Posts Tagged ‘productivity’
Hire the right person the first time
Hiring is difficult. It’s complicated, and confusing, and will take a long time. Here’s one way to simplify your hiring: start with essential skills. What are essential skills? Essential skills are the skills you need for the job but don’t have time to teach. You can teach somebody how to use a hammer to hang…
Read MoreDid your employees mess up? It’s probably your fault.
Raise your hand if you ever had a roommate. Keep your hand up if you ever tried to pour yourself a glass of milk only to discover there were only 8 drops left. So you tell your roommate to please add milk to the shopping list when they finish it, and your roommate answers: “I…
Read MoreThe workflow checklist: make it work for you
Knowing what to do is half the battle. The other half is doing it well. Consider cooking a new recipe. You have to know what the ingredients are, how they should be prepped, and then each step in the cooking process and how to tell when it is time for the next ingredient. That takes…
Read MoreThe three pillars of a sustainable business
When you search for images of an ancient Greek temple, most of what you see will have at least a foundation and columns remaining. This image springs to mind when I think of a sustainable business. The foundation is the mission. The columns are the business pillars of happy employees, loyal clients, and business goals. …
Read MoreThe one question that will transform your performance reviews
You can throw company happy hours, host team dinners, buy pinball machines and eliminate job titles all you want. But once you put an employee in a performance review, there is a strict hierarchy of who reports to whom. And that hierarchy is what makes it challenging to get good feedback: the employee knows you…
Read MoreWhy scaling is better than growth for your business
Growing your business means adding parts. More clients, more employees, more desks, more anything. Scaling your business means that your revenue increases, but your resources stay about the same. More clients, but without more of everything else. Why scaling is better than growing If doubling your client numbers means doubling the resources you need to…
Read MoreThe Glue Your Business Needs Every Day
What has to happen in your business? When people think of business functions, they tend to list marketing, sales, finance, human resources, maybe production as well. However you make your list, there is one fundamental business function that ties all the rest together; the glue that makes it work, if you will. Management. Collaborate more…
Read MoreWho are you hiring?
You have described the problem you are solving and used that to decide what role you need to hire. Let’s now transition to “who” you have to hire. And yes, I did say transition. It’s a journey, not a step. Hiring for impact Answer one question before making further decisions: Which roles have the biggest…
Read MoreHumans vs. Machines: Who Wins?
In the eternal struggle between humans and machines, I have come to trust the opinion of chess champion Gary Kasparov. Not least because his opinion has changed over time and as he examined results. His conclusion is: machines are better than humans at some things. Humans are better than machines at some things. And nobody…
Read MoreWrite job roles, not job titles
What has to happen in your business? This is an easy one. Sales, marketing, human resources, finance, and let’s add legal and customer service. To begin with, anyway. Here’s the catch: imagine you hire a new marketing employee. And you tell this person to “do marketing”. What are they doing all day? Is it what…
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