Edge
Pursuing the concept of edge craft doesn’t need a lightbulb moment or a complicated brainstorming session. Edgecraft involves a simple process that gives marketers that push to finding the right edge to pursue.
To start, pick any service, product, or business from any other industry from the one your product is from. From that sector or industry, pick a product/service that is achieving remarkable success due to an added edge.
Let’s take an example of a hardware store that needs to find its edge. A few shops ahead of the store is a restaurant that has suddenly shot to fame due to its new weekly all-you-can-eat pepper chili night. What makes the restaurant popular all of sudden? The chili pepper night is the obvious answer. However, if we look beyond the surface, we find that it the ‘excessiveness’, or the ‘all-you-can-eat’ offer that occurs only once a week that helps give the restaurant its edge.
Now if the hardware store was to use the principle of excessiveness and apply it to their store, they could perhaps have an all-you-can-carry brick event for a reasonable cost of, probably, $9.
Thus, using the context of a successful company/product/service from a completely different industry to apply to one’s product helps in giving it an edge.
Imagination Is The Only Limit
Technically, the numbers of edges one can apply to their product are infinite. One can take any adjective from a dictionary and use it to find an edge. While it isn’t possible to explore all of these edges, let us look at some that can put the process of ‘edgecraft’ into perspective.
One edge for a marketer to start with is visibility that is, taking an invisible product or service and working on its visibility to customers. For example, a massage parlor can make their services (that are mostly invisible and happen inside personal rooms) visible, by putting chairs out and letting others see their customers relax while getting a head massage.
This is a very literal example of visibility. Visibility can also be figurative and have a broader meaning. For example, trying to amp up the looks of an otherwise inconspicuous line of cars at a dealership to make them more visible to customers.
Conversely, one can use invisibility to make an otherwise visible product invisible – literally and figuratively. For example, the metal braces that were common in the yesteryears have given way to innovations that have made braces literally invisible by changing the material used.
The contrasts between visibility and invisibility show that in edgecraft, it is possible to start with one edge, move on to a contradicting edge and finish at another different edge altogether.
For example, a shoe store wanting to work on the edge of exclusivity can stretch from selling only a particular type of shoes, or better yet, have stores open for only two days a week. Such an edge can make the store seem intriguing to customers.
The Main Obstacle
Coming up with edgecraft is simple enough and one can come up with many ideas, especially for soft innovation. However many face the challenge of converting those ideas into reality, as the other members of the organization are going to have to adapt and absorb the new edges to the product too!
While the idea seems veritable to a few, to some others it could be downright dumb and they could end up being skeptical, hesitant, or even absolutely hostile about it. While most of the pushback will be polite, it will still prove to be discouraging.
However, it is best to remember, that others’ opposition to any novel idea is a reaction of their own fears towards change, rather than a personal attack on the idea itself. Hence, one should not back down, be disheartened, or discouraged.
Additionally, it does well to remember that along with irrational fears that people will have towards the idea; there will be some reasonable doubts as well. And there is always a way of dispelling these doubts.
The Art Of Convincing: Is It Feasible?
Every new idea will have its fair share of ‘yays’ and ‘nays’. However, whatever form resistance ones ideas face, convincing is key.
Now to break through any resistance faced, one has to be able to gain leverage from the organization by developing a fulcrum to the resistance. Essentially one should position the idea by finding the pressure point that will help in levering the organization in favor.
To this, one has to be well prepared with answers to any kind of questions that could be asked.
To begin with simplest and the most important questions that is always the first is ‘Will it work?’
As someone who is pitching a new edgy idea to the company, it is a no-brainer that the person will be ready with a slick, polished, tight and persuasive presentation that shows arguments in favor of the idea.
However, it is not as simple either. And that is because the underlying question, of whether the idea will work cannot be answered without proving that the idea works – a prospect that impossible since it includes venturing into unknown territory.
That said, one could get others to believe that the idea could work. And for that, one has to appeal to the emotional rather than the intellectual minds of others. In order to appeal to the emotional side, one has to be able to anchor the belief in others by showing them another time-tested example, along with the innovativeness of merging the two.
For example, Toyota took a revolutionary, hybrid-electric engine, put in a sedan, and turned a boring old car into the Prius!
Another way of convincing others in the organization is to incorporate the organization’s way of doing things with the idea. For example, if the organization has a process of conducting focus groups to verify the probable success of a product, one could conduct a focus group to test out the idea, using the belief of others in the organizational process to convince them.
The Art Of Convincing: Is It Worth Pursuing?
Once others are convinced of the feasibility of the innovation, the next question that is bound to arise is, ‘Even if this is possible, will it be worth it after all?’
In any organization, while the base goal is the same and people work towards it, everyone has their own goals. It is essential that while trying to pursue everyone associated with the decision of moving ahead with the soft innovation, one keep in mind these differences.
Therefore, the convincing pitch has to be different for each, and it has to be aligned with what each of these members values. However, the biggest obstacle at this stage is to get these colleagues to steer away from their fear of the unknown. Essentially, they should be willing, if not comfortable, with getting out of their comfort zones. The feeling that ‘we’re not trailblazing, but we’re not in a bad place either needs to tackle.
What one needs to realize, is that the ‘we’re ok for now’ status quo itself threatens the future of any company. Staying in the comfort zone, the unwillingness to take on challenges, and the fear of change are weaknesses that eventually erode a company’s chances of success.
It is this conundrum that one has to put forth and convince the others about. One has to make the other see that this is a way to strengthen the weaknesses that can bring the company down.
The Art Of Convincing: The Final Push
There is only one final bit of convincing left. Convincing them of the right leadership. Without convincing the others that you are worthy of leading the project, the project will only remain an idea.
Proving oneself worthy of leadership, is ideally easier if one has a track record of leading and bringing projects to fruition. However, if this project is a first, then it is essential to push hard and work harder to convince people. After all, it’s easier for a Steven Spielberg to sell an idea to a production house than a first-time filmmaker!
In order to convince, one has to start small. One can volunteer to take on small leadership roles for smaller tasks. From there on, one has to take on bigger projects that will show a wider range of leadership skills. The idea is to build a formidable reputation of leadership, a great asset when the day of the final presentation arrives.
The final ingredient to add to convincing is to have oodles of confidence. In order to champion one’s idea, one has to sound, look and be a champion.
Conclusion
Small-scale soft innovations are the buzz in a time when big advertising and R&D budgets are out of reach. A soft innovation gives any product or service that extra edge and works like a charm – just like the ‘free prize’ inside a cereal box used to work.
To give a product or service that extra edge, one should apply the principles of edgecraft that will surely give a boost to any product, to the sales, and eventually the business.
Entrepreneurship: The Core Of A Flourishing Economy
Given choices, most of today’s young college graduates choose careers in professional services. If we take a look at some of the topmost university graduates from elite colleges in the US, we find that they prefer to steer in the direction of law firms, banking and finance jobs and consultancies.
Smart People Should Build Things by Andrew Yang discusses the how’s and why’s of this trend, how it is detrimental to the economy, why young graduates should opt for entrepreneurship, what budding entrepreneurs can do during their first foray into business, and how anyone can succeed holding the reins of entrepreneurship.
Career Choices Today, Are Predictable
All young students, at the end of their education, ask themselves, ‘What should my first job be?’ and ‘Where should I start?’
Most students are left looking in the direction of professional services. Especially students from Ivy League universities, choices veer towards prestigious professional service companies in the legal, finance or management firms and consultancies.
The statistics paint a clear picture. On average, about 40% of graduates from Princeton opt for consulting or finance, while about 13% continue studies in law. Similarly, in 2011, 29% of graduating Harvard students chose finance or consulting, with 19% choosing law.
The reasons for these choices are simple – prospects of high remunerations and a far more challenging work environment. Additionally, the formal and extremely tough and competitive application processes at these firms are well suited for students from elite universities. Being quite similar to the application processes the students have to go through to get into the elite universities themselves, they are prepared to endure a highly selective process.
Moreover, it is common for students to influence their peers. Young students, when confused about career choices seek advice and follow friends, thus following each other, year-on-year, into the same careers.
As a student rightly put it, “When everyone around is appearing for banking interviews, it starts affective you after some time too.”
How Professional Firms Attract
The interest professional service firms have in recruiting the top of the class is an important factor that shapes students’ choices too. They invest heavily into top recruitments and compete with a fervour akin to a talent arms race. Goldman Sachs, for example, has its own room in the Columbia University careers office! They spend a whopping $50000 per recruit. Considering the number of universities recruiting with similar expenses, it amounts to billions of dollars spent per annum.
The reason for such high expenditure is that firms have to fight to sift through the limited talent available
Another attractive factor for students in the professional and personal growth that prestigious firms offer. Their marketing strategies are often more than direct – work with us for two years, and you will learn everything you need for any job!
Many firms even claim that working with them, as management consultants will help new recruits develop skills that are necessary to pursue careers as lobbyists or investment bankers later on.
Developing these ‘necessary skills’ whether it is creating sophisticated presentations or impeccable reports and models, and which can be applied to any role are attractive propositions for young students who are insecure about their career and need a starting point. Thus the claim by blue-chip companies that they train new recruits for ‘high-quality work’ appears veritable for young talent.
Smart People Should Build Things by Andrew Yang
A Great Opportunity, Or Golden Handcuffs?
The attrition rate at the top-consulting firms can exceed 30%. This high rate of attrition can be attributed to a few reasons. Firstly, not everyone makes a good fit for the position they are chosen for. Secondly, the work pressure becomes difficult for most new entrants to cope with. Many have to work hard, work for incredulous hours, travel extensively, and work in intense corporate environments.
Watching friends, peers and colleagues come and go can take a toll on the well-being of new entrants and cause stress and burnout.
Leaving a high-flying job with a prestigious firm isn’t as easy as one may think. If an employee might manage to find a lucrative job with a smaller company, they end up encountering Golden Handcuffs.
For example, leaving their jobs usually translates into accepting a decreased salary. More often than not, this entails making lifestyle adjustments such as vacations, cars, and even relationships at times. Additionally, one faces the perceived risks of changing career paths that become tougher as one spends more time at their consultancy jobs.
Smaller and medium-sized companies tend to look for a completely different skill-set than top professional services companies. The analytical and theoretical approach that professional service companies prefer is not as valued by smaller companies as much as they value action-oriented approaches.
The other issue with smaller and medium-sized companies is that, often, they do not require consultants, until the company reaches a certain size.
Considering start-ups, they often prefer to hire from known personal networks, or from other start-ups, where the recruit has hands-on experience with a similar set-up.
Thus once a person is in, it becomes harder to shake off the golden handcuffs of a high-profile professional services company.
Start-ups And The US Economy
The discussion so far has centred on an individual perspective on professional service companies. But how do these companies and consultancies affect the economy?
Evidence has indicated that a healthy economy depends on more than just a large number of highly specialized consultancies. It is actually start-ups that are imperative to accelerating national growth. A study conducted by the Kauffman Foundation has shown that new firms have accounted for all net job growths in the US between 1997 and 2005. Additionally, firms with lesser than 500 employees have accounted for 13 times more patents per employee in the US, than larger firms have.
On the other hand, the benefits of large firms on the economy, like those in the financial sector are not as clear. For example, trading accounted for 63% of the revenue of Goldman Sachs in 2010. However, share trading doesn’t necessarily add economic value considering that one person’s win is another’s loss. It implies that the revenue earned was at the expense of other areas in the economy.
Innovations prove to be far more beneficial to the economy. In 1982, half of all US companies were made up of businesses that were around for lesser than 5 years. This number came down to just over one-third in 2011. Additionally, in 2008, a majority of the working class in the US was employed in companies with more than 500 employees.
This trend has resulted in the sidelining of the most productive areas of the economy. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, 2020 had about 176,000 underemployed or unemployed law school graduates.
This proves that the role of smaller companies and innovation is far more important than imagined.
Preparation and Perseverance
How does one, therefore, get into action and start one’s own business to drive innovation?
The first requirement to start a company is preparation. One has to be prepared for a load of frustration, ruined sleep patterns and months of thankless work. In addition, one has to follow 3 steps before one decides to quit their full-time job.
Research – Firstly, one has to have thorough research conducted including knowing the market size, gain insights from potential customers and get information about competitors.
Website – Build a website and create company mailing accounts.
Recruit – At the onset, one has to recruit colleagues, friends, and family to believe in the idea. This can help secure staff, advisors, investors, and even co-founders.
After the groundwork is laid, the next big barrier that first-time entrepreneurs encounter is getting the funding to get started. It is often the case that the processes of product development take double the time and money than planned. Recruiting for partners and employees is another time consuming and unpredictable effort.
One has to be prepared to fail, time and again, until they hit jackpot. Here is where perseverance comes in. One has to persevere through disappointments and inevitable frustrations and trudge ahead.
Rovio’s Angry Birds, when released was an instant success. However, the company had to endure lay-offs and wait for about 6 years before the game skyrocketed to success.
Starting a new business is nothing less than a rollercoaster ride.
Networking and Location
Entrepreneurship isn’t a ‘lone-wolf game. Without a team, one cannot get very far. Even Apple started out with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak working as a team.
While starting a business, networks perhaps play the most important role. Networking is intrinsic to finding valuable employees and even raising funds for the business. The author’s non-profit organization, Venture for America, aimed at helping young talent to gain start-up experience, also started with a lot of help from friends.
The author had received a pass to an Economist conference from a friend who couldn’t attend it. At the conference, he met the CEO of LinkedIn Jeff Weiner and the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, whole in the future become integral to the success of VFA. While Weiner became a valuable advisor, Hseih spent $1 million on the venture.
In addition to finding the right supporting people, start-ups also need the right location. For example, General Nano, the Cincinnati-based manufacturer of carbon nanotube material that makes aeroplanes more resistant to lightning strikes, chose Cincinnati as their base due to its proximity to military connections in the city and find potential buyers.
Every location has its own focus and finding one that matches is essential.
Affordability is another factor that influences location. For example, office space in New York is far more expensive than a non-traditional location like New Orleans. For example, Zappos.com works out of Las Vegas, and the affordability of the company only adds to its success.
Start At A Lower Level
Consider a possibility where it is difficult to start one’s own business. Joining a young, promising start-up is then the next best option one can choose. Joining a young company can enable a person to get a good responsible position, where personal contributions are noticed. Moreover, if the young start-up takes off and succeeds, the success is attributed to all employees, and the possibility of making it rich is higher.
For example, no one might remember the sixth/seventh person who joined Google in its early days. However, it is sure that the person gained a lot of valuable experience and has made a considerable amount of money.
It is, therefore, better to be a part of a start-up that is about to be a household name, and be within the first few employees who have struggled and contributed to its success, rather than joining the bandwagon of an already successful and established start-up.
The yoghurt company Chobani has grown from purchasing a defunct yoghurt company in 2005 to a $1 billion revenue and more than 1000 employees. However, it is still the early few who get the credits for the success story.
Joining a start-up also instils the resilience one needs to bounce back from a fall. The habits of building things and creating things are more easily acquired in a start-up than in a professional services company. Moreover, it is these habits that will help a person overcome and deal with the difficulties of entrepreneurship.
During the collapse of the tech industry in 2001, one of the author’s friends had lost his company. However, rather than quit, he started another one that was acquired by Zynga later on, enabling him to recover losses.
Understanding The Value Of Entrepreneurship
It is unfortunate but true that many students with great potential and talent get trapped in careers. However, as the saying goes, it’s never too late to get them interested in the prospects of entrepreneurship.
The question is, how to get them interested in it?
It all begins with providing students with good role models. These models, or builders, need to be actively promoted by universities, public figures and media companies, where they are encouraged to share their stories of success with the younger generations.
The University of Michigan holds an “entrepreneurial hour” where experienced and established entrepreneurs come and share their stories about their careers with students.
Next, these ‘builders’ can be enlisted as mentors. Universities, law schools, and business schools can create lists of alumni entrepreneurs who can not only mentor young minds but also offer internships or paid apprentices. The Yale Entrepreneurial Institute is an example where such a program is offered by a successful university.
In addition to this, entrepreneurship education needs to be improved as well as invested in. The aim should be to make it more real-world driven and action-oriented, producing real functioning contributors, and businesses.
Conclusion
If the US has to maintain its position as an economic powerhouse, it has to ensure that a strong entrepreneurial spirit is fostered among students. In an environment where innovation drives the economy, entrepreneurial mentorship and education is the need of the hour.
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