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I just spoke to a group of #NAWBO women business owners this past week on the "Workplace of the Future" - which, by the way, is becoming an obsolete title and I have to rework that. But the point is this... most CEO's and executives are not even paying attention to culture the way they need to. Here is my prediction... Your culture is critical in the next 6-12 months and Glassdoor & social media will expose the authenticity of the culture you're 'selling'. You can't BS your culture. It's the one thing that you can create when a business is getting started...and it's the easiest thing to crush when people in your org (or you) make bad decisions along the growth path. Just look at Uber as a perfect example of bad decision after bad decision. Trust me, once your culture is tainted, it's significantly harder to recover. Let's look at the role Glassdoor is playing in that... With 45 million MONTHLY unique users, Glassdoor is going to crush the job search industry. Why? Because job seekers are able to do a level of research about your company culture that they can't do well on any other website. They started as a place for employees to dish about organizational culture and are now moving into job search functionality-- that is HUGE. Here's why ---
If you're looking to grow your organization, and I know most people are, FOCUS internally on your employees and your culture for the next 6 months. Happy and engaged employees will take better care of your customers, help you perpetuate a strong organizational culture and attract the right type of people to your business. For more tips & info, check us out @HCM2020 on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter.
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They are going to leave really soon if you don't get a grip on your people strategy in the next 6-12 months. You need to start now. You need to get serious and develop a plan to keep your A Players. It's time to get focused on your vision, align your people to it and clean up the dead weight in your organization. Here is Episode 1:1 of our Success Multiplier Show. I'd love your feedback on it! Leave comments below.  We've all been there...the dreaded "team meeting". It never starts or ends on time, you spend excessive amounts of time discussing some topic that isn't really that important to everyone - just the loudest in the room. Nothing is every really resolved and nothing takes a massive leap forward. This is when it's time for a team meeting overhaul.
Really successful team meetings go well beyond starting and ending on time, having an agenda distributed ahead of time, and a good facilitator to manage your time. The very best meetings have three things in common: 1. The most important items surface to the top. This means that the team determines the biggest priorities of the day and those items surface to the top. Meeting facilitators/leaders are wise to let the team prioritize the issues that need to be discussed. Gather and create a list of issues for the week and let the team prioritize them for discussion. 2. There is less "reporting" and more problem solving done during these meetings. Status reporting is tedious, boring and can be done in a range of other ways than with an entire team sitting around a table - so leverage other "reporting" mechanisms (like email) to provide routine status updates. When a "reporting" item is in the red, isn't where it should be, or there is an issue - only then should those items surface for discussion. If everything is in the green, and working as it should be, no need to discuss it in a meeting. 3. Take action and make decisions on issues for the Good-of-the-Whole. Have the team prioritize the key issues that need resolution (see #1 above) and work diligently to troubleshoot those key issues. A good team meeting spends at least two-thirds of its time actually problem solving issues - not reporting. Leverage your team's collaborative and creative problem solving abilities to identify and address the biggest issues your group is facing. You pay your team members to work problems, not spin their wheels in team meetings, so leverage everyone's time and raise the bar. These three simple actions can help you elevate your team's productivity and move your organization towards greater change, innovation and growth!
Those who are tasked with executing on that vision have to sort out the pieces and create a plan that gets results. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but it doesn't have to be an uphill battle. With planning and the right tools in place, even a relatively new manager can have success (and the decoder ring) to create tangible action to get great results.
If you're curious and want to drill deeper into this topic, come join us on November 22nd or 29th and learn more about "From Vision to Traction- Six Keys & Two Tools to Turn Strategy Into Tangible Action" . We are running an online seminar each day where we will explore:
We will give you two great tools and share how to use those tools immediately to see results. You'll transform your team meetings into highly productive sessions. They will never be the same again! November 22, 2016 11:30 am ET & November 29, 2016 at 10:30 am ET. Registration is $149 and the live, online sessions will be recorded.
Our world is insanely busy. We wake up, look at the phone, and already begin to prioritize the thousand things we need to accomplish in the next 24 hours before we start it all over again. But my biggest, and best, piece of advice to CEOs, entrepreneurs and executives -- well, to everyone frankly, is to SLOW DOWN. This piece is all about how to begin to do that. To use gratitude as a way to put a lever in the cog and bring your world to a grinding halt so you can truly enjoy it and not just live it, but live it purposefully. As always, in full disclosure, my personal life has taken a path that I was not expecting and things are weighing heavily on me at the moment. I have a pile of extra stressors that I was not anticipating and emotional baggage being dumped on me that I not only don't want but don't have the time or capacity to deal with...but such is life. As a CEO, mother, etc etc..I can't drop it all to deal with it. But here is the path I choose to take, and I hope you learn a bit from it as well. Gratitude - why executives need it
Slowing down - The Clarity breakTMSo how do you help slow down your world as an executive - beyond meditation and gratitude? We call it a Clarity BreakTM, and you need to be taking them frequently. The term "Clarity Break" was created by Gino Wickman, founder of EOS Worldwide. Defining a Clarity Break is simple. It's a set period of time, away from the office, that you set aside to think and work "on" your business, not "in" it. Some people need 30 minutes a day, others need a few hours a week, or a half day each month - do whatever works for you. But the purpose of the Clarity Break is to set aside time AWAY from the office to think. This may be journaling, brain dumping your ideas on paper, drawing, etc. Here is how you do it.
1. Set a time on your calendar and protect that time. Do not schedule over it, move it, or otherwise adjust it. Set it in stone as sacred time for you. 2. Get out of the office and away from distractions. Find a great spot - a coffee shop, library, a park bench, etc. Some place you enjoy. 3. This is NOT the time to play catch-up on things you've been putting on the back burner. 4. Sit with a blank pad of paper and a pen and let things flow. Let ideas come to you. Let your creative self come forward. Your brain will do amazing things when you give it the freedom to cut loose from agendas, tasks, appointments, and assignments. During great weather seasons I take mine at a picnic table at a park on the Potomac River. I have a sketchpad and colored pencils and I literally let my brain loose to think about ideas and concepts or simply draw mandalas. I don't go with an agenda, I let my mind wander. When I return to my "work" I am refreshed, relaxed, and process things in a clearer way. I feel like things shake loose and I gain better perspective on what we need to be focused on. Want to read more about Clarity Breaks? Here are a few of my favorite blog posts from my fellow EOS Implementors at EOS Worldwide:
As always, we are here to help! Be sure to check out our new Small Business Cohort Program or our other consulting services for companies and associations. We also run great events to give you more information about what we do and how you can see amazing results for your organization. Click here for info on our events. You can always email our Founder & CEO, Amy Riccardi too. Go Big or Go Home: Creating Your Bigger Future for Entrepreneurs & Small Biz Owners (Step 1)2/2/2016 January has already come and gone. If you're like most entrepreneurs and small business owners you may or (more likely) may not have created that plan for 2016. Hey, you're not alone.
But if you're looking at 2016 to be the year you make it big (or bigger) in your industry or profession then read up. There are a few things you need to do now to get yourself, and your organization, where you want it to be. You have to set the stage for growth and that starts with designing your Bigger Future! This is your time to work "on" your business for a change and we promise it will be waiting when you return. 1. Shut It Down. Find a quiet spot for several hours (let's say 1-2 hours to start). No vibrating phone, no email pop up notices, no internet, no kids/family/friends/colleagues. NO distractions. 2. Dream Big! Grab some paper and get creative. WRITE it down. Writing helps imprint things into longer term memory, so draw, write, etc. and answer these questions... If we were sitting in a coffee shop 10 years from now, catching up as colleagues do, what would your life look like now and what would have transpired in those 10 years to get you there? Money & time are not an issue, dream big!
3. Identify Your Resources. What resources would you need to get to your 10-year target? Money, people, time, tools, ideas, education, etc. Whatever it is, write it down. You may not know all of what you need, but this gets you thinking about those resources. Continue to revisit this each week and tweak it until you get it where you want it. I'll walk you through the next steps in a few days. If you're interested in more information or to join our Entrepreneurial Success Framework Cohort, check out HCM2020 for details! We are starting Cohort #1 on February 24th in Reston, Virginia, USA! Most business executives end the year, or start the new one, with excitement for what is ahead. New year, new goals, new plans, a fresh start. Here are a few tips to get it off to a fast pace, focus your time, and see success quickly.
These four tips, when added together, will help you gain deeper clarity into what you want (and what you don't) and help you achieve more this year. Disciplined practice of these tips will free your time and mental space and open up new possibilities as well. HCM2020 is offering our Propel Your Business 2016 seminar on January 28th. Click here to Learn more! We hear this often from our small and medium sized clients quite often. They have been so busy "in" the business they haven't had time to work "on" it. When they do look up they find their business is 'stuck' and they are not quite sure what to do about it. 'Stuck' can look like many things, it could be rapid growth, a big project/contract, lack of consistent processes, the wrong people in the wrong seats (or the right people in the wrong seats), lack of a clear vision or plan for the future, not having everyone on the same page, a lack of data to make solid decisions... the list is endless. What we see are CEOs and Executive Teams finding themselves in a quandary and not sure how to get out of it. I've been there and understand it completely and looked around to find the right kind of solution myself. I am a natural skeptic so I want tried and true, proven but easy-to-use tools and systems to get things done. I was attending a multi-day certification program and sitting at lunch when my table-mate sitting next to me shared Gino Wickman's book, "Traction" with me. I flipped through it that night and poked around the website that evening and was convinced that I had found a great solution to my issues. The concepts were simple, the tools are straightforward, and the methodology is tried and very sound. Years later I find myself offering the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to our own clients because it is just such an elegantly simple methodology and toolbox...and it works! EOS helps entrepreneurs get what they want from their business. EOS does three things we call Vision, Traction, Healthy:
Want to learn more, you can hear directly from Gino Wickman in the quick YouTube video below and check out our website: http://www.hcm2020.com/learn-more-about-eos.html to learn more about how we can facilitate the EOS process for your organization.  The Launch of HCM2020's new tagline: We Keep Business Simple™ We thought it fitting to share our new tagline with our community and where it comes from. "We Keep Business Simple" comes from this quote from the brilliant Sir Richard Branson, British entrepreneur and investor. Our Philosophy Business is really not complex, although there are a lot of people that try to make it so. This is usually done for one of two reasons (1) self preservation, (2) money, because time is money for those who charge by the hour. It's just not how we operate at HCM2020. Our goal is to get in, work with clients and teach them what they need to know to self manage, then get out. We don't charge hourly because it's not about running up the clock, it's about making a difference, helping entrepreneurs, and doing what's right for our clients. So making things complex is not high on our list of "To Do's" - anything but. "I saw this quote from Richard Branson, who I greatly admire, and it instantly resonated with me and what we're trying to do with HCM2020. We are constantly seeing organizations trying to over complicate things and our goal is to unravel that and help bring simplicity and clarity to business management." Amy Riccardi, CEO, HCM2020 HCM2020's goal in 2015 is to encourage dialog about the basic tenants of business that have been made more complex. Take "big data", "dashboards", "culture", "business process re-engineering" - pick a buzzword. None of this has to be complicated but industry makes it so. Our goal is to help entrepreneurs quickly and easily weed through the muck of complexity and get clarity on what is important (and what isn't) and grow businesses efficiently and successfully.
So that's what's behind "We Keep Business Simple"! |
AuthorAmy Riccardi is the Chief People Officer and Founder of HCM2020. She's a guest lecturer at Georgetown and George Washington Universities and works with executive teams and CEOs to help scale and grow their business. Archives
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