Tag Archives: Focus

How Do You Stay Focused While Building? Five Suggestions

Interview with G.K. Sally Solis-Cohen, President, CEO Intronet

Situation: An early stage company is simultaneously undergoing geographic expansion and broadening its network to include new audiences. This mandates finding the right people to run the new opportunities while staying focused on existing operations. How do you stay focused on core operations while building new opportunities?

Advice from Sally Solis-Cohen:

  • First and foremost, understand your own limitations. Know what you can do, what you can’t, and delegate what you can’t do. This means choosing the right people to whom you can delegate important initiatives. As a start-up you have few people to whom you can delegate. Make sure that they see the opportunity as you do and have the skill and personality sets to handle their responsibilities. The choices that you make in selecting your core team will be critical to your success.
  • Make sure that your team talks back to you – your need their perspective and feedback, especially when their perspective differs from your own. Listen openly to their ideas. At the same time listen to your customers; they will keep you focused on your business and marketing plans. Focus more on listening, thinking and doing than speaking.
  • Have a very clear set of priorities and a to-do list. Focus on your A priorities. Delegate the rest. When you’re growing it doesn’t double your work, it quadruples it with travel and extra distractions.
  • Stay focused on your core value proposition. Keep reminding yourself why you started the business. Observe the validation that you receive from your customers and users. Live your value proposition.
  • If you are talking to nay-sayers, you’re talking to the wrong people. Surround yourself with positive people who are heading in the same direction that you are and who can present alternate points of view in a positive tone.

You can contact Sally Solis-Cohen at ssoliscohen@ceointronet.com

Key Words: Growth, Expansion, Right People, Opportunity, Focus, Operations, Limitations, Delegate, Feedback, Listen, Priorities, Distractions, Validation, Positive

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Do You Need To Rely on Venture Capital Funding? Three Questions

Interview with Charles Bellavia, CEO, ElectraDrive

Situation: High tech entrepreneurs frequently see venture capital funding as a quick route to enabling their ventures. However VC funding is highly variable by tech sector and company cash needs, and few companies are ever funded. Do you need to rely on VC funding and what are the alternatives?

Advice from Charles Bellavia:

  • The first question to ask is what you want from VCs. In the past they brought both contacts and funding. Now, generally, they just bring funding. So ask three questions.
  • Can you fund the company out of your own pocket?
    • Far more companies are funded by founders, friends and families than by VCs. However self-funding demands conditions.
    • Cofounders should have alternate income sources so that they can operate without salaries for periods of time.
    • Watch the life stages of start-up cofounders. Avoid joining a start-up when your kids need your attention, especially during their teen years. Can you forgo regular income if you are paying for college? If an annual 2-week summer vacation is important, don’t join a start-up.
  •  What is the minimum funding needed for the company?
    • What funding do you need just to prove your technology and generate cash?
    • Focus is key. People will suggest variations. You have to know your path and whether variations will help or distract.
    • Stay with your core idea and think in terms of product generations. Build fitting variations into future plans if they will delay initial launch.
  •  How do you keep project workers motivated?
    • Plan for turnover. Know who is key to the project, and where you need back-ups.
    • Start-up life is all consuming. When the picture on the wall is crooked, everyone jumps to straighten it out.
    • Have fun and make it fun. This needn’t be expensive, like parking lot pot-luck barbeques with a CD deck and music.
    • Be generous with simple, low cost recognition. Acknowledge employees for who they are and where they came from. This is especially important when you have diverse employees and builds camaraderie. One company has pot luck lunches and employees are asked to bring their national dish; the food is wonderful and helps employees to appreciate one another.

You can contact Charles Bellavia at cfb@electradrive.net

Key Words: Funding, Venture Capital, VC, Bootstrap, Self-fund, Friends, Family, Income, Salary, Founder, Life Stage, Focus, Core, Iteration, Turnover, Fun, Recognition

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What Have You Done to Manage Rapid Growth? Five Foci

Situation: A company has experienced rapid growth. This is creating stress for the staff and CEO, who finds it difficult to break away from the day to day to focus on strategy. Employees are not keeping pace with the evolving needs of the company and turnover has increased. What have you done to manage rapid growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The first task is to improve forecasting of business growth, and the infrastructure needed to support this growth. This includes:
    • Regularly updating your sales and production forecasts.
    • Updating staff and training plans to meet growth forecasts.
    • Updating infrastructure and support plans.
    • Without these, the organization will whipsaw in response to market demands.
  • Take a critical look at your staff development plans and staff training.
    • Look at those areas that are most impacted by business growth. Determine whether you have the right managers and support in place.
    • Evaluate whether you have the right people and whether they have the skills to handle new demands of their positions.
  • Critically evaluate each now job that you take on. Assure that you have the staff and infrastructure to meet client demands.
    • Always assure that you deliver on your company’s integrity, reputation and core values.
  • In addition to addressing immediate needs, look at long-term plans strategically. Ask where you will be in 10 years. Articulate this vision in detail, and drive plans down through the organization. Make sure that everyone is on the same page, aligned with the same values, aiming at the same targets.
  • Also differentiate your vision from your mission:
    • You vision is a 10 year time frame, not one year.
    • Your mission is what you will be doing this year and in 5 years – the activities you will undertake to realize your longer term vision.
    • Fine tune your vision and mission and drive these through the organization. This will give you clarity on how you wish to do business and will help you to make hard choices as you handle rapid growth.

Key Words: Growth, Rapid, Stress, Focus, Turnover, Forecast, Infrastructure, Training, Support, Values, Staff, Development, Skill, Plan, Align, Vision, Mission

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How Do You Focus on Positive Responses to Stress? Ten Techniques

Interview with Janis Pullen, Transformational Coach

Situation: When we encounter stress, like financial, economic or business stress, we may respond positively and proactively or negatively. Negative responses include drinking, smoking and comfort eating which can damage our health. How do you focus on positive responses to stress?

Advice from Janis Pullen:

  • It is important to understand that there are two aspects to stress management – the ontological or being side and the facilitative or doing side. These are different but related.
  • When people experience stress they seek comfort in activities that they associate with relaxation. This includes alcohol, tobacco and eating. These reactions are automatic, habitual and predictable and can lead to unhealthy consequences.
  • Ontological techniques to counter habitual, automatic reactions and to positively respond to stressors include:
    • Recreate our relationship to time. In the US we are deadline oriented and multitask. These increase stress.
    • Arrive at meetings 5 minutes early so that we give ourselves time to get settled instead of entering the meeting in a rush.
    • Plan time for nothing – even a 5-minute break with no pressure to “do” anything increases ease and relaxation.
    • Become more aware of our needs and what we have to do to meet them. Often we are not in tune with our needs and operate on top of them. The positive alternative is to slow down, notice more of what is within and around us, and have the courage to fulfill our real, deeper needs.
    • Take responsibility. When we blame external causes for situations, we give up power and control. The alternative is to be “at cause” rather than “at effect” to produce constructive results.
    • Realize you are not alone.  Employ assistance/guidance/mentorship to lighten your load.
  • On the facilitative side, these practices can alleviate or reduce stress:
    • Simply take a few deep breaths when we become aware of stress. This increases blood oxygen, helps us to relax and cools our reaction.
    • Exercise – even a short walk – does wonders for changing moods from negative to positive. Under stress, the body releases cortisol and adrenalin – the fight or flight hormones. Exercise increases endorphins, which help us to relax and reduces cortisol and adrenalin levels.
    • Consciously eat whole versus processed foods and drink more water to help our bodies to function more efficiently and to respond more effectively to stress. Berries and nuts are much healthier snacks than sugar or other simple carbohydrates.
    • Sufficient sleep is critical to effective physical and mental function. Alcohol impairs sleep by reducing deep sleep cycles so we do not wake up refreshed.
  • The effective solution to stress is to focus on our real needs and to replace destructive behavior patterns with constructive alternatives.

You can contact Janis Pullen at Janis@CoachJanisPullen.com

Key Words: Stress, Response, Positive, Proactive, Negative, Alcohol, Tobacco, Eating, Food, Ontological, Facilitative, Comfort, Habit, Healthy, Unhealthy, Real Needs, Time Management, Deadline, Act, Control, Responsibility, Blame, Breath, Cortisol, Adrenalin, Endorphins, Whole Foods, Sugar, Carbohydrates, Focus

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Are Negative Incentives Effective? Four Perspectives

Situation: A company has been struggling to meet objectives. Financials aren’t completed on schedule, limiting the ability of the CEO to manage by the numbers. Milestones are behind schedule. The CEO was advised to consider stringent measures, including financial penalties, to force compliance to performance goals. In your experience, are negative incentives effective?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are at least three potential roots of this problem. Have your hired people who lack the skills to perform their functions? Is there a clear plan and set of priorities in place? Or are you as the CEO being consistent in your demands of the team? You need all three to meet your objectives.
  • Be sure to set SMART objectives: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. In addition, make sure that everyone understands how their performance impacts not only the plans of the company, but their salary and benefits as an employee. Be sure that everyone has the resources to complete what is expected of them.
  • Be careful if you are considering financial penalties, and negative incentives.
    • Many studies have shown that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement.
    • If an employee is chronically behind on deliverables, ask what is happening and why they are not getting the job done.
    • If the response is not satisfactory, and performance doesn’t improve, you are better off terminating the employee than using negative incentives.
  • Often the question is not one of motivation but one of focus. Focus has to start at the top, and has to be maintained through departmental and team leadership. Make sure that there is proper training in setting and monitoring achievement of objectives throughout your leadership team. It helps if everyone clearly understands what the company is trying to achieve.

Key Words: Objectives, Achievement, Failure, Schedule, Manage, Numbers, Penalties, Compliance, Positive, Negative, Incentive, SMART, Resources, Achievable, Motivation, Focus, Training, Great Game of Business, Jack Stack, Understand

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How Do You Take a Guilt-Free Vacation? Seven Suggestions

Situation: A CEO has not taken a vacation for years due to focus on the company. He knows that he needs a vacation and wants to take one. However, he feels guilty taking time off. How do you take a guilt-free vacation?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • For your general health, you need to take time off to refresh and recharge!
  • Think of the vacation as your CEO Test – have you created a team that can perform in your absence?
    • You may be amazed at the initiative that some will take given the freedom to do so. As a corollary, initiative is accompanied by risk and your employees may make some bad choices. Be patient. Congratulate them for taking initiative and coach to improve choices.
    • Stay out of touch. Don’t call in daily and see what happens. If and when you do call in, don’t solve challenges that come up – let your people solve the challenges. Keep a few notes. On your return see where you need to adjust procedures to allow employees to make independent decisions.
    • More than one CEO has found that taking 3-4 week vacations each year has had very positive results. The company actually performs more efficiently and with more energy upon their return than it did when they left!
  • To ensure that you take a vacation, schedule it in advance. Let everyone know that you are going to take it and Just Do It!
  • If you can’t take the time to plan a vacation, have your spouse or a loved one plan the vacation.
  • If you need to feel in touch during your vacation, take your laptop. You may never even use it, but it will be there as a security blanket. Once you are on vacation, let family and personal priorities rightly take precedence over your need to stay in touch.

Key Words: Vacation, Company, Focus, Guilt, Health, Refresh, Recharge, Initiative, Patience, Coach, Problems, Valuation, Performance, Planning, Priorities, Family, Stress, Support

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How Does an Entrepreneur Evolve from Doer to Leader? Four Suggestions

Situation: A company has grown largely through the determination and energy of the founding CEO who is still the principal business development resource. The CEO wants to move from day-to-day focus to a leadership role, planning for the future. How have you evolved from principal doer to leader?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Start by developing and managing an organizational chart for the business.
    • Create the organizational chart initially by role and responsibility.
    • Match existing people to the roles. Individuals may fill more than one role, but be sure that the individuals are suited to the roles to which they are assigned.
  • Give ownership of areas of responsibility to others.
    • Make it clear for each area of responsibility that the individual assigned is now in charge.
    • Match projects or assignments with individuals’ abilities and available time.
    • Establish quarterly or annual performance objectives WITH as opposed to FOR each individual – objectives that support company objectives.
    • See that people are rewarded for their results – both soft and monetary rewards – as appropriate to the responsibility held by each.
  • While you continue as the lead of business development, hand off new clients to others as soon as you get them on-board. Let others take on the customer nurturing and maintenance roles. Establish a plan to replace yourself in this role.
  • The EMyth Revisited by Michael Gerber provides a soup to nuts recipe for moving from doer to leader of a company. Everything starts with your organizational chart.

Key Words: Leader, Doer, Role, Focus, Organizational Chart, Org Chart, People, Match, Ownership, Responsibility, Performance, Objectives, Reward, Results, EMyth, Gerber

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When Do You Focus on the Plan and When Do You Adjust? Four Guidelines

Interview with Phil Bookman, CEO, Assistyx

Situation: The dynamics of an early-stage business require balance between focus and opportunity. The challenge is in the balancing act. When do you focus on the plan, and when do you adjust?

Advice from Phil Bookman:

  • Never allow your friends to become statistics. We call our customers our friends. Our most loyal and vocal friends were our early adopters and got us where we are today. They remain important participants in the conversation and are always in our focus.
  • Along the same lines, when using social media to communicate to your audience, remember that this is a face-to-face conversation. This is a key point of focus.
    • Remove as much friction from online interactions as you can. Make it as easy as possible for people visiting your web site to buy. This requires both live interactions with users and attention to detail. If a question keeps coming up, answer it; put the answer right up front on your web site where it cannot be missed.
    • We’ve made hundreds of tweaks, each tiny. Each has removed a point of friction. As the company grows it is easy to lose sight of these details. Never lose sight of details.
  • Much of what we face in business is transitory. It is important to stay nimble so that you don’t get stuck fighting the last skirmish. For example, in 2009, we found that a subscription service was difficult for institutional users like purchasing departments in schools to understand. It isn’t now.
  • You must be careful not to chase bright shiny objects – opportunities that take you outside your principal market competence. Would you try to modify a hammer to put in screws?
    • Our principal product TapToTalk is a communication device for kids with verbal challenges. Some have suggested that it could also be a teaching device. Possibly in the future there will be room in our plan for a teaching device, but we will address this as its own market and application when we are large enough to diversify.

You can contact Phil Bookman at pbookman@assistyx.com

Key Words: Early Stage Business, Focus, Opportunity, Balance, Adjust, Early Adopter, Social Media, Friction, Detail, Nimble

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How do you Adapt Behavior as you Shift Focus? Five Points

Interview with Adam Kleinberg, CEO, Traction

Situation: The Company is shifting focus from project-based to relationship-based client interactions –from a short to a long-term perspective. This is a challenge. How do you adapt employee behavior to a new strategic focus?

Advice:

  • Assume the best intentions.
    • Everyone wants to do a good job. The challenge is making sure everyone knows what constitutes a good job.
    • Be clear on objectives, and why they are important. Be clear on the new roles.
    • This is most difficult when the shift is counter to a well-established company culture.
  • You have to have the right people.
    • Avoid smart people with no role, or a role for which they are ill-suited.
    • The organization IS the people. There must be absolute commitment to assigning the right talent on any job, and the right people to the right team.
    • Players must fit in terms of skill set and culture. The company is who, not what!
  • Focus efforts and objectives on the long-term vs. the short-term.
    • Paint the end state – the vision. Add tangible steps to guide people to the right path.
    • Don’t micromanage. Set direction and initial moves, but let staff blaze the path.
    • Provide feedback and recognition.
    • Negative feedback is always difficult, but best when delivered directly and quickly.
    • Recognize success and contributions both 1-on-1 and in all-hands meetings.
  • We hired an experienced manager with a strong track record. Initially this created discomfort; however discomfort was quickly resolved as this person produced positive impact.
    • We cited the wins in all-hands meetings to support the shift.
  • Make people feel that their opinions are heard, and their solutions.
    • Be clear on objectives and rationale. Assure that your perspective as leader is grounded in a credible reality that you can communicate to the team.
    • Conduct workshops which focus on the practical steps that will produce the desired result.
    • Listen to feedback from team members, and include what you hear in the agenda for future discussions. Involve the team in developing the solution. Delegate and recognize!

You can contact Adam Kleinberg at adam@tractionco.com or Twitter at well@adamkleinberg

Key Words: Focus, Client Interaction, Behavior, Role, Objective, Rationale, Right People, Culture, Feedback, Recognition, Workshop, Involvement

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Can You Increase Value in Social Network Discussions? Four Thoughts

Interview with Kenneth Vogt, CEO, Crooner Labs, Inc.

Situation: Individuals participate in social networking sites for several reasons – to network, to promote their businesses, products or services, and to gain insight through crowd sourcing. For these audiences, what are the best ways to increase the value in your discussions?

Advice:

  • Encourage participants to move from a short-term to a medium-term focus. Short term focus is about lead generation, immediate results and “Buy, Buy, Buy Now.” Think of the man in the flashy sports coat selling cars on late night television. It may generate a “sale” but with low engagement and commitment. If focus you instead on engagement, you start to build growth which is more sustainable – which will stay alive with more momentum.
  • Clarify your objectives. Are you interested in sales or influence today, or this quarter? How much effort do you want to put into it and what payback do you seek?
  • Be patient. Take the time to develop quality content. This time is an investment which pays back both medium and long-term.
  • Stop treating people as though they are stupid and can be manipulated into buying from you. There is a karmic cost to this approach. Look instead at the potential benefit that you can provide that will attract people to your content. Think in terms of reciprocity – give first and let others decide how they will respond.
  • Some time ago I tried an experiment. I proposed a simple question: “What do you want?” I asked the question three times, each time with a different thought in mind – first annoyance, then confusion, and finally empathy. But rather than speak the questions, I sent them via instant message one after the other. The words on the page were exactly the same each time, “What do you want?” Yet without tone of voice, expression or body language, the receivers could instantly tell me what I was thinking in each case. The same works in social networking. People can read where you are coming from based on how you position your content. So if you want to increase the value of what you have to say or offer, offer it openly and invite your audience to respond.

You can contact Kenneth Vogt at kvogt@croonerlabs.com

Key Words: Social Network, Discussion, Focus, Objectives, Value  [like]