Crispin (Page 4)

In: Career

Carter Cast Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Kellogg University writes that you need to plan your own career and as such proposes this 8 point DIY guide to career growth. Develop goals and performance objectives. Establish clarity of your destination through specific goals and objectives with metrics that measure and track your success. Solve for blind spots. Seek feedback as widely as possible to gain insights into how others perceive you. Reach out to peers, subordinates and your boss. Ask open questions about what you could improve or could have done better. Reduce gaps. Look at your role and reflect on the key skills required to do the job well and assess your current competency level. Then build a plan to develop and refine those skills. Seek a mentor. A mentor is someone who you can learn from, they understand your purpose and have experiences, skills and networks that are important to helpContinue Reading

In: Innovation

Understanding the opportunity can be best understood by specifying what type of innovation you are talking about. This article explores three types of innovation, largely developed on work from Harvard Professor and renowned writer on innovation Clayton Christensen. Efficiency Efficiency explores how to deliver improvements to how a company operates based its existing business model. It is not about changing the model, rather addressing the systems and processes within the organisation that can be improved such as operations, logistics etc. Advantages: Lower level of risk, speed to apply and benefit, predictable outcomesDisadvantages: Does not provide any protection from disruption or assist the company transform to meet future demands. Sustaining Sustaining explores the organisations business models, investigating ways to strengthen and grow. Typically sustaining innovation is in the area of new products and services or addressing new markets. Advantages: Lower levels of risk, focused on competition and delivering financial benefits. ShortContinue Reading

In: Leadership

Leadership style is an intangible that enables some people to get promoted and other to not progress. Some people refer to gravitas and others to soft skills but the important point to make is that these things do matter and can accelerate leadership opportunities or become a career blocker. The authors have conducted more than 30 years of academic and proprietary research to understand what we colloquially refer to as leadership style. These have been codified by the team into a set of markers: Powerful Markers – confidence, charisma, influence and competence (also includes arrogance, abrasiveness and intimidation) Attractiveness Markers – agreeableness, approachability, liveability (but also include lack of confidence and submissiveness) “People with powerful styles often view more-attractive colleagues as weak. People with attractive styles tend to view powerful colleagues as rude.“ Peterson, Abramson and Stutman Leadership Presence Our default position when in a calm and neutral situation isContinue Reading

In: Creativity, Innovation

Good product strategy enables effective and efficient decision making. Effective product strategy lowers decision fatigue and simultaneously creates the psychological safety to make critical decisions. What Is Decision Fatigue? According to Adam Thomas “Decision fatigue, then, refers to the tendency of our decision-making ability to deteriorate in quality over the course of a long session”. He goes on to point out the importance of Decision Fatigue, given that the entire role of Product Management is about prioritising and making critical decisions. Every decision made is a choice and has a cost. As you move down a decision tree each following decision inherits the implications of previous decisions, no matter the current merit or relevance. The process gets harder over time and when we struggle with decisions we get more fatigued. Product Strategy Should Make Decision Making Easier. This article is not about explaining what needs to go into a product strategy,Continue Reading

In: Entrepreneur, Funding, Startup

How to get attention from a Venture Capital firm is a problem many entrepreneurs and young start-ups face. Mark Cuban is the TV face of VC’s as a start-up billionaire and regular ‘Shark Tank’ investor. Apparently he receives over 1000 emails a day pitching new ideas to him. His advice to get attention is to make sure it is compelling in the first paragraph and if you are teaching him something you might get him interested. “I’ll read the first paragraph or two and if it is something that catches my attention, and is interesting and I think is forward-thinking, then I will just start peppering them with questions,” Mark Cuban Minda Zetlin writing for Inc. magazine summarised the Mark Cuban ‘No Waste Rule’ down to four key recommendations Don’t waste time with phone calls or social media. Mark Cuban has publicly stated he prefers contact by email. Know yourContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development, Purpose

Identifying your genius is about understanding what makes you different or special. It is your personal and professional unique value proposition. It fits quite nicely with defining your purpose (there are numerous articles in HBR and various Journals on the topic of purpose). Purpose is about being really clear what drives you. Genius is about knowing your key strengths. This is the point to say that there are alternatives to the Genius model. CliftonStrengths created by Don Clifton (and sold by Gallup) is based on decades of research. It is often referred to as StrengthFinder which was the name of his very successful book. It breaks down into 4 domains and 34 dominant themes: Strategic Thinking – Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, Strategic Relationship Building – Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Included, Individualisation, Positivity, Relator Influencing – Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximiser, Self-Assurance, Significance, Woo (winning others over)Continue Reading

Finding a Job

In: Career

Finding a job, the right job can take time and it can be quite hard. During the pandemic that challenge has become exponentially harder for many people. This DIGEST examines the challenges of finding a job during this difficult time with some practical advice. You Are Not Alone No matter if you are a new entrant into the workforce or a seasoned senior executive, roles at all levels in many industries and right around the world have been impacted. Governments are working hard to establish incentives and reboot the economy, getting jobs going again. But if you have recently lost your job all that uncertainty about what life and business is going to look like can make it easy to become overwhelmed. You may end up feeling that this is the worst time to job search, or that there aren’t even any jobs for the taking.  As an executive theContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development

Managing your workload when you get promoted can be very difficult, as getting promoted means more responsibility but the hours in the day are finite. Having an effective plan on how to manage the workload is critical for any leader stepping up. Leadership coach Liz Kislik suggests three practical steps to keep things under control. Build a 90 Day Plan For any leader taking on new accountability it is very important to establish a plan that sets out the known and the unknown. It helps set timeframes for hand over of any old responsibilities and coming upto speed with the new ones. A 90 Day Plan (some people prefer 100 day plans) should consider the strategy (which may include vision and mission if they are not clearly inherited from the organisation). It should also be clear on the objectives (scope of activities), the resources available to the team. The planContinue Reading

Gratitude

In: Leadership, Motivation

It is so easy to underestimate the power of gratitude, we get busy. Colleagues and team members are doing the job they are paid to do, no one thanked us so why should I get out and thank them? I had a colleague who made a practice of starting meetings by recognising a peer for their contribution and how they had helped. The impact was hugely positive and infectious as others started taking on the same practice. In this DIGEST article we look at some of the most recent contributions on the power of gratitude and how leaders should approach it. It is an easy trap and one that can have a dramatic impact on your teams performance as Angel Kambouris explains “Gratitude builds relationships. Employee recognition and appreciation creates a company culture that strengthens relationships. On the other hand, we know the opposite to be true when leaders don’tContinue Reading

In: Career, Influence

There is no question of the importance of body language, it says all sorts of things about how we are feeling, (moods, stress levels) in conveys our engagement and reflects our EQ. Many of these non verbal clues might actually be messages we do not want to share.. “You make an impression in less than seven seconds” Carol Kinsey Goman This article provides analysis of a series of stories from various writers on the topic, explaining the mistakes people make and ways to correct them. LeAnne Lagasse writing for The Helm explains how leaders have significant non verbal methods to communicate accessibility or approachability. She looks at three of the biggest mistakes that a leader can make with respect to non verbal communication. You use an indirect body orientation, closed posture, or increase physical space between you and your employees You consistently look too stressed or too busy to beContinue Reading