Many of us can get comfortable in the behaviors we use to lead others. It’s easy to continue doing the things we’ve been doing in the same way we’ve been doing them.
Sometimes, we’re not even aware until someone points it out. Your place of comfort allows your head and heart a bit of rest in your crazy world, so you’re on automatic when you go there. Some common examples:
- You just received a promotion to a senior executive position. This requires you to be less tactical and more visionary and strategic. Yet here you are, still stuck in the weeds of tactics and day-to-day management because this is what you’ve done your entire career. You’re very good at it, and it’s easy. But you have this little voice that you’ve ignored — it’s telling you that your impact isn’t what it could be.
- You’ve found that expressing your anger is a good tool for you.
As an entrepreneur who bootstrapped my company, ReTargeter, with less than $50,000 in funding, I wanted to share some of my tips and lessons learned. Efficiency, values and community have served as the three pillars of our success — from bootstrapped beginnings to growing north of a $10 million run rate.
What does efficiency mean? Leverage the 80/20 rule
What is the 20% that matters? What do we have to be doing to drive revenue? What should we not be spending time on? What is the 20% of the business that results in 80% of the profits? When you are small and resource strapped, efficiency throughout your organization is a must. Leveraging the 80/20 rule, or Pareto Principle, has been instrumental in our ability to scale.
We leveraged this theory to ensure we always focused on what was important, and we continue to do so. Always knowing where your energy should be focused — projects, customers, new initiatives, hiring — can help transform your organization from running at status quo to becoming a rapidly growing industry leader. (read more…)
Sweeping immigration reform legislation being considered in Congress could bring about positive change for employers, in particular granting them access to deeper pools of talented foreign workers, said speakers at the SHRM 2013 annual conference in Chicago. However, the legislation could also introduce new dangers, and HR professionals should start taking stock of their workforces to determine the fees they could incur.
Here’s a rundown of the elements of immigration reform that employers should be paying attention to, according to Michael Aitken, SHRM’s vice president of governmental affairs, and Lynn Shotwell, executive director at the American Council on International Personnel.
More visa options for foreign workers
The Senate immigration reform bill would double the number of green cards available to foreign workers by providing exemptions to the spouses and children of foreign workers. In other words, the family members of foreign workers would be able to use exemptions in stay in the U.S., instead of having to obtain green cards that could otherwise go to other qualified workers. (read more…)
SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: Where do you spend the largest percentage of your time at work?
- Developing and coaching my people: 19.02%
- Managing day-to-day operations: 46.77%
- Setting the long-term direction and defining strategy: 10.3%
- Meetings and steering committee sessions: 11.17%
- Dealing with crises and major issues: 12.74%
Get out of the weeds and lead. About 70% of you are focused on the weeds — day-to-day operations, meetings and crises dominate where you spend your time. Remember — you manage things and you lead people. There is a huge difference between leadership and management. Making the shift to a leadership focus requires you to spend most of your time developing and coaching your people or setting direction and strategy. Leadership is about setting direction and inspiring others to get to the destination. (read more…)
For more on The Cable Show 2013, please check out Cable in the capital, a Special Report recapping the show.
The Cable Show fully embraced all things digital for the consumer in 2013, including video on demand, personalized content recommendations, second-screen social media applications and targeted advertising.
But Red Touch Media CEO Wayne Scholes thinks that when it comes to internal communications — between content providers, media buyers, retail partners and advertisers — the move to digital has been painfully slow.
“We are about the most analog industry that you can possibly imagine. We still give DVD screeners out. We still send out VHSs sometimes,” Scholes said during an interview at Red Touch’s Cable Show booth. “We’re talking to the consumer and convincing them that it’s all digital, and yet internally, we’re all DVD. That’s not communication. That’s sending out a packet once a week.”
Red Touch’s solution is called Bridge, a content management and distribution platform that can be customized to fit a particular company’s needs. (read more…)
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