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During the past decade, business analytics platforms have evolved from supporting IT and finance functions to enabling business users across the enterprise. But many firms find themselves struggling to take advantage of its promise. We’ve found three main obstacles to realizing analytics’ full value, and all of them are related to people, not technology: the organization’s structure, culture, and approach to problem solving.
Via The Learning Factor
Are you getting enough sleep? Before you answer, try this: Sometime during your workday, sit down (at your desk is fine) and close your eyes. For the next few minutes, just focus on your breathing, paying attention to each inhale and exhale. This is a standard mindfulness exercise. If you find yourself getting drowsy, then sorry, but you’re not sleeping enough.
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Ever wondered what the best bosses whisper to their employees to get them motivated and glad to be working every single day? Here's your chance to find out.
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Who isn't tired of obsessing over their body and their food? The struggle to break free from yo-yo dieting and self-sabotage is real, and yes I know it sounds a little like an infomercial, but it's actually Sheila Vier's ethos. After successfully exiting her first company in 2015, she decided it was time to develop a company - SheilaViers.com - to help people recognize that entrepreneurs are still human and that they have all the same issues and insecurities that are human nature. But part of being the best CEO you can be is feeling powerful in your own skin. That's what Sheila Viers helps her clients capture. I have always tried to empower women through my agency's work, and to do that you have to address issues of health, wealth, relationships with ourselves and others, and even spirituality. It has to be a well-rounded approach to achieve stasis. Here are Sheila's best practices to manage the tightrope walk of life as an entrepreneur.
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I’m accustomed to handling clients who are at a crossroads in their lives and are looking for change—after all, I’m a career coach. So this usually involves guiding clients through some pretty heavy soul-searching to help them find the sort of truly fulfilling work that we all deserve. This also means many of my clients are in an indecisive state at the outset—that’s to be expected. But I don’t think I’ve had a more indecisive client than Kevin. When I asked Kevin what sort of career he truly wanted to pursue, he blanked. I asked him what he enjoys doing and what he’s really good at, and he could never seem to articulate a direct answer.
Via The Learning Factor
All job hunters hear the advice to “stand out,” “be different,” and “separate yourself from the crowd.” But what exactly does that mean with regard to your job search? Do you send a fruit basket to your interviewer? Record a video of a company cheer you composed? Or maybe you just try to be your “best self”—whatever that means! Here’s the scoop: You will face competition when applying to most jobs, so the greater the gap you create between you and your fellow applicants, the better. But it’s important to remember that there’s a right way to stand out and a wrong way.
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Do you ever stop to consider what it means to think openly? Wasn’t that your basic education at school and what your parents told you to do? Whatever happened to that? The question is important because today, more than ever, we are urged to be creative in our jobs. If you cannot think openly, how can you be creative? From birth our parents persistently encouraged us to think for ourselves. It was non-stop; a barrage of parenting tips that were designed to help us become independent, confident and open thinkers.
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New ideas, whether it's a way to improve upon a process or something that completely goes against the grain, are what keep the business engine going. Some lead to big breakthroughs while others fall dead in the sand. But every idea, good or bad, has one common link: It required buy-in by someone other than the originator. The history of great ideas is littered with the remains of potentially great innovations, notions and plans that never saw the light of day simply because the pitch failed to ignite a fire or set a series of actions into play. Anyone who's experienced the frustration of others just "not getting it!" knows how critical team buy-in is for the success of an idea. The next time you bring a novel idea to your company's table, consider adopting a few of these strategies for selling it through.
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It’s the end of the year. Everyone on my team is getting ready for holiday travel and planning to spend time with friends and family. But before we hang it up for the year, I’ve got one more thing left to do: find and hire two business development reps for my team here at Dropbox. December isn’t the hottest season for recruiting and hiring, but in the waning weeks of 2016, I had two open positions on my team and a pretty thick pipeline of candidates, typical of the season. But determined to find my top hire before breaking for the holidays, I reached out to our recruiting team, and they suggested I check out the “Apply Starters” feature in LinkedIn Jobs, which rolled out late last year. The tool lets hiring managers find candidates who’ve started applying to their companies’ job postings, even if they don’t finish. That led me straight to my newest hire, Veronica Velasco. Here’s how.
Via The Learning Factor, Mark E. Deschaine, PhD
For fifty or sixty years job-seekers have been taught to write their resumes in the most opaque and unhelpful way imaginable. Job-seekers have been taught to use terse, governmental language in their resumes, so that almost every job-seeker sounds identical to every other job-seeker! That's the worst possible approach. You are not a dry, dusty person — you are lively and creative! Why not show some of that creativity and spark in your resume?
Via The Learning Factor, Mark E. Deschaine, PhD
Japan and China may have a reputation for being technologically advanced, but recording appointments and to-dos with pen and paper is long-held tradition in Asia. There is also evidence that it’s gaining popularity with millennials there as sales of paper planners have increased in the last few years. Increasingly, the trend is catching on in the West among younger people. As a matter of fact, some adherents to the pen-and-paper planner culture are so fervent in their use that they post videos giving the world a tour of how they organize in their diaries.
Via The Learning Factor
Self-help advice isn’t exactly in short supply. There are research-backed tips out there for boosting confidence, resilience, risk taking, and adaptability. The message is pretty clear: Feel better about yourself or change your beliefs about what you’re capable of, and you’ll excel. Indeed, ample scientific evidence supports each of these claims. Nevertheless, most self-improvement strategies focus too much on the person who’s trying to do the improving. Much of the time, the same outcomes you’re trying to achieve by changing your own habits, attitudes, and behaviors depend on how you view other people.
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I’ve been asked on a number of occasions the “secret” to harnessing mental toughness to overcome adversity. The “secret,” I tell them, isn’t a secret but a fact that they don’t want to hear because it’s simple. But simple isn’t easy. That secret is this: make a decision and go with it. That’s it. I remember waiting for Hell Week to begin in BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training) and students asking the instructors—in a somewhat uncommon cordial setting—what the secret was to making it through five and a half days of constant, nonstop activity. Here’s what the instructors said, “The secret to making it through BUD/S, is knowing you’re going to make it through BUD/S.” It’s belief. You need to believe that you’re the type of person who has the skill and will to make that goal happen, and then make it happen. Don’t worry about what’s right and don’t wait for the perfect opportunity because “perfect” doesn’t exist—it’s an excuse to procrastinate.
Via The Learning Factor
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The impact of work cultures on the bottom line is a hot business topic. More execs and HR leaders are connecting the dots on how an ecosystem of commonly held values, beliefs, and positive work behaviors drives engagement, innovation, and high performance. Yet culture doesn't just happen. It takes visionary, servant leadership at the top creating the environment for intrinsically motivated employees to release discretionary effort. These are selfless leaders who shine the spotlight on others instead of themselves. They have one thing in mind: How do I empower my tribe to reach their potential? You'll find that they are givers--in a personal, leadership, and organizational sense.
Via The Learning Factor
We love talking about what millennials know. As a group that’s become the dominant force in the workforce, we applaud their smarts on tech, social media, and even the age-old practice of branding. Yes, millennials might arguably be one of the overall most intelligent generations to come around. However, that’s not to say they still don’t have a lot to learn, especially when it comes to face-to-face communication. As the generation that grew up with communication becoming more efficient via digital, their biggest strength could also be a critical weakness. While the way they say things has become more direct, their messages sometimes lack. Why? Because as one of the first to grow up in a digital world, they’ve been afforded a privilege not found in our day-to-day.
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Each morning from 8:30 to 9:05 AM at our company’s headquarters, in San Francisco, we serve free breakfast to every employee. And I’m not talking about stale muffins and dry bagels. Today I ate a sloppy joe, cheesy scrambled eggs, home fries, crispy bacon, and sausage links. Healthy, I know. Tomorrow, I’m definitely going to grab a yogurt and some fruit. And don’t forget all the vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. After all, this is California. I know what you’re thinking. Free food is the cost of admission to the Silicon Valley tech scene. Our startup, Pivotal, calls the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood home, alongside companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, Adobe, Slack, Salesforce, and Uber. So, of course, Pivotal serves free, catered meals. It’s just expected.
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Maybe you want to start a business. Maybe you want to change careers. Maybe you want to get fit, or gain a new path, or in some way take your life in a new direction. To do that, sometimes all you need is a little push, a little nudge. A little burst of motivation and inspiration. Here are fifty of those nudges. Pick the one that makes your skin tingle, your heart race, your motor rev, and place it somewhere you'll see it every day: your monitor, your screen saver, your background, and let it help take you to the place you've always wanted to go.
Via The Learning Factor
I'm a big fan of Microsoft's Satya Nadella. Since taking over as CEO just three years ago, he's used a combination of effective leadership and brilliant business moves to return the tech company to relevance. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Nadella credits Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's best-selling book, Mindset, as the inspiration for the culture he's trying to build at Microsoft.
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A long time ago, in a law firm far, far away, when I was a mid-level associate, I was assigned to work on a project with a senior associate. He seemed like a nice person, and we got along fine. I felt comfortable enough to make suggestions that seemed above my station, such as a particular idea for settling the case and getting our client out of a jam. Senior Associate nodded his head. Then, at our team meeting, he said, “so, I was just thinking…” then proceeded to tell the partners my idea—without crediting me. The partners loved it. I was less impressed; I was dumbfounded and offended. But I didn’t speak up. Not at the meeting, nor privately with Senior Associate. Why? Because I wanted to be liked. By everybody. Including by Senior Associate, even though he turned out not to be a particularly nice person after all. I conducted myself exactly as I did before this incident not because I was afraid for my job, but because I wanted everybody to be my friend. I ignored the conflicts because then I could continue to believe everyone liked me.
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Geeks—the two of us might fit the profile. Yes we have tendencies to contemplate things that probably shouldn’t be contemplated. We question. We prod. We poke…at everything. And, we’ve been known to engage in long, seemingly meaningless conversations about random things like: “Is the love of curry a genetic disposition or a socially experiential acquisition?” Or, what is the real meaning of the word “of?” That’s a valid question, right? Or, is it just geeky? Being geeky, according to research by Imgur, is actually cool in today’s world—especially among Millennials. In fact, 60% of the 83 million Millennials consider themselves geeks compared to just 38% of GenXers and Boomers. And, the study also shows that geeks are the trendsetters and influencers (84% of geeks say people look to them for advice while only 60% of non-geeks say they get asked for advice). This is, of course, welcome news for all of us who happen to randomly know Peter Parker’s height and weight (yes, we’re referring to the fictional character who turns into Spiderman). But, more than that, it’s also welcome news for all of us who geek-out about our own work—passionately probing to innovate, improve, dissect, and lead others to the discovery of their best selves.
Via The Learning Factor
I’m a big to-do list person. I’ve probably been making daily to-do lists on yellow Post-its for close to 15 years now. Every night before I go to bed I pen a bulleted list of all the things I need to accomplish the next day. However, inevitably, at the end of the next day I usually have a few items that aren’t scratched off the list. Those items get added to the top of tomorrow’s to-do. Yet the same thing happens the following day: I move a few uncompleted items to tomorrow’s list . . . and repeat the next day . . . and the next.
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When I look back on my 20s, I see two different versions of myself. The first five years were dominated by feelings of insecurity and anxiety. I was living a life I did not want, and I wasn't confident enough to stop it. Then, in the second half of my 20s, I learned to embrace my purpose and began living the life I wanted -- the life of an entrepreneur. One thing is clear: The success I've experienced while launching and growing SkyBell would not have been possible with my old mindset. Now at age 32, I can clearly see my shift from a negative mindset to a success mindset was caused by my developing more confidence. When you feel confident, the whole world seems to belong to you. You suddenly surround yourself with other successful and confident people, and both opportunities and success come your way with ease. Here are 10 ways you can develop the mindset shared by the most confident people.
Via The Learning Factor, Mark E. Deschaine, PhD
When you're eager or even desperate to get a new job, it can be hard to remember how the wrong job can hurt your career -- but it's imperative to do so! Here are five ways the wrong job can damage your resume and your mojo.
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Years ago, I hired an extremely intelligent, Ivy League-educated professional who was highly motivated to work for our organization. He worked until 9 p.m. every night and often left a proposal or report on my desk so it would be the first thing I saw the next morning. Each morning, I hoped for the best, but most days my reaction was a sad sigh. This well-meaning guy just didn't have the skills to be a product manager. Little that he produced was helpful, or even accurate. I never was able to figure out why, but no matter how much support and training we gave him, his work never improved significantly. Here's the good news: after we reluctantly let him go, he switched industries and became highly successful in a very different role.
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Lately I’ve been spending more of my time and energy on freelance work because sometimes running a startup can be hard on the personal bank account. I’ve been lucky to be able to set aside time to take on that work and look for more, but it’s been a huge learning process. Balancing freelance and startup work can make life kind of crazy. And since I do remote work I’m often scheduling meetings and conversations across several time zones. I’m loving being busy though and am learning so much. One of the things I’ve learned is to make sure I take the time to have quiet, slow moments throughout my day. It helps me appreciate each day more. Here's how I do it:
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The challenges are organizational.