The Future of the Workplace
Remote working has been hailed as the green option, but there are problems with it. Few of us can afford to dedicate an entire room in the house to being an office, particularly if others are at home. From an environmental perspective, being sat in home offices with lights on, boiling the kettle and having the radio on for company burns energy just for one person. The office of the future is far less likely to be in our homes than in a shared hub, where technical problems can be dealt with by a shared IT manager and people can gather around the office coffee machines. Such hubs will eliminate the need to travel. Staff walking to work will be fitter, less stressed and less likely to miss work at the first sign of snow. From companies’ perspectives, it becomes easier to know when someone is working, and from an individual’s perspective, having company and being able to clock off at the end of the day leads to a far healthier work/life balance. From a green perspective, rather than 20 kettles being boiled three times a day, single cup coffee machines offer a manageable solution, whilst office technology – which might even include and; hot desking’ (sharing desks and machines) – doesn’t need to be set up several times over and could result in better access to newer technologies. These hubs may even offer shared transport to bring in those who are further afield, offering greater job prospects to those living in remote areas. Hubs could even provide a solution for people being left behind by poor broadband access: with such a concentration of people, the economics of providing high-powered broadband become feasible. Around them will spring services – the local farmers can offer up fresh foods to take home far more easily than a trip to the supermarket, meaning that the food we take home is fresher and healthier, and supports the local economy. Our currently endangered library services could be located at the hubs, along with and; Internet cafes’ that allow access to the internet to people within local communities who might otherwise be without. Training can be shared across companies. Those who are starting their own businesses will be able to access shared services and advice, reducing the chance of business failures. The benefit to society of businesses succeeding will create a virtuous cycle, offering opportunities, help, and resources to those who might otherwise never have had the knowledge and experience to take their great idea to the outside world. Being huddled around a shared coffee machine in an office hub will offer support and community, company costs will be reduced, and the environment will benefit. The sooner we start thinking about how to deliver the benefits, the better.
The 10 Most Powerful Tips for Leaders
So with all that said and done, there is an awful lot to take on board here. Hopefully you have a much better idea now of what really makes a great leader and how you can win the respect of your team and steer them to victory almost without trying. But still, putting all this into action can be challenging and that’s why it’s useful to break this down further and to recap on some of the most potent tips we covered throughout this article. So here they are… 1. Have a Vision You Believe In This is by far the single most important point if you want to make sure your team respects you and that you are making the right decisions for your organization. 2. Focus on Your Mission Statement As a leader, you need to see the bigger picture and that means focusing on how to deliver results and how to grow the business. 3. Build Resilience and Plan for Contingencies Make sure that your business is able to handle crises and that you know what you’ll do in any of the worst case scenarios. 4. Hire the Right Team Your team should be diverse in their skills and their abilities but they should be united by the common goal that you all share and the common vision. 5. Give Your Team Autonomy and Credit This is the best way to make work intrinsically motivating for your team and to ensure they work hard and passionately. 6. Stay Calm, Be Respected This will keep your team calm and it will make you seem more confident. This is most important when you are challenged by dissidents and when you are going through tough times. By showing your passion, doing what’s best for the team and being friendly but distant, you can endeavor to be respected. This is better than being liked or feared. 7. Be One Step Ahead Use financial modelling and other techniques to stay one step ahead. 8. Take Responsibility If things go wrong, you must always take responsibility. This gives your team confidence and assurance but also wins their respect. 9. Be Knowledgeable You won’t be the best at anything and you need to know how to delegate. BUT you should also make it your business to understand the role of each team member so that you can oversea the course of your ship. 10. Take Risks It is important to take risks and be courageous as a leader. This is again what will allow you to grow and what will make your team achieve above the rest.
Team building exercises Help Your Business Performance
Team building programmes can help your business by improving the communication, levels of trust and general understanding between the members of a team. It is important that you plan it carefully. A negative experience can irreparably damage your team’s morale and have the opposite effect that you were hoping to create. If you have no in-house expertise in this area it may be worth calling in the experts. Depending on your budget and/or plans this could involve someone offering an initial consultancy through to designing and administering a bespoke programme for you. One of the benefits is that they have experience of using a range of recognised diagnostic tools and instruments. This means that you can be confident that it is a positive experience, meets all of your chosen objectives and makes a positive contribution to your business’ performance. There are a number of different types of team building exercises that you could use depending on the areas that you want to address. For example there are problem solving exercises with an objective of encouraging flexible thinking and creativity. There are also planning or communication activities and these can develop the importance of these business processes, as well as exercises that have the aim of developing trust between the members of a team. Within these categories the activities can take a range of different forms from social and/or group bonding activities through to personal development activities or activities to analyse team roles and dynamics. One of the first factors you need to take into consideration is to ensure that there is understanding of the need for the session and one way of doing this is to connect any activity to the team’s day to day work and any obstacles that have been identified. It is also important to create a sense of ownership and to follow up any of the outcomes of the session as agreed. Other ways to help your team building session to be a success is to get the individuals within the team involved in the preparation of the event. This could be by simply seeking initial feedback on their issues and concerns, holding a survey of what the team members think the obstacles are in improving productivity or getting a small group to work with the consultants to plan the whole programme. By making the event something they can buy into rather than something that is ‘done’ to them, team members will have a positive approach to the event from the beginning. If some of the team members are hostile to the idea of team building exercises, possibly because of negative experiences in the past, try linking it with other activities. Perhaps the whole team needs training on a new computer system. Rather than a simple IT training session why not link in a team building strand to the event. As well as things to build into your event there are also a number of things to try and avoid, for example try and make sure that the session is pitched at the right level. While some may enjoy fun ice breaker type activities, chances are your team are already very busy people and if they think that you are wasting their time it will probably put them in a negative mindset for the session. Similarly though overly complex tasks or physically or emotionally draining activities should also be avoided, you want to try and engage everyone. While there are many benefits to be gained from taking your team out of the office for some outdoor and/or physical development activity make sure you take into account the makeup of your team and make sure that all members of the team will be able to contribute to activities and complete them in a satisfactory way. Team building programmes can give a business a vital competitive edge over their competitors by not only improving productivity but also improving morale and leadership skills, developing new procedures and processes or identifying blockages that are holding back the team’s and therefore the business’ performance. They can also help teams to identify their strengths and weaknesses and to clearly identify the team’s goals and objectives and to help them feel ownership of these goals and objectives.
For Entrepreneurs, Time is Precious!
You might be confused by the title of this chapter. You might be saying: “Hey, I value my time. That’s why I am doing this whole entrepreneurial thing.” What you probably mean however, is that you value your leisure time, and this chapter is more about valuing the extra time that you have when you’re not doing something that you absolutely have to do, such as going to the doctor or going to work, so that you can have the time you need to be successful. “I just don’t have time,” is the common battle cry among those who never actually make a success of themselves in any field. You have time during the day or evening or when you should be sleeping that you can use to be successful. You just have to find it. Jealously Guard Your Time from Others Do not let other people monopolize or even have any part of your precious success time. If you’ve committed to working on your business from 7AM to 8AM every single weekday, then don’t agree to run an errand for a friend during this period. You don’t want to be a “yes man.” Your time – at least the time that you’re spending working on your business – is your most precious commodity, and you should jealously guard it from others and not let anyone take you away from spending that time working on your business. If you’re getting into the entrepreneur business because you don’t like to work hard, you are definitely in the wrong occupation. While there are many entrepreneurs out who have achieved a great deal of success and now have free time that they can spend doing what they want, they either worked very hard to get to that point or are still working hard. In fact, successful people can’t seem to stop working. Even if they’re retired, there is always something that they are doing to achieve goals or to better themselves. Is your business really your number one priority? Are you willing to make some sacrifices to achieve your goals? The answer to both of these questions needs to be yes because if you don’t make your business your number one priority it will slip further and further down on your ranking list of priorities until you almost never work on it and you need to be willing to make sacrifices to achieve your goals; some of the sacrifices are going to be painful. Just like a man or woman who is going on a diet, you might have to sacrifice the chocolate cake and Rocky Road ice cream of your life in order to achieve success. Price Your Products What You’re Going to Be Worth If you are entering the marketplace with a product or service, don’t do more than a basic, cursory examination of the going prices. Once you know what the going prices are, consider how much you think your services are worth, which also goes for products. Some people start their business off on the wrong foot by lowering their prices drastically in trying to undercut the competition. This is a bad idea for many reasons. First, you’re not going to be able to outprice the biggest retailers out there like Amazon and Walmart. Second, people are more apt to buy something that costs what they think is a fair price than something dirt cheap. Cheap stuff isn’t good and good stuff isn’t cheap, as the saying goes. Have you ever wondered how some people charge what seems like exorbitant prices for the same services that you’re providing? It’s like the story about the fruit merchant who met another fruit merchant on the road. The second merchant asked the first how much he charged for apples and the man replied that he sold them two-for-a-dollar. The second merchant was aghast, and asked him how he could get people to pay two-for-a-dollar for his apples when everyone else was charging two-for-a-quarter. The man replied that he didn’t know what everyone else was charging, he just charged with he thought they were worth. If you think you’re worth a certain amount, then charge that amount. You’d be surprised how willing people are to pay a competitive price if you’re confident and good at what you do. Manage Your Time Effectively If you want to be successful, you’re going to have to start managing your time differently than you have in the past. In the past, you may have flirted with the idea of starting an online business but spent most of the time looking around, seeing what other people have done and watching videos on YouTube – business-related or not. From now on, you have to be more serious. You’re going to have to start devising a schedule and sticking to it religiously. Make sure that you set aside enough time during the day to actually make a significant amount of progress with your business. If you have allotted 15 minutes per day to grow your e-commerce website, you’re going to grow at a very, very slow rate We live in a distraction-filled society. When you get on the Internet there are 4 billion things vying for your attention. Someone just got on Facebook that you’ve been wanting to talk to; there is a tweet from your favorite celebrity that you really want to read; there’s a video on YouTube that literally everyone is watching. If this is how your Internet experience usually is and you are starting an online company you’re going to want to take active steps to remove the distractions. What used to be effective was a tool called Freedom which allowed you to irrevocably and completely block the Internet for a period of time. However, now that we have mobile devices at our disposal and multiple methods for accessing the web, you’re just going to have to exercise some good, old-fashioned self-control, buckle down and get done what you need to do make your business successful.
Entrepreneurial Success: Utilizing Your Strengths
What’s the first thing you do if you want to climb Mount Everest? While you might jokingly respond that the first thing you would do is get yourself a CAT scan the fact is that climbing Mount Everest – or any other difficult feat of physical endurance – can easily be compared with entrepreneurial success. If you’re going to scale Mount Everest the first thing that you would do is take inventory and find out if you had the tools to climb it. You would need food, climbing gear, water, medical supplies and many other things. With striving toward entrepreneurial success (which can seem as insurmountable as climbing Mount Everest) you are also going to take inventory of your assets. What are your current strengths and how can they help you reach your goals? Do You Think You’re Better than Everybody Else? The first thing that we are going to do is make a list of things that you do better than anybody else. This is not a list of things you do better than anybody else in the entire world, this is a list of things that you do better than the people that you know or the people you’re surrounded by. Also, we are not going to include things that aren’t actually going to help you on your road to success. For example, you might be the best sous chef in three counties but unless you’re planning on opening a restaurant it’s not going to help you with your entrepreneurial goals. However, it is going to include things that might not be directly related to being an entrepreneur or to being successful, but are strengths that will still help you get where you’re going. An example of this would be if you are good at inspiring people. This might not seem to directly relate to your success as an entrepreneur but if you are trying to launch a successful eCommerce website, the fact that you are good at inspiring people could be used in all kinds of ways. You can inspire people to share your products on social media. You can inspire people to participate in and spread the word about contests that you run. As you are making your list, if you come across anything that you think might even be slightly related, err on the side of caution and write it down anyway. You’re also going to be careful about adding things to your list that might be thought of as strengths at first glance but are actually reasons that you have failed in the past. One example of this might be an attribute like flying by the seat of your pants instead of planning out in advance. This could go on your list as self-starter or ready to jump in at a moment’s notice but if it hasn’t served you well in the past, it probably isn’t going to do you any favors in the future and you should avoid putting it on your list of strengths. You are also going to want to include technical or artistic skills that might not seem to directly relate but could come in handy later on. For example, you might be really great at graphic design. You might simply be a natural technical wizard. You might even be a writer. Think about some of these strengths as they relate to your goals of being successful, including the earlier example of sous chef. While culinary arts might not help you start an e-commerce website, the patience that you have cultivated as a sous chef could definitely help. What Are the Attributes of Success? The next thing that you’re going to do is determine what sort of attributes the most successful people in the world have, or especially, the people that you admire. Especially, you’re going to make a list of things the entrepreneurs have to have in order to be successful. These can be both wide and specific depending on what your particular goals are. For example, they need to be good at whatever industry they are in and they are probably also going to want to be skilled in things like social networks, choosing products, building business relationships and marketing. You’re going to want to be as specific as you possibly can because at the end were going to compare the two lists and try to find how many strengths you have already that can help you be successful. The more things you list, the more things that you’re going to discover are actually true about yourself. This exercise isn’t actually about finding all of the qualities that entrepreneurs need to succeed; it is about realizing that you already have the attributes that it takes to be successful. You do have the attributes that it takes to be successful. This is readily apparent, because you’re reading this article. People that are interested in success or aren’t motivated to better themselves and reach their goals don’t read books on success. In fact, they tend to avoid the subject as much as possible because it reminds them of their failures. Here are some of the more apparent attributes just to get you started: Determination: you have the idea or attitude that you are going to succeed no matter what, no matter who stands in your way and no matter what obstacles you encounter. A Passion for Entrepreneurship: if you aren’t passionate about working for yourself and owning your own business, it can be almost impossible for you to be successful at it. Optimism: you are optimistic about the future. You believe that good things are in store for you and your outlook is almost always a glass-half-full kind of mindset. Patience: you are willing to work over a long period of time to get the results that you want. You’re not going to give up if it doesn’t happen quickly. Reliable: you will be able to handle the responsibility of being an entrepreneur. You have a reputation for being
