Why Other People Wreck Brainstorms (And How To Stop Them) If you’re a first-time investor with, say, $15,000 in savings, you have plenty of options these days. Newfangled robo-advisers like Betterment and Wealthfront will happily take your money, as will incumbents like Charles Schwab, which have launched improved digital products. But if you’re starting at zero, with practically nothing in the way of savings, you would have found few options designed to serve your needs—until now. There are suddenly half a dozen startups eager for your first saved dollar. They aspire to grow with you, transforming your initial commitment into a healthy nest egg. The results are varied. On the other hand, there is Wise Banyan. Their styles could not be more different, but Stash and Wise Banyan are in some ways playing a similar game. "In the past, people would ask, how much AUM do you have? Stash’s Krieg echoes that stance. But as these founders say, AUM is to some extent beside the point.
"Financial literacy is a huge issue in the U.S. ," Krieg says. The Acceleration Factor. A company’s performance critically depends on its teams. And team performance, at every level, depends on the ability to accelerate — to operate at an increasing pace, doing in weeks what once took months, and doing in days what once took weeks.
Accelerating teams don’t just get results more quickly — they gain the proficiency that allows them to take on new kinds of challenges. All teams — regardless of their level of performance — set objectives, create a vision, allocate tasks to complement each other, and shed poorly performing people. Accelerating teams simply do these things faster and more effectively than lagging teams. With a few changes in everyday practice, any company can increase the speed and effectiveness of its teams. We draw this conclusion from our ongoing research project, “Accelerating Performance.” 1. Some remedies: When confronting a difficult decision, teams should conduct a premortem about what could go wrong and why. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Bullet Journal Updated Overview. Why the Bullet Journal Works: It Soothes Your Panicky Mind -- Science of Us. A sad truth about productivity aspirations: Sometimes, maintaining a system that’s supposed to make your life easier can feel like the hardest part. Even the best-designed calendar app doesn’t actually work if you have to force yourself to use it; eventually, updating it becomes just another unchecked item on the to-do list. Which is why I’m both intrigued by and a little wary of the bullet journal, a diary/calendar/to-do list/planner system that, over the past several months, has rocketed to popularity, become an Instagram star, and developed its own cult following. It’s been described as “a powerful productivity tool,” “better than any app,” “a modern Filofax,” and “KonMari for your racing thoughts”; the bullet-journal website is dotted with effusive testimonials from users about how it’s changed their lives.
And yet all of this feels kind of counterintuitive, once you understand how the bullet journal actually works. And users haven’t just embraced the complexity. So what’s the draw?
Meetings. Communication at work. Efficiency & Effectiveness. Negotiation. Managing Up. Developing Oneself. Killing Potential: Machiavellian Mary as Boss. Guest post from Shoba Sreenivasan & Linda E. Weinberger: A particularly virulent female leadership style is what we label, “Machiavellian Mary” to denote a superficially agreeable, yet ruthless, self-focused, and false individual. Machiavellian Mary is admired for playing well in the “male” game of pyramidal hierarchies: pleasing to those on top and controlling, micro-managing and authoritarian to those below.
In fact, Machiavellian Mary not just toxic to those below her, but to the businesses that promote her to a leadership position: - She kills buy-in from key stakeholders: the employees who are the face of the business. - Her authoritarian style torpedoes an environment that nourishes new ideas. - Hers is a “top-down” communication style, one that promotes a culture of fear. - She is an obstacle to change. How does she do this? · She creates friction, pits co-workers against each other Yet, Machiavellian Marys continue to be prominent in leadership positions of power across sectors.
Killers of Corporate Life. There are 2 killers of corporate life – speed and politics. Let me give you some background. Before setting up Beyond Philosophy I spent most of my career working in large corporate companies, climbing the ladder of success. I reached the exalted heights of SVP leading a team of 3,500 people globally before I left to start Beyond Philosophy, a customer experience consultancy, back in 2002. Company Politics In my last role I was often asked by friends what I did for a living – I would reply “I play chess”.
Why? Speed – or lack thereof! This brings me onto the second area that is killing corporate companies – that is speed. There have been two very recent examples. Another example is an organization who asked us to submit a proposal seven months ago and after many protracted conversations have decided to go ahead. Lack of speed and politics are killing corporations My advice to everyone is to trust your people to make decent decisions, take more risks, and don’t play politics. 1 Simple Trick to Be Happier at a Job You Hate. Originally published by Marshall Goldsmith on LinkedIn: What Do You Do When You're Stuck in a Job You Hate? This is a dilemma most of us have faced at one time or another, some of you might even be facing it right now.
What do you do when you are in a job that you really don't like? Perhaps it's an issue with your boss or co-workers, or the responsibilities and focus of the position just doesn't thrill you like you thought it would when you took the job. And, now, for whatever reason(s) you just aren't able to leave. You have a couple of choices. One choice is to suffer through day by day until you either get fired for your poor attitude or you find another job that you like more.
The other option is to create happiness and meaning in your work life regardless of the current circumstances. So, how do you create happiness and meaning when you're stuck in a job that you hate? I suggest that you break your days down into one hour segments. Did I do my best to be happy? OODA Loops - Decision-Making Skills Training from MindTools.com. Understanding the Decision Cycle © iStockphotovesilvio Learn the decision-making techniques of a fighter pilot.
Has it ever struck you just how many military terms have become everyday terms in business-speak? War and business are often compared and contrasted. As well as "fighting off threats" or "engaging in a price war", we talk about "gathering intelligence", "making a pre-emptive strike", and even trying to "out-maneuver" the competition.
It can be fun to read books like The Art of War, written in 6th Century China by Sun Tzu, and to think about how these can be applied to business strategy. So when former US Air Force Colonel John Boyd developed his model for decision-making in air combat, its potential applications in business soon became apparent. Boyd developed his model after analyzing the success of the American F-86 fighter plane compared with that of the Soviet MIG-15. See the similarities with Boyd's observations? Understanding the Tool . Stage 1. Stage 2. Cultural traditions. GTD - Getting Things Done. How to Immediately Improve Your Powers of Persuasion. Dr. Robert Cialdini's seminal book Influence has been on the bestseller list for the last 25 years and has sold over 500,000 copies, though it wasn't always that successful. For the first few years, it did not do so well, and then it became a remarkable hit. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Cialdini, and I had the opportunity to talk with him about his books, research, and the power of persuasion.
Executives I work with often ask me for help in accelerating their influence, so I have distilled Cialdini's insights into six powerful lessons: 1. The smartest person in the room will fail When you are the smartest person in a group, you don't seek out understanding from others or ask for their advice. 2. Once in the role of a leader, people tend not to seek counsel. 3. The nuanced difference of asking for advice rather than input will give you far greater persuasion power. 4. 5. 6. Cialdini credits two factors for making his first book a bestseller after it initially sold slowly. The four tiers of engagement: What Silicon Valley taught me about collaboration and time management | Reid Hoffman. What You Know That You Don’t Know Can Hurt You. On the morning of March 22, 2016, at the beginning of rush hour, two bombs ripped through the busy departure terminal at Brussels Airport.
Little more than an hour later, a suicide bomber detonated a device in a subway car at Maelbeek Station, a stop used by many who work in nearby European government buildings. Thirty-five people died and dozens were injured in the terrorist attack. Although it was lost in the fog of the Belgian assault, the incident and its aftermath reveal a fundamental shortcoming in former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s classic framework for assessing situational risk. It would seem odd for something to be known and yet unknown, but the attack in Brussels perfectly captures this concept. It is convenient — and certainly tempting — to blame law enforcement and officials for failing to do their jobs and anticipate dangers in their midst. What happens in a large organization to so pervert the potential benefits of unknown knowns? Never say “never.” Why rudeness at work is contagious and difficult to stop | Aeon Ideas.
Most people can relate to the experience of having a colleague inexplicably treat them rudely at work. You’re not invited to attend a meeting. A co-worker gets coffee – for everyone but you. Your input is laughed at or ignored. You wonder: where did this come from? Did I do something? Why would he treat me that way? It can be very distressing because it comes out of nowhere and often we just don’t understand why it happened. A large and growing body of research suggests that such incidents, termed workplace incivility or workplace rudeness, are not only very common, but also very harmful.
It would be easy to believe that rudeness is ‘no big deal’ and that people must just ‘get over it’, but more and more researchers are finding that this is simply not true. While there are likely many reasons people behave rudely, at least one explanation that my colleagues and I have recently explored is that rudeness seems to be ‘contagious’. You might be wondering, how long does this last? Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more likely to get sick. This week as Donald Trump was crowned the Republican presidential nominee, a ghost from his past also emerged into the spotlight.
In a profile for the New Yorker, Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter for his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, expressed regret over co-creating a mythical Donald Trump. The depiction spawned a reality TV show, The Apprentice, which made Trump a household name and painted him as an embodiment of the American Dream. Both the book and TV show were incidental, pivotal events that helped the real estate tycoon secure the nomination. “Trump’s self-portrayal as a Horatio Alger figure buttressed his populist appeal in 2016,” wrote the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer. “But his origins were hardly humble.” (Trump’s father played a significant role in his success, but gets little credence in the book.) The Art of the Deal fits a specific genre of business and self-help books—the ones that gloss over the role of privilege in success.
Own-it-7-ways-oprah-creates-personal-power. Last week, entrepreneur and entertainer Oprah Winfrey again made Forbes's list of the world's most powerful women (#12) and the list of richest self-made women (#5). Here are seven secrets she has shared recently about how she creates influence and power. 1. Rise above pain Fail. And fail again. Oprah has. 2. "Many times," Oprah says, "when it appears that something is happening to you, it is always, always happening for you to strengthen you. " 3. Don't depend on luck: for Oprah, luck is just "preparation meeting the moment of opportunity. " 4. Oprah believes in good boundaries, in "running your own race and only your own race. " 5. "What is the gift you were meant to give? " 6. Oprah has a mindset of generosity. 7. You are, Oprah believes, more powerful than you know, simply because you can do and be much more than you can conceive.
Dream as large a life as you want. The Art of Simple Questions: How Simple Questions Lead to Great Innovations. 10 Questions to Ask When You Design or Redesign a Process. How to Manage Chronic Complainers | Inc.com. Chronic complainers are a fact of working life, but that doesn't mean you must suffer as they drain your time and energy. Being exposed to too much complaining--i.e., 30 minutes or more--is bad not only for your health but also for your ability to tackle problems. "The brain works like a muscle more than we thought," Trevor Blake, a serial entrepreneur and author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life, tells Inc. columnist Minda Zetlin. "So if you're pinned in a corner for too long listening to someone being negative, you're more likely to behave that way as well.
" Here are three simple ways to cope with whiners and maintain your own positive attitude. Change the subject. It's no use trying to convince chronic whiners things aren't as bad as they think, writes Martha McCarty in iaap, an online resource for administrative professionals. Express sympathy. Grumblers don't want solutions, they want sympathy and validation, writes McCarty.
Keep your distance. What's Your Cultural Profile? Are-you-a-high-performer-or-a-workaholic-5-ways-to-tell. Productive and busy, we all know, are two fundamentally different things. The trouble is they can sometimes look a lot like each other, at least on the surface. That makes it easy for entrepreneurs to mistake their own packed schedules--or those of their employees--for evidence of exceptional achievement.
What's needed is a gut check--a quick list of questions to help you determine if a person is a genuine high performer, working hard in a sustainable way toward well-defined and important goals, or a workaholic, who is burning himself out running around endlessly without a clear focus. Jullien Gordon, founding partner of consultancy New Higher, thinks he has developed just such a test. 1. High performers work plenty of insane days, but they always have specific reasons for doing it. "A high performer's #1 goal is to do business. 2.
Are you the type who sets a goal, attains it, and then realizes that whatever you've accomplished isn't quite enough? 3. 4. 5. 5 Silly Work Mistakes that can Derail your Career. Become a Company That Questions Everything - Warren Berger. Imagine you’re a bright, inquisitive person working for a company with long-established policies and work processes in place (or maybe you don’t have to). Now let’s say you’ve noticed one of those processes is not as efficient or effective as it might be, which leads you to reasonably ask: Why are we doing it this way? Is there a better approach? What happens next in this scenario could be a good indicator of whether your company has a culture of inquiry or one of acceptance and conformity. If it’s the former, that question you raised will be carefully considered and may trigger ongoing discussion — and possibly action — by the company’s managers and leaders. You might be praised and even rewarded, just for asking it. If, on the other hand, yours is a company that doesn’t value or appreciate questioning, you might hear something like: “This is the way we’ve been doing things for 20 years — who are you to second-guess us?”
So why open the floodgates? Provide the tools to question well. Quantify How Much Time Your Company Wastes - Ryan Fuller. High Performance is not the same as High Potential | PARATUS Education. Do you deserve to be appreciated at work? The Mistake Most CEOs Don't Realize They're Making. What 5 insights can you learn from the single best book on management. Keep Your Name Off That Layoff List - Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - Heidi Grant Halvorson. How to enforce deadlines effectively. Four Areas Where Senior Leaders Should Focus Their Attention - Peter Bregman. 10-things-extraordinary-people-say-every-day. Three tips to improve your listening skills.