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The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

19 August 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Everything you need to know about how to start a business.

There are no limits on who can become a great entrepreneur. You don’t necessarily need a college degree, a bunch of money in the bank or even business experience to start something that could become the next major success. However, you do need a strong plan and the drive to see it through.

If you’re on Entrepreneur, odds are you already have the drive, but you might not know how to start building your empire.

That why we are here.

Check out this step-by-step guide to help turn your big idea into a successful business.

1. Evaluate yourself.

Let’s start with the most basic question: Why do you want to start a business? Use this question to guide what kind of business you want to start. If you want extra money, maybe you should start a side hustle. If you want more freedom, maybe it’s time to leave your 9-to-5 job and start something new.

Once you have the reason, start asking yourself even more questions to help you figure out the type of business you should start, and if you have what it takes.

What skills do you have?
Where does your passion lie?
Where is your area of expertise?
How much can you afford to spend, knowing that most businesses fail?
How much capital do you need?
What sort of lifestyle do you want to live?
Are you even ready to be an entrepreneur?

Be brutally honest with your answers. This will create a foundation for everything you do moving forward, so it’s better to know the truth now than later.

2. Think of a business idea.

Do you already have a killer business idea? If so, congratulations! You can proceed to the next section. If not, there are a ton of ways to start brainstorming for a good idea. An article on Entrepreneur, “8 Ways to Come Up With a Business Idea,” helps people break down potential business ideas. Here are a few pointers from the article:

Ask yourself what’s next. What technology or advancement is coming soon, and how will that change the business landscape as we know it? Can you get ahead of the curve?
Fix something that bugs you. People would rather have less of a bad thing than more of a good thing. If your business can fix a problem for your customers, they’ll thank you for it.
Apply your skills to an entirely new field. Many businesses and industries do things one way because that’s the way they’ve always been done. In those cases, a fresh set of eyes from a new perspective can make all the difference.
Use the better, cheaper, faster approach. Do you have a business idea that isn’t completely new? If so, think about the current offerings and focus on how you can create something better, cheaper or faster.

Also, go out and meet people and ask them questions, seek advice from other entrepreneurs, research ideas online or use whatever method makes the most sense to you.

And, if you’ve exhausted all your options and you’re still stuck, here are 55 great business options you can start.

3. Do market research.

Is anyone else already doing what you want to start doing? If not, is there a good reason why?

Start researching your potential rivals or partners within the market by using this guide. It breaks down the objectives you need to complete with your research and the methods you can use to do just that. For example, you can conduct interviews by telephone or face to face. You can also offer surveys or questionnaires that ask questions like “What factors do you consider when purchasing this product or service?” and “What areas would you suggest for improvement?”

Just as importantly, it explains three of the most common mistakes people make when starting their market research, which are:

Using only secondary research.
Using only online resources.
Surveying only the people you know.

4. Get feedback.

Let people interact with your product or service and see what their take is on it. A fresh set of eyes can help point out a problem you might have missed. Plus, these people will become your first brand advocates, especially if you listen to their input and they like the product.

One of the easiest ways to utilize feedback is to focus on “The Lean Startup” approach (read more about it here), but it involves three basic pillars: prototyping, experimenting and pivoting. By pushing out a product, getting feedback and then adapting before you push out the next product, you can constantly improve and make sure you stay relevant.

Just realize that some of that advice, solicited or not, will be good. Some of it won’t be. That’s why you should have a plan on how to receive feedback.

Here are six steps for handling feedback:

Stop! Your brain will probably be in an excited state when receiving feedback, and it might start racing to bad conclusions. Slow down and take the time to consider carefully what you’ve just heard.
Start by saying ‘thank you.’ People who give you negative feedback won’t expect you to thank them for it, but doing so will probably make them respect you and encourage them to continue be honest in the future.
Look for the grain of truth. If someone doesn’t like one idea, it doesn’t mean they hate everything you’ve just said. Remember that these people are trying to help, and they might just be pointing out a smaller problem or solution that you should look into further.
Seek out the patterns. If you keep hearing the same comments, then it’s time to start sitting up and taking notice.
Listen with curiosity. Be willing to enter a conversation where the customer is in control.
Ask questions. Figure out why someone liked or didn’t like something. How could you make it better? What would be a better solution?

Also, one way to help you get through negative feedback is to create a “wall of love,” where you can post all of the positive messages you’ve received.Not only will this wall of love inspire you, but you can use these messages later when you begin selling your product or service. Positive reviews online and word-of-mouth testimonials can help make a big difference.

5. Make it official.

Get all of the legal aspects out of the way early. That way, you don’t have to worry about someone taking your big idea, screwing you over in a partnership or suing you for something you never saw coming. A quick checklist of things to shore up might include:

Business structure (LLC, corporation or a partnership, to name a few.)
Business name
Register your business
Federal tax ID
State tax ID
Permits (more on permits here)
License
Necessary bank account
Trademarks, copyrights or patents

While some things you can do on your own, it’s best to consult with a lawyer when starting out, so you can make sure you’ve covered everything that you need.

Here are some questions you can ask when looking for a small-business lawyer.

6. Write your business plan.

A business plan is a written description of how your business will evolve from when it starts to the finish product.

As angel investor and tech-company founder Tim Berry wrote on Entrepreneur, “You can probably cover everything you need to convey in 20 to 30 pages of text plus another 10 pages of appendices for monthly projections, management resumes and other details. If you’ve got a plan that’s more than 40 pages long, you’re probably not summarizing very well.”

Here’s what we suggest should be in your business plan:

Title page. Start with name the name of your business, which is harder than it sounds. This article can help you avoid common mistakes when picking.
Executive summary. This is a high-level summary of what the plan includes, often touching on the company description, the problem the business is solving, the solution and why now. (Here’s what you should include in the summary and how you can make it appeal to investors.)
Business description. What kind of business do you want to start? What does your industry look like? What will it look like in the future?
Market strategies. What is your target market, and how can you best sell to that market?
Competitive analysis. What are the strengths and weakness of your competitors? How will you beat them?
Design and development plan. What is your product or service and how will it develop? Then, create a budget for that product or service.
Operations and management plan. How does the business function on a daily basis?
Finance factors. Where is the money coming from? When? How? What sort of projections should you create and what should you take into consideration?

For each question, you can spend between one to three pages. Keep in mind, the business plan is a living, breathing document and as time goes on and your business matures, you will be updating it.

7. Finance your business.

There are a ton of different ways to get the resources you need to start your business. Angel investor Martin Zwilling, whose business Startup Professionals provides services and products for startups and small businesses, recommends 10 of the most reliable ways to fund your business. Take a look and consider your own resources, circumstances and life state to figure out which one works best for you.

Fund your startup yourself. Bootstrapping your business might take longer, but the good part is that you control your own destiny (and equity).
Pitch your needs to friends and family. It can be hard to separate business from personal relationships, but if you’re considering asking for a loan, here’s a resource you can use to make it as straightforward as possible.
Request a small-business grant. Start by checking out our guide to small-business grants. Then, head over to Grants.gov, which is a searchable, online directory of more than 1,000 federal grant programs. It might be a long process, but it doesn’t cost you any equity.
Start a crowdfunding campaign online. Sometimes power is in numbers, and a bunch of small investments can add up to something major. If you think your business might be a fit for something like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, you should read up on 10 of the best-crowdfunded businesses ever or check out the most popular crowdfunding websites.
Apply to local angel investor groups. Online platforms such as Gust and AngelList and local networking can help you find potential investors who relate to your industry and passion.
Solicit venture capital investors. VCs typically look for big opportunities from proven teams that need a million dollars or more, so you should have some traction before approaching them.
Join a startup incubator or accelerator. These companies are designed to help new or startup businesses get to the next level. Most provide free resources, including office facilities and consulting, along with networking opportunities and pitch events. Some, also provide seed funding as well.
Negotiate an advance from a strategic partner or customer. If someone wants your product or service bad enough to pay for it, there’s a chance they’ll want it bad enough to fund it, too. Variations on this theme include early licensing or white-labeling agreements.
Trade equity or services for startup help. For example, you could support a computer system for office tenants in exchange for free office space. You might not get paid for this, but you won’t have to pay for an office, either, and a penny saved is a penny earned.
Seek a bank loan or line of credit. Here are 10 questions you should ask before applying for a bank loan, including whether you will qualify. If you do meet the requirements, a good place to start for loan opportunities is the Small Business Administration.

8. Develop your product or service.

After all the work you’ve put into starting your business, it’s going to feel awesome to actually see your idea come to life. But keep in mind, it takes a village to create a product. If you want to make an app and you’re not an engineer, you will need to reach out to a technical person. Or if you need to mass-produce an item, you will have to team up with a manufacturer.

Here is a seven-step checklist — including finding a manufacturer and pricing strategies — you can use for your own product development. A major point the article highlights is that when you’re actually crafting the product, you should focus on two things: simplicity and quality. Your best option isn’t necessarily to make the cheapest product, even if it lowers manufacturing cost. Also, you need to make sure the product can grab someone’s attention quickly.

When you are ready to do product development and outsource some of the tasks make sure you:

Retain control of your product and learn constantly. If you leave the development up to someone else or another firm without supervising, you might not get the thing you envisioned.
Implement checks and balances to reduce your risk. If you only hire one freelance engineer, there’s a chance that no one will be able to check their work. If you go the freelance route, use multiple engineers so you don’t have to just take someone at their word.
Hire specialists, not generalists. Get people who are awesome at the exact thing you want, not a jack-of-all-trades type.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Make sure you don’t lose all of your progress if one freelancer leaves or if a contract falls through.
Manage product development to save money. Rates can vary for engineers depending on their specialties, so make sure you’re not paying an overqualified engineer when you could get the same end result for a much lower price.

To help you have peace of mind, start learning as much as you can about the production, so you can improve the process and your hiring decisions as time goes along.

This process will be very different for service-focused entrepreneurs, but no less important. You have several skills that people are willing to pay you for right now, but those skills can be hard to quantify. How can you establish yourself and your abilities? You might consider creating a portfolio of your work — create a website to show your artwork if you’re an artist, writing if you’re a writer or design if you’re a designer.

Also, make sure you have the necessary certificates or educational requirements, so that when someone inquires about your service, you’re ready to jump at a good opportunity.

9. Start building your team.

To scale your business, you are going to need to hand off responsibilities to other people. You need a team.

Whether you need a partner, employee or freelancer, these three tips can help you find a good fit:

State your goals clearly. Make sure everyone understands the vision and their role within that mission at the very start.
Follow hiring protocols. When starting the hiring process you need to take a lot of things into consideration, from screening people to asking the right questions and having the proper forms. Here is a more in-depth guide to help you.
Establish a strong company culture. What makes a great culture? What are some of the building blocks? You can see our list of 10 examples of companies with great cultures, but keep in mind that you don’t need to have Google‘s crazy office space to instill a positive atmosphere. That’s because a great culture is more about respecting and empowering employees through multiple channels, including training and mentorship, than it is about decor or ping-pong tables. In fact, office perks can turn out to be more like traps than real benefits.

10. Find a location.

This could mean an office or a store. Your priorities will differ depending on need, but here are 10 basic things to consider:

Style of operation. Make sure your location is consistent with your particular style and image.
Demographics. Start by considering who your customers are. How important is their proximity to your location? If you’re a retail store that relies on the local community, this is vital. For other business models, it might not be.
Foot traffic. If you need people to come into your store, make sure that store is easy to find. Remember: even the best retail areas have dead spots.
Accessibility and parking. Is your building accessible? Don’t give customers a reason to go somewhere else because they don’t know where to park.
Competition. Sometimes having competitors nearby is a good thing. Other times, it’s not. You’ve done the market research, so you know which is best for your business.
Proximity to other businesses and services. This is more than just about foot traffic. Look at how nearby businesses can enrich the quality of your business as a workplace, too.
Image and history of the site. What does this address state about your business? Have other businesses failed there? Does the location reflect the image you want to project?
Ordinances. Depending on your business, these could help or hinder you. For example, if you’re starting a daycare center, ordinances that state no one can build a liquor store nearby might add a level of safety for you. Just make sure you’re not the one trying to build the liquor store.
The building’s infrastructure. Especially if you’re looking at an older building or if you’re starting an online business, make sure the space can support your high-tech needs. If you’re getting serious about a building, you might want to hire an engineer to check out the state of the place to get an objective evaluation.
Rent, utilities and other costs. Rent is the biggest facilities expense, but check out the utilities, as well, and whether they’re included in the lease or not. You don’t want to start out with one price and find out it’s going to be more later.

Once you know what to look for and it’s time to start searching for a place that fits all of your qualifications, these four tips can help.

Think on your own timeframe. Landlords are starting to offer shorter-term office rentals. Don’t get stuck in a long-term lease if it doesn’t make sense for your business.
Play the whole field. There are all sorts of places to use — co-working spaces, office business centers, sublets and more. Keep your options open.
Click around town. You might be able to find the perfect place by using online resources.
Do the deal on your terms. Again, you have options. Don’t get roped into something that makes you uncomfortable.

After you have a location, you can focus on the aesthetic. You can check out a few design ideas here.

11. Start getting some sales.

No matter your product or industry, your business’s future is going to depend on revenue and sales. Steve Jobs knew this — it’s why, when he was starting Apple, he spent day after day calling investors from his garage.

There are a ton of different sales strategies and techniques you can employ, but here are four tenets to live by:

Listen. “When you listen to your clients/customers, you find out what they want and need, and how to make that happen,” says investor and entrepreneur John Rampton.
Ask for a commitment, but don’t be pushy about it. You can’t be too shy to ask for a next step or to close a sale, but you also can’t make customers feel as though you’re forcing them into a sale.
Don’t be afraid of hearing “no.” As former door-to-door salesman (and now co-founder of software business Pipedrive) Timo Rein said, “Most people are too polite. They let you make your pitch even if they have no interest in buying. And that’s a problem of its own. Time is your most important resource.”
Make it a priority. As entrepreneurial wizard Gary Vaynerchuk said, “Actually creating revenue, and running a profitable business, is a good strategy for business. Where are we that people think users or visits or time on site is the proxy to a successful business?”

But how do you actually make those sales? Start by identifying targets who want your product or service. Find early adopters of your business, grow your customer base or put out ads to find people who fit your business. Then, figure out the right sales funnel or strategy that can convert these leads into revenue.

12. Grow your business.

There are a million different ways to grow. You could acquire another business, start targeting a new market, expand your offerings and more. But, no growth plan will matter if you don’t have the two key attributes that all growing companies have in common.

First, they have a plan to market themselves. They use social media effectively through organic, influencer or paid campaigns. They have an email list and know how to use it. They understand exactly who they need to target — either online or off — with their marketing campaigns.

Then, once they have a new customer, they understand how to retain them. You’ve probably heard many people state that the easiest customer to sell to is the one you already have. Your existing customers have already signed up for your email list, added their credit card information to your website and tested what you have to offer. In doing so, they’re starting a relationship with you and your brand. Help them feel as good about that relationship as possible.

Start by utilizing these strategies, which include investing in your customer service and getting personal, but realize your work will never be done. You’ll constantly be competing for these customers in the marketplace, and you can never simply rest on your laurels. Keep researching the market, hiring good people and making a superior product and you’ll be on your way to building the empire you always dreamed about.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297899?fbclid=IwAR03XKKRZ_zG4v74k-nXpwoptBjd0TCiDkAmmSuasNTUGYFyzmCcVNXrp7Q

3 Super Simple Ways to Understand What Your Customer Wants

8 August 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Entrepreneurs share their smart (and sometimes painfully simple) approaches to finding out how to better serve their customers.

By Stephanie Schomer September 4, 2018

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/317463

Understanding your customers can be tough, but if you want your business to be successful, it’s crucial. Luckily, there are simple things you can do to get a grasp on who your audience is and what they like. To help, these three entrepeneurs chime in.

Fred Stevens-Smith

Co-founder and CEO, Rainforest QA

Method: Ask for problems

When Fred Stevens-Smith and his co-founder, Russell Smith, were accepted into Y Combinator, they thought they had a brilliant idea: Help businesses track (and curb) money spent on Amazon Web Services. But when they got their program in front of beta testers, users shrugged. “It just wasn’t a big enough problem,” Stevens-Smith says. The duo built multiple prototypes to solve other problems for software development businesses, but each time, they heard the same feedback. “Most people were like, “I’d pay $10 a month for this.’ ” The founders needed a larger pain point. At a loss, they emailed their network: “What problem do you have in your development process that you would pay $1,000 a month to solve?” Multiple responses asked for the same thing — a way to test for quality throughout development. The founders dove in, and today their company has raised more than $40 million in funding and has more than 200 customers. Says Stevens-Smith, “We surfaced a need in the dumbest way possible.”

Joanna Griffiths

Founder and CEO: Knix

Method: “Online creeping”

After her mom told her about the incontinence issues many women face as they age or have children, Joanna Griffiths could think of nothing else. “I was 26, so none of that had been on my radar,” she says. While working toward her MBA, she set out to build leakproof undergarments. Griffiths wasn’t sure where to start, so she googled. “I saw the topic coming up a lot in mommy forums and CrossFit forums,” she says. She quietly inserted herself into the conversation, something she calls digital anthropology, or, simply, “online creeping.” “I spent about two months letting people get comfortable with me,” Griffiths says. “I was very up front that I was looking to create this product and wanted to understand the needs.” As people opened up, Griffiths would suggest moving to a one-on-one chat to dive deeper. “Going where the conversation was happening was instrumental in the development of Knix,” she says. The company has seen 400 percent annual growth since launching in 2013. “People wanted to talk, and I was there to listen.”

Keith Krach

Co-founder: Ariba

Method: Put customers to work

In 1996, Keith Krach was cofounding a startup called Ariba that wanted to digitize the procurement process. (Back then, it was all done on paper.) Krach’s team was eager to start working, but his VP of engineering refused to build a prototype until they had input from at least 60 potential customers. So Krach rounded up some people — mostly friends of the founders — and asked them what features would be most helpful. The feedback was valuable, so Krach invited the group to be part of an “advisory board” that would meet quarterly and present ideas to the company. Many became Ariba’s first customers; as the company grew, more were added to the board. “People support what they help create,” Krach says. He replicated the idea as CEO of DocuSign from 2011 to 2017. “If you ask someone for help and they say no, you’ve still flattered them. And maybe they’ll come later. Don’t be afraid to ask.”

Authentic Leadership: What Is It and Why is it Important?

25 July 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

In an ever-changing business landscape, we’re seeing how important it is to have authentic leadership development that is built to last.

By Jon Michail May 18, 2022

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424751

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In an ever-changing business landscape, we’re seeing how important it is to have authentic leadership development that is built to last. Those who have successfully developed their brands have learned to strategically apply what they know about themselves as individuals to create more meaningful connections with others — connections that ultimately drive business success every day.

Authentic leadership style isn’t hard to spot. Whether it’s Mark Zuckerberg speaking at the Facebook Town Hall in a hoodie, or pajama-clad Jeff Bezos raising awareness of childhood cancer, we can usually tell when a leader is being authentic — and when they’re just showing up in sweatpants or a lab coat or wearing a tuxedo to an event, because it was a condition of entry.

To help cut through some of the noise and confusion around these topics, the focus here is on answering two key questions: What is authentic leadership development? And why is it important?

What is authentic leadership?

While the definition of this concept has evolved over time and may take on a different meaning to each individual, many agree that it is simply being yourself — in the workplace and life in general. It means acting consistently upon your core values so you can be trusted by your community.

What authentic leadership is not:

Being your true self regardless of consequence (i.e., anger, insults, etc.)
Intimidating or taking advantage of people for personal gain
Being completely transparent about everything in your life
Focusing only on the needs and wants of yourself and pretending that you care for others
Presenting an outer image that is incongruent with the inner image

Authentic leadership development begins with building trust and vulnerability between yourself and your team members. To build trust in yourself as a leader, it’s critical that you are truthful — and that includes admitting when you are wrong or do not have all the answers. You must also be able to communicate honestly what you expect from team members while simultaneously listening to their ideas as well as concerns they may have about projects or working relationships within the team.

Characteristics of authentic leaders

Authentic leadership characteristics stem from the philosophy of being true to yourself and your principles, which in turn leads to more positive work environments and more effective teams. But what does it mean to be authentic?

Self-awareness: the ability to understand your own thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
Transparency: the ability to be honest and candid — especially when you’re wrong or make a mistake.
Emotional intelligence: self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social awareness and good relationships with others
Empathy: understanding what someone else is feeling or thinking (in order for you to be able to help them)
Open-mindedness: having an open point of view that allows you to receive different ideas or information without being judgmental
Self-reflective: looking at oneself objectively on a regular basis and giving sincere feedback about how you could improve or do things better next time

How do we create authenticity?

When we think about authenticity in leadership skills, we have to ask ourselves, “How do we create authenticity?” That is a great question that can take many forms. How do we create authenticity in our leadership style, in our leadership behaviors? But most importantly, how do we inspire authenticity in our leadership team?

There are many answers to these questions, but the most common unifying theme for all of them is that it takes time, intention and practice. The first step is understanding what authentic means. For the sake of this, I’ll use this definition: Authentic = unfiltered — unfiltered expressions of who you are as a leader. In other words, be yourself. That’s what creates authenticity.

How to be an authentic leader

Your leadership brand is made up of a complex dynamic — like how you behave, react and interact with different groups or individuals in diverse situations, and how you as a leader interact with others to produce outstanding results.

Authentic leadership skill is a style of leading that emphasizes the importance of being honest and sincere in your dealings with others. It also means being prepared to be vulnerable, keeping your word and admitting when you are wrong.

Be honest and sincere: Authentic leaders find ways to convey their genuine intentions through words and actions. They use transparency and honesty to build trust among team members, eventually transcending it to the larger audience.
Be prepared to be vulnerable: Authentic leaders, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, were able to accomplish great things because they were prepared to be vulnerable enough to take risks ahead of their peers in order to make change happen.
Be consistent: Authenticity means that you say what you mean and do what you say! Authentic leaders don’t go around telling people one thing and then do another. Authenticity and credibility arise when consistency occurs between what you say and do. Your behavior (actions) should always match your words. If not, correct it and make it congruent.
Be clear about your core values: What are the core principles that guide how you live your life? What are the guiding principles for how you work? What matters most in life? When people understand what’s important to you, they know where you stand on certain issues or topics, which helps them better understand your decisions or actions.

Businesses and authentic leadership

In the age of misinformation and disinformation, authentic leaders are becoming the new CEOs, and being authentic is a powerful way to differentiate yourself from your competition. Authenticity brings out the best in others, which means nothing will hold you from achieving your mission. Not only does authenticity make people better as individuals, but it also makes for stronger company culture and greater productivity overall.

Finally, authenticity is the foundation of trust — and if there’s one thing every business needs, it’s to build trust with its stakeholders! This article attempts to help you learn how trust and authenticity outlines some of those benefits here, so they’re top-of-mind when making decisions about how you want your brand represented in any given situation.

To sum it up, it’s also critical to understand that leadership does not just mean being a leader in the workplace. It means being a strong leader who truly makes a difference regardless of the space he or she is in — that includes your family and friends, your community, everyone and everything.

5 Habits of a Highly Effective Coach

18 July 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Being a great coach is about more than just mastering technical skills. It’s also about developing the right habits.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424744

By John Kitchens May 17, 2022

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Whether you’re a business owner, CEO, manager or team leader, coaching is essential to your success. It’s how you develop the people around you. With an effective skill in coaching, you can create a high-performing team that can rapidly increase your growth. It is a leadership skill that is needed in order to achieve greater things in a shorter amount of time.

However, this is only true when coaching is done right. How can you become not just a coach but a highly effective one? Below are five ways to do just that:

1. Be a great listener

The number one habit of an effective coach is to become a great listener. In order to coach someone, you need to understand them first. This requires being present and fully engaged when they are speaking. And to truly excel at being a great listener, you should pay attention to your question-to-statement ratio. Are you asking more questions? Or are you making more statements? Your question-to-statement ratio should be heavy on questions and less on statements. There is a reason we have two ears and one mouth. Try to get them to talk and open up about what’s going on. The more information you have, the better you can help them.

2. Don’t make excuses

Effective coaches are people who can be accountable for their every action. They take full responsibility for their life and their business. This means that you have to be 100% accountable with zero excuses. We can never escape from mistakes, because it’s a part of being human. We will always have lapses, but it’s how we own up to it that counts. It’s not about covering it up with an excuse. It’s about taking full responsibility, admitting that you’re not perfect and choosing to move forward with a plan. It’s all about choosing to be accountable, not just in success, but also in failure.

3. Practice authenticity

Being an effective coach means that people can trust you and your words. For that trust to grow, it requires you to be authentic. This means that you have to be yourself. You can’t put up a persona and try to be someone you’re not. People can see through that, and it will only create more problems in the long run. In this age, where everything is easily accessible online, it’s only a matter of time before you are revealed for who you really are. It’s important to build relationships with your team members based on trust and respect. This can only be done when you’re being authentic with them. I believe that the formula to building trust is authenticity x time. So, always be authentic and show up as your real self.

4. Don’t forget to be the guide

A lot of coaches forget the reason why they are called a coach. They make everything about themselves and stray too far from their main purpose. They make action plans based on themselves and forget to take into account the people they are supposed to be coaching. An effective coach always puts their team’s growth above everything else. They understand that their success is dependent on the success of their team. This is why they make it a habit to guide people and help them grow. It’s your job as a coach to make sure that they are always moving forward and progressing. If you’re not doing that, then you’re not just ineffective, you are not doing your job as a coach.

5. Always lead yourself first

Oftentimes, people try to lead others without leading themselves first. This is a recipe for disaster. How can you lead others when you can’t even lead yourself? You can’t expect others to follow you if you’re not even leading yourself in the right direction. You have to be willing to put in the work and invest time in yourself, because if people don’t see the growth you are talking about, then they won’t believe you. You have to walk the talk and show that you’re willing to do what it takes to grow. Always prioritize your personal growth, and make sure that you’re moving forward. Only then can you start leading others and helping them grow.

To become a highly effective coach, you have to understand that being a coach is more than just a job, it’s a lifestyle. Anything that we want to impart to others should be ingrained in ourselves first. We should know that our habits are a big factor that drives our results, and we should make sure that we embody the qualities we preach about. We have to live it. This is how we can become not just a coach, but a highly effective one.

5 Reasons to Write a Business Plan

11 July 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

By The Staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. December 2, 2014

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239405

In their book Write Your Business Plan, the staff of Entrepreneur Media offer an in-depth understanding of what’s essential to any business plan, what’s appropriate for your venture, and what it takes to ensure success. In this edited excerpt, the authors offer five reasons why someone would want to write a business plan and what they’ll use it for.

Anybody beginning or extending a venture that will consume significant resources of money, energy or time and that’s expected to return a profit should take the time to draft some kind of business plan.

But there are many reasons to write a business plan, including the following five:

1. You want to start a business.

The classic business plan writer is an entrepreneur seeking funds to help start a new venture. Many great companies had their starts in the form of a plan that was used to convince investors to put up the capital necessary to get them under way.

2. You own an established firm and are seeking help.

Many business plans are written by and for companies that are long past the startup stage but also well short of large-corporation status. These middle-stage enterprises may draft plans to help them find funding for growth. They may feel the need for a written plan to help manage an already rapidly growing business and to convey the mission and prospects of the business to customers, suppliers or other interested parties. A business plan can address the next stage in the life process of a business.

3. You need to determine your objectives.

There are so many options when it comes to starting a business, including the size, location, and, of course, the reason for existence. You’ll be able to determine all of these and so many more aspects of business with the help of your business plan. It forces you to think through all of the areas that form the main concept to the smallest details. This way, you don’t find yourself remembering at the last minute that your website still isn’t developed or that you still have most of your inventory in a warehouse and no way to ship it.

4. You’re trying to predict the future.

It may seem dishonest to say that a business plan can’t predict the future. What are all those projections and forecasts for if they’re not attempts to predict the future? The fact is, however, no projection or forecast is really a hard-and-fast prediction of the future. The best you can do is have a plan in which you logically and systematically attempt to show what will happen if a particular scenario occurs. You’ll use your research, sales forecasts, market trends and competitive analysis to make well thought-out predictions of how you see your business developing if you’re able to follow a specified course. To some extent, you can create your future rather than simply trying to predict it by the decisions you make. For example, you may not have a multimillion-dollar business in ten years if you’re trying to start and run a small family business. Your decision on growth would therefore factor into your predictions and the outcome.

5. You want to use it to raise all the money you’ll need.

A business plan can’t guarantee that you’ll raise all the money you need at any given time, especially during the startup phase. Even if you’re successful in finding an investor, odds are good you won’t get quite what you asked for. There may be a big difference in what you have to give up, such as majority ownership or control, to get the funds. Or you may be able to make minor adjustments if you cannot snare as large a chunk of cash as you want.

In a sense, a business plan used for seeking funding is part of a negotiation taking place between you and your prospective financial backers. The part of the plan where you describe your financial needs can be considered your opening bid in this negotiation. In a way, a business plan is an excellent opening bid — it’s definite, comprehensive and clear.

But you know what happens to bids in negotiations: They get whittled away, the terms get changed, and, sometimes, the whole negotiation breaks down under the force of an ultimatum from one of the parties involved. Does this mean you should ask for a good deal more money than you actually need in your plan? Actually, that may not be the best strategy either. Investors who see a lot of plans are going to notice if you’re asking for way too much money. Such a move stands a good chance of alienating those who might otherwise be enthusiastic backers of your plan. It’s probably a better idea to ask for a little more than you think you can live with, plus slightly better terms than you really expect.

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Navigating inflation in retail: Six actions for retailers

2 July 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Inflation landed like a thud in the retail sector in May as industry leaders reported on the impact that higher costs were having on their operations. It wasn’t long before investors responded, and some of America’s largest retailers saw the biggest declines in their stock prices since the market crash of 1987.

Last year, as more and more Americans were vaccinated against COVID-19, retailers enjoyed a big boost in sales. But the strong demand for goods soon overwhelmed supply chains, and supply-demand imbalances combined with commodity-driven cost pressures to drive prices higher. In the US, inflation hit nearly 8.5 percent in March 2022, its highest level in 40 years. Commodity prices jumped again when Russia invaded Ukraine, exacerbating cost increases, both direct and indirect, for retailers and sending inflation still higher.

Planners have come to expect an approximately 2 percent inflation rate, but it has become increasingly apparent that inflation could remain well above that through next year and possibly beyond. Central banks worldwide are raising interest rates to temper demand and limit future inflation, but those efforts will take time to yield results.

Retailers across the sector must reckon with the new realities of record inflation and develop solutions to sustain their businesses, retain customers, and ensure long-term growth. We’ve identified six key areas where industry leaders can focus their efforts to transform this period of stress into an opportunity for the future.

Retailers are getting squeezed

As the economy has opened back up in recent months, we’ve seen both top and bottom lines challenged with slowing sales growth for some and compressing margins—a challenging combination for retailers. Looking ahead, the industry is likely to face a more challenging growth environment even as it deals with increased expenses. Retailers must contend not just with the rising cost of merchandise, but also with cost increases on everything from manufacturing inputs to freight and fuel to wages. In addition, e-commerce now represents nearly 13 percent of all retail sales, placing further downward pressure on retailer profitability.

While inflation hasn’t had a meaningful impact on nominal consumer spending yet, we are beginning to see early signs of a potential pull-back. In the early months of 2022, amid record inflation, US consumers continued to open their wallets. The growth in consumer spending was perhaps not surprising: US consumers had approximately $3.3 trillion more in savings than they had in 2019, and many didn’t hesitate to dip into those reserves as pandemic restrictions eased. And it hasn’t been just the savers making purchases; credit card debt is starting to rise as well.

While overall spending remained strong, consumer spending has eased in some categories that were previously growing, causing them to flatline or even drop. Much of the year-over-year growth in grocery spending is due to inflation, not greater consumption. In categories such as gasoline, travel, and restaurants, consumers are paying more but consuming less.

As another indicator of a potential slow down, we saw consumer sentiment begin to dip in late February, when consumers began adopting more value-conscious behaviors. Only 38 percent of respondents to McKinsey’s latest Consumer Pulse survey said they felt optimistic, down from 44 percent in October 2021. The steepest drop in sentiment was among higher-income consumers, who frequently traded up to more expensive products and brands in 2020 and 2021 but might soon rein in spending. With COVID stimulus money dried up and inflation impacting day-to-day purchasing, lower-income households remain the most pessimistic about the state of the economy.

These shifts in sentiment are beginning to play out in shopping behavior, with more US consumers reporting that they switched brands and retailers in 2022 than at any time since the pandemic began. And most of them say they intend to keep switching, with price at the top of the list of consumer motivations. With inflation at a record high, more people are looking for value; among those who said they’ve switched brands, slightly more than a third said they opted to buy private-brand products.

Almost all consumers—90 percent—have noticed that prices are going up. In particular, they’ve reported significant price hikes in two things that many people buy multiple times a week: gasoline and groceries, which could lead to a softening in spend for discretionary items should the trend persist.

We have also seen considerable concern about retail prospects from Wall Street. Of the 79 large retailers that reported earnings between April 1 and May 23 this year, 59 percent disclosed a decline in consensus revenue estimates for 2023, and 71 percent saw a decrease in estimates for 2023 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Two-thirds of these companies saw their share prices decline on the day they reported earnings. Over the same period (April 1 to May 23), the S&P Retail Composite Index fell 24.1 percent—nearly twice the decline of the S&P 500 over the same period.

An opportunity to reposition for future growth

Retailers can catalyze these challenges into opportunities—if they make bold, deliberate decisions. Indeed, companies that achieve breakthrough performance during economic downturns tend to outperform their peers over the decade that follows. We saw this following the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009; the most resilient retailers were able to drive 11 percent annual growth in total return to shareholders, more than five-times higher than their peers through 2018.

While there is no silver bullet, retailers can take a number of transformative actions to address inflation and drive a step-change performance for the years ahead. Those that take a comprehensive approach will be able to combat inflationary pressures and preserve their profitable revenues. To that end, we’ve identified six areas of focus for retailers in the near term:

Revisit their category strategies to reflect shifts in consumer purchase behavior and margin profiles. In today’s environment, consumers are becoming less brand-loyal and turning to private-brand goods to cope with inflation. To turn this to their advantage, retailers should regularly re-examine their category strategies. Winning retailers will balance rapidly shifting consumer preferences (perhaps in value categories) with product-specific inflation pressures. This may mean thinking differently about their mix of private and national brands. Those seeking to improve private-brand penetration can first develop brands with high awareness, advocacy, and stand-alone loyalty by adopting consumer-led brand strategies and category-management and design capabilities that consumer packaged goods companies are known for. Knowing which product categories face the most inflationary pressures and are likely to encounter meaningful changes in consumer behavior can help retailers make informed category-strategy decisions.
Address end-to-end cost-to-serve through enhanced supply chain visibility and diversification. Retailers can reorient their supply and distribution networks to route shipments through low-congestions ports and lower-cost ocean lanes, place distribution centers in optimal locations that balance labor availability or costs with last-mile costs, and use third-party logistics and supply-chain-as-a-service providers to reduce asset intensity and distribution overhead. Greater visibility of end-to-end inventory, fulfillment costs, and customer experience metrics can enable retailers to more effectively balance costs and services.
Go granular with pricing and promotion and tailor value delivery to consumers. Instead of implementing broad price increases that may erode customer trust, retailers can tailor their inflationary price response by customer and product segment, considering both margin performance and consumers’ willingness to pay. Raising prices is unpleasant for both consumers and retailers. Retailers that take a surgical approach are more likely to emerge with profitability and consumer relationships intact. Further, retailers can re-evaluate their price and promotion mix during this time; pulling back on promotions can help manage cost increases without raising prices.
Use next-gen sourcing tools to drive sourcing excellence for private-brand and branded goods:
- There is a wide range of maturity in private-brand sourcing. When retailers started sourcing private-brand goods, many simply replicated their branded-goods sourcing models. The most advanced retailers have evolved dramatically from those early days, realizing they have full control of the product design and specifications as well as the value chain, and negotiating based on cost. To do this, retailers can deploy next-gen sourcing tools to create real-time visibility into the impact of inflation on end-product costs and develop bottom-up product cost targets across their portfolios. Real-time cost-monitoring tools allow retailers to identify what the real impact of input cost changes should be—of raw materials, freight, labor, exchange rates, and so forth—and where those diverge from supplier-proposed prices and take action. Digital should-cost models enable retailers to quickly develop a detailed view of what their products should cost across thousands of SKUs and easily adjust them as market conditions evolve. They can then leverage these real-time insights to better manage their exposure to inflationary inputs by optimizing product design and specifications and reassessing their vendor-country matrix.
- For branded goods, retailers can investigate options for enhancing margins across their portfolio. First, they can increase transparency to understand “all-in” margins with vendors, incorporating all costs, funding, and value-add services to ensure that merchants fully understand the trade-offs between brands within their portfolio. Then they can deploy advanced analytics to better inform commercial decisions on things like shelf-space transferability and PLU investment rather than relying on intuition. This will help them understand the impact of macroeconomic changes such as commodity prices and shipping on end-product costs. Finally, they can engage their vendors in a consistent and fact-based manner, supported by a central team, to ensure collaboration in navigating the challenges of an inflationary environment.
Rethink store operations to optimize productivity. To counter the effects of labor cost inflation, retailers can re-evaluate their in-store processes and look for opportunities to reset the store operating model by deploying technology and analytics, resetting labor allocation and scheduling, and taking an end-to-end view of costs. Retailers may also invest in frontline employee experience and retention to reduce costly turnover by leveraging recruitment and talent analytics and rethinking capability building.
Set up an inflation “win room.” Managing the implications of inflation across a broad operational landscape calls for a cross-functional, disciplined, agile response. An inflation “win room,” or a flexible, cross-functional structure with the authority to coordinate the inflation response can set clear goals for the organization, establish one source of truth, increase the speed of decision making, and ensure a systematic, fact-based approach to tracking execution, diagnosing wins and losses, and applying lessons learned.

The environment for retailers is likely to remain challenging for some time, but the situation also presents an opportunity for those that move decisively and quickly to develop a response. Most retail organizations have the capabilities required to weather the storm and emerge as a winner. Recognizing that inflation is likely to persist can give retailers a solid incentive to act holistically across the organization and value chain. The future will belong to those willing to reshape their capabilities and grow their organizational resilience.

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How Managers Can Support Employees With Long COVID

21 June 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Implementing workplace accommodations can help companies retain employees experiencing long-term effects from COVID-19 and other chronic illnesses.

Fiona LowensteinMarch 14, 2022

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-managers-can-support-employees-with-long-covid/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=other%20chronic%20illnesses&utm_campaign=Enews%20BOTW%203/18/2022

In the two years since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been nearly 80 million COVID-19 cases in the U.S. While a majority of people infected with the virus recover and return to their daily lives in days or weeks, many suffer from “long COVID,” or PASC (post-acute sequelae of a SARS-CoV-2 infection), a chronic illness that is still not widely understood.

Long COVID typically refers to symptoms following a COVID-19 infection that last for more than four weeks, although many people suffer from symptoms for months or even years. While more data is needed to better understand the wider implications of the illness, studies estimate that long COVID may occur following 10% to 30% of all COVID-19 infections and may be responsible for at least 15% of current labor shortages.

This is an issue that businesses and leaders cannot afford to overlook. Some long COVID patients are unable to work at all; others can work if provided with accommodations. Creating supportive policies for people with long COVID can help employers retain workers and better support chronically ill and disabled employees.

Educate yourself on long COVID. Understanding how long COVID can affect employees is the first step in supporting them. While long COVID is an umbrella term that includes a diverse array of symptoms and experiences, there are some typical symptoms that can impair people’s ability to work. These include but are not limited to fatigue, “brain fog,” tinnitus, smell and taste disorders, gastrointestinal issues, new allergies, shortness of breath, dizziness or fainting upon standing, and post-exertional symptom exacerbation — the worsening of symptoms after physical, mental, or emotional exertion.

Dr. Tenesha Wards, D.C., A.C.N., founder and medical director at Infinity Wellness Center in Austin, Texas, said she was better prepared to accommodate a new hire with long COVID because she was already familiar with the illness. “You can’t learn everyone’s disease,” she admitted. “But [you can] have an open conversation.” Wards recommends that employers talk with employees about symptoms, methods of symptom management, and how long periods of worsened health typically last.

Employers can start by learning about post-exertional symptom exacerbation, or post-exertional malaise (PEM), a common symptom of long COVID and related chronic illnesses. People with PEM often have to carefully pace work tasks with rest, because overexertion can lead to temporarily or permanently worsened health.

When Catherine Thomson returned to work as a physiotherapist after contracting COVID-19 in January 2020, she felt that there was a “mismatch” between what she was capable of and what her employer expected. After attempts at coaching clients, Thomson “crashed big-time.” She developed tachycardia, breathlessness, and extreme sensitivity to light and noise. “It took me about 12 months to get back to where I was before,” she explained.

Thomson, who is also the cofounder of a support group for physical therapists living with long COVID, explained that “episodic disability” can be confusing, so it’s important that employers learn about PEM and other symptoms that may be less widely understood.

Dr. Benjamin Abramoff, M.D., director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Post-COVID Assessment and Recovery Clinic, noted, “It’s not uncommon for returning to work to re-trigger symptoms that had been improving or resolved.”

“I think what carries us to … our recovery are the people around us,” said Ibrahim Rashid, a graduate student at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, who has long COVID. “The most important relationships [are] our employer and our partner.”

Create a safe environment for open communication. Disclosing information about a disability or chronic illness can be intimidating for employees, but transparent communication is crucial for employers to provide the right kind of support. Some employees may choose to disclose their illness while interviewing for a job. In these situations, it benefits both parties if the employer can offer a prompt response confirming that they have understood the employee’s disclosure and any requests for accommodations.

“It is terrifying to disclose a disability … before you have an offer,” Rashid said. Rashid’s fear is reasonable; disabled and chronically ill people face pervasive stigmas, and workplace disability discrimination persists despite legal protections. Rashid once had to wait a month to hear back from a potential employer after his disclosure, which led him to pursue other opportunities instead.

In some cases, it may be helpful for coworkers to be aware of an employee’s illness. Some employees may prefer for employers to disclose their illness to coworkers on their behalf, whereas others might prefer to speak directly to coworkers. Lesley Macniven, a human resources consultant and founding member of Long COVID Support and Long COVID Work — international support groups based in the United Kingdom — suggests that one way to provide better understanding and support on teams is to give employees who have long COVID the option to lead interactive team sessions, where open discussion is welcome, upon their return to work.

Offer remote options. Many long COVID patients find that remote work is a better option for managing symptoms than being in an office. “Working from home can allow patients to pace themselves, which can be important for individuals’ recovery,” Abramoff explained. “It also allows them to conserve energy by not having to deal with the commute, walking into the building, [or] settling into the office. That way, the energy that they do have can be devoted to work.”

Remote work may also feel safer for patients who are worried about reinfection. Research indicates that long COVID patients may be at greater risk for reinfection, and some may have been unable to get vaccinated.

“I’m so scared of getting it again,” Rashid said. He explained that working remotely has given him “peace of mind.”

Some employees with long COVID may feel comfortable returning to the office. The important thing is for employers to avoid making blanket assumptions or policies and instead defer to individual employees living with chronic illnesses about their preferred methods for mitigating risk.

Consider job flexibility and be open to change. Employees with long COVID may need to reduce their work hours or transition to new roles. Nisa Malli, a labor researcher and COVID “long-hauler” in Canada, recommends offering training and retraining programs “for those that cannot physically or cognitively do the same jobs as before.”

Flexible hours and long lead times for work deadlines and events can also be helpful. “If I’m trying to schedule meetings on Zoom that [my employee] needs to be on, I’ll try to schedule them a week out to give her time to prepare,” Wards explained. She emphasized that it was more important to find sustainable long-term solutions than to force the employee back into her original workflow. “They’ve learned to work differently and adapt,” she said. “[If] you believe in them … give them that grace to heal.”

Reevaluate benefits and paid leave policies. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the pandemic has prompted many companies to expand their benefit programs in order to better support employee mental health and well-being. In a survey of 2,504 HR professionals across the U.S., SHRM found that 78% of employers “developed benefit packages specific to the more socially distanced workplaces.” There’s a growing recognition by companies that employees need more diverse benefits when it comes to offerings like telemedicine, family caregiving, and mental health. At a time when companies are thinking more expansively about the needs of employees, those living with chronic illnesses should not be left out.

Employers should consider expanding benefit packages to include part-time employees, stipends for specialists, and partnerships with holistic health centers. They should also be prepared to offer extended leaves of absence and rethink traditional leave restrictions that may be more difficult for people with complex chronic illnesses. Most companies’ current leave policies require extensive documentation, which may be a roadblock for people with long COVID, because they often face doubt from clinicians and are sometimes unable to provide proof of infection. In addition, sick leave policies that allow for only a certain number of “episodes” are less likely to be useful to long COVID patients than policies that renew.

Invest in peer-mentorship programs. While some of the issues long COVID patients face are unique to the current pandemic, many are shared across the disabled and chronically ill populations. “Creating a workplace culture that is supportive for long-haulers means creating a workplace culture that is supportive for workers with disabilities [and] chronic and episodic illnesses,” explained Malli.

Employers should consider funding peer mentorship programs and workplace support groups for chronically ill or disabled employees. When Rashid was first grappling with his return to work, he connected with another disabled employee at his company via LinkedIn. “Every week, we would meet and talk about how to navigate being disabled,” Rashid said. “Having a peer mentor made me feel comfortable.”

Encourage collaborative work systems. A collaborative workplace environment can make it easier for chronically ill employees to communicate their needs. “If you have a company culture where people say, ‘How are you?’ and mean it … it’s so much easier to get help,” explained Macniven.

Seeing the Unseen: A New Lens on Visibility at Work

14 June 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Martha Bird March 17, 2022

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/seeing-the-unseen-a-new-lens-on-visibility-at-work/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=take%20for%20granted&utm_campaign=Enews%20BOTW%203/18/2022

During a recent trip to company headquarters, I arrived much more aware of the surfaces I might encounter than before COVID-19: the turnstile at reception, door and faucet handles, elevator buttons, lunch trays, my keyboard and desk. Given the invisibility of viruses, I was anxious about what I couldn’t see. Still, I was confident that safety protocols had been taken extremely seriously, because a good many other people had worked to make all these surfaces shiny, clean, and fresh.

These essential workers continued to perform these important and oftentimes risky jobs throughout the pandemic, even as “knowledge workers” generally did their jobs from the comfort of home. These shadow workers do the important stuff behind the scenes that many of us who have been working remotely throughout the pandemic take for granted in our relatively frictionless social worlds — until the system breaks down. We expect that the items we’ve ordered online will arrive on time because by and large they do; when they don’t, we become irritated. We wonder in frustration why the school bus routes have suddenly changed. We lose our way when our Wi-Fi signal is weak.

Back-ordered items and understocked shelves make visible the complex global supply chains — operated by people worldwide — that keep commerce moving. For many of us in the Global North who have long assumed the abundance and availability of most products, these disruptions force us to engage in a new way of seeing. We recognize the surfaces as no longer smooth and frictionless; the seams have begun to show. But friction is a creative force, an energy that opens up the possibilities for innovation and positive change.

The past two years have taught many of us that what’s visible isn’t a straightforward proxy for truth or fact. Just because someone looks well doesn’t mean they are; people with COVID-19 can be asymptomatic, and people who appear happy may be burned out. Likewise, unequal access to health care remained largely out of the public eye before COVID-19. Statistics on disease-related mortality rates have made visible the failings inherent in many of our “unseen” systems — political, economic, and social. When the invisible comes into view, it should become more difficult to ignore the ways in which inequity has been normalized by those who benefit most from it.

While we tend to assume that everyone is in the same boat, we may have many more choices than the people around us: the single mom who is required to go to a physical place of work while trying to manage remote learning for her young children; the home health aide who also cares for an elderly parent; the retail worker reliant on public transportation; and the many front-line workers whose jobs put them at risk daily and who find it difficult to cover their basic costs of living.

The disruptive forces of the current historical moment have moved many people to look anew at the invisible and unequally distributed power flows reproduced in our health care and educational systems, public policies, financial institutions, technologies, and, of course, workplaces. Seeking visibility into systems, practices, and policies is one way to begin to start seeing more clearly.

Leading With Intention and Attention

In some sense, “seeing what you want to see” means seeing what you already believe. That’s fine if you seek consensus, but it’s not a good formula for innovative thinking. Pressure is necessary to effect real change. This often involves challenging the status quo and stepping out of what has not been recognized as a fixed perspective.

Surrounding yourself with people with similar experiences, beliefs, and perceptions about the world can foreclose on the possibility of thinking differently. On teams, shared assumptions can result in people coming up with the same or similar solutions to a set of challenges. While these solutions may help people like you, they may fail to address the needs of others who are not. Take, for example, the failure to optimize early smartphone cameras for darker skin tones, or how facial recognition technologies identify White faces with a higher degree of accuracy compared with those of people of color. Technological biases of this kind ensure that some people are seen, while others remain unseen or perhaps seen in a very unfavorable light. This lack of recognition has wide-ranging social, economic, and political ramifications.1

Leading with intention and attention means embracing a questioning mindset and accounting for the ideas and individuals we are listening to as well as those we are not. Good leaders understand that the most imaginative teams are made up of individuals from different backgrounds. These leaders seek to orchestrate opportunities within the team for respectful debate and deeper inquiry and, in the process, invite the possibility of new ways of thinking and doing.

It takes proactivity and a sustained commitment to engage in conversations with people with experiences different from your own. Leaders can create significant change by embracing friction, modeling new values, and listening with genuine curiosity. Here, adopting the mindset of an anthropologist is of great value: being open to diversity, asking questions respectfully, listening with care, and developing an awareness of the systems that shape and are shaped by the social realities of individuals and communities.

As cultural anthropologist Gillian Tett wrote, “Trying to navigate the 21st-century world only using the tools developed in the 20th century, such as rigid economic models, is like walking through a dark wood with a compass at night and only looking down on the dial. Your compass may be technically brilliant and tell you where to aim. But if you only focus on the dial, you may walk into a tree. Tunnel vision is deadly. We need lateral vision.”2

One part of this lateral vision is an appreciation for context and a genuine curiosity to learn about the pulls, pressures, and resulting practices — seen and unseen — that shape how individuals go about their daily lives. For instance, companies that have created policies around flexible work arrangements are responding to what they have learned about the unique contexts of working parents (especially women) and caretakers who would otherwise be forced to leave their jobs. Formalizing back-to-work policies that allow for remote and hybrid arrangements can reinforce the message, “Just because we don’t see you here, that doesn’t mean you’re not seen.”

Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture

7 June 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

Pinpointing the elements of toxic culture in an organization can help leaders focus on addressing the issues that lead employees to disengage and quit.

Donald Sull, Charles Sull, William Cipolli, and Caio BrighentiMarch 16, 2022

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-every-leader-needs-to-worry-about-toxic-culture/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=elements%20of%20toxic%20culture&utm_campaign=Enews%20BOTW%203/18/2022

Toxic culture, as we reported in a recent article, was the single best predictor of attrition during the first six months of the Great Resignation — 10 times more powerful than how employees viewed their compensation in predicting employee turnover.1 The link between toxicity and attrition is not new: By one estimate, employee turnover triggered by a toxic culture cost U.S. employers nearly $50 billion per year before the Great Resignation began.2

While most everyone agrees that toxic workplaces are bad news, there is much less consensus on what makes a culture toxic as opposed to merely annoying. Scholars have proposed multiple, sometimes conflicting definitions of toxic culture, and a quick review of blog posts and managerial articles surfaces dozens of warning signals of toxic culture with little overlap across them.3 In Glassdoor reviews, employees criticize their corporate cultures for hundreds of flaws — including risk aversion, excess bureaucracy, insularity, and an impersonal feel, to mention just a few.

Employees grumble about a lot of things, but which elements of culture are so awful that they qualify as toxic? You might gripe about an old-school or bureaucratic culture, but is that enough to knot your stomach as you pull into the parking lot in the morning? How can we distinguish between a culture so awful that it qualifies as toxic versus one that’s merely irritating?

Pinpointing the elements that make a culture toxic is the first step to improving it. Leaders will dissipate their effort and attention if they try to improve every aspect of corporate culture that some employees find irritating. Instead, they should focus on addressing the core issues that cause employees the most pain and lead them to disengage, bad-mouth their employer, and quit.

To understand what makes a culture toxic, we analyzed the language employees use to describe their organization. When workers write a Glassdoor review, they rate corporate culture on a 5-point scale and also describe their employer’s pros and cons. The topics they choose to write about reveal which factors are most relevant to them. By analyzing the relationship between how they describe their employer and how they rate its culture, we were able to shed light on the cultural factors that best predict a toxic culture. We studied more than 1.3 million Glassdoor reviews from U.S. employees of Culture 500 companies, a sample of large organizations from 40 industries.

In an earlier analysis of the Culture 500 data, we focused on the topics that best predict a company’s overall culture rating based on the average of all employee reviews in that organization.4 Measuring company-level culture is an excellent way to identify factors that matter to many employees, such as benefits, perks, and job security. Focusing on company-level averages, however, might miss elements of toxic culture that are highly significant for a small percentage of the workforce. Therefore, for this study, we analyzed culture at the individual level.

To home in on what makes a culture toxic for employees, we focused on their negative comments. We used the text analytics platform developed by CultureX to identify which topics each employee discussed negatively. (We measured 128 topics in total.) We then analyzed which of the topics mentioned had the largest negative impact on how employees rated corporate culture on a 5-point scale.5

The Toxic Five Culture Attributes

We grouped closely related elements into broader topics and identified what we call the Toxic Five attributes — disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive — that poison corporate culture in the eyes of employees. (See “The Toxic Five.”) While organizational culture can disappoint employees in many ways, these five elements have by far the largest negative impact on how employees rate their corporate culture and have contributed most to employee attrition throughout the Great Resignation.

Noninclusive

Seven of the 20 most powerful predictors of a negative culture rating relate to how well Culture 500 companies encourage the representation of diverse groups of employees and whether they are treated fairly, made to feel welcome, and included in key decisions. Collectively, this cluster of topics is the most powerful predictor of whether employees view their organization’s culture as toxic.

The CultureX platform’s assessment of whether organizations provide a fair and inclusive environment for specific demographic groups includes five topics: gender, race, sexual identity and orientation, disability, and age. All of these identity-related topics rank in the top decile of strongest predictors of a toxic culture. If an employee speaks negatively in a review about how members of the LGBTQ community are treated, for example, their culture rating will be 0.65 lower on a 5-point scale on average.

Two other topics capture comments about exclusion that may or may not be linked to an individual’s demographics or identity. The topic cronyism includes comments about nepotism and managers playing favorites — for example, by promoting their buddies or graduates from the same college rather than the most qualified candidates. The topic general noninclusive culture includes reviews containing terms like “cliques,” “clubby,” or “in crowd” that indicate that some employees are being excluded without specifying why.

None of the diversity, equity, and inclusion topics emerged among the top predictors of a company’s overall culture in our previous analysis using collective employee ratings. This absence highlights the danger of measuring corporate culture exclusively in aggregate terms. If leaders focus on the average review of corporate culture among employees, they may miss issues that affect a small number of employees in profound ways. Respect, for example, is mentioned 30 times more frequently in employee reviews than LGBTQ equity is, but both topics have the same impact on an employee’s view of culture when they are discussed negatively in a review.

Disrespectful

Feeling disrespected at work has the largest negative impact on an employee’s overall rating of their corporate culture of any single topic. Surprisingly, mentioning disrespect has a slightly stronger negative impact on the culture rating than when an employee comes right out and describes their culture as toxic (or uses other extremely negative terms, like “dystopian,” “dumpster fire,” or “soul-crushing”).

In our previous research, we found that respect — or the lack thereof — was the single strongest predictor of how employees as a whole rated the corporate culture. This further analysis demonstrates that whether you analyze culture at the level of the individual employee or aggregate to the organization as a whole, respect toward employees rises to the top of the list of cultural elements that matter most.

Unethical

Ethics, like respect, is a fundamental aspect of culture that matters at both the organizational and individual levels. The topic unethical behavior captures general comments about integrity and ethics within an organization. The most common terms in reviews classified under this topic include “ethics,” “integrity,” “unethical,” “shady,” and “cheat.” Under a related topic — dishonesty — employees described dishonest behavior in dozens of ways, including “lie,” “mislead,” “deceive,” and “make false promises,” as well as adjacent terms that suggest shading the truth, such as “smoke and mirrors” and “sugarcoating.”

The topic regulatory compliance includes comments in which employees explicitly discussed their employer’s failure to comply with applicable regulations. Frequently mentioned regulations include the Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, which protect workers’ safety on the job, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which safeguards sensitive patient information.

Cutthroat

Nearly 10% of employees in our sample made a comment related to teamwork or collaboration in their Glassdoor review. Employees frequently grumbled about uncooperative teammates or the lack of coordination across organizational silos. Comments about friction in coordination, while common, have a very modest impact on how employees rate their corporate culture. These run-of-the-mill frustrations are not clear warning signs of toxic culture.

In contrast, when employees talked about colleagues actively undermining one another, their comments strongly predicted a negative culture score. The 1% of employees who cited a cutthroat culture employed a vivid lexicon to describe their workplace, including “dog-eat-dog” and “Darwinian” and talked about coworkers who “throw one another under the bus,” “stab each other in the back,” or “sabotage one another.”

Abusive

We define abusive management as sustained hostile behavior toward employees, as opposed to a boss who has a bad day and takes it out on team members.6 The most frequently mentioned hostile behaviors in our sample are bullying, yelling, or shouting at employees, belittling or demeaning subordinates, verbally abusing people, and condescending or talking down to employees.

Nearly one-third of employees said something about management in their review, but just 0.8% described their manager as abusive. When employees did mention abusive managers, however, it depressed their culture rating by an additional 0.50 on average.

When employees join a company, they expect to find a culture that is inclusive, respectful, ethical, collaborative, and free from abuse by those in positions of power. Not only are these baseline elements of a healthy corporate culture, they are also what companies typically promise in their official core values. In an earlier study, we found that “integrity” — mentioned by nearly two-thirds of companies — was the attribute most frequently listed among companies’ core values, while collaboration ranked second, respect fourth, and diversity and inclusion ninth. When corporate culture fails to deliver on these fundamental commitments, employees understandably react with something stronger than annoyance or disappointment.

The High Costs of a Toxic Culture

By identifying the core elements of a toxic culture, we can synthesize existing research on closely related topics, including discrimination, abusive managers, unethical organizational behavior, workplace injustice, and incivility.7 This research allows us to tally the full cost of a toxic culture to individuals and organizations. And the toll, in human suffering and financial expenses, is staggering.

A large body of research shows that working in a toxic atmosphere is associated with elevated levels of stress, burnout, and mental health issues.8 Toxicity also translates into physical illness. When employees experience injustice in the workplace, their odds of suffering a major disease (including coronary disease, asthma, diabetes, and arthritis) increase by 35% to 55%.9

In addition to the pain imposed on employees, a toxic culture also imposes costs that flow directly to the organization’s bottom line. When a toxic atmosphere makes workers sick, for example, their employer typically foots the bill. Among U.S. workers with health benefits, two-thirds have their health care expenses paid directly by their employer.10 By one estimate, toxic workplaces added an incremental $16 billion in employee health care costs in 2008.11 The figure below summarizes some of the costs of a toxic culture for organizations. (See “The Organizational Costs of Toxic Culture.”)

According to a study from the Society of Human Resource Management, 1 in 5 employees left a job at some point in their career because of its toxic culture.12 That survey, conducted before the pandemic, is consistent with our findings that a toxic culture is the best predictor of a company experiencing higher employee attrition than its industry overall during the first six months of the Great Resignation. Gallup estimates that the cost of replacing an employee who quits can total up to two times their annual salary when all direct and indirect expenses are accounted for.13

Companies with a toxic culture will not only lose employees — they’ll also struggle to replace workers who jump ship. Over three-quarters of job seekers research an employer’s culture before applying for a job.14 In an age of online employee reviews, companies cannot keep their culture problems a secret for long, and a toxic culture, as we showed above, is by far the strongest predictor of a low review on Glassdoor.15 Having a toxic employer brand makes it harder to attract candidates.

Other costs of a toxic culture are harder to quantify but can still add up. Extremely disengaged employees are nearly 20% less productive than their engaged counterparts because they put in less effort and miss more days on the job.16 Nearly half of employees who felt disrespected at work admitted to decreasing their effort and time spent at work.17

Then there’s the reputational risk. Among U.S. CEOs and CFOs surveyed, 85% agreed that an unhealthy corporate culture could lead to unethical or illegal behavior.18 For example, after fraudulent sales practices at Wells Fargo were exposed in 2016, the bank paid billions of dollars in fines and lawsuits and saw its corporate reputation suffer the largest single-year drop in Harris Poll history.19

Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture

You might think that toxic culture is somebody else’s problem, limited to a handful of high-profile flameouts like Wells Fargo or The Weinstein Company and not something your organization needs to worry about.

Unfortunately, cultural toxicity is widespread. On average, 10% of American employees in large companies mentioned one or more elements of a toxic culture in their Glassdoor reviews in the five years between 2016 to 2020.20 This translates into more than 6,000 miserable workers for the average large American company.21 There is a wide spread around that average: Culture 500 companies ranged from 2% to 22% of employees discussing toxicity in their Glassdoor reviews. When 1 out of every 4 employees mentions toxicity, it’s fair to say that the corporate culture as a whole is toxic.

The 7 Qualities of People Who Are Highly Respected

2 June 2022/in Uncategorised/by Dishen

By Jacqueline Whitmore March 15, 2016

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/271849

Respect is something not automatically given. It must be earned. When you’re in a leadership position, it is imperative that the people with whom you work respect you. They might respect your work habits, your intelligence, or your ability to close a deal. Yet, there’s more to respect than that. If you can earn their respect as a person, then you’ve really won the game.

Here are some tips for earning more respect.

1. Be polite.

Always be polite to everyone you meet during the day, from your family members to your co-workers, to the checkout person at the grocery store. Give others the same respect you’d like to receive yourself. Seek out actions you can take to offer politeness. Open the door at the coffee shop for the person behind you, or let the person with one item go ahead of you in the grocery store. Say please and thank you whenever possible.

2. Act respectfully.

Eliminate disrespectful behaviors such as rolling your eyes, interrupting or talking negatively about someone. Not only are these actions not respectful of the person you’re interacting with, they deter or prevent further involvement or resolution of issues, and create a wedge that can become permanent. Instead, foster an environment of respectful listening. Everyone deserves to be heard, even if you don’t agree with a person’s views or opinions. Consider how you’d like to be treated if you have something to say, especially if there is an important issue at hand.

3. Listen well.

Listening is an active process, not a passive one. Think before you speak. Most often in today’s conversations, one person’s comments “trigger” thoughts in the listener, who then brings forth their own story along the same lines. Instead of telling your tale, ask questions that encourage the speaker to tell you more. Most people will be flattered that you care.

4. Be helpful.

People earn respect by always being ready to lend a hand or an ear whenever they’re needed or notice an opportunity to help. Look for opportunities to help that you might have previously overlooked. Does a co-worker need help with a big project? Can you grab a cup of coffee for someone? Strive to be helpful several times a day.

5. Don’t make excuses.

Your actions are based on your choices, and barring some unforeseen circumstance, there is no reason for excuses. Own your actions. For example, if you’re constantly late, don’t make lame excuses. Own up to your mistakes and instead of dwelling on them, look for opportunities to move past them and do better next time. Instead of focusing on your shortcomings, ask, “How can I rectify my behavior or situation?”

6. Let go of anger.

Holding on to anger or a grudge doesn’t hurt anyone but yourself. If you get upset, allow yourself to be angry momentarily, then move on and either rectify the situation or put it behind you. Give yourself and others a break. Forgive, and then forget.

7. Be willing to change.

Being intractable won’t get you anywhere. Realize that the process of evolution includes change. Make an effort to grow as a person; learn new skills, try new activities, and especially, re-examine your automatic behaviors. And don’t forget to congratulate yourself on progress you make along the way to becoming a better person.

1. Evaluate yourself.

2. Think of a business idea.

3. Do market research.

4. Get feedback.

5. Make it official.

6. Write your business plan.

7. Finance your business.

8. Develop your product or service.

9. Start building your team.

10. Find a location.

11. Start getting some sales.

12. Grow your business.

Fred Stevens-Smith

Joanna Griffiths

Keith Krach

What is authentic leadership?

Characteristics of authentic leaders

How do we create authenticity?

How to be an authentic leader

Businesses and authentic leadership

1. Be a great listener

2. Don’t make excuses

3. Practice authenticity

4. Don’t forget to be the guide

5. Always lead yourself first

1. You want to start a business.

2. You own an established firm and are seeking help.

3. You need to determine your objectives.

4. You’re trying to predict the future.

5. You want to use it to raise all the money you’ll need.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Leading With Intention and Attention

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

REFERENCES (2)

The Toxic Five Culture Attributes

Noninclusive

Disrespectful

Unethical

Cutthroat

Abusive

The High Costs of a Toxic Culture

Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

REFERENCES (31)

1. Be polite.

2. Act respectfully.

3. Listen well.

4. Be helpful.

5. Don’t make excuses.

6. Let go of anger.

7. Be willing to change.

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