The Work-life Insight

Some meetings lead to major a-ha moments that meaningfully move projects forward. Other meetings? Not so much. In fact, 47 percent of employees claim meetings are the biggest waste of their workday.

These boring, redundant meetings waste valuable time and energy. But what’s worse are the discussions that devolve into arguing, bickering, blaming, complaining, and the airing of petty grievances. When meetings turn unnecessarily hostile, communication breaks down. Progress stalls. Morale suffers.

As a leader, it’s important to stay in control of the meeting dynamic so that it doesn’t turn into one, big venting session. Here are ways you can stop complainers from controlling the time and make sure your meetings are constructive.

Productive Meetings

1. Consider unifying the room
Creating a shared purpose and structure are keys to making any meeting productive, especially one that could be contentious and complaint-ridden. Before diving into the meeting content, layout the agenda. Be clear about what topics you’ll cover, and in what time frame. That way, you can steer the conversation back on track if it veers off course.

You also should introduce the discussion by offering a clear, future-focused objective such as, “We’re here to create a revised timeline for this project” or “Our goal today is to make a decision about the product launch date.” Don’t focus on why a project is behind or failed (unless the meeting is specifically designed to be a post-mortem or de-brief). Instead, reorient your team to the current context. Share a mission, vision, or purpose that they can get excited about and set your sights on an inspiring goal ahead.

2. Think about setting ground rules
Whenever you want to facilitate a fair discussion, establish the norms for participating. At a minimum, yelling and name-calling should be off-limits. If the meeting will be about a contentious topic, set the expectation that you want to have a respectful discussion. In order to do that, there are certain expectations everyone agrees to follow while another person is speaking, including:

• No interrupting or cross-talk
• Critique ideas, not people
• No distractions—phones and computers away
• Do not offer opinions without supporting evidence
• If you are confused, ask for clarification
• Don’t generalize; speak from your own experiences

These guardrails can help ensure you have a spirited, passionate discussion that doesn’t descend into venting. If the conversation gets heated, go back to your ground rules. Reinforcing an atmosphere of respect and civility will bring down the emotional temperature in the room.

3. How to defuse defensiveness
In general, people vent because they want to be heard. To snuff out complaints, you need to show you genuinely care about your team’s challenges and concerns. Devote time during the meeting to hearing them out. Validate and empathize with phrases like, “I understand why that must be challenging” or “I hear you. That must be tough.” Then dig deeper. Ask clarifying questions such as, “Can you tell me more?” or “What impact has that had on you?”

These questions will help you get to the source of people’s frustrations and elucidate what’s blocking their progress. Just be careful not to linger on problems for too long, because you risk feeding into negativity and pettiness.

4. Problem-solving is all about Partnership
After you’ve released the pressure valve and actively listened to the complaints, it’s time to shift into solutions mode. While under pressure, many leaders make a common mistake at this phase: They prematurely jump to assigning roles and responsibilities. In other words, they tell their team exactly what to do.

While an autocratic approach can be efficient in the short term, it typically leads to pushing back and resistance. When people are aggravated, it’s not a good idea to rob them of a personal agency and power. Coaching people to find their own solutions, on the other hand, is significantly more effective.

One of my clients, Abigail, used a coaching strategy while managing a multimillion-dollar technology roll-out for a healthcare company. Cross-departmental meetings were fraught with fighting. The project was at risk of falling behind, but people still whined about lacking time to get everything done amid their other priorities. Rather than having her dictate next steps to the parties involved, I coached Abigail to invite others into the planning process. At her next meeting she posed a few questions, including “What would support you in accomplishing this by the end of the week?” and “How can I best hold you accountable?”

When you coach people to find their own solutions, it makes them feel like part of the team. They’re more likely to follow through because they have a sense of responsibility and buy-in. You encourage them to access their own resourcefulness, counteracting some of the helplessness that leads people to vent in the first place.

Finally, don’t end the meeting until you have firm commitments in place. Get agreements for what each person will do and by when.

Remember that in the normal course of work, petty annoyances are par for the course. How you choose to handle frustrations makes all the difference.

Credit:
Website: https://melodywilding.com

Call us today to learn how we can help make your meeting successfully.

The business world has discovered coworking spaces and is going for them in a big way if you look at recent studies. According to figures at the website Statista, there were 14 coworking spaces in the US in 2007, but that number increased to 4,043 in 2017 and is projected to increase to 6,219 by 2022. There are many advantages in coworking spaces for businesses in all fields, but certain types of businesses benefit even more. Client advisory firms with clients in multiple cities can benefit greatly from using coworking spaces in those locations.Here are five reasons why every client advisory firm should have seats at multiple coworking spaces.

1. It’s more efficient. People work better in an office setting with their coworkers nearby. They can accomplish much more in an office environment than by working at home, where there are more distractions. Besides, it’s more motivational to get out of your pajamas and go to an office, where you’re around other people who are focused on their jobs.
2. It’s more cost-effective to use meeting spaces on demand. Why pay to rent conference rooms and meeting areas that sit idle most of the time? Real estate costs are a big chunk of a company’s expenses, but with coworking spaces, you only pay for space when you need it.
3. You’re closer to the client. Coworking spaces allow you to put your people right up close to the client. You want to have enough coverage for your most important customers, and with coworking spaces, you can set up shop right down the street from them. And sometimes, when your client also uses coworking spaces, you can be right in the same building with them.
4. It’s better for networking. Coworking spaces are hotbeds of business activity — almost every industry uses them, which means your people could be sitting right next to a contact who can help them get more business in unexpected ways. It’s called serendipity, and it happens all the time in coworking spaces!
5. You can scale up or down as needed. The operative word in business today is speed — companies who can move quickly are the winners in this fast-changing world. If you are presented with a golden opportunity that requires you to scale up, you can do it quickly and in the most cost-effective way by using coworking spaces. Let’s say you just signed a contract with a mega-client and you need to have bodies on the ground at the client’s location in two weeks. You can have everything set up and ready to go at a coworking space in a matter of days — try doing that with traditional office space! Another benefit: using multiple coworking spaces lets you list multiple addresses in your business communications, which makes your company look bigger and more comprehensive to clients and prospects.

It’s clear that coworking spaces are a trend that’s going to be at least as important as telecommuting in today’s business world, and these spaces should be part of any company’s strategic plan going forward.

I am pleased to announce that we have signed leases to add 7,000 sq feet to our current coworking and shared office footprint of 8,000 sq ft. By March 2020 we will be at 15,000 square feet. We are slated to add another 14,000 by the end of 2020.

This expansion marks WorkSocials 4th Expansion Project in 3 Years.

Our Formula For Creating Office Spaces designed for exponential growth

Stay Customer-Centric:

To take daily steps that will create an ever-increasing level of customer happiness. Our thinking is very simple. Satisfied customers leave but raving fans create movements.

Impact:

To make a difference in the daily lives of my clients and our community. I dream to touch the hearts of my people, my clients, employees of my clients and clients of my clients. What I am passionate about is taking steps to move everyone forward. To create a level of momentum that creates an impact - "a real dent in the universe."‍

We continue to attract and retain talent from the beautiful and diverse community of Jersey City.

‍3 years in a row we have been awarded the Minority and Women-owned business certification. Last year we worked hard to earn Vendor Certification from the Federal and State governments. Not too long ago we were also granted vendor certification by the NJ Department of gaming to serve the new online gaming community. We continue to invest in technology that helps our clients. We are the Only coworking space in America that invests in focused industries to attract and retain happy clients.

In 2018, we revamped our network capabilities to offer managed internet [POE] with custom firewalls, rack space for servers and managed VLAN services. We also penned a deal with VOIP Provider allowing us to offer discounted phone service.

In 2019, we switched over to CISCO’s Miraki wifi system. This offers our Clients clean internet over wifi.

Experimentation:

To bring unthought-of amenities and services to our customers. I continue down the path of autonomy, mastery, and purpose by constantly bringing new services to my community

In 2020, we will do our annual threat assessment and pen-test to ensure safety and security. We also have an IoT strategy, this will bring virtual concierge services to our clients.

Other planned services for 2020-2021:

• Premier banking
• Business liability insurance
• Business funding
• Legal services
• Accounting, tax and business advisory through a major CPA firm
• Sales, compliance and softskills training
• Leadership deveopment
• Employee rewards and recognition
• Even higher focus on wellness, physical and mental well-being and

Curate a community that creates a greater impact:

Yes WorkSocial is a business. I am monomaniacally focused on the mission of service. I want to bring happiness back to work. The outcome of which is to make WorkSocial is a movement in happiness.

To continue down this shared agenda of creating a happy community in 2019 we launched a program to serve local solopreneurs and NJ startups. In 2019 added 20+ open plan desks for the solopreneurs. We have started to curate a community of entrepreneurs that will serve our anchored tenants.

Contribution

10% of our profits go towards a local charity where we sponsor weekly meals for about 40 families. We will also host our first thanksgiving and holiday dinner in November and December.

Our product mix:

We have 4 lines of Business

• Coworking
• Meeting and collaboration
• Business address services
• Corporate learning

Remember that time companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on open-office layouts, only to discover that face-to-face interactions decrease by 70% in open-office plans? More fallout today: Ethan Bernstein, the Harvard researcher behind that finding, has taken to the Harvard Business Review to analyze why.

He says that workers in open spaces quickly develop psychological fourth walls, the conceptual boundaries that protect their public solitude. For example, coworkers quickly learn that wearing headphones or appearing to work intently will stop interruptions. “Especially in open spaces, fourth-wall norms spread quickly,” writes Bernstein.

The solution, however, may not come from asking individual employees what it is they actually want. “Offices overly focused on supporting individual preferences are unlikely to do an optimal job of supporting the overall team,” Bernstein writes.

Instead, he suggests that leaders need to increase the kind of collaborations that produce focused work, which are different for every office. He suggests iterating one floor of office layouts with A/B testing: worker bees who need uninterrupted focus should get that; necessary cross-team interactions should be facilitated.

Some rules of thumb:

• The closer people’s desks are to each other, the more they interact face-to-face.
• Collaborators should be on the same floor. Nearby buildings or adjacent floors don’t help much.
• Events are an important (and cheap!) part of the equation. Think workshops, social events, hackathons, etc.
• Cheap office additions, such as adding whiteboards or smaller tables that encourage intimate discussion, can have big impacts.

Bernstein’s story was coauthored by Ben Waber, a “people analytics” researcher whose company, Humanyze, develops sensors (in chairs, on badges, in floors, on lighting systems) that can collect data on how workers interact.
Credit:
Post Author: Arianne Cohen
Website: www.fastcompany.com

Anthony Noto, Reporter - New York Business JournalNov 1, 2019, 7:43am EDT Updated: Nov 1, 2019, 10:10am EDT

WeWork founder and former CEO Adam Neumann is being sued by his former chief of staff.

Medina Bardhi, who worked for Neumann while he was chief executive at troubled WeWork, is alleging claims of pregnancy discrimination, unequal pay and gender discrimination.

In addition to Neumann, parent company The We Co. and WeWork’s Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Berrent are also named in the complaint.

See Also
SoftBank takes over WeWork in $1.7 billion deal with co-founder
WeWork adds first woman to board of directors Law firm Wigdor LLP is handling legal matters for Bardhi.

Bardhi filed the complaint on behalf of herself and a class of “similarly situated female WeWork employees,” according to the law firm.

The class action complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Bardhi worked at WeWork for more than five years. During her tenure, she gave birth to two children while serving as Neumann’s chief of staff.

Per the complaint:

Like clockwork, each time Ms. Bardhi returned to work following her maternity leave, WeWork’s management transparently and systematically marginalized and discriminated against her by drastically and materially reducing her role and/or demoting her outright. Moreover, as alleged, each time Ms. Bardhi disclosed her pregnancy to Mr. Neumann, WeWork began to search for a permanent replacement for Ms. Bardhi (and not merely temporary coverage while she was on legally protected leave), and ultimately replaced her with less-experienced and under-qualified males.
The class action complaint also alleges that Neumann repeatedly disparaged and characterized Bardhi’s maternity leave as “retirement” and “vacation” — comments Bardhi says were often made in the presence of other WeWork executives as well as fellow pregnant employees or new mothers.

Bardhi also alleges that the male employee who replaced her as chief of staff while she was on maternity leave received a salary that was nearly three times as much as what she was earning for performing the same work. She also claimed that WeWork systematically pays women less than equally or lesser-qualified male peers.

Bardhi was terminated earlier this month, on Oct. 2, just weeks before Tokyo conglomerate SoftBank bought a majority of WeWork for $1.7 billion. Neumann, as a result of the deal, was required to leave the company altogether.

A WeWork spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

Anthony Noto is a multimedia journalist focused on venture capital and Silicon Alley startups. Based in New York for the Business Journals, he previously was a reporter at SourceMedia and The Deal LLC. He is a graduate of Rutgers University.

Industries:
HUMAN RESOURCES

What do you do if you are a Japanese conglomerate whose investment fund entrusted billions of dollars to a grandiose-bordering-on-shady entrepreneur, only to watch said entrepreneur:

A. Burn through that entire pile of cash while . . .

B. Yammering about running for “president of the world,” before . . .

C. Attempting to bill the company $6 million for the use of the word “We” in its name, and all the while . . .

D. Selling or borrowing against his own shares in the company to buy five mansions and a private jet?

If you’re SoftBank, you throw billions more at WeWork, presumably hoping that a sudden torrent of cash will extinguish this monetary bonfire. Also, you pay the entrepreneur, Adam Neumann, more than $1 billion to stop tossing matches at your money and go away.

This might be the most spectacular implosion of a business in U.S. history. Other failures were bigger, in mere dollars. But WeWork has to be the most literally incredible. Profanity seems somehow inadequate. It’s just . . . holy wow.

In the end, SoftBank reportedly will have invested $18.5 billion in this disaster, more than the gross domestic product of Jamaica. Think about that: Instead of buying a co-working company with an astronomical burn rate, Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of SoftBank, and the sovereign wealth funds that invested with him could have had all the stuff produced in Jamaica for an entire year — aluminum ore, coffee, rum. They could have rented out every hotel room, restaurant and movie theater on the island just for themselves and their friends, and they could have frolicked up and down Dunn’s River Falls like Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue in “Cocktail.”

Instead, Son gave that money to Neumann to rent empty offices, buy a lot of plate glass and create what a WeWork tenant of my acquaintance called “a high-tech prison” with “concentric rectangles of fully transparent cells.”

Co-working spaces can be profitable, mind you. But normal co-working landlords don’t get valued at the extravagant revenue multiples Neumann asked for — and got — by redubbing his facilities a “physical social network.” The overevaluation was obvious to my friend, sitting in his glass cube and watching WeWork’s tenants turn over like a turbine. It was obvious to me, sitting at my desk at The Post. If you’d asked either of us what to do with that $18.5 billion, we’d have gone to Jamaica. It’s hard to understand why Son instead chose a multi-year mystery tour led by Neumann.

 The WeWork story is so utterly bizarre that people can’t even get properly outraged about it. I mean, they’re trying — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted Wednesday night that “Neumann is a fraud & a good example of why some people support a socialist like @BernieSanders. He ought to be sued & investigated.”

And sure, you’d think there must be an indictment in the offing somewhere. Neumann’s self-dealing was so egregious that kleptocrats around the world are enviously scribbling notes.

But that’s the magnificent insanity of all this: Neumann’s predation was apparently legal. And it’s not even clear it shouldn’t be. After all, everyone who gave Neumann money was a rich, experienced investor who knowingly and voluntarily ceded managerial control to a spaced-out co-working guru. I’m not saying Neumann’s behavior was admirable, except in a roguish anti-hero kind of way. But is it the government’s job to stop venture capitalists from climbing into a start-up’s metaphorical back seat, handing over the keys and letting chief executives take them for a ride? After all, professional venture capitalists are generally going to be better able to assess the viability of a business model than judges or, for that matter, senators.

 It does seem outrageous that Neumann got so much while WeWork’s employees will get to keep their jobs only if they’re lucky. But it’s not like Neumann took that more than $1 billion payout from them. SoftBank gave him voting control over the company, which allowed him to essentially take WeWork hostage and demand a ransom. With a saner governance structure, Neumann couldn’t have done this, and SoftBank could have kept the $1 billion; either way, no court was going to make them gift it to the suffering staff.

So maybe the indictment needed here should be aimed at capitalism, which enabled such an absurd and outrageous outcome. But the premise of capitalism was never that individual capitalists always make wise choices, only that when those capitalists do something egregiously stupid, markets will eventually make them stop. That’s exactly what happened as soon as WeWork filed for an IPO.

Which might be the craziest thing of all about this story: The regulated public markets worked exactly as intended, protecting ordinary retail investors from the folly of the people who were supposed to know better. I wouldn’t exactly call that a happy ending, but we probably can’t expect a better one.

Inclusive leaders tend to share six signature traits that not only promote diversity on their teams, but also improve their capacity to innovate and deal with uncertainty, according to a study of inclusive leaders from six locations worldwide, conducted by Deloitte Australia. How many of these traits do you possess?

The IT profession in the U.S. doesn’t have a great reputation for diversity and inclusion. While Asian Indians are well represented—making up 22 percent of the workforce in computer and mathematical occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—the underrepresentation of women, African Americans, and Latinos in IT and other STEM fields has become a concern.

It’s time for CIOs to make diversity and inclusion a priority, and there may be no better place to start than with their own leadership styles.

A study of inclusive leaders from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, and the U.S., conducted by Deloitte Australia¹, shows that such leaders possess six fundamental traits that foster diversity on their teams. These traits allow executives and managers to engage much more effectively with a wide range of culturally, demographically, and attitudinally diverse stakeholders. They also help leaders access a broader spectrum of ideas and perspectives, which can improve their decision-making and their ability to innovate, handle uncertainty, and anticipate the future. What CIO doesn’t want to develop in those areas?

Even if current IT teams aren’t particularly diverse from a gender, cultural, or thought perspective, CIOs are otherwise surrounded by diversity. Consider the global nature of IT. Many CIOs today outsource technology services to Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, India, and Malaysia. Markets, customers, ideas, and talent are growing more diverse as businesses expand globally. And in many cases, CIOs and their IT organizations are developing technologies for employees and customers around the world.

Definitions of and approaches to inclusive leadership tend to vary worldwide, and the six characteristics listed below represent just one conceptual framework for developing inclusive behaviors and encouraging diversity.

Commitment. Cultivating a diverse, inclusive workforce takes time and energy, two of a leader’s most precious commodities. So what motivates some executives to champion this issue? In addition to a belief in the business case, inclusive leaders are driven by their values, including a deep-seated sense of fairness that, for some, is rooted in personal experience. Inclusive leaders believe creating a welcoming culture begins with them, and they possess a strong sense of personal responsibility for change. When executives devote time, energy, and resources to nurturing inclusive workforces—by investing in people and inspiring others to share their passion and goals—their actions signal a true commitment.

Courage. Inclusive leaders demonstrate courage in two ways. First, they aren’t afraid to challenge entrenched organizational attitudes and practices that yield homogeneity, even if their recommendations are politically or culturally unpopular. Nor are they afraid to display humility by acknowledging their personal limitations and seeking contributions from others to overcome them. Some leaders find it difficult to admit they don’t have all the answers; in that respect, courage and humility go hand in hand.

Cognizance of bias. Inclusive leaders understand that personal and organizational biases narrow their field of vision and preclude them from making objective decisions. They exert considerable effort to identify their own biases and learn ways to prevent them from influencing talent decisions. They also seek to implement policies, processes, and structures to prevent organizational biases from stifling diversity and inclusion. Without such measures, inclusive leaders understand that their natural inclination could lead them toward self-cloning, and that operating in today’s business environment requires a different approach.

Curiosity. Open-mindedness, a passion for learning, and a desire for exposure to different ideas have fast become leadership traits crucial to success, especially in challenging times.² Curiosity and openness are hallmarks of inclusive leaders, who hunger for other perspectives to minimize their blind spots and improve their decision-making. In addition to accessing a more diverse array of viewpoints, inclusive leaders’ ability to engage in respectful questioning, actively listen to others, and synthesize a range of ideas makes the people around them feel valued, respected, and represented. Inclusive leaders also refrain from making fast judgments, knowing snap decisions can stifle the flow of ideas on their teams and are frequently tinged with bias.

Cultural intelligence. Knowledge of other cultures is essential for CIOs whose work takes them, for example, to offshore development and operations centers. Beyond “book” knowledge, cultural intelligence connotes leaders’ ability to change their styles in response to different cultural norms. For example, culturally intelligent leaders who are typically extroverted and demonstrative will make an effort to show restraint when doing business with individuals whose cultures value modesty or humility. They regulate the speed and tone of their speech and modify their nonverbal behaviors—gestures, facial expressions, body language, and physical interactions—as situations dictate. In addition to understanding other cultures, these leaders also demonstrate self-awareness of their own culture, recognizing how it shapes their worldview and how cultural stereotypes can influence their expectations of others.

Collaborative. Inclusive leaders understand that, for collaboration to be successful, team members must first be willing to share their perspectives. To that end, they create an environment in which all individuals feel empowered to express their opinions freely with the group. They also realize that diversity of thinking is critical to effective collaboration; thus, they pay close attention to team composition and team processes. For example, they prevent teams from breaking into subgroups, which can weaken relationships and create conflict. They also engender a sense of “one team” by creating a group identity and shared goals, and by working to ensure team members understand and value each other’s knowledge and capabilities.

—by Bernadette Dillon, director, and Juliet Bourke, partner, Human Capital Consulting, Deloitte Australia

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• An entrepreneur comes with his/her own history, beliefs, values and context
• Empathy is an important core value that can complement the unlearning and relearning cycle in the entrepreneurial journey
• It is important to stay rooted to the concept of empathy for it definitely shapes the way your organization evolves

Empathy, as a word, should rightfully be listed down as a synonym for entrepreneurship in thesauruses worldwide. As an entrepreneur, one comes face to face with thousands of challenges on a daily basis, every element of running a business puts your grit to test, every day. For an entrepreneur, it is most important to be able to understand, to respond to a situation as opposed to reacting to it.

An entrepreneur comes with his/her own history, beliefs, values and context. While it is important to be able to learn and unlearn in the process of being a part of the entrepreneurial journey, it is imperative to understand how can one effectively learn and unlearn.

Empathy is an important core value that can complement the unlearning and relearning cycle in the entrepreneurial journey. No matter how many challenges come your way, it is always a relief to have one unshakable pillar of belief, in this case- empathy, to be able to sail through those challenges while anchoring yourself steadily.

It is important to stay rooted to the concept of empathy for it definitely shapes the way your organization evolves, sustains and grows. For an organization to truly realize its full potential, it is imperative for them to want to go the (extra) mile in the form of exhibiting empathy.

So, what does it take for an entrepreneur to grow more mindful of their empathy quotient?

Connect Earnestly

Relationship building is an important part of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Learn to connect with your employees-mingle with them effortlessly. Try and deliberately create avenues that could potentially let you socialize with your employees more.

For every employee, showing that you care, goes a long way! Cultivate a genuine interest in their being, this will ensure that when you do communicate your preferences, expectations, style of management in sync with their professional commitments – they will do the same!

“Connecting with them will ensure transparency, honesty and will build approachability while strengthening their morale to a great extent.

Crediting Is Serious Business

It is essential to understand that giving credit is not all of what it takes, but also learning how to give it- that matters a lot. Your team is your everything, it is imperative to attribute your success to everyone who has been a part of your journey.

It needs to be ingrained in the team culture- the habit of giving credit the right way. One needs to celebrate their employee’s contribution to the team, it can be done by, for instance, giving them a public shout out. Ensure that you give credit in a timely manner which in turn will motivate the employee(s) to achieve even more.

Contextual management

Every employee is unique, they come with their own hopes, dreams, ambition and reason for doing what they do. In order to work with an employee effectively, it is up to the leader to be able to manage and support as and when required. Understanding your employee’s working style, pace, ethics, strengths and interest can do a lot of good when it comes to managing them.

As a leader, it is up to you to be able to recognize which employee prefers what. This way it will deepen the connection you share with the employee, while displaying increasing respect, build an amicable working environment and improve your managerial style.

While there are several aspects to identifying and improving the empathy quotient in an organization, it is important to be able to identify the various layers to it. Deepening one’s understanding concerning empathy is a multifaceted approach, time-consuming and a meticulous one at that.

However, it is the very same process that is going to contribute to the long term health of your organization and your people. It is the one anchor that is going to root you all towards the larger picture, with a collective spirit, understanding and respect for why you do what you do.

In this ever-expanding world, it is important to be able to carve your identity out as an entrepreneur. You can bet on goals, profits and turnovers to carve your identity out. For you to get far in your entrepreneurial journey, you have to first place a bet on “empathy” to be a part of your organization’s identity.
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Credit:
Post Author: Khushboo Jain
Website: https://inc42.com

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just commencing your journey in the world of business, there’s always something you can do to make decision making, planning and strategizing more effective.

As a solopreneur, the ace of all problems we deal with is to understand which matters need our attention the most. Learning to discern where to apply our primary focus will help you stay on track when you’re being hit by external distractions and curveballs.

Not prioritizing the matters that need your immediate attention while chasing the solution to fix temporary issues will derail your business growth like no other.

This is where a business owner is called to change their approach to business to see steady growth and great results. If you’re one of those extremely talented yet distracted people who bounce from goal to goal without accomplishing a solid result, this article is for you.

Today, we’re going to dive into John D Rockefeller’s principles of business. He was one of the most intelligent visionaries who led the way towards business growth through better management skills. Rockefeller is a reminder that management of an entire empire begins with managing yourself, your thoughts, habits and discipline.

No matter how successful a business you already have, these tips will help align you with your true potential even better.

What are Key Elements of The Rockefeller Approach?

There are three core pillars of The Rockefeller Approach in business. These are meant to lock down the ownership, management and workforce into alignment with their number one priority.

Be it a monthly approach or quarterly, the three pillars establish a common vision for the entire organization to work towards. By focusing on these three key elements, it is easy to create a sense of business discipline and routine when it comes to operations.

They are:

Goal Tracking:

How: Get the entire organization aligned with the first and only priority for the business to accomplish in a month or quarter for growth.

Running a business without a clear-cut goal in hindsight is equivalent to shooting arrows randomly hoping a bird lands on your lap. Unless it’s a lucky strike, such a haphazard approach wastes time and resources.

Before one can even commence business setting specific and attainable targets is the most important pillar to establish.

Your goal will define your core values, vision, and ethos. These, in turn, will keep your teams aligned and healthy.

So how do you keep a check on your alignment?

This is where goal tracking comes into place. Assign a big target by breaking them down into smaller, achievable targets to every employee and have them report the progress of their work quantitatively to rally all the teams together

Daily Check-ins:

To make sure that your teams receive their daily agenda and accomplish it, holding a short huddle every day before business opens will set a rhythm to receiving accurate information.

In the daily check-ins involve every member updating everyone else on their current activities and progress.

This is a military approach to holding briefings and keeps the staff sharper without an excuse to drift away.

This pillar makes sure that there is complete transparency in the operations of the company. Also, individuals are accountable for their goals due to public visibility.

Team Reporting:

How: The input of the employees is taken into account in real-time to recognize opportunities and roadblocks.

Since you have established a routine with continuous goal tracking and check-ins, you can now focus on creating a network of centralised communication for teams to report to. This structure of team reporting as a habit involves a run-down of their weekly progress, plans and the obstacles faced by an employee.

If there are any critical problems, they will be brought to light for all the teams to regroup and recalibrate their strategy to overcome them.

Top 17 Ways You Can Use Rockefeller’s Approach For Business Growth.

Now that you understand the core essence of Rockefeller’s approach, here are 17 ways that you can adapt to achieve effective results in your business.

1. Setting Core Values: Laying down the foundation of ‘who we are’ and ‘what we do’ is of utmost importance in a business organization. With a sense of identity, the employees can align themselves with the company’s purpose to exist. Giving the staff a vision to look up to makes it easier to adopt a unified approach.
2. Goals Alignment: The other important question to ask and establish is ‘why we do, what we do’. Identifying the causes to serve creates a sense of purpose to the teams who can strategize the best way to keep themselves in line with their common goal.

Regular checks to ensure each staff member’s progress and activities are aligned with the collective and to course-correct when diverted is a necessary step in goals alignment.

1. Communication Rhythm: Having a constant flow of communication helps the organization be transparent in its activities and functioning. Running a structured network for employees helps in creating momentum to effective and channelled communication. It also helps in addressing minor problems and set-backs before they snowball into major ones.
2. Accountability: By handing individuals tasks of a large goal in small chunks creates a chain of accountability among the teams. When one process depends on the other, there is a very small chance of the members slacking as they are all held personally accountable for a part of the process.

As a domino effect, one employee’s goals are directly linked to the ultimate target. Hence, holding each team member accountable for their progress by receiving daily/weekly/monthly updates and logs is a necessary step to business growth.

1. Employee Engagement: Knowing the side to your employee’s story is a good way to improve functioning. Being heard and seen gives a sense of belonging to the staff and that leads to boosting their morale. Engagements could include asking for their feedback, group exercises and bonding activities to create a unified front.
2. Data Analysis: Data is the key to building the company’s future performance. By collecting data of the company’s past and current progress records, concerning the market, current demand, and competitor analysis. One will be able to organize a future course of action to attain their goal when they know what the trends are.
3. Grow the top line: Aim to grow the overall sales and revenue of your organization rather than focusing on the net profit. Concentrate on maximising your operational revenue, since your top line figures are the metric of your business’ overall performance. Your future potential will draw in more investors.
4. Reduce costs: By reducing avoidable costs, an organization can divert the resources to more productive channels. For example: when having in-house specialists for data storage becomes too expensive, it is best to hand over the data to fortified data security and analysis companies. It is cost-effective as well as efficient.
5. New lines of business: When one gets the opportunity to grow multiple streams of income, expanding into new lines of business will help immensely in growth. Having parallel and related brands or products will bring in more income as well as economies of scale.
6. Optimize: Try to streamline processes and operations wherever possible. Be it a production unit or a consultancy service, optimizing your time, labour and resources will boost the overall efficiency of your business.
7. Maximize: By reducing the price of your services, you can create the highest margins of profits through increased sales. The target is to provide a unique service and product and selling it at competitive pricing to increase the total sales.
8. Cost Fasting: To gain the maximum margin in profits, cutting costs of the processes and production go a long way. Where can you save on costs? Is it by outsourcing parts and services? Or by using alternative technology?
9. Customer engagement: To keep your goals on track, it is important to know what your ultimate customer wants and thinks. Customer engagement to understand their mentality, demands, spending habits and capacity will help you modify and realign those priorities.
10. Evangelize a product: To sell a product, you have to first believe yourselves that it is the most revolutionary product to be created. Your entire team should be strong advocates of the product and this comes from a strengthened belief in why it is the best.
11. Videos to educate: Creating promotional campaigns through videos to educate people about your services and products will leave a lasting impact on them. To be remembered, you need to be seen and provide something of value.
12. Educate Yourself: Growth is directly proportional to continuous learning. Find new methods and channels to keep yourself educated about new developments, technologies and the market to keep yourself up to speed with the world.

Wrapping Up

While business isn’t rocket science, it does need careful planning and a definite path to follow for guaranteed success. Rockefeller’s Approach is one such path that has been tried, tested and provided stellar results in the overall performance of top business leaders and their companies. When followed with discipline and the right attitude, it will work wonders on your growing empire too!

‘Work environment’ is probably the most talked-about subject when it comes to employee development. But current work scenarios do not seem to care much about the happiness factor of their workplace.

We feel it is essential to create a workplace that is fulfilling, and which encourages the employees to have better relationships at work. This can work like magic when it comes to scaling your business and making it a more profitable one.

So, in this post, we are going to take a deep dive into what makes a workplace happier and what is it that the present leaders should do to make sure their team gets the best work environment ever.

What Does Happiness At Work Mean?

Happiness at the workplace should be defined while taking into consideration the overall sense of enjoyment at work, the ability of the team to gracefully handle setbacks, connecting with everyone amicably, and finally, that your work not just matters to yourself, but also to your organization and beyond. The happiness at work can be tied to every desirable outcome that the employees, employer, workplace, and the complete organization hope for. One can tie the feeling of happiness with being healthy and becoming more creative and efficient in solving problems; producing more with less and innovating his way to the top of the career. But, what about when the same ‘happy’ people at work, face setbacks? Well, in the face of adversity, these people tend to see the bigger picture and have a low inclination towards stress. They have better-coping abilities and can recover from adverse conditions with ease. Not just that, happiness at work can also result in people getting better at resolving internal and external conflicts.

Also, when you work towards making your workplace a happy place, you indirectly are making people happier and more likable. They’ll become more trustworthy and deserving of better roles as they develop leadership qualities in them.

Now, that we have seen what happiness at work mean and what it brings with itself, it’s important to know how to go around this whole ‘happiness’ thing without messing your workplace up.

How to Work Towards Happiness at Work?

Well, there’s no simple answer to this question. But, if you will study different workplaces and try to match the results, four key pillars of happiness at work will emerge. These are – Purpose, Engagement, Resilience, and Kindness. These happiness pillars, as we call them, affect the workplace on personal, social, and structural levels. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

1. Purpose
   ‍When you talk about the core values of an employee, ‘purpose’ tends to be a great reflection of what they give more importance to. Therefore, it is important to align their everyday behaviors and decisions with their core values. This generally leads to making people at work feel more purposeful,. Morten Hansen, a management professor at UC Berkley, defines purpose in a way that really makes sense to both individual and organizational levels. He tells that people who have a sense of purpose are the ones who feel they are making valuable contributions to the organization or society, providing meaning to lives and not harming anyone.
2. Engagement
   ‍People generally enjoy at work when they feel that they are being engaged in the decision made by the organization. To increase engagement at work, leaders should prioritize fun, humor, creativity, and playfulness at work. Also, giving people more ownership over what they are going to do on a daily basis, schedules, tasks, personal development, and more can significantly improve their engagement as now they feel that they have control over their job at the workplace. Lastly, it’s important for leaders to work at making schedules that are less hectic, and a working space that is more immersive to the flow of work.
3. Resilience
   ‍The overall happiness at work, as mentioned earlier, has a lot to do with people’s ability to cope and learn from setbacks, failures, and disappointments. Resilience doesn’t mean working in a way that prevents setbacks and difficulties. It means creating better ways to overcome challenges and make the workplace an authentic fighting-spirit. One way to implement these groundbreaking changes to your workplace is encouraging people to become more and more mindful to get over the learned habits of self-criticizing or playing the blame-game, or feeling disappointed by thinking about the past setbacks and upsets. These habits can make it really hard for people to work as a team. Therefore, it is important to weave mindfulness into the work environment.
4. Kindness
   ‍Most people spend almost 40% of their lives at work. To make the workplace their ‘second home’ in truest of its feeling, it is important to make people orient their thoughts and actions towards caring for their colleagues. Being kind to everyone around you will make your employees develop dignity and respect. Not just kindness, the people at work should practice empathy, compassion, and gratitude to make their work environment and relationships trustable. This will result in more commitment and productivity from the employees and will definitely make your workplace essentially a happier place to be.

7 Best Practices for Leaders to Create a Happy Workplace Environment

1. Employee Development
   ‍Every action and decision taken by the leaders at a workplace should be towards the betterment and development of their employees and workplace. A happier workplace is the one that is completely committed to developing employee-management and employee-employee relationships. There is no sure-shot way to get this right but to experiment with different plans, failing, learning, and then experimenting more. The process of the employee development should, however, follow the 4 pillars of making a happy workplace.
2. Flexibility and Understanding
   ‍Innovation and new ideas develop in an organization that provides their employees with great flexibility at work. The employees are happier when their supervisors give them an ample amount of room to make mistakes and experiment with their work. Also, employees that find their organization to be very much willing to take risks of allowing them to make mistakes, tend to have a great commitment towards the company goals and objectives.

Here’s a chart that will help you understand what drives employees to produce great work.

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1. Avoiding Work BurnoutLeaders at work should work overtime to develop ideas and plans that could help their team to experience less work burnout. It is not just about the number of hours they spent at work, but also about how they feel while they are at the job. Do they feel appreciated when they put in extra time and effort to get tasks done? If your employees do not feel appreciated or have doubt if they even matter to the company, they will resent spending every extra second they are at your office working.
2. Getting Rid of ObstaclesThe work employees do at your workplace should be seamless and have no obstacles that disturb their flow and not help them achieve their level of productivity. Obstacles in a work environment most certainly result in low job satisfaction. Leaders and management should not wait for exit interviews to know what’s wrong in the company but should act proactively to figure out the problems employee face when working in their organization.
3. Resolving ConflictsLike every other family on the planet, your office family will also have conflicts that require attention and positive reinforcement. Leaders should not assume that a happy workplace is essentially a place with zero conflicts. Conflicts are sometimes passive and can become dominant at a very inappropriate moment. This has to be avoided at all costs. The only way to go around solving conflicts is to make sure the management works in a constructive manner – making employees feel safe sharing the conflicts they experience at work.
4. Meaningful WorkTo cultivate a happier work environment, leaders need to develop programs that make the employees more mindful at work. This can effectively help them tie meaning to their work – something which is quite lacking in the present business organizations around the globe. The relationship between happiness and meaning is profound and should be well understood to make your employees feel that their work is providing great meaning to the organization. This feeling and sense of contribution leads to a highly gratifying job satisfaction
5. Being AppreciatedA study done on Globoforce, a software manufacturing company, found that a staggering 80% of the employees feel that being appreciated and recognized for the work they do in the organization makes them feel more satisfied and cared for. If leaders want to make the organization a better place to work, they need to come up with a policy that makes sure the people who are contributing to the betterment of the organization get recognized and rewarded regularly. Employees at an organization need to know that their happiness in the company matters more than anything else and you will see their productivity shooting through the roof.

WorkSocial's Mission to Bring Happiness Back to Work

‘Happiness at Work’ is a cornerstone that people attached to WorkSocial feel most proud of. Their ability to boost autonomy and productivity by having great personal connections with the workers has helped them create a coworking space that is immersive, more engaging, and motivating.

Their mission to bring happiness back to work is backed by the actions taken to provide the people working at their coworking space a sense of belongingness that goes a long way in helping them build strong connections and establish great friendships within the work sphere.

Final Verdict

It’s true that today employees feel a high level of disengagement with their organizations and have to fight for their interests and their contributions to be noticed and cared for. It’s a reality that their previous generations sensed but did not give it any attention. Now, when more and more purpose-driven millennials and Generation Z are entering the work culture, it will become a challenge for leaders and managers to create a healthy and happy workplace.

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