Posts by Rebecca
Would you recommend working for you?
Even better: would you want to work for you? I want you to be very careful when you answer this question, and make sure you are thinking of your business as it really is, not as you want it to be. Your employees work in the reality that exists today, tomorrow, and every day. Not…
Read MoreHow does everybody spend their time?
“I want all my employees to be in the office to Build better camaraderie Brainstorm more Make sure I know what they are doing“ If you’re in point three, where your employees work doesn’t matter. You still don’t know what they are doing. What are people doing? It’s unlikely that you spend all day standing…
Read MoreDoes everybody know your mission statement?
If I ask ten of your employees what your mission statement is, how many different answers will I receive? And how different will they be from your answer? Use your mission statement Your mission statement is a tool. Use it. I am aware that many people see it as a form of PR, a “nice…
Read MoreAre you living by your guiding principles?
Leading by example is one of the main points of leadership. You may have noticed: it’s in the word. To get the behavior you want from your employees is to be the person you want them to be. They can see you We don’t live in an episode of Big Brother, but we are being…
Read MoreAre you achieving all of your goals on time?
The next question is: does it matter? What’s most important to you when it comes to achieving your goals? Meeting a deadline Checking a “completed” box Creating new value in your business You probably know where I am going with this: goals aren’t about dates and times. Goals add value to your business. What has…
Read MoreThe historical lens of lessons learned
One of the challenges of studying history, classics, and the past, is knowing how to read stories through the right lens: is it ours, or is it the lens of the time? Do you know how this comes up in business? In your Lessons Learned. Lessons Learned After a major project or process update, you…
Read MoreWhy you should stop having performance reviews
The annual performance review. Every employee’s favorite moment of their favorite day. They prepare for it, they celebrate it, they wait all year or all quarter for this fun, exciting, stimulating moment— Clearly: I am joking. Nobody likes performance reviews, neither employees nor employers. So let’s stop doing them. Let’s have Stay Interviews instead. What…
Read MoreYour business is more than the sum of its parts
I recently started working with a new client, who first called me because in his words: “I realized I had given myself a job, not built myself a business”. It all started when he considered the option of semi-retirement. And he realized that the most valuable – maybe the only truly valuable – thing in…
Read MoreThe best lessons are the ones we learn
There’s nothing wrong with things going wrong in business. Do you remember Apple’s first hand-held device, the Newton? No? That’s ok, neither does anybody else. Managerially the company did everything right and yet the product was a huge flop. But the brand didn’t disappear, and 13 years later they launched the iPhone, which quickly set…
Read MoreThe most important line in your job descriptions
There’s one sentence in your job description that matters the most. If you were only allowed to share one line from your job description, this would be the line to share. It’s the line that tells people what to do. And it goes like this: “The purpose of this role is…” A job adds value…
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