Tag

Tagged with: Managers
10 Ways To Become A Better Leader

10 Ways To Become A Better Leader
  • March 15th, 2024
  • - Comments Off on 10 Ways To Become A Better Leader
  • -

10 Ways To Become A Better Leader

During your career development, there comes a point when your leadership skills will be put to the test. Technical skills are obviously important because they will get you to a position where you may have to start utilizing your soft skills. This is the exact reason why leadership skills are considered a very important attribute that can help you climb the career ladder.

With a combination of technical know-how and valuable leadership qualities, you can get promotions easily and be regarded as an important asset to the company. Here are a few tips that can help you become a better leader.

1. Focus On Your Goals

Happy executive focusing on his goals to become a better leader

It is a leader’s job to keep a very clear vision of the goal and make sure the team members are happy and thoroughly motivated to follow. This means the leader also should know how to put forward a certain task in front of the team to get maximum output from them with ease.

The leader also should bring out the importance of the goal and the reason why the team should put the ultimate effort into it. This ability can really bring all of the team members together and unify them to give their best for the ultimate goal.

2. Develop Good Communication Skills

Leader developing her communication skills at work during a team meeting

Communication plays a very important role in all relationships, especially between a team leader and their team members. Team members rely on their leader for ideas and motivation, which can be generated only with good communication skills.

As a leader, you should also create a very friendly environment where the employees are engaged in sharing their ideas and concerns. It has been said that a team leader who can communicate well wins the trust of team members.

3. Be A Good Listener

A leader demonstrates his good listening skills while talking to a coworker

If you wish to be a better leader, then you will have to be a better listener too. Listening skills help in generating feedback from the team members regarding the project, and the right feedback can be a good way to solve issues and achieve goals with ease.

Listen without any distractions, keep steady eye contact, and respond thoughtfully. Apart from being good at verbal skills, you should be aware of your body language while talking to your team.

4. Learn To Tackle Conflicts

Female leader tackles conflicts at work during a meeting

It is a part of leadership skills to understand people and resolve conflicts positively. In situations where an employee does not give their best and brings negativity to the team, the leader has to be able to talk to the member in private.

You should keep courage and never shy away from honestly speaking your mind. This approach is better than firing people without knowing their side of the story.

5. Maintain A Higher Level Of Professionalism

A senior executive/leader maintains a higher level of professionalism at the office

It is important that you keep high standards of professionalism, integrity, and work transparency to earn respect from your team members and your clients.

It is the leader’s job to set a high standard of credibility and strong character to motivate the team to perform to their level best.

6. Share Your Passion

A good leader shares her passion with her employees during a team meeting

Passion is quite contagious, and if the leader shows a lot of passion, it may rub off on the team members too. This helps in easing pressure from difficult projects. It also drives the employees into encountering hurdles with ease.

The positive energy and enthusiasm should flow within the team through the leader first.

7. Motivate Others

A good leader motivates others at work during a team meeting

A genuine leader is one who has the capacity to influence members and drive them to perform at optimum levels. The leader’s positive motivation is important, especially when members lose focus or get disappointed in the wake of difficulties that may arise during a job.

A leader should be upfront in talking to team members and tell personal stories that would encourage the members to help them get back in the game.

8. Inspire And Nurture Innovative Ideas

An executive/leader inspires and nurtures innovative ideas during a team meeting/presentation

Innovation is coined to be the most important aspect of growth and is largely related to out-of-the-box and unorthodox thinking. Great leaders are the ones who can instill a culture of innovation among the team members and help them find solutions that can involve some trial and error.

Such an outlook will help in achieving long-term success with the team and earn their respect furthermore.

9. Respect Everyone

A good leader respects everyone during a team meeting

The truest and most genuine leaders are the ones who are humble, honest, and respectful toward all the members of the team. A leader also has to constantly learn from all of the members and encourage others to do the same.

Such leadership qualities can help in motivating and inspiring the members to achieve greater success and produce fruitful results.

10. Recognize And Reward The Deserving

A manager/leader rewards an employee for his good work

A team member feels more positive and motivated if their work is being appreciated. As a team leader, it’s your job to recognize such hard work with rewards and recognition. This will also drive and encourage the other members to be more productive.

A good leader understands the value of taking a backseat sometimes and gives the due credit to the rightful individual to promote team building. A great leader ensures that the work rate of the team is increased without increasing the stress levels.

Leadership is a learning process. Each of the tips above can help you achieve greater success as a leader, and also help you understand that when you are a leader, the most important goal is always to keep the team together and performing at the highest level.

Need more help with your career?

Become a member to learn how to UNLEASH your true potential to get what you want from work!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Read More
5 Traits Of People Who Are Respected At Work (And Get The Most Career Opportunities)

5 Traits Of People Who Are Respected At Work (And Get The Most Career Opportunities)
  • February 27th, 2024
  • - Comments Off on 5 Traits Of People Who Are Respected At Work (And Get The Most Career Opportunities)
  • -

5 Traits Of People Who Are Respected At Work (And Get The Most Career Opportunities)

I had a sad career coaching call with an extremely successful woman recently. When she told me her career story, which I have all my clients do, her story was riddled with a highway of situations where she was taken advantage of, where she wasn’t given the respect that she deserved.

As a career coach, I have each person tell me their career story because I can always tell, based on the story, where your sticking points and roadblocks are. And for this woman, it clearly was getting herself into situations where they wouldn’t respect her. She was almost in tears while telling me this, but she was still so professional, and then she said, “What is it going to take, JT? What is it going to take for me to get into one of these environments and not be taken advantage of?“

I didn’t want to give her a pat answer, so I said I was going to sleep on it and then come back and tell her the traits I see in people who are respected at work and, therefore, get the best career opportunities. I want to share those five traits with you because I think it’s important that everyone hear them.

1. They See Themselves As A Business-Of-One.

The first trait I see in people who are respected at work is they always see themselves as a business-of-one. They don’t work for a company. They work with them. They partner with them. Therefore, right out of the gate, there’s mutual respect. Then, if they start disrespecting you, you can have a conversation and tell them that they’re either going to get this right or you’re going to go find a new partner because you’re not going to be treated that way. You’re not going to allow yourself to be treated that way. It’s about setting boundaries and addressing the disrespect before it gets out of hand. Respected employees are able to communicate these boundaries without being harsh.

2. They Aren’t Complainers; They’re Curious.

Professionals listen to a friend talk to help him through a career challenge

The second trait is they aren’t complainers; they’re curious. Nobody likes to work with complainers. The people who are respected at work don’t walk in and dump a problem on a manager’s desk. Instead, when they see a problem, they meet with people and they get curious. They ask questions. They try to understand. In fact, one of their favorite phrases to use is “help me understand.” They ask clarifying questions to get to the source of the problem so that hopefully the people they’re talking to can realize the problem, but if not, it gives them permission to then point it out and have a conversation.

3. They Ask Questions Instead Of Bossing People Around.

Woman asks her boss for a raise

The third trait is they get really good at “ask, don’t tell.” They don’t boss everyone around. They don’t tell everyone what to do. They know how to ask questions so that things become other people’s ideas and they get permission to then share their points of view, their ideas, and their perspectives. It’s how they get buy-in. It’s how they get consensus. And, again, it’s how they gain and keep people’s respect.

4. They Talk About Their Results, Not Their Character.

CMO talks to his marketing team during a meeting

The fourth trait is they talk about their results. They don’t talk about their character. You know that you have to be your biggest self-advocate in the workplace, and you’re hired to save or make money. You’re hired to solve problems and alleviate pain, so when you’re talking about the results that you were able to get, when you’re talking about what’s actually valued, not that you were a great team player, etc., you’ll stand out and be respected for the value that you create on the job. You’re going to have to find strategic ways to talk about your results without bragging or sounding like a narcissist to make sure that people understand the quantifiable impact that you’ve had on the company, and the people who are respected at work do this well.

5. They Never Initially Disagree With Someone.

Coworkers talk to each other in the office

Lastly, the people who are respected at work never initially disagree with someone. This might be a hot take, but whenever they clearly disagree with someone, they don’t say “I disagree.” That’s not how they lead the conversation. What they do instead is they find a commonality with the person, something they can agree on, and then they talk about that. These people know how to disarm somebody by talking about what they agree upon first before they discuss where they have differences or disagreements.

I’m sure there are more traits you could add to this list, but when I really looked at the people who are the most respected at work, who are incredibly successful and seem to get all the opportunities they want, they’re doing these five things consistently in their careers. They have these five traits. And it’s having an incredible impact on their brand.

If you’re struggling with getting respect at work, I can help. Sign up for a Work It DAILY membership today (FREE for 7 days!).

Good luck, and go get ’em!

Read More

Optimizing Remote Workshops For Enhanced Collaboration
  • February 10th, 2024
  • - Comments Off on Optimizing Remote Workshops For Enhanced Collaboration
  • -

In the wake of the pandemic, businesses worldwide rapidly adopted tools such as video conferencing technology to facilitate remote collaboration within distributed teams. Despite the move towards this technology, large workshops that were traditionally dependent on physical spaces have continued to remain in-person events for many organizations.

And I get it—meeting in person can help foster camaraderie and sidebar conversations. Employees can tune out from the constant Slack and email notifications, focusing on the task at hand. But in my experience, in-person working sessions also bring on massive inefficiencies. Many colleagues are forced to dust off their suits and travel from various locations, disrupting their routines and sleeping habits. Despite efforts to gather everyone in person, inevitably there are individuals who either live in distant markets or couldn’t attend in person and must virtually dial in, leading to a fragmented experience. Whiteboarding is done on large Post-it notes, requiring someone to take pictures and manually transcribe information for digital sharing. Employees end up spending long days in conference rooms, feeling drained, and often feel obliged to attend happy hours.

Companies aiming to sustain or even improve creativity, culture, and engagement need to invest in alternatives that meet the flexibility of the current business environment.

According to a Gallup poll, 51% of employees report disengagement from their work. The difficulty lies in maintaining a robust company culture when most interactions occur through screens (source).

Benefits Of Virtual Workshops

Woman works from home during the summer

While many argue that in-person workshops are more personal and interactive than remote meetings, new and innovative technologies are bringing benefits to distributed brainstorming:

  • Productivity: Parallel team ideation leads to significant time savings, shorter time to produce artifacts with templatized digital materials, and accelerated decision-making with digital features such as voting and timers.
  • Cost Savings: Digital meet-ups are far more cost-effective than teams traveling to a centralized location, workspaces are quicker to set up, and they require less logistical coordination than in-person sessions.
  • Greater Inclusivity: Virtual sessions guard against groupthink, creating an equitable environment where no single individual or group dominates ideas.
  • Streamline Documentation & Scale: Teams can easily share workshop documents, create standardized company-wide templates, and integrate with existing external digital tools/workflows. Digital whiteboards maintain “the whole story” of the session as well as reduce the need for duplicative notes.

Use Cases

Woman attends a remote workshop

As a management consultant, I often act as the facilitator, incorporating virtual workshops in various scenarios across clients. Here are some ways I have leveraged remote workshops to enhance collaboration:

  • Process Mapping: Partnered with teams to develop a new marketing process by grouping various stakeholder groups and mapping the current state customer journey from start to finish. Understanding the customer journey helped the team come up with innovative ideas for the future state.
  • Gap Assessment: Created a structured, collaborative discovery framework to help a company determine gaps across people, processes, and technology in their current operations. Recommendations to remediate current challenges were voted on and prioritized, which created the design of future projects.
  • OKR Coaching: Utilized a virtual whiteboard to organize ideas for OKR development. The team identified strategic themes and prioritized the most critical areas of focus. We created an actionable plan with defined objectives and key results.
  • Retrospectives: Leveraged the agile retrospective framework “Rose, Bud, Thorn” to recap and reflect on a program that required cross-functional collaboration between teams. Walking away, the teams felt they had fostered a culture of continuous improvement and ultimately improved morale.

Additional popular use cases include prototyping, “Design Think,” team stand-ups, strategic planning, project charters, and more.

Best Practices

Man on laptop attends a remote workshop

To ensure successful virtual brainstorming sessions, consider the following best practices:

  • Choose the Right Tool: Select a collaboration tool that is quick to learn, requires minimal setup, and aligns with any company security requirements (i.e., industry regulations, privacy, GDPR, etc). My favorite tool is Mural, given its optimized user interface, flexible permissioning, and timer features.
  • Define the Scope: Clearly define objectives, problem statements, and establish guidelines for communicating through the session.
  • Design: There is no need to recreate the wheel; take advantage of templatized frameworks. Think about how you want to organize and prioritize ideas as a group.
  • Choose a Facilitator: Designate a facilitator to ensure a productive and respectful environment.

In conclusion, embracing virtual workshop tools can transform remote working challenges into opportunities for enhanced collaboration, creativity, and engagement within distributed teams.

Read More
3 Steps To Help You Master The Art Of Delegation

3 Steps To Help You Master The Art Of Delegation
  • February 2nd, 2024
  • - Comments Off on 3 Steps To Help You Master The Art Of Delegation
  • -

One of the great opportunities of leadership is the delegation of tasks to others, which not only frees up your time to be more strategic but also develops those employees to whom you’ve delegated. Although it is a great opportunity for leaders, it is also a great challenge.

Delegating means letting go of a fair amount of, if not all of, the control associated with the way tasks are completed. I find this to be a struggle for many leaders, myself included. As the owner of my business, I find that letting go of tasks and delegating to others can be quite a challenge at times. What if they don’t do it right? What if they don’t get it done on time? What if they upset the clients?

These “what-ifs” can go on forever! I’ve tortured myself through many of them and I’ve seen many of my clients do the same.

What I’ve learned, both personally and through working with others in this area, are some key steps to take to ease concerns about delegating to others.

1. Have Confidence In The People You Hire

Manager delegates tasks to his coworkers

First, you want to have a high degree of confidence in the people you delegate to; therefore, be diligent in your selection of those you hire to work for you.

Oftentimes, leaders are in a hurry to get a position filled so do not take enough time to be sure they are making the best selection. Without confidence that you have the best people on your team, delegating can be difficult. Yet when you know you’ve got the right people in place, it is much easier to delegate with assurance.

2. Schedule Check-Ins

Manager talks about delegation in a team meeting

Second, you will probably need a fair amount of updates and status checks on how your team is doing with the tasks. You may need more updates and status checks early in the relationship.

Once you get to know the individuals and their work ethic, and your relationship develops, the amount of check-ins decreases because the expectations are well-understood, and your confidence in their ability to meet your expectations increases.

3. Keep A Positive Mindset

Leader delegates some responsibilities to his colleagues

Lastly, you want to change any “what-ifs” from negative to positive. So instead of thinking, “What if they don’t do it right?” try, “What if they do it better than I ever could?” or “What if this works out better than I thought?”

That mindset shift will help you expect the best instead of expecting things to go wrong. Does this mean things never go wrong? Of course not. But it certainly sets up an environment that is more expectant of success than if you continue to think of all the possible ways things could go wrong.

Although this is not always easy for leaders, letting go of control and delegating is necessary and highly beneficial for all. It not only enables you, the leader, to focus on more strategic items, but it also motivates your workforce to take on more responsibility and fosters more employee development.

This month’s development tip: Have you mastered the art of delegation? If so, congratulations! We’d love to hear some of your success tactics. If not, follow the suggested steps in this article; with each step, you should begin to get more comfortable with letting go.

Need more help with your career?

Become a member to learn how to UNLEASH your true potential to get what you want from work!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Read More
Unlocking Connection: Proven Strategies For Tackling Remote Work Loneliness

Unlocking Connection: Proven Strategies For Tackling Remote Work Loneliness
  • February 2nd, 2024
  • - Comments Off on Unlocking Connection: Proven Strategies For Tackling Remote Work Loneliness
  • -

Unlocking Connection: Proven Strategies For Tackling Remote Work Loneliness

As we navigate the evolving landscape of remote work, shifting from traditional office settings to decentralized home-based work has brought advantages and challenges. In the wake of the global pandemic, employees across industries adapted to a new normal, juggling professional responsibilities amid the chaos of family life and virtual schooling.

Four years into this transformative journey, the flexibility of remote work has become a lasting aspect of our professional lives. While the benefits include increased productivity, reduced commutes, and enhanced work-life balance, there’s a lingering challenge that demands attention—remote work loneliness.

As employees continue to strike a balance between solitude for focused productivity and the need for social connection, this article explores proven strategies to address remote work loneliness and foster meaningful connections in a decentralized work environment. Whether you’re a seasoned remote worker or navigating the new normal, the insights shared here aim to enhance the quality of both professional and personal well-being.

Sharon Grace

It’s 2024, four years past the “two-week shutdown and quarantine” at the onset of the pandemic. Many employees were quickly forced to transition to working from home with the rest of their family members, including kids trying to do virtual school. It was a crazy time!

I think companies have accepted the employees’ desire to have flexibility and not have to work in the office every day if they do not want to. Like most things, there are pluses and minuses, and working remotely has both. We have learned more during these past few years about the effects of working remotely. For some, quiet thinking time is beneficial to productivity. Most remote workers feel they are less distracted at home and are accomplishing more. Not having a long commute or being stuck in traffic is a plus and adds time to their day to work out or cook dinner more often.

I mentioned that quiet time is thinking time and helps some of us focus. However, for others, it can bring a sense of isolation and loneliness. Some struggled coming out of the pandemic being accustomed to staying at home with little or no reason to leave. Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy warned of an ‘epidemic of loneliness and isolation’ (2023 advisory).

Today, most employees work in the office an average of three days a week. Most people I speak with want to get out of the house and connect with their colleagues in person again if they live close to the office. Many people have moved away from their employer’s offices and can only work remotely.

How do we identify the need for quiet, thinking time for productivity versus feeling removed from social interactions? People who are extroverts and introverts can experience both.

  • Get to know yourself better and analyze your thoughts, actions, and how they relate to your social interactions and productivity.
  • Measure your workflow, productivity, and quality of work in your quiet, thinking time. Did it take longer to complete, and was the quality below your regular standards? Were you completing work to complete it, or were you fully engaged and lost track of time in it?
  • How is your mood during the day? Have you taken a break and stepped outside?

Try to tailor your workday around interacting with colleagues. Send instant messages or schedule a phone chat or a short video call to connect. Consider a morning meeting to discuss the day’s projects, a lunchtime chat for a quick break to disconnect from work, or even an end-of-day happy hour to discuss the plan for the next day. If possible, planning offsites to meet in person is a great idea to bond and get together to collaborate or to socialize without discussing work.

If you are interviewing for remote positions, consider asking questions about how the teams communicate, bond, and frequency. Try to meet as many people as you can. Remote and hybrid work is here to stay and remember the value of human connection. We need it for professional and personal well-being.

Sharon Grace is a veteran search executive at Duffy Group who helps hiring leaders hire great people because of her proven track record as a strategic partner and advisor to recruit, identify, and assess talent.

Kristin Pozen

Man on laptop deals with remote work loneliness

As organizations adapt to flexible work arrangements, employers must now prioritize addressing their remote workforce’s social and mental well-being. By understanding the unique challenges associated with remote work, employers can play a pivotal role in creating a supportive and connected virtual work environment.

Understanding and prioritizing combatting remote work loneliness is essential for maintaining mental well-being and productivity in the workplace. Employers must ensure that everyone has the opportunity to connect, regardless of where they are located. Be intentional about connecting employees outside of their teams. Make it a once-a-week event for casual connection and a once-a-quarter or annual event for more formal L&D or strategy planning.

Here are some employer strategies to tackle remote work loneliness:

Establish Regular Virtual Meetings: Encourage teams to schedule regular video calls with each other. This helps maintain social connections and provides a sense of belonging.

Provide Automated Collaboration: Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or others allow for employees to stay connected throughout the day. Instant messaging can simulate the casual conversations that happen in an office setting.

Schedule Virtual Coffee Breaks: Informal meetings where you can discuss non-work topics that mimic the casual interactions that occur in an office environment.

Set Up Virtual Social Events: Organize virtual social events, such as virtual happy hours, game nights, or team-building activities. This helps maintain a sense of camaraderie.

Work From Co-Working Spaces: If possible, consider offering to work from co-working spaces occasionally. This allows for face-to-face interactions with others and a change of environment.

Offer Online Communities: Provide access to online forums or communities related to your company’s industry. This can provide a sense of community and facilitate networking.

Evaluate Your Employee Mental Health Benefits: Are they being utilized? If not, ensure your employees know they are available and confidential. Do they need to be enhanced to provide more coverage or more access?

Make Onboarding More Experiential: Onboarding is a critical first opportunity to facilitate friendships at work. Since the pandemic, millions of employees have started new jobs and have never met one of their colleagues in person. Especially for early career employees, this can be incredibly challenging.

Make Recharging a Reality: We must take employee health seriously for human connection and friendship to thrive. We can start by supporting more generous family leave policies, child care, and elder care. Also, ensure that when taking time off, employees recharge by not answering emails and phone calls. They can truly check out for a week at a time.

Kristin Pozen is a research recruitment recruiter at Duffy Group and a former HR recruiter.

Colleen Neese

Woman working from home on laptop deals with remote work loneliness

In a world increasingly adapting to remote work, Duffy Group, a global recruitment firm based in Phoenix, Arizona, stands out with its 33-year history of successfully operating as a remote workforce. As pioneers in the field, company leaders have valuable insights on fostering employee success in the virtual realm, beyond the conventional steps of establishing a dedicated workspace and managing distractions. Duffy Group emphasizes the importance of meaningful connections and combating loneliness in the evolving landscape of remote work. The company showcases a holistic approach to maintaining a strong sense of community among its widely dispersed team, providing inspiration for other organizations seeking innovative ways to keep their remote employees connected.

Duffy Group is a national recruitment firm headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona; however, our recruiters live all over the country and work from home. We have been a remote workforce for 33 years, way before the pandemic and the recent trend that has led to many workers working from home either full time or part of the time.

Since we’ve been doing this so long, we feel like we’ve learned a thing or two that may assist other companies set their employees up for success when it comes to working remotely.

We all know the obvious first steps to creating a positive experience working from home such as:

  • Have a dedicated workspace
  • Clear distractions
  • Take breaks
  • Make plans after work
  • Take advantage of not being in the office
  • Consider getting a pet

But how do you ensure that your employees are connecting on a meaningful level and combating loneliness? We are in the people business, after all! Here are some of the things Duffy Group does to ensure our employees are staying connected:

  • Utilize technology! We meet regularly via video with each other, with our clients, and with our candidates. We have many company meetings via video that allow us to connect and share information. We also utilize technology to stay connected on various messenger apps. We have one that’s ‘Just for Fun’ where we share silly memes or other fun things going on in our lives, we have one ‘Just for Pets’ where we love to share photos and stories about our furry family members, we have one for our healthy habits and fitness competition, and we have the ability to message as groups or one to one.
  • Recruiter Huddles – These are small groups of employees who have scheduled informal meetings on the calendars that allow for connecting on all topics.
  • We’ve created small groups to connect for those who want to connect on things that are not work-related—for example, a Book Club and one where we share recipes and food prep tips.
  • Celebrate often! We have virtual meet-ups to celebrate all sorts of occasions, from winning awards to weddings and baby showers. My favorite was when we all celebrated our 30th anniversary and received a surprise box at our homes with food and drinks to enjoy as we celebrated virtually.
  • Provide a leadership coach who will work with all employees virtually and with those who want one-on-one coaching.
  • Strive to have in-person connections if possible. Once a year, we fly all of our employees to our headquarters in Phoenix, where we all stay at the same resort for three days of training, bonding, and community service. It’s one of my favorite events, and the karaoke night has been a hit year after year!

There are many ways to stay connected as a remote workforce. Hopefully, some of the things Duffy Group has been doing for years will inspire you to implement new and creative ways for your employees to stay connected!

Colleen Neese is a practice leader at Duffy Group. She specializes in recruiting executives in non-profit and healthcare.

Need help recruiting talent for your organization? Check out Duffy Group today.

Read More

Is Your IT Disaster Recovery Plan Good Or Great?
  • January 16th, 2024
  • - Comments Off on Is Your IT Disaster Recovery Plan Good Or Great?
  • -

It’s a normal workday, and then suddenly the fire alarm goes off in the back of the server room. Amidst the chaos, do the IT staff know what they’re supposed to do besides call 911 and make sure everyone is safe? A comprehensive IT disaster recovery (DR) plan is your playbook. It defines the IT infrastructure and how to restore and resume critical IT functions minimizing the impact on the business including downtime, data loss, and reputational damage.

Start by performing a risk assessment identifying key threats and vulnerabilities to your IT infrastructure including hardware/software failure, cyberattacks, natural disasters, and major power outages. What is the likelihood of each incident and the subsequent impact (enterprise-wide, regional, department-specific, etc.) for your organization? Now you can prioritize your recovery efforts accordingly.

Next, create a comprehensive DR plan that includes the who, what, where, when, why, and how details. For example:

  • Who = What are the main roles and responsibilities including identifying any essential IT staff? For example, did you have any IT staff turnover? You’ll need to notify stakeholders such as management, vendors, and suppliers so you need the correct contact information.
  • What = Which systems are mission critical, essential, and non-essential? Criticality will define the order of recovery and ensure that the most critical systems are restored first.
  • Where = Do you have global data centers or IaaS? A hot site or an alternate cloud-based infrastructure for temporary operations?
  • How = Step-by-step procedures for recovering systems, identifying which processes need to be done in a specific order.

Backup And Recovery Strategy

Data recovery concept

​You need a solid backup and recovery strategy. Perform regular backups including software, configurations, and data. Backups can be onsite, offsite, cloud-based, or a combination depending on the business needs. For mission-critical systems, it may be beneficial to implement redundancy (e.g., deploying backup systems, or redundant hardware) to minimize the impact of an incident.

The IT environment and the business are continually changing so the DR plan needs to be kept current too. Make sure you regularly review, update, and refine the plan to make sure it reflects any changes in your environment. Did you implement a new ERP system or relocate your data center? Or did you have any technology changes that improve the recovery process or enhance the resilience of your systems? If so, you should take the time to update your DR plan.

Testing Your DR Plan

Business meeting to talk about disaster recovery plan

Make sure you regularly test the DR plan which will validate recovery procedures, identify gaps, and ensure data such as stakeholder contact information is correct. There are multiple ways to test including tabletop and scenario-based simulation. Tabletops are good, but simulations including recovery are better. It’s key to test on a regular basis…with the business (that takes your plan to the next level)! The frequency of your testing may vary depending on the criticality of the systems or any regulatory requirements so stay up to date with any regulation changes that may impact your DR plan requirements. Make sure you document lessons learned (including from any actual incidents) so that you can identify any areas for improvement.

It’s critical to ensure your DR plan is aligned with the business continuity plan. Within the DR plan, there should be a communication component. When an incident occurs, you need protocols to notify and continually update the stakeholders so that they can respond appropriately.

Encourage a culture of continuous improvement. Encourage and solicit feedback for the DR plan. Although IT is responsible for disaster recovery, it affects the entire business continuity plan. Have a comprehensive and current DR plan that aligns with the business needs, and which is tested regularly. It enhances your readiness for the next disaster and minimizes the impact of disruptions to your IT infrastructure as well as minimizing the impact of potential disruptions.

For more information on taking your DR plan from good to great, follow me on LinkedIn!

Read More
10 Ways To Increase Workplace Safety

10 Ways To Increase Workplace Safety
  • January 12th, 2024
  • - Comments Off on 10 Ways To Increase Workplace Safety
  • -

Safety in the workplace is vital to a well-functioning warehouse or manufacturing environment. Consider the fact that over 4,700 workers were killed on the job in 2020, according to OSHA. Several more injuries than that occur each year, many of which could be prevented.

It’s the law to report all workplace injuries to the Occupational Safety Health Administration. The top injuries typically involve falls, ladders, forklifts, machinery, hazardous energy, electrical work, and respiratory issues. Here are 10 ways employers can encourage and increase workplace safety, ultimately leading to a healthier, safer, and more productive environment.

1. Staff Training

Workers get trained on workplace safety

Perhaps the most influential way employers can achieve fewer injuries and increased workplace safety is through clearer, more accessible, and more thorough training programs for their employees.

No matter how skilled or experienced an employee is in a particular area, such as forklift operation or chemical handling, they should undergo extensive training for all aspects of the job. It’s not enough to think your employees—no matter how smart they are—will always use common sense, points out Entrepreneur, so make sure you outline any techniques they can impart in order to make their job easier and safer.

2. Hire Competent Workers

Employees working in a safe environment

When taking on additional employees within your workplace, make sure you’re only hiring the best of the best. If this means you have to pay them a little bit more, do it.

Hiring someone quickly just because production is busy and you need someone out there now doesn’t mean you should compromise on quality. Hire competent workers and they will reward you with fewer on-the-job accidents.

3. Insist On Safety In The Workplace

Manager goes over workplace safety guidelines

It all starts with you.

If you as the boss enforce the safety rules and regulations and stand behind them 100%, your workers will take the cue from you that they need to put safety first—even in the face of increased production. Your workers will support you if you practice what you preach.

4. Watch What You Reward

Two employees follow workplace safety guidelines

When you reward employees for doing all they can to complete the job on time or even before a deadline, you’re unwittingly promoting a culture of “whatever it takes” mentality.

Consequently, “whatever it takes” usually means compromising safety to increase production, so be clear when you say it’s best to be safe than to produce the highest numbers on the team.

5. Post Signs

Woman follows workplace safety guidelines

Even the most safety-oriented worker can forget sometimes.

Post signs around the warehouse or manufacturing facility that remind everyone of the everyday risks inherent in their jobs and what they should be doing to comply with safety regulations. This can be anything from a “helmet area” sign to a “wash your hands” sign in the employee bathroom.

6. Give Your Workers The Tools And Resources They Need To Be Safe

Manager talks to employees about workplace safety

If you don’t provide the tools your employees need to stay safe in the work environment, such as helmets, steel toe boots, personal lines on safety devices, and even safety glasses, you can’t expect them to take the necessary precautions.

Making these tools accessible immediately will further encourage safety compliance.

7. Continuously Find Ways To Improve

Warehouse manager points out a workplace safety issue

Safety on the job is not a static thing.

There’s always room for improvement, so get in there and brainstorm with your employees to find out ways you can all promote a higher level of safety awareness for all, whether that’s the guys on the machines or the people in the front office who have to walk through the plant daily.

8. Keep A Clean House

Safety professionals clean a workplace

Messy areas breed the potential for falls and other injuries. Make sure your workplace is relatively clean, neat, and dry to boost safety for anyone.

Also, make sure your employees know the value of a clean work space and encourage them to keep it clean. It’s for their own safety.

9. Provide Maintenance On All Machines And Equipment

Workers talk about workplace safety

Properly running machines, tools, and equipment is a recipe for success.

If you don’t keep up with regular maintenance, these items fail to work as intended. This not only decreases efficiency and production because of all the time spent on repairs, but it also puts workers at risk when they use malfunctioning machines.

10. Reward Safety

Two workers following workplace safety guidelines

Rather than reward high production targets that encourage quick work with a dismissive shrug towards safety, reward those workers who have followed all of your safety rules and have provided efficient work consistently.

By putting an emphasis on safety instead of productivity, you’re rewarding the method of achievement rather than the end result.

Need help with your career?

Become a member to learn how to UNLEASH your true potential to get what you want from work!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Read More
5 Operational Challenges That Could Derail Your Business In 2024

5 Operational Challenges That Could Derail Your Business In 2024
  • December 8th, 2023
  • - Comments Off on 5 Operational Challenges That Could Derail Your Business In 2024
  • -

In the dynamic world of business, real challenges demand decisive actions and a willingness to drive change. My experience in reviving a business serves as a vivid example of this.

When I took the helm of a company that was losing $20,000 a month, the situation was critical. The previous owner was on the verge of not making payroll, a crisis averted by my owners’ timely intervention and investment. From there, I focused on transforming five key operational areas, turning a dire situation into a thriving success story. This effort catapulted our profits to nearly $100,000 a month, culminating in the successful sale of the business.

This article is a journey through that transformation. It’s about sharing the strategies and insights that helped navigate and reshape a struggling business into a profitable venture. For business leaders facing challenges or looking to preempt them, these lessons are about fostering resilience and guiding your business toward a path of prosperity. Here, I combine practical advice with the wisdom gained from experience, aiming to empower others in their quest for business success.

Team Alignment: Ensuring The Right Fit For Success

Team members talk during a work meeting

The Team Evaluation: When I took over the struggling business, the first step was a critical evaluation of our existing team. Understanding each member’s strengths and weaknesses was key to our turnaround strategy. In this process, I found that many talented team members were simply in roles that didn’t suit them; and, regrettably, there were a few who didn’t fit with the upcoming changes, leading us to make the tough decision to part ways.

Strategically Expanding the Team: Following our team evaluation, our hiring strategy centered on finding individuals who were not just right for the roles but would also elevate our team’s overall dynamics. We sought people characterized by their passion, determination, and a consistent track record of excelling in almost everything they undertook.

Solution: Begin by thoroughly assessing your existing team. Identify not just the strengths and weaknesses of each member, but also consider if they are in the right roles where their talents can be best utilized. This evaluation can reveal hidden potential and opportunities for internal role adjustments. When expanding your team, look for candidates who not only have the necessary skills but also demonstrate desire, drive, and a history of excellence in their endeavors. This approach ensures that new hires not only fill the required roles but also contribute positively to the team’s dynamics, driving collective success. The goal is to create a team environment where collaboration, passion, and high performance are the norms, fostering a dynamic and effective work culture.

Consistent Customer Experience: Streamlining Consistency Across Operations

Man in call center talks to a customer

The Comprehensive Overhaul: A major breakthrough in transforming the business came from addressing the inconsistencies in our customer experience. We looked at every aspect of our operations to ensure a uniform and positive experience for every customer. Addressing this required a holistic approach, streamlining processes not just in customer service, but across all operational facets of our business.

Solution: To improve customer experience, it’s crucial to establish consistency in all operational processes. Review each interaction point within your business, from the initial contact to post-service or post-sale follow-up, and strive to make these experiences uniformly positive and engaging. By delivering consistently excellent service at every touchpoint, you build trust and encourage customer loyalty, which is essential for any business.

Goal Alignment: Harmonizing Team Performance With Business Vision

Business strategy, vision, team, development concept

Setting the Business Compass: The first step in addressing our team’s inconsistent performance was to define clear, overarching goals for the business. These goals served as our compass, guiding the direction of every strategy and decision. It was crucial that these goals were not just ambitious but also resonated with the vision we had for the company’s future.

Translating Vision into Action: With the business goals in place, we then developed specific team and individual goals that aligned with these broader objectives. This alignment was key to ensuring that every effort and achievement at the team level contributed directly to the business’s overall success.

Solution: Start by setting clear and inspiring goals for your business as a whole. Then, break these down into specific, measurable goals for each team and individual. This approach ensures that everyone’s efforts are not only aligned but also contributing to the bigger picture. Embrace a coaching mentality in driving accountability, focusing on guiding your team toward these goals and fostering their growth. This strategy transforms accountability into a powerful tool for development, aligning team members’ efforts with the company’s overarching objectives. By doing so, you create a culture where each person understands and plays a vital role in the collective success of the business, leading to a more consistent and effective team performance.

Sales Process Inefficiency: Creating A Blueprint For Sales Success

Professional on laptop works on business operations/technology

The Sales Process Overhaul: A key challenge in the business’s revival was the lack of a defined sales process. Developing and documenting a clear sales strategy was essential for bringing consistency and growth to our sales efforts. Each salesperson had their own approach—or no approach at all—which made it difficult to identify areas needing improvement.

Implementing a Structured Approach: To address this, we developed and documented a clear sales process. This became our blueprint for sales success. By retraining our existing team and using this process for training new salespeople, we achieved a level of consistency in our sales approach. This not only improved our overall sales performance but also allowed us to pinpoint specific areas where additional training was needed.

Solution: For any business struggling with sales consistency, the key is to develop a well-defined sales process. Document this process and use it as a foundation for training both new and existing sales staff. This ensures that everyone is on the same page, making it easier to deliver consistent results and identify areas for further training and improvement. A structured sales process is a powerful tool for driving sales growth and efficiency.

Managing Online Reputation: Turning Feedback Into Fortunes

Customer leaves a review online

The Proactive Review Strategy: During this transformational business journey, I learned that overcoming negative reviews isn’t just about damage control; it’s about taking a proactive stance. People are quick to share their bad experiences online, and these can spread like wildfire on social media and review sites. The first step in combating this is to ensure your customer experience is top-notch, as discussed earlier. A solid customer experience naturally reduces the likelihood of negative reviews.

Engaging with Reviews: It’s also crucial to actively engage with all reviews, both positive and negative. Responding to reviews shows that your business cares and is committed to resolving any issues. This visibility in handling feedback can turn a negative review into a positive impression for potential customers reading these reviews.

Encouraging Positive Reviews: Furthermore, we started encouraging our customers to leave reviews. While it’s important to steer clear of offering incentives for reviews, simply asking customers to share their experiences can lead to an increase in positive feedback. Incorporating this request into our follow-up processes ensured it became a natural part of our customer interaction, subtly boosting our online reputation.

Solution: To effectively manage online reviews, ensure your customer experience is consistently excellent. Engage with all reviews in a constructive manner, showing responsiveness and a commitment to improvement. Encourage customers to leave reviews as part of your regular follow-up process. This approach not only helps mitigate negative feedback but also builds a stronger, more positive online presence for your business.

Final Thoughts: Lessons From A Turnaround Journey

Business success, team, puzzle pieces, strategy, process concept

This journey of transforming a struggling business wasn’t just a professional milestone; it profoundly impacted me personally. It was more than just reviving a company; it was about saving jobs, creating new opportunities, and expanding horizons. We didn’t just turn the business around; we expanded it, reaching into multiple states and opening new locations. Each step of this journey didn’t just contribute to our business’s growth; it created countless opportunities for others, bringing jobs and prosperity to communities.

The experience taught me invaluable lessons about resilience, innovation, and the power of a well-executed strategy. It showed me firsthand how focusing on key operational areas can not only save a business but can set it on a path of expansive growth. These strategies became the cornerstone of our expansion, proving their worth time and again.

As I share these insights, I do so with the hope that they will inspire and guide you in your own business endeavors. Remember, every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. Embrace them, learn from them, and use them to fuel your journey to success. The road might be tough, but the rewards of perseverance and strategic thinking are immeasurable.

Read More

How CEOs Can Spot Their Biggest Leadership Weakness
  • December 8th, 2023
  • - Comments Off on How CEOs Can Spot Their Biggest Leadership Weakness
  • -

While leaders often excel in steering their organizations toward success, they must engage in continuous self-reflection to identify and address their leadership weaknesses.

In this article, Work It DAILY experts from Vistage, renowned for their expertise in executive coaching and leadership development, share invaluable insights on recognizing and addressing leadership weaknesses. Read on to tap into the collective wisdom of these experts, gaining practical tips and actionable strategies to enhance your leadership acumen.

Kirsten Yurich

I have a “3-M” policy when it comes to leadership weaknesses. And it doesn’t involve Post-it notes! The three Ms are mindset, mentoring, and measurement.

Armed with these three Ms, a leader will spot and correct their biggest weaknesses!

The first “M” is mindset. A leader who desires to practice leadership at its highest level must cultivate a mindset of humility. We see humility and vulnerability a lot these days and for good reason. The leader who understands they are not perfect may lack key skills and knowledge in certain situations, or is just downright fallible… Is a leader people are willing to follow. This leader will receive honest feedback from those around them. And will engender positive and authentic relationships with key team members.

The second “M” is mentoring. Any person who wants to become a leader or a better leader needs to spend time with people who are further down the path than they are. This could be mentoring or coaching or even a peer group. Placing yourself in a position to get advice, challenge, encouragement, and perspective will go a long way toward finding and closing those performance gaps.

The third and final “M” is measurement. Measurement takes the form of formal or informal and valid instruments designed to give you objective feedback about your skills, preferences, impact, and performance. In this realm, we have to be very careful consumers. There are tools out there that have excellent face validity and no substance. However, I firmly believe that if we want to change something we have to measure it.

Armed with the “3-M” strategy, any leader can improve!

Kirsten Yurich is a former CEO and current Vistage Chair. As a clinician, professor, author, and executive, she leverages this unique blend and creates learning environments for executives to become better leaders, spouses, and parents.

Mark Fackler

Leader talks about workplace relationships during a work meeting

Identifying weaknesses in yourself, as a CEO, is critically important for growing your company. You are the bottleneck. Since your weaknesses affect the entire company, dealing with them, however hard, is a great return on investment.

Depending on your level of self-awareness, identifying some of your weaknesses can be easy, but even the most self-aware individuals need to look to others for help.

But as a CEO, getting honest feedback is problematic. People defer to you. Talking truth to power is difficult. Employees often withhold the feedback that is the most important for you to hear.

Creating the right culture will make getting feedback on weaknesses easier. You need to create a culture where feedback is the norm and not just positive feedback. You need to model for your staff the right way to provide feedback, both positive and negative. Feedback should be specific and timely, and most importantly, negative feedback should be non-judgmental.

There is a saying, “Praise in public, criticize in private.” I strongly disagree. If you create a culture where feedback to help someone is only done in private, you are missing out on group learning. Failure should be celebrated. Failure talked about publicly will lead to the identification of weaknesses. You can’t fix a weakness until it is identified.

Another great source for feedback is a peer group, a peer group without competitors and vendor relationships. When I joined such a group, a Vistage CEO group, it took just a few months for my fellow CEOs to see one of my weaknesses. They saw me avoiding a tough conversation that I needed to have with a key executive. When month after month they offered advice that I did not take, they realized it was not a lack of knowledge, but a weakness that I needed to confront. Because they were my peers, there was no deferential treatment. There was no judgment, just a desire to help me.

Find your weaknesses. Fix your weaknesses. Don’t just count on self-discovery. Create a company culture where non-judgmental feedback is the norm. Join a peer group. Be relentless. Never stop improving.

Mark Fackler is a retired CEO and currently leads the Vistage CEO group that he was a member of from 1991 to 2002. He is passionate about creating great ROI for his member CEOs.

Mike Thorne

Leader talks to his team members during a work meeting

There are three critical areas for CEOs to pay attention to spot leadership “weaknesses.”

The first is “unstructured” self-reflection/assessment. Find some quiet time and think about the things that are always on your mind that you avoid dealing with.

The second is structured. Seek either executive coaching or even behavior therapy. We often need a sounding board to work through whatever we are going through.

The third, and last, is to look at metrics for insights. Employee turnover, morale, general team dynamics. Look for patterns of issues that crop up and dig into why. Deal with them before they become crises.

Mike Thorne is a former CEO and current Vistage Chair. He leads and facilitates a group of trusted advisor entrepreneurs and a CEO peer group in New Hampshire and Maine.

How have you spotted your biggest leadership weakness? Join the conversation inside Work It DAILY’s Elite Program.

Read More
3 Ways To Improve Your Professional Happiness Using Your Career Decoder Results

3 Ways To Improve Your Professional Happiness Using Your Career Decoder Results
  • November 24th, 2023
  • - Comments Off on 3 Ways To Improve Your Professional Happiness Using Your Career Decoder Results
  • -

The Career Decoder Quiz unlocks your professional strengths and potential. I’m going to walk you through three ways you can use your results to improve your own career happiness, success, and satisfaction.

I built the Career Decoder Quiz back in 2015 and, as of today, hundreds of thousands of people have taken the quiz. When I first shared it with our members and followers, I got a comment from someone on LinkedIn with a PhD in psychology who said their results were spot-on accurate. It truly made my day because I always knew that this information was important and accurate but it’s very validating when you hear other individuals saying that as well.

How To Use The Career Decoder Quiz To Unlock Professional Success

The Career Decoder Quiz is all about your workplace personas. Your workplace personas explain how you like to add value and how you like to create value and results for your employer when you’re doing work. And this is important to understand because you’re not an employee. You’re a business-of-one, and you’re selling your services to the employer. You want to be able to sell services that you enjoy providing. That’s how you find satisfaction in your career.

I’ve worked with thousands of people over the last 20 years. I’ve been a career coach for a long time, and I know that the number one reason people are so unhappy is that they’re not internally motivated by their work. The technical term is “intrinsic motivation.” It means it’s work you desire to do and that’s exactly what the career decoder results reveal. You’re going to feel more satisfied naturally when you’re doing the kind of work your results say you should do.

When we work with people inside the Work It DAILY platform, when our career coaches help our members, what we normally find is that they’re doing work that is not leveraging their top two or three workplace personas. The Career Decoder Quiz is going to tell you you’re top personas. When you get your results, anything that scores 20% or higher means it’s a strength of yours. It’s a persona that you prefer to leverage. Some people only have one. Some people have a couple of them. But you can’t be all eight, so you’re going to see what you prefer to do and how you prefer to deliver that value.

The first way (and probably the most important way) you should be using the results of the Career Decoder Quiz is to get very clear on the kind of work you want to do.

We had a client take the Career Decoder Quiz. He was a very successful executive. In his current role, he was known as an Optimizer. (That’s one of the eight workplace personas.) He was very good at looking at problems in the company and fixing them. But he wasn’t fulfilled in this work. When he took our quiz, it turned out that his top three workplace personas were Mentor, Visionary, and Educator.

What he preferred to do was coach others. He preferred to share a vision, help people connect the dots, and see things that they couldn’t see on their own. He also wanted to close gaps in knowledge and information.

So what we did was work together to quantify his skills and abilities in these three areas—the ways he preferred to work—and then he went to his leadership team and expressed the fact that he really wanted to find work within the organization that allowed him to leverage these three areas. And, lo and behold, the executive team said to him, “We’ve been waiting for you to say this.” He was shocked. They were very happy with him in the Optimizer role and he seemed to be happy in the Optimizer role, so why would they’ve changed things? It wasn’t until he expressed his desire to do work that was in line with how he felt satisfaction that he was able to get results.

I see this every single day inside the Work It DAILY platform as we coach people on their careers, helping them better understand themselves, and this is just one of the ways that we do it.

The second way you need to leverage the results you get from the Career Decoder Quiz is to use them in all your career tools (resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, etc.).

As a business-of-one, you have to market yourself to employers, and the way you market yourself is with things like your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, answers in your interview prep, and elevator pitch when networking. A lot of people tend to have the “everything and the kitchen sink” mentality where they put everything they’ve ever done in all of these career tools. They want to present themselves as a Jack or Jill of all trades. That is a fatal error. You need to brand yourself as a specialist, and, more importantly, as a specialist doing the kind of work you want to be doing. The Career Decoder results are what enable you to do that.

Now, a lot of people get their results and suddenly change their LinkedIn headline to “I’m a Builder, Mentor, Superconnector,” or in their resume they write that they are an Educator or Warrior or Researcher. That’s not what I want you to do. That’s actually pretty hokey and that’s not what this was intended for.

Instead, take a look at your top personas. You’ll realize those personas are really verbs. So if you’re a Builder, then you want to go through your tools and quantify your experience building things: “I’ve built X systems.” Or if you’re an Educator, “I’ve taught X number,” or “I trained X number of people.” Or if you’re a Superconnector, “I’ve connected X number of customers/vendors.”

You want to look at how you move the needle in your career. You want to quantify your accomplishments and work experience using the terms that align with your top workplace personas. Quantifying these things and branding yourself this way is how you’re going to send the message that this is your specialty, this is how you like to create value, and you can prove it.

The third way you can leverage these results and improve your professional satisfaction is by understanding or getting familiar with your co-workers’ personas.

It’s important that you know how to leverage the strengths of other people. And let me explain why.

When you know what your strengths are, you’re going to have more confidence, and when you know the strengths of others, you know how to tap into them and collaborate better. This is what companies are looking for—their top resources working well together and creating much better results.

By recognizing the talents of others and knowing to leverage them in concert with yours, you’re going to gain a lot of trust, respect, and credibility within the organization.

I see a lot of people plateau in their careers because they get so focused on what they’re good at and how they win that they lose sight of the fact that in order to get to the next level in their career, they need to partner with others. They need to be able to leverage the strengths of others. You can’t be all eight personas. You’re going to need all eight of those personas in the workplace. So if you want to get ahead in your career you need to put your ego aside. You need to leverage your own strengths, your own personas, and you need to leverage those of your teammates. Your credibility, the trust and the respect that you’re going to get, is gonna skyrocket. And, of course, that’s going to make you much happier on the job.

Those are the three ways you can leverage the Career Decoder results. Discovering your workplace personas is so empowering. And we don’t just use the Career Decoder Quiz with job seekers and professionals. We also use it with employers. They use it with their staff to help them better understand their teammates. And if you’re a leader, not only should you take this quiz, but you should also give it to all of your employees and learn their results so that you can tap into their strengths and make sure they’re happy on the job.

I hope this free quiz helps you, your coworkers, and your leaders. If you want to work one-on-one with our coaches and learn more about your results, join us inside Work It DAILY today. Let us be your guide toward a happier, more satisfying career.

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Read More

How To Create Your First Budget: Making Breakthrough Habits
  • November 9th, 2023
  • - Comments Off on How To Create Your First Budget: Making Breakthrough Habits
  • -

As a rookie manager, embarking on the journey to create your first budget can be a daunting and nerve-wracking experience. The key to success lies in knowing where to begin, understanding the starting point, and making breakthrough habits.

But fear not! In this article, we will guide you through budget creation with a focus on avoiding rookie mistakes, navigating the approval process, and effectively locking and monitoring your budget.

Rookie Mistakes: Setting The Right Foundation

Rookie mistakes in budgeting often stem from the absence of a clear vision. To avoid this trap, communicate openly with your superiors to understand the department’s future directions. Sometimes, you might be directed to keep the new budget flat at last year’s spending.

When starting your budget, referencing the previous year’s budget is a safe and valuable starting point. It provides insights into past expenditures and helps lay a foundation for the new budget. Remember that a budget is a living and breathing document that requires periodic revisiting and adjustment.

Don’t hesitate to seek input from colleagues; their insights can be invaluable. Communicating with stakeholders will lend a sense of ownership of the budgeting process.

One common oversight is the failure to include new initiatives in your budget plan. As your supervisors introduce new programs or investments, it’s essential to incorporate these changes into your budget. Equally important is removing outdated or one-time initiatives from the previous budget.

Understanding salary and contractual changes is crucial. In certain industries, such as sports, specific costs are predetermined due to collective bargaining agreements, making up a significant portion of the budget. Recognizing these fixed costs helps you accurately plan the remaining flexible expenses.

To create an adequate budget, it’s essential to understand your business thoroughly. Dive into past financial records, departmental spending, and the profit and loss statements from previous years. Understanding the spending patterns and where the money goes is vital for effective budgeting.

Interacting with various stakeholders within your department is crucial. Gather information about their plans, changes, and needs. Creating an inclusive budget process may not incorporate all suggestions, but it fosters valuable input and enhances the decision-making process.

The Approval Process: Navigating The Path To Success

Coworkers talk about the budget during a work meeting

Once you’ve crafted your budget, it’s time to navigate the approval process. Before you head out to show your new budget to your boss, take a step back and ensure you don’t miss anything. Make sure that your formulas are cross-checking your numbers.

Proper coding of expenses is crucial for accurate financial tracking. Assign codes to invoices and categorize them within the budget to ensure the appropriate allocation of costs to specific departments or categories. Make it a habit to utilize the budget daily to determine expense placement and maintain financial clarity.

Lock And Monitor The Budget

Man works on his company's budget

After the finance team approves your budget, it becomes a finalized document, entering the ‘lock and monitor’ phase. In dynamic environments, such as the sports industry, urgent changes may arise; they might be a one-time expense or a large purchase requiring immediate budget adjustments. In such cases, you can change your financial position by updating the quarterly forecast. The budget cannot be adjusted because it is locked.

Calendarizing your budget assists in managing cash flow. Now that you have a final budget, you can distribute the expenditures when they occur during a 12-month period. This approach ensures better tracking and aligns costs with the correct quarters, providing a more transparent financial overview.

Contesting miscoded expenses to your budget line item is expected. Whenever this occurs, a simple phone call to the recording department typically settles the issue. This is why a budget to actual expense analysis is necessary periodically.

Categories like travel and entertainment expenses tend to fluctuate and be less controllable in budgeting due to unforeseen pricing and travel demands. These challenges can test the accuracy of budget projections, but adaptability and vigilance are your allies.

Building Trust, Credibility, And Accountability

Happy woman on laptop works on the budget

The critical lesson in creating a budget is establishing trust, credibility, and accountability. When stakeholders know and trust the validity of your numbers, they tend to relax and believe in your executive presence.

Creating your first budget is a transformative journey that empowers you to take control of your department’s financial destiny. By avoiding rookie mistakes, mastering the approval process, and effectively locking and monitoring your budget, you pave the way for success.

Budgeting is not merely a financial task; it’s a strategic tool that propels your organization to take hold of its current position and predict the future with confidence. Embrace the process, learn from your experiences, and let your budget become a beacon of financial prosperity and strategic mastering. Be that lighthouse on the hill that others look to as an example of excellence. You can do this!

Read More
7 Ways To Make Dense Content Relatable

7 Ways To Make Dense Content Relatable
  • November 9th, 2023
  • - Comments Off on 7 Ways To Make Dense Content Relatable
  • -

By the age of 23, I’d written articles for the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and Los Angeles Times. By 25, I had signed my first book deal. My publisher told me I was the second person they ever contracted without an agent.

What was my secret? Connections? No—my most prestigious pieces were simply submitted to open editorial inboxes like [email protected]. My book manuscript was also picked up through cold emails… and I got not one, but two publishers interested. Simply put, my writing spoke for itself.

I had the “it” factor.

And I wasn’t writing about rainbows and butterflies. Most of my pieces were either about Middle Eastern foreign policy dilemmas or mathematical statistics and probabilities found in Texas Hold ‘Em poker (ex. The 2-3% equity changes a hand like King-Ten suited has vs. King-Ten offsuit). For the general public, it wasn’t fun stuff.

But that’s where “it” comes in—the unique beauty of making dense content relatable.

Here are my tips and tricks on how you can do it too.

1. Raise Your Voice! First order of business, we have to know that article is distinctly coming from you. No one else could’ve ever written it. No one else could’ve possibly dreamed of using your same vocabulary, pacing, and tone! Generally speaking, confidence is key. Not sure what I’m talking about here? Then don’t start with writing—start with reading. Find favorite authors and develop your taste. You don’t even have to like their opinions. Just their way of communicating things. For me, those two journalists are Derek Thompson and Jennifer Rubin. I don’t agree with half of what Jennifer says and Derek’s economic analysis is almost always beyond me, but I like their style. I’ll never forget how struck I was when Ms. Rubin started a Washington Post article with the word “bizarrely.” No matter what followed, I was already hooked. You want people to feel that same way about you too.

2. It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It. Many people have heard that when you’re talking to someone, 70% of communication is non-verbal. What you say isn’t nearly as important as how you say it. Believe it or not, this applies to writing as well. Style, flow, and finesse matter. You can’t simply rest on the content of your message; you need to deliver it with ease. Writing is like a dance. When you read it out loud, it shouldn’t have two left feet. Or two clunky syllables. Great writing is incredibly agile, nodding its head to literary grace.

3. Be Fearless. Say what needs to be said. Say what you mean. Don’t fear a controversial conclusion—people are drawn to strength. It takes bravery to express our ideas clearly, but trust me, it gets rewarded.

4. Set Limits. Whenever I write, I limit my commas. I never let consecutive sentences contain three or more of those little squiggly marks. I also try not to stuff too many big words together. People get tripped up here because they confuse accuracy with greatness. Just because what you’re saying is valid and true doesn’t make it readable. In order for your brilliance to reach wider audiences, you need to dial down the density. Information should be given as a slow drip—not a dam-breaking explosion.

5. Use Three Words. It is punchier.

6. Make ‘Em Laugh. It is funnier.

7. Encourage Critical Thinking. We’ve drilled down pretty hard on the delivery of your message. Now we need to address the substance. Obviously, hot takes generate buzz. But you don’t always need a controversial opinion in order to make your work sell. People are struck by simplicity. The bolder you can state your claim, the better. It doesn’t have to be original. You can move the masses just by being unapologetic. I don’t care if your stance is saying something as mundane as, “We need to stick to our diets!” or “Kids need to read more!” If you can articulate your ideas clearly and powerfully, you are bound to reach people. Most of us ‘overthink’ things—by taking affirmative stands, your writing will inspire people to think more deeply.

Transforming dense content into something relatable requires practice, creativity, and—dare I say it—a touch of your own personal magic. You need to be able to charm your reader. This includes when discussing tough subjects. Yet I guarantee that if you can incorporate the above strategies into your writing, your dazzling prose will breathe new life into your most meaningful findings. Sometimes the best way to convince someone of an argument is to demonstrate conversational mastery.

Read More