Author: Fotis Georgiadis

Daron Robertson of BroadPath: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

When we surveyed employees at the onset of lockdown to understand how aspects of their lives were changing, 63 percent indicated that they did not expect the pandemic to have much overall impact on their jobs at BroadPath. This feedback was affirming because lack of control and social isolation have been major pain points in the transition to remote work during the pandemic, increasing the risk for burnout exponentially. We felt reassured that technology and programs developed within our organization had already created a sense of connection and stability among our teams and, as proof, we experienced no disruption to business from the pandemic.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daron Robertson, CEO and co-founder of the virtual workplace platform Bhive and CEO and founder of BPO Service Provider BroadPath. Daron has redefined how remote work is conducted, recreating an open office environment while addressing common remote-work challenges — connectivity, accountability, and security — for thousands of his employees working from home offices in 50 states and 4 countries. To help care for employees mental and physical health, Daron enhanced Bhive with a unique wellness program, HiveLife, that features stress management, meditation, and nutrition classes.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

My mom and dad had somewhat unconventional backgrounds which influenced my life path significantly. My mother was from Missouri but grew up in the rainforests of Costa Rica during the revolutionary period. Her father, my grandfather, was an Indiana Jones type figure who flew around with the pilot Jimmy Angel (for which Angel Falls, Venezuela is named) scouting for gold mines. He even had a Peruvian mummy stored in his attic for a while. My dad grew up in more conservative Arizona but spent years rock climbing and Alpine mountaineering in Europe with Jon Harlin, a well-known figure at the time. He was a perfectionist and extremely competitive in everything he did (e.g., high jumping, climbing, sailplane gliding).

With this backdrop I spent the first half my life collecting interesting experiences, which is to say I tried a lot of things but committed to little. For instance, for several years I nurtured a strong interest in sustainable agriculture and spent time in the rainforests of Ecuador and Brazil studying indigenous farming practices. After that, I pivoted into water and wastewater engineering for a few years. Then went to business school, had a brief stint at PwC for strategy consulting, then worked to open a rock-climbing gym in Chicago. I finally shifted into the healthcare field and helped grow a services business for several years.

After 20 years of this — jumping into disparate endeavors for three to five-year stints — I began to feel unfulfilled and lacking purpose. I needed to recalibrate.

In classic tradition, I quit my job and moved out west. Over the course of several months spent reading, road-tripping and rock climbing, I began to appreciate that part of my discontent stemmed from lack of long-term commitment. I was always searching for the next big thing (better job, better relationship, better city) and coming up feeling empty. Like a life tourist.

In retrospect it seems odd, but I made a conscious decision to just commit. Within the same year I proposed to my wife and started a new business, embarking on a ten-year journey where both family and work have blossomed into more fulfilling and enriching endeavors than I could have ever imagined.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

In early 2009 I experienced a truly make-or-break moment for my fledgling company. The financial crisis had but the brakes on our initial launch, and I was the only remaining employee of BroadPath, working alone in my above-the-garage office and struggling to land my first client. Out of nowhere, a hot prospect dropped into my lap. It was the perfect first client: they needed help urgently, wanted to work with me, and I knew we could knock it out of the park for them. Most importantly, they were a Fortune 50 organization. Working for them would boost our credibility and could dramatically accelerate our growth.

There was only one hitch. For reasons unknown, their risk management department prohibited them from doing business with any home-based businesses. Given our neighborhood location and guest-house layout we very much resembled a work-from-home company. Moreover, they required a physical inspection of the office before they could move forward, and said inspection needed to occur the very next day to keep the tight deadline.

Panicked but optimistic (a state of mind that dominated the first few years of our existence), I consented to the inspection and began to scramble for a solution. Online, I found a checklist outlining their specific criteria for what defined a “real office”: a) building zoned as a business, b) permanent sign affixed to structure, c) office equipment visible, and so on.

After careful research, I discovered that my sister’s house was in fact one of a handful in the community that was dual-zoned business/residential. Bingo! Next, I bought a clear plastic sign, bolted it to the side of the house, and slipped our name and logo inside. Finally, I decided to purchase additional office equipment (even an old fax machine) to build out the business-like atmosphere.

The inspector, a very pleasant person, showed up and asked all the questions I knew were coming. She took a few pictures, checked the box “not a home-based business” and left. I won the contract, we knocked it out of the park, and they became a much-referenced client that put us on the map. We never looked back.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

So many mistakes to recount. In the early days, every misstep seemed almost existentially threatening to the business. In retrospect few things were. For example, I remember the first time we accidentally sent our pricing information to a competitor via “reply all” (yes, it’s happened more than once). I felt punched in the gut. As bad as that was, I am much more forgiving of mistakes now. In fact, over the years many of our competitors have returned the favor!

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Since our workforce has been 100 percent work-from-home for nearly a decade, we have made it a priority to recognize and proactively tackle burnout, both from the standpoint of compassionate leadership and also because our employees are on the front line as vital shapers of customer experience.

When we surveyed employees at the onset of lockdown to understand how aspects of their lives were changing, 63 percent indicated that they did not expect the pandemic to have much overall impact on their jobs at BroadPath. This feedback was affirming because lack of control and social isolation have been major pain points in the transition to remote work during the pandemic, increasing the risk for burnout exponentially. We felt reassured that technology and programs developed within our organization had already created a sense of connection and stability among our teams and, as proof, we experienced no disruption to business from the pandemic.

This test of our resilience further convinced me that leaders who understand the importance of building a strong remote culture of connection, and invest in the resources to do so, will have the greatest long-term success with the remote model.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

We began the remote transition in 2009 and have been almost 100% remote for almost 10 years, with several thousand employees working from home offices in the US, Philippines, Australia, and Japan.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

Historically only about 10% of the US white-collar workforce has enjoyed working from home full-time (with the pandemic temporarily kicking that up to almost 80%). Pre-pandemic, many companies were sounding the death knell for remote work with some like IBM and Yahoo even calling their remote workers back into the office. Why was this the case? In my experience the two biggest headwinds against widespread adoption have always been social connection and management trust. The remote model doesn’t naturally promote either, and in the absence of intentional practices that do, work-from-home programs can fail spectacularly.

It’s important to call out that “remote work” is not a monolithic, one-size-fits-all proposition. For example, managing a small team of highly collaborative knowledge workers who spend all day in Zoom meetings is very different from a work-from-home contact center with thousands of agents handling back-to-back calls and little spare time to interact with colleagues. Most discussions and advice about remote work in the media have focused on the former. But for large global enterprises with a wide range of employees working in different locations, factors like work function, role, size and scale of operation, cultural norms, infrastructure reliability, and business continuity need to be considered. For example, when we first established work-from-home operations in the Philippines, we found workers there to be more socially motivated in general than in the US, with higher participation in our online social and wellness programs. Not surprisingly however, power and internet reliability were a major issue and we were forced to develop a unique approach to home-office setup with built-in redundancies. We also had to be more thoughtful about where we hired employees regionally to minimize exposure to weather events.

These considerations aside, social connection and trust are of paramount importance for any remote work program. Together they drive success and adoption. In terms of connection, building a cohesive culture and thriving community should be the highest goal in any remote-first organization. Having employees integrated into a robust network of positive, supportive, and collaborative work relationships is difficult under any circumstances, but exponentially more so in a remote work environment. Socially connected employees are more engaged, more productive, better collaborators, more loyal, and healthier both physically and mentally. Organizations that overlook or downplay this fundamental challenge will be hard-pressed to sustain a productive remote-first approach over the long term.

In our organization the concept of Social Connection is our north star. We use the term in a broad sense to include employees feeling connected to each other, connected to leadership, connected to our clients, and connected to the mission of the company overall. The idea informs almost everything we do ranging from our hiring practices to quality management processes.

Trust, on the other hand, is not as widely acknowledged an impediment to remote work but is arguably the stronger headwind. It’s often the elephant in the room people don’t want to recognize, but the simple fact is that we trust more that which we can see. For example, research has shown that people cooperate more when in close physical proximity than when distant. Leaders love to say they place great trust in their remote workforce and manage only to outcomes, but their actions often say otherwise. This explains why demand for employee monitoring software increased 200–300% during the pandemic — employers are simply not convinced that workers at home will be as productive.

In my experience, trust and connection together are root factors underlying most successes and failures of remote work programs. Within any organization, there are specific practices, technologies, and behaviors that promote connection and trust and others that erode them. Last year, we got serious about really exploring these issues and held a week-long leadership retreat where, among other exercises, we developed a list of “connection-enhancing” practices and opportunities. The work we did now informs how we approach every stage within the employment lifecycle (recruiting, onboarding, training, production, coaching, and leadership development).

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Most would agree that greater use of video communication in general enhances connection and trust among team members. This can be overdone, however. For teams that already spend hours each day in Zoom meetings, video fatigue can become a real issue and it may help to shift some meetings (particularly in the afternoon) to audio only. For other employees with fewer meetings, the opportunity to see other team members on video can be a breath of fresh air and provide more rich social interactions.

We’ve taken video a step further with our Bhive virtual workplace platform, which allows team members to see each other working side-by-side throughout the day even when they’re not in meetings. We use two cameras, one mounted to the side and further away, and one front-facing. While working solo you can glance up and see colleagues at their desk just like at the office, generating a more continuous sense of connection and comradery. It also enhances collaboration since it’s easy to see who’s available for a quick chat. After you initiate a meeting the camera shifts to the standard front-facing view. This “contextual view shifting” replicates a more normal in-person experience and the side-camera reduces video fatigue relative to a normal frontal view. In fact, many of our employees prefer the side camera for group meetings and only use the frontal camera for one-on-one chats.

Our system also facilitates a sense of mutual trust, not only between team members but also between leads and their teams. Some studies have shown that remote workers are promoted less often than their in-office counterparts, which makes sense in this context. Like it or not, we are still wired to take in lots of information visually and seeing is believing.

Another very helpful practice in building connection is to get more intentional about facilitating social interactions and engagement activities. We created a structured, branded virtual program called HiveLife that creates casual, interactive, and intimate workshops to help build stronger relationships with other team members while exploring a topic of mutual interest. You can explore photography, yoga, nutrition, cooking, even pet grooming with colleagues in small-group sessions that run for 6 weeks at a time. Next month we are also launching an IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action) workshop series within the HiveLife program to mutually explore issues around social justice. These shared virtual experiences, which occur every week, can help employees form strong and lasting friendships.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

Constructive feedback via crucial conversations can be very difficult in a remote setting. I try to keep several things in mind when preparing:

Familiarize yourself: if it’s been a while since you had a personal connection, try to remember some of the life details about the team member. Hopefully its more than the basic “do they have kids” stuff. We have a profile page in Bhive for each employee where we list hobbies, interests, little known facts, etc. which can be a great place to visit before a conversation.
Channel positive intention: try to get yourself into a mindset of positive intention and curiosity before the conversation. What does success look like for your team member? Create a mental image of reaching mutual understanding and focus on the feelings that come up for you. This is especially important virtually where the distance can make it easier for the manager’s imagination to separate from the reality of what’s happening with the employee.
Choose empathy and curiosity over judgement: typically, the more confident I am in my understanding of what’s happening prior to a conversation, the more out of touch I turn out to be. It’s a lesson I must re-learn over and over. As managers we know the outcome that needs to change, but we often fail to understand what caused it. Try to enter the conversation with an open mind and facilitate an authentic dialogue based on mutual respect. It will go so much better for both parties if you do.
Focus on one behavior only: chances are you have a list of things you want to see change. Force yourself to choose just one and put the rest on the shelf. It will help keep the conversation clear and focused and avoid triggering mental shutdown and defensiveness.
Keep video off: if the conversation is going to be especially tough, consider removing the camera from the equation so both parties can focus on the content. This gives each person space to react authentically to what the other is saying without worrying about botching the visuals.
Pay attention to air-time: keep track of who is doing most of the talking. This is another way of saying “shut up and listen” and goes to point #2. If you are dominating the discussion, it’s probably time to step back and start asking more insightful questions. A fun but challenging exercise: for an entire conversation, force yourself to ask a follow-up question to every statement the other person makes before responding, no matter what.

I really enjoy this quote from Brene Brown: “If you’re giving good feedback, you should not be able to script what’s going to happen when you sit down with someone. You should be willing to be able to hear.”

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

My advice is to never, under any circumstances, give “constructive” feedback over email. It will never land well and squanders a great opportunity to establish a stronger connection. Ask yourself instead why you want to and explore that. If you still land in email territory, better to just not give the feedback.

In fact, one should try to avoid giving positive feedback over email as well. If you can, write down a few thoughts (specificity is better) to get centered and do a video call to say it in-person. It’s a powerful experience.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

As mentioned before, BroadPath has been 100 percent remote for nearly a decade, but we’ve had numerous conversations with different organizations — ranging from strict “office-only” firms to remote-first companies — during and after the lockdown. We found that in the case of companies new to remote work, there is often a lag between making the physical transition and developing the digital working practices and daily rituals that support virtual culture. This is because when you first go remote, you don’t know what you don’t know, and merely replicating the in-office experience remotely can slow or even undermine progress. Managers, therefore, need to take an intentional approach, setting clear remote-first work protocols that include setting measurable goals, focusing on communication, using video conferencing judiciously, and encouraging interaction among teams.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Culture is the ocean we’re swimming in. Often, organizational culture surrounds us so completely that we don’t even see it, healthy or not. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, today’s virtual workplace provides the perfect opportunity to become more thoughtful about the nature of our ocean. We can leverage technology as never before to consciously create experiences that help employees feel connected, successful, and enthusiastic about “catching the wave.” At BroadPath, we’ve seen this firsthand through our Bhive engagement program which consists of activities ranging from “Random Acts of Kindness Day” to “Living Your Best Quarantine Life.” In August, we encouraged our workforce to celebrate “Sleep Under the Stars Night” during the Perseid meteor showers and post pictures on their Bhive profile pages. Overall, the result is a growing history of organic shared experience unique to remote work.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

If done right, working from home can help people live better and more fulfilling lives. Less time commuting and more time with family, community, and practicing self-care. More opportunity and access to high-paying jobs, on a global scale. Less money spent on rent in high-cost cities.

Our mission is to help people live better and more fulfilling lives by creating a more humanistic and connected remote work experience. COVID has provided an unprecedented opportunity to finally scale work from home but also presents a threat because of all the associated negative experiences (stress, kids at home, lockdowns, etc.). It’s up to us and other true believers to paint a vision for a sustainable and balanced approach that will carry us forward.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” -Ben Franklin

The first quote represents what it was like for the first few years of getting ourselves established as a company. As a startup, it often felt like prospective clients would choose the same worn-out path, making the “safe bet” time and again on a larger competitor despite a track record of sub-par performance. Keeping the faith in our vision was hard, and now years later I appreciate that in our industry you need to be around for a good long time before people know your name and begin to trust you.

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.” -Martin Luther King Jr

Like it or not, we succeed or fail together. It’s the underlying “why?” behind our mission as an organization, but also speaks to what we need in society writ large.

Thank you for these great insights!

Daron Robertson of BroadPath: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Robert Glazer of Acceleration Partners: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a…

Robert Glazer of Acceleration Partners: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Recruiting is key to building a high-performing company, especially for remote organizations. Poor hiring mistakes are painful, expensive and often not fixable, and top organizations figure out how to safeguard against those potential misfires. Relying on intuition or “gut-instinct,” is a common mistake leaders make when it comes to hiring. Having hired hundreds of people and reviewed scores of data, I’ve learned that it is much better to develop an objective, consistent hiring system, rather than having your recruitment strategy impacted by human bias and error.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Robert Glazer.

Robert Glazer is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency and the recipient of numerous industry and company culture awards, including Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards two years in a row. He is the author of the inspirational newsletter Friday Forward, and the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and international bestselling author of four books: Elevate, Friday Forward, How To Make Virtual Teams Work and Performance Partnerships. He is a sought-after speaker by companies and organizations around the world and is the host of The Elevate Podcast. His new book, Friday Forward, published on September 1st, 2020.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I am the Founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners (AP), a global partner marketing agency. I am a serial entrepreneur with a passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity. I am the host of the Elevate Podcast, the creator of Friday Forward and the author of four books: Friday Forward, Elevate, How To Make Virtual Teams Work and Performance Partnerships.

I started Acceleration Partners to help brands grow their business through affiliate and partner marketing.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

A few years ago, I resolved to improve my morning routine and dedicate time to quiet thinking, writing and reading something positive or inspiring to start my day. I didn’t find anything inspirational that really resonated with me and felt that many of the quote books and recommended readings were a little too rainbows and unicorns.

I had collected some stories and quotes I found inspiring and began sending a weekly email to forty people on my team at AP. I called it “Friday Inspiration” and focused on stories that were not only inspirational but also thought-provoking and challenging.

After a few weeks, I started to get replies and several employees told me they looked forward to the messages and shared them with friends and family. Some had also used them to make positive changes in their lives, whether running a race, setting personal goals or improving their performance at work. I realized the emails might have value for people beyond my company and decided to open it to the public. I shared it with other business leaders, set up a website for people to sign-up and changed the name to “Friday Forward.”

Almost five years later and thanks mainly to word of mouth, Friday Forward reaches over two hundred thousand people in more than 60 countries each week. As Friday Forward’s reach has grown, it has been incredibly rewarding. Each week I receive replies from readers thanking me for the positive impact it’s had on their lives. You can sign up at www.fridayfwd.com

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This one was more recent. When COVID-19 started and I was on Zoom more regularly, I would often forget to log out after a call was finished. One day I went for a run, jumped in the shower and rushed to get on a Zoom meeting with a potential partner. I was on vacation, so my computer was in the bedroom. When I sat down a few minutes early for the call, I realized that Zoom was already on and the other person had logged on early. I am still not totally sure what they saw but there were a few awkward seconds of silence.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

There’s great value in learning to set limits. As you grow professionally, you will have more opportunities to help people, the demands on your time will increase accordingly. At the same time, you can’t be all things to all people, and you have essential responsibilities to your family, career and community.

Those who try to be all things to all people and try to say “yes” to everything will inevitably let down themselves and others. The most successful people are comfortable saying no. Turning down additional work and obligations isn’t being selfish — it is understanding your priorities and making a conscious choice honor them. If you don’t take care of yourself and your own priorities, you’ll find that you will have less to give to people who need your best.

When I founded AP in 2007, the decision to make our workforce fully remote started out of necessity. We are a specialized agency in the affiliate marketing industry which has developed considerably since we started but at the time was more of a niche business with small groups of talent scattered all over the country.

We were winning large accounts and looking to recruit account managers with industry experience. We began hiring account managers from all over the United States and quickly realized that we could excel by recruiting people who valued the flexibility and independence of a virtual work environment. A few years later, we committed to a fully remote strategy and built a company known for being an industry leader and a great place to work.

We found a way to make our remote strategy work and overcome widely held misperceptions. Some people believed that remote employees are unaccountable with their time, struggling with young children, watching television, or running errands. As a client service business working with leading brands, we worked hard to disprove these myths and show clients we had a high standard of service.

Since we decided to go all-remote, we’ve grown over 1000 percent and have been profitable without external funding. We’ve expanded from seven employees to 170 globally across eight countries. And even more importantly, we’ve been recognized with over thirty awards for our company culture, including Glassdoor, Inc., Fortune, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and the Boston Globe.

Remote work has a growing practice over the years, but it is particularly urgent today, as Covid-19 is prompting many companies, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, to telework.

Managing a team in a remote environment isn’t always easy and some businesses can struggle if they don’t follow certain practices. After a decade of experience leading an award-winning remote company, here are five of the top challenges and some strategies to overcome them:

Hiring the Wrong People

Recruiting is key to building a high-performing company, especially for remote organizations. Poor hiring mistakes are painful, expensive and often not fixable, and top organizations figure out how to safeguard against those potential misfires.

Relying on intuition or “gut-instinct,” is a common mistake leaders make when it comes to hiring. Having hired hundreds of people and reviewed scores of data, I’ve learned that it is much better to develop an objective, consistent hiring system, rather than having your recruitment strategy impacted by human bias and error.

At AP, we’ve drawn inspiration from Geoff Smart and his company, ghSMART. Smart wrote a book, Who: The A Method to Hiring, which serves as a definitive guide to systematizing hiring and matching the right people to the right roles. It’s an essential read for businesses struggling to hire the right talent.

When hiring new employees, it’s crucial to clarify what skills and qualities are necessary for the role, what success looks like and the outcomes for which they will be responsible. Detailed job descriptions ensure an employee is completely clear about what is expected of them and help you determine early on if they are the right person rather than waiting to see if they will improve.

It isn’t easy to build a successful remote business without hiring employees who excel in that environment. If you are hiring remote employees, you should consider the environment as a key element when evaluating whether a candidate is the right fit for your organization.

We’ve seen low success with people who would rather work in an office and don’t value the flexibility of working remotely. We’ve learned to identify one type of person during the hiring process: the social butterfly who gets their energy from being around other people all day.

While many people adapt well to remote work, social butterflies or extreme extroverts have a hard time in a virtual environment because it doesn’t fit their needs. If you are transparent with candidates about what they can expect, they can consider whether remote work is truly a fit and understand that not everyone can acclimate to a virtual environment.

Inconsistent Core Values

People want to work for a company that has a clear mission and values. If a company doesn’t have these principles, it can be a cause for concern, but it’s a bigger problem when the values exist, but mostly serve as inauthentic wall art. Effective core values express a differentiated point of view that demonstrates what matters to the organization, and employees usually know them without looking them up.

For years, I walked into offices and would see generic core values like “honesty,” “teamwork” and “integrity” hung on the walls. Not only did these values seem like something any company could say, but many of these companies violated these same principles consistently with their actions.

United Airlines is an example of this. Their core values say, “Flight right, fly friendly, fly together, and fly above and beyond.” Their culture is supposedly built upon “connecting people and uniting the world.”

This was evident in April 2017 when a United passenger was dragged off an overbooked flight by airport security. After overselling the flight, United failed to offer a compelling financial incentive for customers to voluntarily give up their seats. Instead, they resorted to brute force, dragging a passenger off the aircraft, a scene filmed by other passengers and shared around the internet. By avoiding the cost of a few hundred dollars in compensation to customers, United’s culture that was supposedly built on connecting the world, united the public against them. The controversy lost the company an estimated $800 million in market capitalization.

By contrast, Southwest Airlines positively changed the life of Peggy Uhle and her son. Peggy’s flight from Raleigh-Durham to Chicago was getting ready to take off when the pilot headed back to the gate. Peggy was asked to get off the plane and discovered her son had been in a terrible accident in Denver.

Not only did the gate attendant re-book Peggy on the next direct flight to Denver, but she also offered her a private waiting area, rerouted her luggage, let her board first, and gave her lunch. They delivered her luggage to where she was staying and later a Southwest employee called to ask how her son was doing.

There wasn’t a policy manual telling Southwest employees what to do under these highly unique circumstances. Instead, Southwest’s team acted under the company’s core value to “Connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, low-cost air travel.” This is instructive to how leaders should view their core values — what principles do you want to guide your employees when you’re not in the room?

Focusing on Inputs not Outcomes

Companies that manage people by requiring facetime, or measuring time and effort inputs often do this because they haven’t set proper outcome expectations. This is where consistency and clarity around goals and outcomes come into play. When a company’s goals, and the employee goals that support them, aren’t clear, it can create a culture of mediocrity and in the long run lead to lackluster performance.

Rather than prioritizing facetime with managers or working long hours, companies that succeed in the long-run instead push for employees to achieve clearly defined outcomes that actually move the business forward. We usually see this result with sales. No one cares how many calls a salesperson makes, meetings they host or hours they work if there are no deals closed at the end of the day. Salespeople are rewarded for outputs, not their inputs and are compensated based on the amount they sell rather than the number of hours worked.

For example, Netflix is one of the world’s top-performing companies and is known for setting clear goals and encouraging creativity and accountability. As long as employee goals are achieved and commitments are realized, employees can work how they want. Today’s great companies embrace this philosophy and have leaders that know how to set high goals and hold people accountable without counting hours.

Poor Communications

Don’t assume that in-person meetings will transfer to a remote environment. While a video call is similar to an in-person meeting, it can be difficult to keep people’s attention and engagement, and fatigue can quickly build.

When moving a traditional meeting to a virtual format, cut the length in half. Not only does it keep the meetings shorter but it also ensures that no single person is speaking uninterrupted for a long period of time. If it’s a monologue and not really a discussion, employees will stop listening.

Update meetings can take up a lot of time and are especially ineffective in a virtual environment. Rather than having people read a bunch of information or share a PowerPoint presentation in a dry way, it can be more impactful to send a written memo or share the presentation with employees in advance. This can help create more discussion or interaction in these meetings and employees usually find it a more valuable use of their time.

At AP, we’ve adopted a memo system, following Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ lead. Bezos doesn’t like PowerPoint presentations or meetings in which people monologue through updates. He requires team members to create a written memo before each meeting that includes background information and relevant details for discussion. The memo is shared with all meeting attendees and everyone takes time to read it before the meeting so they can take notes and prepare for questions.

We have modified this system for a remote environment and require employees to send out a memo before meetings. Participants are expected to arrive having read the memo and ready to discuss it. Scheduling a meeting where employees aren’t actively engaged is a waste of valuable time and resources and we’ve seen the memo system drive better engagement and productivity by making meetings shorter and more focused.

Underestimating Technology

There are significant adjustments employees make when working from home for the first time and it is critical for organizational leaders to commit to making remote work functional and effective. Failing to invest in technology often limits employee communication, engagement and collaboration.

There are many tools available in the cloud that can be easily downloaded and installed. Remote leaders need to take the time to find what works best for them and their team.

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a password manager that also logs you into underlying applications. With all of the technology today, it would be a hassle for employees to manage dozens of individual accounts for applications. An SSO platform, like Idaptive and Okta, connects the majority of cloud applications to a single login, which makes things far more convenient for your team.

File sharing is another essential tool. Passing documents back and forth via email and having employees save everything on their personal computer hard drive is a data management and security nightmare. File sharing platforms such as Egnyte and SharePoint allow an organization to store files and manage folder permissions safely. Employees can easily review and collaborate on documents and create a local folder on their computer for easy file access.

For remote organizations, training and onboarding are crucial. Companies that don’t have their learning resources easily accessible and centralized in one place can limit employee knowledge sharing and skill development. Learning Management Systems (LMS) allow employees to upload video and written training content for the entire company. We also used a knowledge management system (KMS) where teams can upload resources for the entire company to review and share knowledge, best practices and company policies.

For communications, Slack and Zoom are effective for managing most internal and external communications. These tools help ensure collaboration and information sharing are prominent in a remote organization. Slack can also help add a social connection to your organization. We’ve created Slack channels, including “What Made Your Week,” one of our most popular channels, where employees can share a post or picture of something that made their week better.

Video is a necessity for remote teams and especially for feedback. Conducting as many communications as possibleover video calls, rather than the phone, ensures employees are more engaged in the conversation and that you can see their reactions.

AP employees always use video to share feedback with employees. Additionally, we ask managers not to wait for annual or quarterly check-ins to give feedback; they identify performance issues as they happen and seek solutions in real-time. By making feedback a regular part of a manager’s routine, and including it in one-on-one calls and conversations, it can quickly resolve misunderstandings and focus on incremental improvement before something builds up to a breaking point.

We also routinely request employees provide direct 360 feedback to their managers and our leadership team. We ask employees if they’re happy, what we should start doing and, most importantly, what we need to stop doing. We use a tool called TINYpulse, which allows us to collect real-time, anonymous feedback from employees and quickly identify ways we can improve.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Ideally, critical feedback would not be given over e-mail as context and tone can be lost. However, if necessary, it’s best to follow the Situation, Behavior Outcome (SBO) framework. This encourages feedback to be given directly and concisely in a nonjudgmental way.

With SBO, you describe what happened, what behavior the employee exhibited that was problematic, what outcome that behavior led to that was not ideal and why it was bad for the employee. This works best to depersonalize the situation and focus instead on what can be improved for next time.

There is a misperception that people who work from home let their personal distractions affect their work and aren’t accountable. However, for many remote workers, the opposite is more likely the case. Many employees find it challenging to set boundaries between their work and personal lives; it’s difficult for them to take breaks or decompress at the end of the day. They even struggle to end their workday, checking email late at night or before they go to sleep.

At AP, we regularly communicate with our employees on the importance of setting boundaries when it comes to managing their time and workspaces. We recommend they create a set schedule, with designated work hours, breaks and a clear beginning and end to the day so that work doesn’t overflow into their personal lives.

We also encourage our team to set physical boundaries. We recommend they have a place in their home specifically dedicated to working. This not only helps to allocate explicit time for work, but it also indicates to other people in their home when they are available and when they are not.

This is important because if you are visible, a spouse or child might think you are available. They may decide to walk in and ask questions without realizing you are in the middle of a client call. Setting a designated space for work helps to avoid this confusion.

Avoiding burnout and managing energy is critical for remote workers. It can be all too easy to dive into work, not get up from your desk for hours and burn yourself out. This can mean getting a lot done but can limit performance for the rest of the day. When building your schedule, mix and match different types of activities along with breaks to notice how it impacts your energy level and performance.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

With remote workers spending the majority of their time working from home, it’s important to create opportunities to interact in person. An annual in-person meeting is a great way to bring remote team members together. We host a yearly meeting called AP Summit which gives our employees the opportunity to come together in person, create fun memories, celebrate our achievements and collaborate on future goals.

There are other ways businesses to foster in-person connections on teams. We organize most of AP into what we call “hubs,” or cities where large groups of employees live nearby. This allows us to have semi-annual “Hub Meetings,” where team members can connect in person and share feedback with the senior leadership team. This structure enables us to host collaboration days, in-person training and social events.

During Covid-19, we’ve moved our annual summit and hub meetings to virtual events. We’ve also leaned more into employee-led social events. We’ve had an employee host a show-and-tell event featuring employees’ pets and kids, group fitness classes, trivia quizzes and more.

Although many remote employees enjoy working from home, they may miss socializing at times. Bringing people together in-person or virtually helps them share their personal and work lives with colleagues and creates engagement and investment in the organization’ success.

Creating employee engagement and connections is incredibly important in a remote environment. Friday Forward has allowed me to start each day on a positive note and provided me with a growing responsibility to elevate others.

Sending Friday Forward messages during COVID-19, I noticed an increase in readers responding to my emails. People were trapped at home, and many of them felt fearful, isolated or depressed.

Even though the Friday Forward messages are simple, they connect deeply with people, even in a virtual environment, something leaders will need to lean into and do more of in the future.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I love the phrase, “How we do everything is how we do anything.”

For a lot of my life, I did not give my best effort and that’s something that still motivates me to this day. Now, if I am going to do something I do it 100% or not at all.

Thank you for these great insights!

Robert Glazer of Acceleration Partners: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rick Bowers of TTI Success Insights: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote…

Rick Bowers of TTI Success Insights: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team

While giving feedback remotely, make sure that your employee understands what their next steps are. In such a difficult time full of disconnect and separation, leaving them with only criticism and no concrete next steps will cause panic, disengagement and stress. Let them know where you’d like to see improvement, offer a tangible next step, and provide resources to improve the needed skills.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rick Bowers.

Rick Bowers is the President of TTI Success Insights. TTI SI reveals human potential by expanding the awareness of self, others and organizations. Diving deeper than DISC, TTI SI provides professionals solutions to hire, engage and develop the right people and build strong teams. To learn more, visit ttisuccessinsights.com.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I’ve been working at TTI SI for 32years. As our previous ‘jack of all trades’, I’ve worked in marketing, design, customer support, IT, and now leadership. I was the President of the International Company in 2015 and have been the President of the North American company since 2016. These experiences give me perspective and understanding as a leader, and I’m very happy to have been able to work in different positions to support our network.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Well, like I said, it’s been 32 years with the same company. I have gone from growing up in a very small town in Iowa to traveling the world building the TTI Success Insights brand. I have been to more countries than states, and I have been to 6 of the 7 continents ( I am still looking for a reason to get to Antarctica!)

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I believe in the philosophy that all mistakes are opportunities to get better. As I try to sift through 32 years of mistakes, I think the biggest lesson I have learned is the fact that you can learn from every mistake. Personal accountability becomes very interesting as a leader and a parent. I view all mistakes as a chance to improve!

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Pace yourself! Working remotely, especially for the first time, is a marathon, not a sprint. Offering flexible hours for your remote employees, especially parents of children who are now learning virtually, can be exactly what you need to thrive.

We recently held a wellness summit to check in on our entire organization, and leadership decided to offer shorter Fridays. Encourage your team to take time off to recharge, and make sure that everyone is truly logging out and keeping regular hours, as much as you can.

TTI SI has both an international and a national team, so in some capacity, our company has always had remote members. Our entire Scottsdale team has been working remotely since 3/16, however, and we’ve learned a lot in the last 6 months.

Disengaging from their work
It’s hard to focus under extreme stress and pressure. If your team is under financial or emotional stress, you can’t expect them to give you 100 percent, and that’s ok.
Feeling underappreciated
Now that your team isn’t working face-to-face, they might be missing some communication and appreciation from leadership. If your team is sprinting from project to project with no recognition, they’re going to burn out.
Overworking
Now that we don’t have a commute or a time to leave the office, many people are working far outside of their regular 8 to 5. By not consciously logging off and stepping away from work, many are increasing their levels of stress.
Not handling stress as it occurs
Speaking of stress! If you aren’t self aware and acknowledging the effects stress has on your mind and body, you’re going to feel those effects more strongly. You can’t keep pushing down your emotions and reactions in the long term.
Turning inward when experiencing problems
The sense of isolation while working from home can be devastating, especially for outgoing people. If they don’t have open lines of communication and encouragement to reach out, they might internalize their issues.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Correct disengagement by learning about your team’s motivations
Everyone has their own personal motivations to complete work and build out their career. At TTI SI, we call these Driving Forces. When you discover exactly what each member of your team is motivated by, you can fight disengagement by tailoring their work to their passions.
Make your appreciation known!
Now is the right time to be heavy handed with praise. Research from the Gottman Institute shows that it takes 5 positive interactions to compensate for 1 negative interaction. Make sure you are publicly and privately acknowledging efforts and achievements across your team, and encourage each manager to do the same.
Overworking
Here’s where you need to lead by example. Make sure that your team understands if you message them outside of regular hours, they’re not expected to reply until the next day. If possible, allow for more flexible hours and consider giving extra vacation for employee appreciation.
Not handling stress as it occurs
Find resources for your team and make them readily available. Does your company health insurance include therapy and access to psychiatry? Do the parents in your organization have resources to help them with homeschooling and virtual learning?
Turning inward when experiencing problems
Communication is, again, the key here. Do you model open communication across the company? What’s your strategy for internalizing feedback and implementing change? Make sure that when someone reaches out, you listen.

While giving feedback remotely, make sure that your employee understands what their next steps are. In such a difficult time full of disconnect and separation, leaving them with only criticism and no concrete next steps will cause panic, disengagement and stress. Let them know where you’d like to see improvement, offer a tangible next step, and provide resources to improve the needed skills.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Be careful about your word choice, and don’t just fire off an email as soon as you write it. Consider the recipient’s preferred communication style and adjust your wording accordingly. Offer a video call to clarify any questions or concerns — At TTI SI, we actually have a company policy that dictates all coaching must take place face-to-face, whether that means in person or over video calls.

The biggest mistake you can make while working remotely is assuming everyone else is having the same working from home experience as you. Everyone has unique challenges, as well as a unique behavioral style. Having enough self awareness to truly understand that is the most important thing you should acknowledge.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Make communication a priority. We have a chat platform called Mattermost which supports our entire organization — each team has private channels, we have direct messaging, and we also have company-wide channels to share organizational news as well as pictures of our pets. It’s a great way to stay connected and check on each other.

The movement TTI SI and I are both dedicated to is the People First movement. By placing an emphasis on understanding behavior and improving behavior, workplaces and organizations are transformed for the better. I’ve seen it happen and I’m always happy to be a part of it.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Simon Sinek is a huge inspiration to me. I love this insight of his: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.” That’s why the TTI SI mission to reveal human potential is so important to me.

Thank you for these great insights!

Rick Bowers of TTI Success Insights: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Michael O’Donnell of Grill Master University: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a

Michael O’Donnell of Grill Master University: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Giving Constructive Feedback: Clearly communicating and giving feedback is much different in a remote environment and there is more room for the intention behind the feedback to be misinterpreted.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael O’Donnell.

Michael O’Donnell is the owner of Cave Tools and Grill Master University. His companies have received numerous awards such as the 3rd fastest growing company in Philadelphia in 2017 and the #453 fastest growing company in America on the Inc 5000 list in 2018.

Michael’s vision is to create a grilling/barbecue universe where Cave Tools provides the equipment and physical products, Grill Master University provides the education, and the cell phone app functions as a learning facilitation tool. He believes that even though technology has connected society in amazing ways, deep personal relationships have never been weaker.

The purpose of the business is really all about bringing people and families closer together. When you’re confident about cooking, you cook more often. And when you cook more often, you end up spending more quality time and forming more in-depth relationships with the people you love.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I was first exposed to the world of entrepreneurship in college when I took an unpaid internship doing internet marketing for a serial entrepreneur. After graduation I started my own local marketing agency. I saw various levels of success with my marketing agency, but for the most part I was making just enough money to stay afloat while living at my parents house. I like to consider this my incubation period because I was basically getting paid to learn and experiment with all different forms of marketing for various clients and I could see what worked and what didn’t work. A couple years later I built up enough confidence to start selling my own products under my new company Cave Tools. As Cave Tools started to grow I branched out again and started Grill Master University.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Last summer I attended the Memphis in May World Championships of Barbecue contest with Rick Browne. Our goal was to meet and interview all of the top barbecue teams in the country for Grill Master University. While walking through the camp sites I look over and I see a team using the Cave Tools Beer Can Chicken. This was a surreal moment for me not just because I got to see one of the products I designed and developed out in the wild, but it was being used at the World Championships of Barbecue!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

During the first year of Cave Tools we used to post all sorts of photos on social media of beautiful women barbecuing and tailgating. The idea was that hey we are marketing to men and this is manly kind of stuff they’re going to like. We never posted anything that I would look back on and be ashamed of, but I quickly realized that we were alienating half of our market. Actually it was probably more than half of our market because many times it is the women in the household that do most of the purchasing online.

When I took a step back I realized that what barbecue is really about is family and bringing people together to make meaningful connections over food. When we shifted our messaging to be more wholesome and family oriented, the company became more in line with my own values and it became a company a could be proud of.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I think having a well thought out and clearly communicated vision is important to help avoid burnout. I don’t mean vision in the corporate buzz word sense, but in the sense of having a clear mission and objective you are trying to accomplish over the next couple years. If you or your employees are just working day in and day out with no sense of where you are going or the purpose behind the work, then regardless of how many hours you’re working you’re going to burn out.

I have been managing remote reams for the last 8 years. When the pandemic hit it was business as usual for us

Giving Constructive Feedback: Clearly communicating and giving feedback is much different in a remote environment and there is more room for the intention behind the feedback to be misinterpreted.

Creating structure for their role: When working remotely it can be very difficult for the employees to settle into a structure and routine.

Indoctrinating Employees Into Your Culture: When you hire a remote employee you need to create loyalty and an emotional connection.

Performance Transparency: A lot of little feedback and indicators are lost when you don’t have regular in person interactions. The last thing want is an employee thinking they are doing a great job and you are thinking that they’re dropping the ball.

Training and Procedures: You need to set clear expectations for what needs to get done and how it needs to be delivered

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Radical Candor: This is a communications technique that involves caring personally yet challenging directly. While I think this is an important skill set for leaders in any organization, it is especially necessary when managing remote teams. You need to be very direct in your feedback and there needs to be the understanding that you are not criticizing someone to bring them down, but because you are coming from a place of truly caring about them and wanting to see them grow and succeed.

Management Rythmns: When you don’t see somebody every day it’s very easy to lose track and forget to check in. Some people like to do daily huddles and others like myself prefer to have set weekly check in meetings. Your meeting structure will depend on the needs of your company and the various roles of the employees. The important thing here is that you have established and consistent meetings to provide structure for both you and the employees.

Onboarding Process: In a regular office job you typically have a human resources department that helps onboard the employees and get them up to speed. Now imagine getting hired for a remote job and you don’t know your manager or any of your coworkers and the only instructions you have are getting fired at you from a stranger on slack. That’s what the experience is like for many people starting remote jobs. Take the time and build out a structured onboarding process where you can get your new employees acclimated to their new job and the way you work. The more you can include video calls the better because the majority of communication is non verbal.

KPI Implementation: Every role needs to have some type of Key Performance Indicator associated with it. You don’t need to go overboard here, but you do need to have objective data driven metrics that are checked on a weekly basis. This helps both you and the employee get on the same page in terms of performance and expectations

Training Resource Center: You should have an easily accessible training resource center with both written and video instructions for how to complete certain tasks and assignments in the company. When you are working remotely, it’s not uncommon for many people to be on different time zones and work schedules. By having an easily accessible training resource center you avoid unnecessary delays when an employee encounters obstacles.

During our onboarding process we make every employee sign and agree to a team members values commitments document and then we review it together in person and discuss each line item. This helps everyone get on the same page and understand what radical candor is all about.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I think the larger context depends on your relationship with that particular employee. If you have established yourself as someone who truly cares and is trying to help them succeed then they will interpret your email in that way. If you haven’t built that type of rapport yet then don’t give constructive feedback over email. Words without body language and tonality can be interpreted a million different ways. Instead, jump on a quick 10 minute video call and handle the issue person to person.

Creative collaboration is much more difficult in a remote setting because it is harder to rapidly bounce ideas off each other. One way to help this would be to use a plugin such as loom to shoot short screen recordings where you can quickly share ideas and add context to your thoughts

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

I think it is important to celebrate wins and give public praise in slack. Encourage dialog and also share non work related things such as pictures of beautiful views if someone goes on a hike or funny dog pictures. The more you can humanize each person in the company the more everyone will relate to each other and be more likely to work together as a team

Remote work is clearly becoming a trend and many people will find themselves transitioning into remote roles over the next few years. While this sounds amazing, it can also be a trap where people find themselves working more hours than before and staring at a computer screen all day. If I could inspire a movement it would be for people to consciously disconnect from their phones and computers and spend more time doing activities with real human interaction.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

When I think of this quote I think about being a person of action. Being focused on the right behaviors instead of focusing on the outcomes. The more you take right action the more likely you are to get the outcomes you are searching for in life

Thank you for these great insights!

Michael O’Donnell of Grill Master University: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A Map For The Entire Immune System” with Noam Solomon of…

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A Map For The Entire Immune System” with Noam Solomon of Immunai

Immunai has a technology to fully measure the peripheral immune system. We’re using these capabilities to build the human meta-immune profile — the largest immune cell atlas in the world — and we’re using machine learning and artificial intelligence to mine this database and decode the immune system.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Noam Solomon.

Noam Solomon is the CEO and co-founder at Immunai, the first and only company to map the entire immune system for better detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. Leveraging single-cell technologies and machine learning algorithms, Immunai has mapped out thousands of immune cells and their functions, building the largest proprietary data set in the world for clinical immunological data. A year prior to co-founding the company, Noam served as a post-doctoral researcher in the Mathematics department at MIT, hosted by Professor Larry Guth and in the center of mathematical sciences and applications at Harvard University. In his research, he developed and applied tools from algebra and Algebraic Geometry in the study of classical problems in combinatorics. Noam is a double Ph.D., with degrees from the School of Computer Science at Tel-Aviv University and from Pure Mathematics at Ben-Gurion University.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

When we started the company, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and MIT. Prior to that I completed two PhDs in Math and Computer Science and have been working in the Israeli startup industry, holding various positions in machine learning and data science.

The idea to start Immunai came through many long discussions with my co-founder and CTO, Luis Voloch, who was working in computational biology at the time. We were both fascinated how transformative machine learning and artificial intelligence is and we wanted to bring cutting-edge artificial intelligence methods, e.g., transfer and multi-task learning from computer vision and natural language processing into genomics. Our scientific founders, Ansu Satpathy, Danny Wells and Dan Littman helped us shape our scientific vision and structure our mission to decode the immune system and measure the immune system as a foundational component of measuring disease and improving health.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Two weeks after Luis and I started Immunai, we traveled from Cambridge to the Bay Area to meet some of our friends and to spend some quality time with our scientific founders. One of the people in our network suggested we meet for coffee with someone we didn’t know. A few hours into the meeting, he said that the founder of the VC he worked for wanted to meet us the very next day. Of course we said yes. It never hurts to tell your story to strangers because you never know if you happen to be speaking with one of the most influential investors in the world. He gave us an offer on the spot, pending some short due diligence process, but we didn’t end up taking this investment because we had another pre-seed offer that we chose a few weeks later.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

I like to solve hard problems. I was always drawn to difficult puzzles with problems that seemed intractable. The curiosity to study what I don’t immediately understand is highly motivating for me, so I chose math and computer science as an occupation when I was around 10 years old. These subjects are so deep and offer infinitely many questions and directions for research. But over the years, I started to feel more and more that the time I spent working to solve a problem needed to matter and impact the world for the better.

So, I would say that my guiding principles is the pursuit of knowledge, making an impact, and bringing positive value to the world.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

Immunai has a technology to fully measure the peripheral immune system. We’re using these capabilities to build the human meta-immune profile — the largest immune cell atlas in the world — and we’re using machine learning and artificial intelligence to mine this database and decode the immune system.

How do you think this will change the world?

Every disease and physiological process has an immune component. Our technology enables us to identify and describe the immune component of our disease and health, and this enables pharma companies an accelerated path to discover and develop better, and safer drugs.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

In our leadership meetings we discuss the business strategy of the company in a year, 3 years and even 10 years from now. We ask all the hard questions, including ethical questions. When companies grow, they should bring on people who worry about these questions full-time.

We don’t want governments or huge conglomerates to own sensitive information about us that can be used in the wrong way. Medical information especially should be kept safe and secured.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

There were two stories that merged into one. On the one side, Luis and I were trying to create a transfer-learning AI technology that can transfer insights across indications and therapies, so that we can learn from certain drugs that work well for one disease how to improve therapies for other, similar, diseases. On the other side, Ansu and Danny have been working on the application of single-cell technologies to better understand the response and resistance to cancer immunotherapies.

Together, we understood that by combining the power of AI and single-cell technologies we will be able to decode the immune system and transfer immunological and clinical insights across indications and therapies.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

At Immunai, we want to drive research for top pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions and hospitals. We hope to build long-lasting partnerships to help them accelerate their drug discovery and development pipeline. We mine increasingly better immunological and clinical insights as our machine intelligence grows, and for that we need more capital to grow our team, lab, and equipment.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Be conscious of your time. Your time is the most important resource you have, and whatever you can cut out of your schedule that’s not a must, do it.
Be yourself, don’t try to be someone else. In the startup industry, big, costly decisions are made instantly. They have to judge a book by its cover. People scan and evaluate you in a split second. If you’re tall, you may be too tall, if you’re short, they’ll say you’re too short. If you have a Ph.D, you’re too sciency. If you’re business-heavy, maybe you don’t understand tech well enough. But that’s ok! Not everybody will get you right away. Own who you are, and bring others to the team that together form a unity of skills, experience, and know-how to score a touchdown as a team.
There’s no playbook for success. In your path, you will meet people who will tell you “how it’s done.” Facing a big decision, they will tell you there are three paths forward and that one of them is the highway for success. Maybe it’s true, but remember that the biggest success stories happened when founders paved a new path, one that didn’t exist before, and they wrote their own playbook. It’s always important to study in detail everything possible there is to know about a problem, but many times there is no solution ready and you have to be ready to pave your own way and write your own playbook.
Work less, it’s okay. Be disconnected from electronics a few hours a day, especially on the weekends.
You’re only as good as your team is. Have a “stars-only” policy — talented professionals that are also team players, positive thinkers, people that make their colleagues better and empower them to succeed — for every position in the company.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Work hard, take responsibility, and set an example.
Read, study, and challenge yourself always. Don’t assume you know the answer, assume the question is harder than you think it is.
Surround yourself with A plus players and delegate responsibilities and authority.
Planning is key for success. If you spend your time firefighting, you didn’t spend enough time planning.
Make sure life can carry on without you. In your family, in your company, in life. If you’re really needed for making day to day decisions, it means you’re not bringing the right people, or you don’t empower them to take responsibility and ownership.
Be generous and try to pay it forward. Success is a token that is passed to you, try to pay it forward for others to grow and succeed.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

We’re building AI-first biotechnology to measure, interpret and later decode our immune system. Our immune system is probably our most important biological system, determining whether we’re healthy or unhealthy. Identifying the immune component of disease is critical for healthy life, to treat disease and support longevity. We have a unique multidisciplinary team that came from immunology, pathology, single-cell technology, engineering and AI that can solve this problem, and we have over ten partnerships with the leading pharmaceutical companies and research institutions to start. To build this company, an infusion of capital will be needed, and when the right partners come, sharing our grand vision, with a deep understanding of the different aspects of the life sciences industry, we will be happy to give them a sit at the table and join forces.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A Map For The Entire Immune System” with Noam Solomon of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

John Appleby of Avantra: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Picking up on Cues– You have to check in on your team and allow them to speak up about issues. While this may happen in the physical office, this can often get lost in the remote-work shuffle. As leaders, you must ask: Does my team have the right tools to get the job done? Sometimes, the question is a bit more challenging. For example, does working from home, with your family, create an environment that makes it difficult for your team member to focus? These conversations can range from simple to complicated, however, the conversation is necessary to ensure your team has what they need to effectively do their job and produce great results.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing John Appleby.

John Appleby leads Avantra as the Chief Executive Officer. John helps Fortune 500 companies with digital transformation on SAP HANA. Prior to Avantra, John served as the global head of DDM/HANA center of excellence at SAP and as the global head of SAP HANA solutions at Bluefin Solutions. A recognized thought leader in the SAP market, John holds an MA in computer science from the University of Cambridge.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”? Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

One of the most exciting moments in my life occurred during the transitional phase from college into the corporate world. I found myself encountering a few false starts as I began navigating my professional career. After graduation, I took a lucrative position as a contractor in the U.K. with a notable tech company. However, after a short stint, I decided to bet on myself. I made my way to South America in an attempt to start my own business. Unfortunately, the timing was not quite right, and I found myself back to square one in the U.K. job market just as the dot.com boom was taking shape, and massive growth and adoption of the Internet was underway. Still, to control my living expenses while taking a second stab at entrepreneurship, I found myself working and living within an art commune. The commune eventually became the place where I built my first IT business and made lifelong friends. It was quite an unusual situation; living in a small space above a dance studio while building my first business from nothing. I learned quite a bit about resilience during those tough times, and that has helped me right up to the present day.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

One in five employed adults in the U.S. experiences a mental health issue, which could be anything like depression, anxiety, or insomnia. As a CEO, I believe it’s essential to understand that no one is immune to this. Stress, exhaustion, and adrenaline overload are symptoms that impact our mental health. Regardless of your title, position, or career, it’s crucial to recognize why you feel jumpy, easily angered, or suddenly anxious, and to address it immediately or it will become an ongoing issue. The role of a CEO, in particular, can become extremely stressful and all-consuming that I’ve come to realize this is just a job. There is more to life than the work you do. Many people find themselves mentally drained and burned out because they associate their successes with their careers. If they don’t close a deal, margins fail to increase or sales stall, and they carry the thought that these outcomes are a reflection of their self-worth. This is far from the truth.

The secret to leading is understanding that as a CEO, you cannot do it all. I believe building a reliable team can help alleviate the weight that comes with the role. For example, I know that I can count on our Chief Financial Officer and our Chief Technology Officer to handle particular parts of the business, and this alone allows me to let go. To thrive and avoid burnout means doing the best you can at your job, delegate where necessary, and finding peace with that. Creating moments to connect with your children or partner after work, and taking pleasure in the things you enjoy are paramount and extend far beyond a stellar profit and loss report.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

I often say I’m the youngest of the Gen Y generation or the oldest Millennial, depending on how you frame it. I grew up learning to type before I could write because I had a computer in my home, and technology was a huge deal for my family. In college, I studied computer technology and had the opportunity to work remotely with people from around the world. Since that time, I’ve worked remotely with teams of more than 40 people. So, this reliance on telework doesn’t feel different to me. However, I am thrilled to see that it is becoming more commonplace and accepted across various industries beyond the tech space.

Managing a team remotely can be very different from managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

There are many factors that must be considered to create a great virtual culture for your existing team and new hires. I have a few tips that have helped me lead our current team and onboard fantastic remote talent:

Energy and Use of Video Technology — While the rise of Zoom has helped save businesses during this unprecedented time, I believe everyone can admit that Zoom fatigue has set in. Video calls require an added level of focus that is not needed when you are face to face. Participants have to work harder to process non-verbal cues like tone and pitch of someone’s voice, facial expressions, and body language. Additionally, knowing when to use video and when not to use it is essential. We encourage our team to implement video calls when needed and let their team members know it’s okay if they don’t want to appear on video. Even with all of this at play, energy is important. To keep your team engaged and happy, don’t be afraid to use the phone to communicate directly with team members, reduce back to back calls, and encourage your team to take frequent breaks. This helps with resetting the mind and body, making way for the positive disposition everyone will want to experience on your next virtual meeting.
Hiring Remotely — When hiring a remote team member, leaders not only have to consider whether this person will be a great fit in the office, but also a great remote employee. It’s certainly a new way of thinking about talent; however, it is necessary. I recently interviewed a candidate, who — in hindsight — would have been hired if we’d interviewed him in person; however, his virtual interview did not go as well. He was extremely nervous and uncomfortable, which struck me as odd during our conversation. Once the interview ended, I provided him with advice letting him know he would need to get accustomed to this interviewing style. One question to consider here is: Can your new hire handle the remote aspects of the position?
Remote ‘First-Timers’– The transition to remote work has been painful for many employees who were used to an office routine. For this segment of the workforce, it’s hard to strike a balance when “work is home.” What was once their bedroom or kitchen table is now their office. So, when do they “turn off?” As a leader, you have to be mindful that some of your employees may not be emotionally prepared to transition to remote work. Providing your team with resources or creating hard stop times (a timeframe where emails and correspondence closes for the day) may help your employees become more accustomed to their new routine.
Picking up on Cues– You have to check in on your team and allow them to speak up about issues. While this may happen in the physical office, this can often get lost in the remote-work shuffle. As leaders, you must ask: Does my team have the right tools to get the job done? Sometimes, the question is a bit more challenging. For example, does working from home, with your family, create an environment that makes it difficult for your team member to focus? These conversations can range from simple to complicated, however, the conversation is necessary to ensure your team has what they need to effectively do their job and produce great results.
Ergonomics in the Home Office — Do your employees have an efficient work environment in their home office? Working from home has taken many forms, with people working from a desk and others sitting on the couch or at their kitchen table during work hours. Having an ergonomically optimized workspace helps your teamwork efficiently and safely. I have a colleague who suffers from RSI (repetitive strain injury) and will never be able to sit at a computer for hours at a time, and code again. Due to RSI, he has to manage the project instead of implementing the work. While may sound superfluous, I believe it’s vital that companies physically check in on their employee’s workspace to make sure they have the appropriate desk (sitting or standing desk) chairs and tools to work efficiently and healthily.

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions” — Unknown.

I’ve found that providing constructive feedback can, unfortunately, be viewed as criticism by the person on the other end, whether it happens in person or virtually. First, the best way to provide constructive criticism to a remote employee is to gain multiple perspectives around what you aim to communicate to the recipient. Can other team leaders offer their insights on interactions or projects with the team member? Can they identify areas in which the person excels and where they need work? How does this align with your experience with them? Preparing yourself with these insights ahead of time allows for a well-rounded discussion. Second, always create a specific day and time so that people are prepared to receive the information. Giving critical feedback is not easy, but it’s important. Lastly, give them time to process the information they’ve received and provide them a time to come back to you with a response. The important thing about feedback is that you are helping people understand and learn how to improve.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I have a contrarian approach to this, as I don’t believe email to be the best way to give constructive feedback. It’s a great system of record but not an ideal way to communicate. The best way to prevent an email from sounding too critical or too harsh is to write the email and never hit Send. Instead, pick up the phone or schedule a Zoom call to communicate effectively with the person on the receiving end.

I would suggest having a daily stand up with your team. Our team does this the first 15 minutes of every day to connect and interact with each other. The camaraderie is needed in the virtual space since “watercooler” talk is currently on hold. When it comes to “what to avoid,” I believe it’s vital for leaders to understand they cannot replicate what they once had in the office setting. This makes the ability to pivot imperative. For example, everyone will not arrive at their desk at 9 am ready to work. Sure, the commute has been eliminated, and they are working from home. However, you have to think more synchronously. Single parents specifically are being challenged right now. School has become home, and your employees’ significant others are at home, which means they navigate taking care of home life and work at the same time. Give your team members time to adjust and grace for things that can be out of their control.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

I manage a team of about 40 employees in various capacities, and I’ve found an essential aspect of creating a healthy and empowering work culture is letting people work autonomously. This means letting people do the best that they can within the time allowed. Employees must have the ability to be assigned work; they can pick up and put down, working through it in their own way. Many team members aren’t used to working this way, and as a leader, you must create a framework for this to occur. Managing results and not activity will help empower your team to work together while being apart and — believe it or not — build a culture of trust and understanding.

I would undoubtedly say, encouraging more women to enter the STEM field. The IT industry is still male-dominated. Even though “much has changed” within the last decade, we have a long way to go as an industry. We must start by removing the biases that exist between men and women, especially in high school. It shows a failure in the education system, and we must work to remove the stigma around women in tech. In many ways, we’ve regressed, especially in light of what’s happening with COVID-19.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I received an art gift from an artistic group called Gaping Void a few years ago. The piece has a 1980 slogan from Ford Motor that reads, “Quality isn’t job one, being totally frickin’ amazing is job one.”

Quality isn’t enough anymore. No one wants to be a “quality employee” or a “quality company.” People want to be excellent at what they do and change the world with their ideas. That’s the type of person I’ve always strived to be and the culture I aim to create at Avantra and in my life in general.

Thank you for these great insights!

John Appleby of Avantra: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Robin Clayton of fifty-five: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Adding up various experiences over the years, I have approximately 4–5 years of experience managing remote teams and overseeing remote delivery. My first time overseeing a remote delivery project was in my mid 20s; my team was a mix of onshore and offshore, and the client had an offshore team as well. I was onsite with clients a few days a week and oversaw ongoing delivery. The timezones and ability to maintain a work life balance while working between EST and IST (India) were very challenging.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Robin Clayton Executive Director at fifty-five.

Robin Clayton is a management consultant with 12+ years of experience. Over the span of her career she has handled strategy, business cases and roadmapping, solution focused project delivery as well as product management, while working with leading brands to digitally transform their businesses. The last 12+ years have enabled Robin to develop a unique combination of digital strategy and data-driven delivery experience that enables her to bridge the gap between strategy and practical application, with experience implementing change across global organizations with measurable impacts.

Robin currently leads the US consulting practice and is responsible for leading client delivery and driving growth across accounts, building partnerships with Google and BrandTech companies, leading RFPs, managing the US consulting team, and driving a data-driven delivery agenda.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I’ve always been in client-centric roles from different perspectives of consulting. I started in traditional business consulting and moved into digital, eCommerce and omnichannel, which evolved to business strategy and digital transformation. After leading digital transformation programs, I realized the two categories global organizations tend to break down in their efforts to drive change and realize rapid results are 1) people and processes, and 2) comprehensively connecting, acting on, and measuring data. After realizing that, I decided to slightly pivot and focus on those two particular challenges, which is where I find myself now — leading the consulting team at 55, The Data Company.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I was a management science major, which loosely translates into business focused math. A coworker asked me if I knew anything about derivatives going into a client conversation she had. I proceeded to teach her mathematically how to solve for derivatives, as if it were a math class homework assignment. I was feeling very good about myself for teaching her that in such a short amount of time. When I asked her how the conversation went, she told me that derivatives were in fact a financial asset. Oops.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Now is the time to check in and relate to each other on a human level. It’s ok to be less buttoned up and more informal than we are used to while working in traditional corporate America. Whether you’re talking with employees, clients, peers, mentors — we are all human and are all undergoing an unprecedented human experience. It is common ground that we can all relate to, connect on, and empathize with. In a leadership position it is up to you to take ownership and set the tone and example.

Adding up various experiences over the years, I have approximately 4–5 years of experience managing remote teams and overseeing remote delivery. My first time overseeing a remote delivery project was in my mid 20s; my team was a mix of onshore and offshore, and the client had an offshore team as well. I was onsite with clients a few days a week and oversaw ongoing delivery. The timezones and ability to maintain a work life balance while working between EST and IST (India) were very challenging.

The first U.S. based remote team I managed was about 5 years ago. I oversaw a distributed five-person team of business analysts who were deriving business requirements and delivering a website redesign for a large global cruise client. The offshore experience aided in my success while managing the remote team. Since then it’s been a mix of offsite, onsite and offshore delivery.

Currently I remotely manage five reports on my consulting team, as well as two indirect reports.

Ensuring everyone is engaged with work and their projects,
Helping reports compartmentalize the ongoing world and social events while remaining focused at work; check in early and often. Instead of a quick coffee or interpersonal conversations that occur more naturally in the workplace, you need to make time and prioritize those conversations remotely.
Having a line of sight into employees’ emotional well being and potential burn out.
Fostering a sense of culture and connectedness even while everyone is dispersed
Ask the team to come up with remote activity ideas they want to try out and have them drive and plan the team activity themselves. Let them own the agenda and encourage them to get creative and try new things. Some will stick, some will not.
Furthermore, we’ve incorporated emotional cultural values into our weekly team meetings, with a vote each month for a new value that our team feels it needs to be successful. We then give kudos and acknowledgement to teammates that have displayed this value over the week, during the team meeting.
Helping less experienced employees (especially more junior, college hires) be productive in a remote environment
In addition to tactics for helping everyone stay engaged, establish a foundational structure for ways of working; ensure channels of communication are defined and open with clear expectations and handoffs. Proactively schedule in time for feedback and reviews to ensure everyone is set up for success. Additionally, identify important conversations or connections that need to be made and ensure a forum is put in place to foster those conversations.
Accommodating time zones and flexibility of schedules
Currently, with team members working in Paris, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California, our team members are working across various time zones. We have to balance delivery with where our clients are located, and therefore, we are proactively scheduling time where needed to alleviate burn out. We are also working to ensure coverage for the timezones in which our clients work out of. We have also implemented a loose structure for team meetings and checkpoints, not requiring all team members to attend every meeting.
Onboarding a new employee — This is one of the most challenging aspects of remote work. Managing a remote team when everyone already knows each other and has built a rapport and camaraderie is one thing; onboarding a new employee is another. Helping her get started and hit the ground running has been a challenge. Helping her feel connected with the broader team having never met most of them in person has been even more difficult. She is navigating new ‘eveythings’; new people, new team dynamics, learning how to navigate a new company, and adjusting to new clients and project work; it’s a lot of new variables to juggle all at once.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

I emphatically agree with you on this point. In life you generally tailor your message to your audience, and the same is true for feedback. There is such a range in how people take feedback. Some people are very good with direct, honest feedback and some find it harsh and may default to becoming somewhat defensive or aggressive in their responses. Being remote adds one more layer. I like to provide near real-time feedback whenever possible, whether positive or critical.

It is important to keep constructive feedback in a 1:1 situation remotely factual and objective. There should be an emphasis on explaining the reasoning behind why the behavior needs to change. Avoiding pronouns can be helpful to make receiving the feedback feel less personal and more like a broader learning experience. When giving constructive feedback, it’s important to lead with setting the expectation as an area of growth or an opportunity to improve, instead of picking apart what someone has done wrong or failed at. It’s also important to be transparent and honest, ensuring that everything is documented and evidence is provided to support your feedback.

In a remote environment, it’s very important to ensure that positive feedback and positive reinforcement are prioritized. This results in employees ability to compartmentalize constructive criticism as one of many data points. We try to infuse this on a few different fronts: as a broader team, within client or project teams, and also at a 1:1 level with individuals.

We spend five minutes each Monday during our weekly team meetings, in which the entire team is present, recognizing accomplishments. We give kudos and feedback based on the theme of the month, which is a cultural value we all vote on, such as ‘unique’, ‘curious’ or even ‘appreciative’ and ‘supported’. Last month was ‘unique’.

Acknowledging and celebrating success together is important. I try to give positive feedback immediately and with visibility to the broader team. We leverage Slack for communication and have separate channels for all clients. For example, when an employee does a great job navigating a challenging conversation on a client call, immediately give positive feedback in the channel. This results in both visibility for the entire team, and allows us to celebrate each other’s wins while also reinforcing the standard. In remote times we are celebrating all wins, even small ones.

On a project by project basis, or after a big meeting or presentation, we try to carve out time to talk about “pluses and deltas” from the meeting. What went really well? What do we want to modify? What in retrospect could we have done differently to adjust something that didn’t go as planned? Making it a collaborative group exercise is super important. We even go as far as doing this with clients, to ensure they feel listened to and that their input is incorporated. For example, we conducted a two day remote training session that is usually a very interactive, hands on workshop. The sessions include live facilitation, exercises, teamwork and breakout sessions. Following the conclusion of day one, we alloted 15 minutes to conduct a “pluses and deltas” session with clients. We were then able to make adjustments and incorporate their feedback for day two.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I try to avoid sending significant constructive feedback in an email with nothing else. If I am going to share constructive feedback via email I always try to provide ways of improvement as well. However, the best method for delivering constructive feedback is a two way conversation. Two way conversations are more open, and enable each party to listen to the other’s experience and perspective. It’s amazing how two people can experience the same event in different ways.

It’s a balance. Be careful to avoid overscheduling and accidentally burning each other out — not every previous in-person conversation or meeting needs to be a call.

At the same time, it is important to ensure that teams still feel connected and have face time with each other. Not every call has to be video, but in a remote world, face to face conversation is important. It’s important to prioritize time to check in and connect with each other in an attempt to foster the organic conversation and connection that occurs in person.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Create a clear cadence of communication
Acknowledge checkpoints and check-ins
Evaluate your employees’ comfort levels
Foster connections and engagement
Celebrate all of the small wins
Lead by example — if you’re asking employees to be on Zoom with camera on, turn yours on first!

Appreciation and critical thinking. You might be thinking that this is an unusual response however, appreciation of the moment and not taking anything for granted, combined with critical thinking and a creative approach to solving day to day and world challenges, would yield beautiful results and progress on so many fronts, don’t you think?

Also, including environmental concerns to the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When I think about what people need to survive; food, clothing, shelter, at risk of oversimplifying, if you translate that into a modern day, broader picture, we need economics to acquire the things we need. We also need the environment to sustain and provide us with the raw materials. These to me are the long poles in the tent.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

At holiday meals, my grandmother always says a prayer and closes with gratitude before we eat, which I find quite relevant when adjusting to the new normal. It’s always something along the lines of, “We appreciate all of the challenges, and the path itself, as we navigate those challenges”. It’s a challenging, interesting time to be alive, yet while challenging, the path forward is new, exciting. Hopefully this experience will lend itself to rewarding personal and professional growth!

Robin Clayton of fifty-five: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Bobby Hershfield of VIA: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Humanity. This is the main thing you must work extra hard at with remote teams. We all know email is void of tone. Zoom and conference calls are void of interaction. It’s just a bunch of people taking turns at talking. What’s missing is that intangible quality of understanding. Of reading a room and knowing when to pivot in tone or demeanor or message. It’s also lonely since you don’t have instant feedback necessarily on what you’re saying. So, you must go above and beyond to try and stay real and honest.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bobby Hershfield.

Bobby Hershfield is currently the Chief Creative Officer of VIA, an independent, award-winning, nationally recognized agency in Portland, Maine.

He arrived from The Community, where he served as VP/Executive Creative Director and was responsible for opening the New York office of the multicultural agency headquartered in Miami, Florida. Prior to his stint at The Community, Bobby was Partner/CCO of SS+K, where he helped transform the agency culture by changing everything from the physical space to the process. As a result, he led the efforts for the high-profile Webby-winning reelection campaign for President Barack Obama and the most-awarded campaign of 2014, including The One Show Best of Show, for HBO GO. Other projects included corporate reputation campaigns for Wells Fargo, Delta Air Lines, Planned Parenthood and the NCAA.

Previously he spent five years at Mother, where he went from Copywriter to Executive Creative Director and worked on the Target Kaleidoscope Fashion Spectacular, named by TED as “one of the 10 ads worth spreading”; Target’s Missoni effort, “Little Marina,” named The One Show Best in Show; a 2008 CNN election ad for President Barack Obama, read live on-air the day of the election; and the relaunch of K-Y, which led to an increase in sales of e.p.t. pregnancy tests.

Bobby started his career as an account person and spent eight years growing through the ranks at DDB Needham Chicago, Chiat/Day NY and eventually Wieden+Kennedy. At Wieden+Kennedy, he spent five years between Portland and running a one-person office in Australia, eventually becoming Management Supervisor/Head of New Business at Wieden+Kennedy New York. And it was in New York that he took an obscene pay cut, put his job on the line, and switched from the client side to Junior Copywriter. In five years as a Copywriter, he developed work for Jordan Brand, ESPN, and the launch of ESPNU and developed the Beta-7 campaign for SEGA, which Ad Age named in the Top 10 Campaigns of the Decade, before moving to Ogilvy to work on a global, ongoing mid-market campaign for IBM and a relaunch of Yahoo.

He has been named one of the Top 50 Creatives by Advertising Age, and his work has been recognized by Cannes, The One Show, the ANDYs, Art Directors Club, Webby, CA and TED. He has been a guest speaker at Cannes; taught classes at Duke, VCU and University of Hartford; and been published in McSweeney’s and Ad Age. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Bobby has written two unpublished novels and moonlighted as a stand-up comic for two years. He’s currently taking banjo lessons.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I was born in Akron, Ohio and lived there until I was 8. I then moved to Miami Beach, Florida, for the remainder of elementary school. And when I was 12, I moved to West Hartford, Connecticut. I bring this up because they are three very different parts of the country and I moved at very transformative ages where you feel somewhat established but are still figuring out who you are as a person. And at the time it might’ve felt weird and unsettling but now it feels like this is how it was supposed to be. This is who I am and I’m equal parts all those places and experiences.

My mom is a fine artist and writer and my dad is a chemical engineer. They divorced when I was 7 but I always said my family as a divorced family was closer than many families whose parents stayed together. I feel a deep connection with both my parents and Advertising felt like a way to put both of their talents to work. The rationale problem solving with the blank canvas of creativity. I went back to the Midwest for college at The University of Michigan and I got my first full-time job at DDB Needham in Chicago during my senior year. I got laid off exactly one year to the day of my start date. I cried. And then worked in a video store for six months before selling everything and moving to NY. I had one year of Account Management experience and I remember I wrote my introduction and read it on cold calls to different HR people all over the City. I got so fed up with the rejections that when I called Eve Luppert at Chiat/Day I threw away the written and rehearsed introduction and just said, “Do you need an account person or what?” Somehow that worked. I went in for the interview, got the job 48 hours later and treated myself to McDonald’s which I promised to give up until I had a job offer. But my career took off from there. Chiat turned to Wieden + Kennedy for 10 years then Ogilvy then Mother for 5 years, SSK for 5 years, The Community and now I’m CCO at VIA.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Easily going from Management Supervisor to Jr. Copywriter. I was just about 9 years into my job as an account person where I just had enough. I had moved up to a position that was further away from the work and I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I remember I applied to the Peace Corps because I knew I was done and was exploring other opportunities. I also started stand-up comedy and performed for a couple of years. But, during the 2000 World Series when the Yankees were playing the Mets I was working at WKNY and I wrote headlines for an existing campaign because we were so short staffed. They got produced and I loved seeing my lines in the paper and on buildings and around the City. I went to Ty Montague and Amy Nicholson and expressed my desire to move into the creative department. Dan Wieden was against it and in some ways I totally understood. The idea that you don’t just “become” creative. You either are or you aren’t. But I knew I was, and I felt like momentum just kept me in the wrong job for so many years. So, I negotiated a deal that I would go to night school to get a book together, work on current clients and take a 60% pay cut. And I accepted that in six months if they didn’t like my work I would be fired. After six months I flew to Portland to present my work to Dan and after looking at it, he opened his arms wide and gave me a big hug. Again, I cried and treated myself to McDonald’s.

But the entire experience was so humbling since I used to lead an account and now, I was starting over and the people I used to manage were managing me. And I was writing radio, internal videos and case studies. And I was broke. I had to change my entire lifestyle to accommodate the significant drop in pay. One of the best moves I ever made but it was certainly hard.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I feel like my career is a list of funny mistakes and anyone who knows me is sure to remind me of them but here are three.

As an intern in the media research department at J. Walter Thompson London, I calculated all the dollars to pounds incorrectly and my entire intern project was wrong.
I was handpicked to go to the Nike Sales Meeting and travel with Jim Ward who was the then account director and I left the work we were presenting on the airplane.
I was so frustrated on a client meeting that I asked if anyone had a match so I could light myself on fire not realizing I wasn’t on mute when I said that.

What advice would you give to other C-Suite executives to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Never forget what how it felt to be an employee. I was promoted later in life, well into my forties so I was on the employee side of the Agency meeting for a long time. It’s still fresh in my mind and I think that helps me in my role today. It’s understanding. Remember how you felt working so many hours or days in a row. Remember how you felt not hearing some positive reinforcement. Also, remember your worst boss and just do the opposite. Oh, and most importantly, make it about the work and not you. It’s about their success, not yours.

Just do what’s right and put other people first. If someone needs a break, give them a break. It seems so obvious but just ask how someone is doing. Be aware of workloads and manage accordingly. Just act humanly.

Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

I have a few experiences. I was a one-person office in Melbourne Australia handling the 2000 Olympics for Nike. The entire team was in Portland, Oregon, and I had to organize all our efforts from afar against time zones and distance.

I was the writer on an IBM mid-market campaign that went global and I was working out of NY but with teams in Asia and Europe to adapt my campaign in their regions.

And most recently, I helped the community, based in Miami, open their New York office and I was overseeing teams in New York and Miami.

Humanity. This is the main thing you must work extra hard at with remote teams. We all know email is void of tone. Zoom and conference calls are void of interaction. It’s just a bunch of people taking turns at talking. What’s missing is that intangible quality of understanding. Of reading a room and knowing when to pivot in tone or demeanor or message. It’s also lonely since you don’t have instant feedback necessarily on what you’re saying. So, you must go above and beyond to try and stay real and honest.
Spontaneity. It’s just gone. The hallway chats. The office or cube pop-ins. Everything is scheduled and organized and that makes it hard to get into a workflow. To see an exchange of ideas and build on what people are doing. Also, just to get temperature checks on how people are feeling. It’s a lot different stopping by a person’s office and saying hello than scheduling a meeting to say hello.
Trust. If you’re a control freak, remote working is tough because it’s simply too hard to gauge what’s happening once you end the call. There’s no single place where you can check-in or gather. So, you just must let go and trust that people are doing what they’re supposed to and have the same interest at heart.
Which brings me to culture. Culture is harder to maintain. When you’re in a culture where the work is the priority it’s easy to prevent other agendas from seeping into that culture. If you’re agenda is different from the groups, you stand out. But when you’re not in that place where the culture is so present then you’re now free to craft your own culture. The single unifying mission is diluted. And people have the space to interpret and rethink and invent their own mythology to things that can easily be explained if you’re all in the same room. So, you must work harder to remove the distractions that can poke at that culture.
Breaking habits. I think in some ways being forced to work remotely has been good in the sense that we were becoming robots. Work, meetings, work, late nights just become the way it was. Everyone striving to find a work/life balance. Even talking about a work/life balance. And now we’re seeing the other side. And yet, I work from home and there could be a day that goes by where I don’t have time to walk to my kitchen and get lunch. That almost becomes more frustrating because I’m at home. I should be able to go to my kitchen and yet I can’t. I think this idea of staying objective and not falling too fast into a routine is a good lesson. Trying to have that work/life balance while still feeling you’re giving everything to your job and your life so that both parts of you can feel fulfilled.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Some of it is just acceptance. It’s the way it is and try not to get discouraged or get too hard on yourself. Spontaneously check in with people. Go to a social distance lunch. Trust people. Judge people on their work, not their time. Who cares if someone isn’t doing it the way you would, or would want them to? If the work is good, the work is good. Let process go a bit and let outcome be the thing on which people are judged. And to people that have been doing this awhile appreciate you get to learn something new again. It keeps you young and energized that it’s not so predictable. Not so rote. There are new ways to manage and new ways to lead and that’s exciting. Finally, have a sense of humor about it. One of the rules in standup is that if something happens in the audience, you must acknowledge it in your routine. The audience needs to feel you’re with them, seeing what they’re seeing, hearing what they’re hearing. If a kid bursts into a zoom call, acknowledge it. Make a joke. Have fun. Try not to be so rigid that you can’t allow for interruptions and normal mistakes to creep in.

Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

I believe you just do it. But that’s who I am. If I try to couch something in a positive opening, I come across disingenuous and I just can’t do it. When people do that, I always feel they are reciting from a management manual. I remember when I was starting out at Chiat, we weren’t allowed to say “but” when we gave feedback. Creatives hated hearing positives because they knew whatever came after the “but” was the real feedback. I guess that always stood with me. Just say it. But then listen. Allow people to vent, swear, whine, complain whatever they need to do. Help them solve the problem. Your job isn’t done just because you transferred the feedback onto them. Help them digest and come to a solution.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

It’s funny, I’m used to just starting an email with what I’m going to say. I guess at Mother and Wieden, we just sort of launched into the email. Sometimes even in the subject line. At the community, every email started with a salutation. Saying the person’s name. Saying “hello”. It made me slow down a bit and gather my thoughts and it felt a bit more civilized. I think there’s a greater lesson there. Slow down. Don’t just write the email to get your thoughts forward. Remember the person reading the email. How do they take bad news? How do they take criticism? Sometimes you can’t avoid it. Feedback is feedback. Criticism in criticism. Let it be so. But try to make the reader feel that you know what it’s like to read this type of email. Offer to call them to discuss. At Wieden we said, emails never initiate feedback. They follow up. So maybe start with a call and use email to get it in writing. Doesn’t hurt to call the person after as well just to allow that person to voice their response.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic? Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

Allow me a bit of a digression. When the TV series, “The Office” came to America I seem to remember a story where after the first season, Ricky Gervais called the creators of the American version and told them to not just copy the British episodes which they did in the beginning. He gave them freedom to use the British series as a framework rather than something to copy..And the show got better with each season. At least I think I remember reading that. But my point is don’t try to recreate the work environment remotely. Have zoom meetings. Have phone calls. Allow people time to work and do whatever. But try not to hold people to when to start the day, when to eat, when to take breaks and when to stop. Make the work the goal not the process. Maybe have company meetings every other week. I’ve admired the way VIA has worked together in this time. We started with Management meetings twice a week on a Monday and Friday. Now they’re once a week. We have department meetings every other week. We used to have happy hours and morning coffee together but now we don’t really do that anymore. We have agency meetings to bring people together but also to disseminate information and keep people informed of our progress as an agency and updates on clients and work. It’s a nice balance of leaving people to work as they work and still allowing them to feel part of a company.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Check ins and keep hammering home what that culture is. Repeat and live by it. Don’t just assume the culture stays with people when they’re not working in the office. And it’s what I said upfront. Empathy and understanding. People who have kids don’t necessarily have it harder than someone who is single. People have their own neurosis and ways of coping and reacting to this situation. Everyone requires a bit of an individual approach to management. It can’t just be a blanket way of running an agency. Everyone is dealing with this differently. So, abandon judgement on everything but the work. Keep it about the work. Remind people of why they work for you. What they signed up for. Make sure your vision for the company is reinforced because it won’t be readily apparent when the news of the day, family and other distractions take over. So just do things to remind people what kind of company you have and what kind of leader you are. Don’t stop just because you’re not together. In fact, you almost must work harder at it.

The other suggestion is perspective. It’s grim out there right now. And it’s easy to fall into a rut or complain. Try, in some way, to feel fortunate. You have a job. You have a schedule. Direction. I think perspective sometimes gets lost in all of this. It doesn’t give people license to take advantage, but it should resonate with people that if you have a job right now, you are one of the lucky ones and it should help people band together and focus on a singular mission.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

That’s hard because there are just so many things wrong right now. We need so much help. But I guess I would say I would inspire a movement to get rid of social media. Put it back in the box. I am starting to believe the cons are outweighing the pros. The good is that I am connected to so many people I’ve lost touch with. I can see my friend’s kids grow up and I can experience their happy moments even if I’m not there. And I get a ton of Happy Birthday wishes. But the bad seems so so bad. The siloed groups we’ve now live in. The echo chambers we scream into. The bullying. The FOMO. The judgement. The microscope we all live in. The need to be something or say something you may not want to be or say. It’s dangerous. We were supposed to come together but instead it pulled us apart. And we use it to pounce. We use it to pile on. And clearly it can be manipulated to disseminate false information and even worse infiltrate our private life or affect our way of thinking. So, for me, I’ll go without the birthday messages because I really think the harmful effects are creeping into our daily lives and lying just under the surface of photos and posts and updates. The good can be replicated. I’m sure of that. I just am saddened and disheartened by the bigger negative picture.

Can you please give us your favorite” Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorite quotes comes from Robert Browning, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for.” And I know it’s about overachieving and taking on the seemingly impossible, but I also allow it to mean something else. When I was a swimmer in high school I was supposed to swim the breaststroke. But after getting beaten by a teammate during a meet, I was giving a choice between butterfly and backstroke. I went to my friend’s father who was a swim coach for another team and asked which stroke I should choose, and he said, what do you feel the least comfortable doing and I said butterfly. So, he said I should do that. I spent the next four years swimming butterfly. I love that story and always think about it. Because we often shy away from what makes us uncomfortable and the idea of going head on provides the most rewards. And sorry to go back to this, but social media allows us to live comfortably solely in our worlds. And what we need to do is allow ourselves to grow into new situations and scenarios. Kind of like remote working. Grow into that and accept that it’s uncomfortable at first but then figure out how to perform the best we can. So, I’ve always tried to put myself in uncomfortable positions and that way I grow to the situation. Kind of like going on stage for the first time. Or trying to lead a creative pitch remotely. It forces me not to settle and It pushes me forward. And quite often the experience and the results are quite rewarding. And that is a heck of lot better than using McDonald’s as an incentive. That I’m sure of.

Bobby Hershfield of VIA: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brian Matthews of Appriss Insights: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote…

Brian Matthews of Appriss Insights: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Maintaining personal connections. Today, this is much easier than it would have been in the past thanks to video capabilities, you can see facial expressions and body language. It’s easy to lose sight of that in a completely remote environment where you’re not walking down the hall, bumping into people.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Matthews.

As President of Appriss Insights, Brian Matthews is responsible for the overall strategic direction, and financial performance of this leading data and analytics business focused on saving lives, preventing fraud, and keeping communities and workplaces safe. Since joining Appriss in 2017, Brian has lead Insights’ product strategy, successfully pivoting the business towards new growth opportunities in risk management and fraud prevention, growing revenue by 70% and doubling EBITDA. In October 2019, Brian was promoted to President of Appriss Insights. As President, Brian has continued to drive growth and helped shape the culture of Insights to focus on growth over status quo, action over deliberation, and team over self-interests.

Brian has over 30 years of senior leadership in technology companies with a primary focus on strategy, business development, sales, marketing, and product management. His experience ranges from startups and growth-stage companies to Fortune 50 organizations. Career highlights include almost a decade at JP Morgan Chase, eight years at VeriSign, as they scaled from $100M to $1.5B in revenue, and growth leadership roles at eOriginal, Verint, and Vubiquity. In these roles, Brian focused on defining growth strategies, disrupting markets, launching new products and channel distribution.

Brian holds an MBA in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BBA in Accounting and Pre-Law from Ohio University. He lives in the suburbs of Maryland outside of D.C. with his wife and three children.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I grew up in the Midwest and moved to New York City after finishing my undergraduate degree in accounting. I learned early in my career that I didn’t like just sitting and looking at numbers; I like people. I went into banking but pivoted into a sales and marketing role, then used that to pivot again into technology.

This was when the internet was just starting to become a thing, and I was put into a strategy role at the bank to figure out the impact of the internet on both consumer and wholesale banking. I used that to pivot more broadly into technology companies that were more disruptive and moved a little bit more quickly. I’ve spent the last 20 years working for B2B, SaaS-oriented data analytics software companies.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The most impactful thing from a career perspective was being at Ground Zero in New York City on 9/11. Aside from just witnessing that, between my wife and I, we lost 20 friends on that day — several neighbors, young mothers and fathers of children who were our children’s playmates. So, while I wouldn’t necessarily call it interesting, it’s certainly the most memorable moment of my career and has had a long-term impact on us as a couple and as a family.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Early in my career, while I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey, I was sent on my first business trip. I was in a junior sales role, and I was supposed to meet a colleague in Chicago to pitch to three clients. And I got up, I was running late, I got to the airport, got on the plane, and got all the way to Chicago. This was before mobile phones, so I had to wait in line at the airport for the phone booth to call in and listen to my messages. It turned out; the trip had been canceled the night before. I got a hold of my college roommate, met him for a nice lunch, and flew home. The lesson learned is always to check your messages first thing in the morning because your day can change very quickly.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Broadly speaking, don’t take yourself too seriously. Self-deprecating humor is a positive thing. You have to able to make fun of yourself. Showing your vulnerabilities and that it’s okay to make mistakes is empowering for those people around you.

Also, find time for yourself. Being a leader can be very lonely. It’s important to set aside time for yourself, whether that’s to meditate, take walks, read, or just think. Whatever that is for you, it will benefit your overall mental as well as physical health.

And finally, define who you are, your leadership principles, your expectations. That’s kind of your North Star that you come back to every day. In that spirit, Appriss Insights just rolled out a set of leadership principles that define who we are.

1. Mindset Matters: Growth over status quo

Growth and teaching mindset: Help our people reach their full potential.
Remote first: Support the best people wherever they are, with the best tools.
Put customers (and partners) needs first.

2. Gettin’ It Done: Action over deliberation

Action-oriented: Don’t be afraid to make decisions while keeping others informed, even when facing uncertainty.
Seek discomfort: Take a step back from “We’ve always done it this way,” embracing high risk for high reward.
Enable empowerment through transparency and alignment: Confidence to make decisions comes from alignment with mission.

3. Out of Many, One: Team over self-interests

Inclusiveness and diversity: Constantly seeking diverse identities and experiences makes us better.
Teams win: Every day, we win together by collaborating, supporting, and holding each other accountable.
Equality: We listen with curiosity, speak with candor, and act with integrity and kindness.

Okay, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

For the last 20 years of my career, I’ve worked for companies that are a plane ride away. I’ve been primarily in remote roles myself and managed team members, whether they were based at headquarters or remote, who were somewhere else. Appriss Insights’ 500 employees went fully remote in March. That was a fairly seamless and smooth transition because we were well equipped to support remote employees before the pandemic.

Maintaining personal connections. Today, this is much easier than it would have been in the past thanks to video capabilities, you can see facial expressions and body language. It’s easy to lose sight of that in a completely remote environment where you’re not walking down the hall, bumping into people.
Ensuring that employees are aligned with the organization’s goals. People need a clear vision of what you’re trying to accomplish and what success looks like. When people are working remotely, they can unintentionally be working at odds with each other. So, continuing to clarify alignment is important.
Celebrating successes as well as handling hard conversations. Both of those things are just so much better and more easily accomplished in a face-to-face setting. You have to make sure your employees feel like they are a part of the successes, whether it be new customer wins, new platforms, or new deployments. Hard conversations are much better handled in person, but that’s not possible in most cases. As COVID hit, I would think to myself, “Gee, I really need to sit down with Person A or Person B and provide some constructive feedback.” I delayed that by a few weeks and realized I had no idea when the next in-person time would be. I realized I had to move ahead with those conversations to be transparent and continue to run the business.
Maintaining trust. For people who have never managed employees in a remote environment, I’ve seen unfortunate situations where they end up micromanaging their teams. You have to trust that people will get their work done, and that will show through in the results.
Separating work from home life. When you’re working from home, it’s very easy just to continue to work. You might decide to check email on a Saturday, and three hours later, you’re still at the computer, just because it’s there. Layered on top of that, you burn out from no social interaction and no support to care for elderly parents or young children. It’s a tough time, and people need to find that separation and take care of themselves.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

This is always true in a remote environment, but you can’t communicate too often right now. Some people prefer emails, other people like presentations. We’ve learned through direct, unfiltered feedback from our employees that they wanted frequent communication through multiple channels. I’ve become a huge personal fan in this time of COVID of short-form video, because people like that personal connection. It’s gotten very positive feedback. They feel like there’s more of a connection to the leader and the business when they see someone. It’s a great vehicle because you can really call out individuals’ names and acknowledge success in a setting that has broad distribution. And it’s a good way to build engagement because people can add comments.

Again, using video conferencing is important because it provides a personal connection. Whether you’re sharing positive or challenging news, being able to see the person’s reaction is a helpful part of the process.

Feedback is best when it’s fresh. If you end up waiting days, weeks, months, because it’s just not the right time, it’s a disservice to the individual. I’ve found in my career that most people are generally more critical of themselves than anyone else. When you give most people feedback, they discover that it ends up being less harsh than they were expecting.

It’s also important to remember that everyone has their own personal circumstances, especially right now. Some people are taking care of elderly parents or educating their children at home. Recognize that and really focus on the outcomes. Don’t get caught up in whether somebody is at their computer from nine to five. You can hold people accountable to the deliverable but be flexible and trust that they’re going to get the work done.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I think there’s a problem with over-relying on email. Email is imperfect, and there’s probably not a week that goes by where I send an email that could be construed in a couple of different ways, and it’s read through the wrong lens. I try not to rely too heavily upon email as a communication tool, both for one-on-one and group communications. Internally at Appriss, Microsoft Teams is the primary vehicle for meetings. I encourage people to turn on their cameras for face-to-face interaction. But I also make probably 20 calls a week to team members to thank them or check-in if I know somebody has a challenging situation.

This goes back to our leadership principles. As a leader, I believe transparency is key. People need to feel like there’s not information being held back. Make sure you’re over-communicating the goals, and what success looks like, and really empowering and trusting people to make decisions. If you can do those things in a physical world, but also especially in a virtual environment, people will do good work. Trust them to get it done, and then make sure that you support them publicly and criticize them privately.

And as I mentioned before, take the time for social interactions in this environment. It was easy when you’d bump into colleagues getting coffee or in the morning and chat about the weekend or kids or sports or something you saw on Netflix. We’re humans, and we crave that kind of interaction. So, whether that’s having virtual happy hours or working lunches, don’t let those personal interactions fall by the wayside.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

It’s been really fabulous to see the organization organically have a variety of different approaches. I’ve had virtual happy hours, where some people bring a soda, some people bring a drink, and we chat about life and Netflix and generally not make it about work. I know some of our people are doing Friday lunches, trivia contests, and theme parties where people get dressed up as their favorite superhero. But I also recognize that people have personal lives, and you have to think about what’s appropriate for your culture and the demographics of the team that you’re working with.

It’s pretty simple: Be kind. Say good morning, say hello, say thank you. Those are just little things that you can do as a leader and as a person in a challenging time to deflate stress and make the world a little better.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

This came from my father, who passed away a few years ago: “Life is a journey, not a destination.” I was guilty earlier in my career of thinking, “When I get that promotion, when I get that round of funding, when I get that next contract, I’m going to celebrate.” And the reality is, you have to celebrate the moments along the way and appreciate the time you have with your friends and your family. Those moments will soon slip by. Enjoy the journey!

Brian Matthews of Appriss Insights: Five Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cathryn Lavery of BestSelf Co: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

No water cooler moments — remote workers can’t pop into someone’s cubicle for a quick catch up and as a leader, you can’t keep pace on what’s happening in your company through office eavesdropping. Instead, it would help if you were more intentional with your communication.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cathryn Lavery.

Cathryn Lavery is an entrepreneur and creator. As co-founder and CEO of BestSelf Co., Cathryn helped take the company from zero to 8-figures in less than two years. BestSelf Co. won Shopify’s Build a Business Competition in 2016 and the Build a BIGGER Business competition in 2017 — making BestSelfCo. the only company to win both awards consecutively.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I grew up in Northern Ireland and went to university in England and Scotland, where I trained to become an architect. After graduating in 2011, I secured my dream job as an architect in New York City. I was super excited to emigrate to the US and start a new life. But things didn’t work out as planned!

I’d already interned for the company I was moving to New York City for. They knew my work and I’d accepted a salary of $40,000. A couple of months before moving over, I got an email to say my pay was being cut by 25% to $30,000 because there wasn’t enough work. It was a blow, but I was reassured by their promise to increase my salary once the workload increased. But that wasn’t the only goal post to move…

I arrived in the US with just a few hundred dollars to my name and two weeks to find my feet before starting my job. But one week in, my new employer rang with the news that they still didn’t have enough work for me. They were pushing my start date back a further six weeks. It was at that point I realized that I couldn’t trust a job to look out for me.

So, to help me get through those first six weeks with no income, I started to hustle and do things on the side. I launched my first Shopify store and continued working on it alongside my architecture job after I started. About two years in, I realized architecture wasn’t for me. Besides, my Shopify store was generating more income than my paid job — and I was only putting a couple of hours into it each week.

At that point, I quit my job to become a full-time entrepreneur and I’ve not looked back.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Winning Shopify’s Build a Business competition and then the Build a BIGGER Business competition in two consecutive years — the only company to have done so. It was an incredible experience that opened so many doors and connected me to some incredible people. In fact, the competition was one of the reasons I set up a Shopify store in the first place! I was attracted to the incredible prize, which was something money can’t buy.

I first entered in 2012 and came nowhere near to winning, but that only made me hungrier. I decided to enter again with BestSelf Co. in 2016. I set a goal, figured out what I needed to do, and got my head down. It’s all about persistence.

The win gave me some of the best experiences of my life as well as opening doors that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. For example, I ended up playing Monopoly with Daymond John for over 6 hours. We played until 2 am while staying at the Great Gatsby mansion. I found out later that Daymond uses Monopoly as a way to test people. It turns out that Monopoly is very revealing. It shows you how people make decisions, strategize, and use money. You can also see how people play and whether they’re willing to cheat! Daymond liked the way I played, and this transformed into a deal where he endorsed the Self Journal and gave it out to everyone in his co-working space.

This story is a reminder that it’s how you cope with rejection that matters.

I didn’t win in 2012, but I didn’t give up either. I’ve learned that sometimes rejection is the best thing that can happen to you because of what it inspires you to do afterwards. I’ve learned to not believe in regrets. Regrets are all about the timeline. In the thick of it, things may feel terrible and upsetting, but as you zoom out, you often see the ‘failure’ ended up serving you in ways you couldn’t have expected.

In other words, focus on the timescale and not the problem to find the silver lining.

Not all gifts come wrapped. Some gifts are tough to swallow at the moment; it’s only later — after time has passed — that we realize how incredible they actually were.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

There was a time when I went to the wrong job interview and ended up getting the job!

As part of becoming an architect, I needed to spend a year in an office. To increase my chances, I secured six interviews with different firms on the same day. I had two in a row and the first company kept me longer; joking that they were doing it because they wanted to hire me! It meant I was in a rush to get to the next interview. And that’s when the mistake happened…

There are two firms in Belfast with very similar names. I ended up going to the wrong one.

When I walked into the office and announced that I was here for my interview, they said they had nothing scheduled. They assumed it was their fault so they looked through my portfolio and interviewed me anyway.

30 minutes later they offered me a job.

I didn’t realize my mistake until I got an email from the company I was supposed to interview with. They wanted to know where I was!

This experience taught me that if you’re confident in yourself, you can still win — even if you make a mistake.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I was pretty close to burnout at uni.

I worked all the time and barely slept. Back then, long hours felt like a badge of honor. I thought I had to put in the hours to be successful, but it wasn’t healthy.

One of the best ways I’ve found to avoid burnout is to understand when you do your best work. It’s not about the number of hours you work, but how productive you can be in the time that you do. There’s little point sitting at a desk when you feel uninspired and exhausted. Better to take a break and come back when you’re feeling motivated.

And anyway, we vastly underestimate the value of ‘down’ time.

Taking time out gives your brain the space it needs to strategize and think about things at deeper levels. I’ve come up with some of my best product ideas when I’ve not been trying. Without space to think, we default to action, which means we’re focused on doing stuff and checking tasks off. Thinking time creates opportunities to mull over the bigger picture — which often morphs into the birthplace of brilliant ideas.

Other strategies include prioritization — following the 80/20 rule — so you can identify the levers that when pulled make the most significant impact.

Another strategy I swear by is to distil your goals into habits. Figure out what steps you need to take every day to move the needle consistently in the direction you want to go. You’ll be surprised how much you can achieve when you take baby steps consistently.

Five years — BestSelf Co. has always been an online, remote company.

No water cooler moments — remote workers can’t pop into someone’s cubicle for a quick catch up and as a leader, you can’t keep pace on what’s happening in your company through office eavesdropping. Instead, it would help if you were more intentional with your communication.
Lost in translation — when you’re not face-to-face or in-person with people, it’s harder to understand the nuance of what you’re saying or your tone. In the past, I’d invite my team to hop on for a one-to-one because I wanted a catch-up, they’d interpret the ‘let’s talk’ as an indication they’d done something wrong!
Not brainstorming in the same room — there’s a certain vibe you get from being in the same space as someone else who’s working on the same thing. It’s not impossible to do this remotely, but it’s harder.
Lack of connection between co-workers who’ve never met. It can be a challenge to create a close team community when team members haven’t met in real life.
Worry that your workers are doing what they should be doing? When the pandemic first hit, we ran an online summit sharing insights about effective remote working. One of the questions that kept popping up was how do you know if your team is working if they’re not in the same space as you? Here’s my answer to this… if you don’t know what your people are doing because they’re not sat in front of you, you’ve got a bigger problem! Physical presence at a desk is not an indication of output. Results are.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Introduce intentional communication strategies. For example:
Team chat channel on Slack so there’s space for your team to socialize with each other
Use GIFs — they’re vastly underrated as a way to communicate and connect
Hold in-person retreats — we do these twice a year because they help strengthen team bonds and relationships
You can stop things being lost in translation by getting on a Zoom call [so you can see each other’s facial expressions] or by recording audio notes [so your tone of voice is clear].
We have in-person team retreats twice a year where we factor in time for brainstorming and collaboration. We have regular online working sessions and if the need is sufficient, I’d arrange an in-person working session and fly in the key people involved.
We ensure Slack conversations and team meetings aren’t 100% work-related. Having space to socialize is critical. We do a Secret Santa each year with an online opening of gifts on Zoom. We’ve even played games on a Zoom call! There are plenty of ways to create a strong culture and feeling of connection. You just have to be creative.
I’m interested in the output my team creates — NOT the hours they work. I don’t need to have my team in the same room to know that they’re working, I just have to look at how the needle is moving on the business. Everyone on the team has targets connected to the bigger business goals. This is all the visibility I need to see how effective my team is. Another way to ensure your team delivers is to hire the right people. Remote workers need to be self-motivated and be able to use their initiative. I look for people who don’t need endless handholding.

As a leader, you need to master the art of giving feedback to your remote team. You can let things sit, or they fester. With a remote team, you don’t have the luxury of being able to pop into someone’s cubicle or ask them to come to the office to see you! Instead, you have to rely on the tools available.

Constructive criticism by text, Slack, or an email can come off as too harsh.

I recommend getting on a zoom call and giving feedback that way so the individual can pick up on the nuances and your tone. If it’s not possible to get on a Zoom call, I’d record a Loom video so they can see your facial expressions and hear your tone of voice on their screen.

Another alternative is the ‘record’ app in Slack, which you can use to record your voice while giving feedback.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I wouldn’t recommend giving feedback over email because it’s too hard to communicate your intended nuances and tone. Instead, I’d recommend recording a Loom video of your screen as you walk through your feedback. Not only is this option a lot quicker, but it also prevents things being lost in translation.

One of the most important things is to leave time and create space for teams to keep being social with each other. If people are used to an office environment, they may find remote working more isolating. There is no physical water cooler where people can have a conversation and catch up. There are ways to create a similar experience online. For example, you can create a team chat channel on Slack for chit-chat conversations and connection. We also have weekly calls to talk about our weekend plans.

One of the biggest obstacles is adjusting to working from home. You’re going to encounter new distractions — especially if you’re homeschooling children. Expectations need to change with remote working. Your team may not work the same hours as they would in the office, but that can be a good thing. Not everyone is at their peak between 9–5. Remote working can create flexibility for people to discover when they work best.

Remember, you don’t measure productivity by hours active on Slack. You measure it by the results your team achieves and the work they get done.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Everyone on the team must be committed to the mission of the company. We’re all united around a common WHY. Everyone feels called to step up and do what’s right by the business and our customers because of a shared value we call Absolute Ownership.

It’s essential team members feel purposeful in their work too. Everyone’s work is important and necessary. No one should feel like a number because everyone is a vital cog in the BestSelf Co. machine — all pulling together to do show up in the best way we can. This desire to impact is baked into everything we do — from the way we serve our community, to how we create products based on customer needs, to our internal Slack channel where we showcase and celebrate customer success stories.

I’ve said it already, but building a connected culture is also important. BestSelf Co. feels more like a family because everyone cares for and looks out for each other. Everyone is willing to step in to help where needed because we all care about winning.

I want to inspire people to invest in personal development so they can become their best self — not just for personal gain, but because of the ripple effect it has on everyone around you.

Your best self is personal… it’s whatever it means to you.

But when you improve yourself, other people see it — and that transformation inspires others to seek out the best version of themselves too. You shouldn’t stop learning just because you left school. Learning needs to be a lifelong commitment. Self-education is that tool, which empowers you to keep growing, expand your comfort zone, and raise the standards and aspirations you have for your life.

Best of all, you never know the impact your personal ripples make as you become a better person.

Looking back, if I hadn’t committed to personal development when I did, there would be no BestSelf Co. In turn, we wouldn’t have impacted the people we have — both our customers and the team. My life would be radically different too. For example, I’d probably still be working in a job and industry that wasn’t for me.

Personal development and a desire to be your best self opens a door for a more successful and fulfilling life. It’s why I’m passionate about creating products, tools, and resources that can guide people along that path.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Not getting what you want either means you don’t want it enough, or you have been dealing too long with the price you have to pay.” — Rudyard Kipling

For me, this quote captures the idea that you can get anything you want if you’re willing to commit to it and work for it. This quote reminds me that I have control over my life and my results are down to me.

A lot of the time, people fall short of where they want to go because they stop too soon. They want something big, but don’t take the right daily actions, which means they don’t see sufficient progress so get disillusioned and disinterested.

This quote is a reminder that you have to do the boring stuff too. It’s a reminder to stick to your habits instead of constantly switching up or trying something new. Taking the right actions over a long period of time is what gets results because that’s when the compounding effect kicks in.

Thank you for these great insights!

Cathryn Lavery of BestSelf Co: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Kevin Torf of T2 Tech Group: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

I have been working for clients all over the world and have needed to perform many of my duties remotely. One of the companies I founded 30 years ago, Torsys, employed people from all over the United Sates and at that time, I learned different ways to communicate with these employees. I have also been very fortunate with T2 Tech Group being able to provide custom technology, support and solutions over the last decade to help our customers build their infrastructure to support remote employees.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Torf.

Kevin Torf, co-founder and managing partner of T2 Tech Group, has been a renowned innovator and thought leader in the technology industry for over 35 years, specializing in large-scale IT strategic planning, project design and implementation. Kevin also brings decades of experience in complex application deployment, IT architecture, electrical engineering and data center construction, infrastructure and consolidation and more, particularly within the healthcare space.

Predominantly self-taught, Kevin is an autodidact who discovered his love for technology at a young age, soaking up information from his father’s knowledge of electronics and programming. After starting his professional career in technology purchasing decisions, he merged his love for tech with his passion for entrepreneurship and founded a series of extremely successful companies — Torsys, a consulting company focused on managing large scale technical projects for companies including Microsoft, AT&T and Starwood ; Tornado Development, which became a multi-national leader in developing the first unified communication platform offered to the largest carriers around the world; Inuntius, where Torf developed one of the world’s first digital phone services over the internet VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol); and Intelliverse, where he led the optimization of a single technology platform consolidating voice, email and fax, now utilized by millions of companies worldwide.

After founding T2 Tech Group, Kevin conceptualized and designed the company’s unique project management approach never before seen in the tech industry: the hybrid-Agile methodology, blending management techniques used to optimize client planning. Through this approach, T2 Tech’s partners have experienced remarkable results — saving millions of dollars in vendor management, improving application performance by as much as 400 percent and achieving an unequivocal scalable IT environment optimized for success.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I discovered my love for technology at a young age, soaking up information from my father’s knowledge of electronics and programming. I began my career in technology writing programs for extra pocket money at the age of 14 and eventually merged my love for tech with my passion for entrepreneurship and founded a series of companies. I co-founded T2 Tech Group in 2006 and designed our company’s unique project management approach: the hybrid-Agile methodology, blending management techniques used to optimize client planning. Now, I have over 35 years of experience in the industry, specializing in large-scale IT strategic planning, project design and implementation.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I have so many, but my proudest moments have been foreseeing a need that technology can solve. Most of the companies I founded all started with solving a problem I had in my personal or business life. Forty years ago, at the age of 18 I needed a way to remember the videos and movies I rented from a local video store, so I did not get the same video again. I developed a program to keep a record of what I had seen, as well as categorize what I liked, and compared that to what was available in the video store. From that idea I started my first company called Compu Video.

Twenty-five years ago, I was trying to find ways to better communicate with my staff that were all over the country and started developing tools to help facilitate that need. The tools I developed led to the formation of a new company called Tornado Development. Tornado Development was a pioneer in digital communications.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Some of the funniest moments have been intertwined with all of the people I have met over the years and moments that have been captured in an instance of time. The greatest lesson I’ve learned was when I came to the United States and first had M&M’s chocolate candies, which I did not like. I had grown up eating Smarties, which is a similar candy from South Africa. Over the thirty years I have been in the United States, and still today, when family members visit me from South Africa, they bring me a box of Smarties. One afternoon, I was reading a magazine about an American that had migrated to South Africa and their only complaint with the country was that the Smarties were terrible, and he could not wait to have his family send him M&M’s. I learned that day that no country or person is better than the other, but just different based on what we as individuals have grown up to appreciate. I would say it was the greatest lesson I’ve learned and gave me a new perspective.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Technology is a grueling industry and requires countless hours to build and support the ever-changing landscape for companies’ use and needs in their day-to-day lives. Organizations cannot afford any disruptions or downtime for its employees due to changes. So, updates and improvements to the numerous types of technology systems are done in the evening and weekends making some of your work hours long and tiresome.

The secret is all about enjoying what you do. This is sometimes less about the person or company you work for — although they can play a major role — but more about yourself. I have always enjoyed being challenged and wanting to learn how technology worked. That passion never made my work feel like a chore. What CEOs and CIOs need to provide is an environment where individuals like myself can engage in these passions and feel like their efforts can make a difference, regardless how small they may be. This may not be the ideal work environment for everybody, but the people it does work for will very seldom get tired.

I have been working for clients all over the world and have needed to perform many of my duties remotely. One of the companies I founded 30 years ago, Torsys, employed people from all over the United Sates and at that time, I learned different ways to communicate with these employees. I have also been very fortunate with T2 Tech Group being able to provide custom technology, support and solutions over the last decade to help our customers build their infrastructure to support remote employees.

‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ the oldest saying in history is very true. As managers, we have been taught that management is about monitoring and policing a person’s behavior and productivity. Although this concept is evolving and organizations have started to manage employees based on outcomes, this has become more important as employees are now working remotely and management, in some cases, has lost visibility of how an employee behaves.

Challenges

How do you know a person is actually working and not watching TV? The question is: do you need to know? If the person is doing their job and their performance levels meets the organizations benchmark, should that not be acceptable? The challenge is most organizations do not know how to measure outcomes or what is acceptable. Use and build tools to help measure and monitor outcomes.

Isolation of employees. Most people like to be around other people and have the ability to socialize. Working remotely will isolate a person and they can feel that they do not have the support of their management or peers, or an outlet to communicate their problems or share their family and personal stories. Organizations need to change the way they encourage employees to reach out to one another to get support and interact with each other creating a greater level of collaboration.

Measuring performance. Measuring a person’s performance can start to feel like “Big Brother” and create a stressed relationship with the employee and management. Instead of measuring an individual, work on measuring a team’s performance where possible. Try creating a competitive environment around team performance. This will have the team work closer together and engage with each other, while creating a self-sufficient model reducing or even eliminating the need for a supervisor or manager.

The wrong Tools and Technology. Having the wrong computer or internet access can impact a person’s ability to be productive or have good quality calls. Establish a standard to perform the job function and provide aid and assistance to your employees that do not have these tools or internet. The cost to purchase a new computer, upgrade the internet or provide a work desk is small considering the savings of not having them come back to the office and reducing the real estate and utilities cost.

Separate work and home life. It’s hard when you have the family all working together in the same room and confined indoors to distinguish the difference between being relaxed at home versus what you were used to at the office. This is also not healthy as work and home become one in the same. I recommend dressing to go to work. The idea of dressing in work attire while at home might seem unnecessary but it creates a subconscious difference and the people around you will treat you a little differently. Then, when you change clothes at the end of the day, you are now at “home”.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

See response above.

Don’t berate an employee and be selective on the words you use, employees that get offended will behave differently at home than they would in the office. In the office they might be more constrained and eventually their anger will subside. At home, that might not happen therefore escalating the problem more than is wanted or needed. Use video were ever possible so you can interact and see the person, this will have a different impact than just a phone call. Lastly, learn to use different words in how you express yourself.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Email can be very dangerous if used incorrectly. People tend to say things they do not realize until after the email is sent. Unless the manager is very skilled at writing, managers should be cautious of sending harsh emails without thinking through the words being used, the implications and what the objective is. I suggest always trying to call a person first and verbally discussing with them the problem and then following up with an email. This will put the email into perspective and will corroborate what you said.

Continue to communicate. When we work together, or are in close proximity to each other, you tend to talk more, joke, make comments and interact sometimes for no reason other than to break up your day. Being remote takes that all away. Learning to use a messaging product and chatting with your team even for non-business reasons can help. There are some private social media portals where the team can share information with each other that is restricted only to the team, not the public. They have the ability to have real-time video that is on all the time running in the background. Although that can be a little distracting, these are creative and different ways to fill a gap that is hard to replace.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Empower the team. Create a working environment where the team has no choice but to reach out to each other in order to get their job done. Not all jobs will provide that capability, but with a little restructuring this can be done more so than initially thought. By having the team work together and make decisions together, it will make them more accountable and that is what empowerment is all about.

Allow people the opportunity to be heard, lead people and don’t judge, mentor versus tell, and inspire people to think for themselves. I believe every person can grow and learn if given the right opportunity. Micromanaging and dictating what needs to be done might get the job done at that moment, but people do not learn to think for themselves, only follow direction. This method stifles innovation and creativity. I would try and inspire diversity in ideas and thoughts, regardless of education, age or position. Hearing different perspectives and working to bring people together as a team is a great power I strive to obtain. Ask lots of questions and listen!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

If you’re dropped in the middle of the ocean, what direction would you swim if you are unable to tell where land is?

The answer is not important just as long as you swim. If you don’t swim you will eventually drown. Swimming (doing something) might get you where you need to go, or you might head in the wrong direction. Either way, you’ll never know unless you start swimming. As you’re swimming, try to learn and adjust course as needed, but don’t stop.

Thank you for these great insights!

Kevin Torf of T2 Tech Group: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Starr Oldorff: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Providing honest feedback to a remote team member can be tricky. For it to be effective and positive, it starts with the relationship. If the operations or business manager has taken the time to build team relationships, then any constructive criticism will be more palatable. Personally, if the feedback is weighty, I like to schedule a 1:1 Zoom meeting with the team member. At least that way, body language and facial expressions can be read more easily, and you’re less likely to offend your team member.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Starr Oldorff.

Starr Oldorff has been successfully managing remote teams and remote day-to-day operations for the last 6 years for entrepreneurs with online brands. Starr leads a virtual business support services company and has seen just about every virtual business challenge possible. She has deployed a system to manage multiple remote brands simultaneously and is ready to share these tips with the world.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

My “career” has truly been a journey and many lessons in discovery, opportunity, and listening to my gut that has led me to where I am right now.

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset even before I truly knew what that meant. In my early 20s, I wanted to own a bakery. My Dad, who became a super successful serial entrepreneur after an amazing career as an insurance executive, guided me away from that saying it was hard to make money with that kind of business. Later on, when times were financially tough for me as a single parent, I started a lunch delivery service, which did pretty well — I just didn’t know how to create a positive cash flow or to scale that type of business.

In between all of my ventures into owning a business, I chose not to go the corporate route, which meant small business working in various capacities, either searching for better opportunities or taking the ones that came searching for me. As a result, I learned the small business model like the back of my hand. In all this, I even had the opportunity to work in the C-Suite on a local nonprofit that was about to go under, leading it and the board to increased cash flow, new programs, and new partnerships.

My biggest opportunity, which is why I’m at where I am today, came just when I finished up my business degree — perfect timing.

Owning a business teaches a person so much about themself. Really, it brings to light who they really are, their gifts and talents, and where they need to grow. I learned a lot of things about myself, but the things that I’ve learned that people come to me looking for is the ability to stay steps ahead of my clients, the way I approach things — in terms of step by step systems and processes, and that I’m a very empathetic person. All of which make leading teams and managing businesses something that feels very inherent and natural for me.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

A few years before I started my own business, I was working in a cultural heritage that had a strong foundation in land preservation and agriculture. My title was executive assistant, yet I did everything from project and event planning and implementation, grant writing, strategic planning and more.

In all of this, it was necessary for me to work with leaders in local, state, and federal government, higher education, and business. This is how you accomplish your purpose in nonprofits. I also had the pleasure of working closely alongside board members. One board member in particular was a politician who had strong connections with many well-known leaders.

We were working on a project one day and he told me that I should be a virtual assistant and start my own business, that I’d be great at it. I’d never heard of it before. He explained it as doing the same thing I was doing at the time only working virtually with clients everywhere.

I liked the idea but didn’t understand the online business model and was finishing up my business degree. So, I filed it away in my mind and would think about it every so often.

A month after I graduated with my BSBA, I received phone call from someone I’d known for decades who knew my work history well. She offered me an opportunity to work as an independent contractor in her growing virtual assistant business.

My decision was not immediate. I was concerned that I didn’t know the online business model and all the tech that went along with it. She convinced me that I’ll learn it before 3 months’ time.

I said, “Why not?” and took the unexpected opportunity that came my way. Here we are almost 7 years later with a successful online business services support company.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the funniest mistakes (in hindsight, not in the moment) when first starting my business was quitting my job at the nonprofit I was working just after 3 months of starting my own business. I had replaced my income (which wasn’t all that much), was tired from the trying to build a business and hold down a job, and thought, “Woo-hoo! I have this all figured out!” All of my first clients were coaches living in two-income households, and what I didn’t know was that they all took extended vacations in the summer (some were month long), which meant less or no work for me. I was working hourly when I first started my business. Imagine what having a 30 to 60-day loss or decrease in income could do to someone who was a single parent at the time, not coming from corporate, who was bootstrapping a startup. I was barely able to keep my head above water. It was a hard but valuable lesson for me. And that lesson is a simple one: watch your cash flow. I now have a tight system in place for managing cash flow and take a quick look at my money daily, more in-depth weekly.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Burnout can be an issue for remote team members and employees for several reasons. Firstly, if someone is amazingly skilled at what they do, projects and tasks are rarely in short supply. Secondly, most team members I’ve had the pleasure of working with are self-starters, go-getters, achievers, and proactive in their work. They are constantly setting the bar higher for themselves. Thirdly, they understand the value they provide to a company and honestly don’t want to say “no” to the “boss”. And lastly, ineffective pricing strategies (if contractors have their own businesses, which most do) can create an environment where one would feel obligated to take on more work to make more money or grow their business.

When working remotely is thrown into the mix, burnout can become a serious issue resulting in less than stellar performance, health issues, and personal relationship issues.

What is the solution for all this? The best thing a CEO or founder can do to help their team thrive at what they do and avoid burnout is to create company values that reflect the life you want to have for yourself and for your team, and then live and breathe those values. Make sure your team knows what they are and talk about them often. Live them in your decision-making and actions. For example, if a balanced view of business and life important to you, then try to have four-day work weeks as often as possible. “Close” for bank holidays even if you run a virtual business, so everyone can take a break and enjoy family, friends, and travel. Don’t pressure team members to work during their time off by giving them last-minutes tasks and projects or reaching out to them “after hours”. Encourage balance. Talk about it. Create an open and honest environment where you can talk about things like how to handle task implementation if a team member gets COVID-19, goes on vacation, or has unplanned family responsibilities. Check in to make sure the workload you’re giving them is manageable, and if it isn’t, have a backup plan to bring on other team members to help with implementation.

I started my virtual business in January of 2014. I knew I wanted to manage businesses and teams virtually, but I chose to start with task implementation to give myself time to learn the online business model. Gradually, I started offering Online Business Management and Project Management as offerings. While the job tends to fall on me on most teams, I had my first full-blown remote team management position starting in August of 2018.

The 5 main challenges of managing a team remotely are:

Hiring the right person — It can’t be emphasized enough to hire the right person for the job and for the company. The right person is someone who has the same values as the company, who is positive, who is proactive in their work, and who is a team player. Let’s take proactivity, for example. Proactive individuals will take responsibility for making sure they have everything they need to complete a task or project. They’ll ask questions. They are aware of deadlines. They deliver the work on time or ahead of time without the business manager having to go looking for deliverables.
Not using a project management tool — I can’t emphasize enough the importance of using a project management tool. It’s a key part of leading a remote workforce or the online business model. Let’s get real here. The inbox is not the most efficient or effective way to manage a remote team. Things get lost, get hung up in servers and firewalls, or land in spam. The best way to manage a remote team is by using a project management tool. There are several options to choose from. My preference is Asana. It’s simple and doesn’t have a steep learning curve. Using a project management tool allows you to keep all project communications in one place, assign tasks and due dates, manage repetitive day-to-day operations, as well as special projects such as a product or program launch or website build. All of these features contribute to accountability, save time, and save money.
Lack of systems and processes — Most traditional brick-and-mortar businesses have systems and processes in place for how they do business, often in an employee handbook or the worker end of it, and training processes set in place for new hires or changes in policy. Some systems and processes will stay completely the same on transitioning to a remote workforce, some will need tweaking, and some will have to be scrapped completely with new systems and processes set up and implemented. Managing a remote team can’t be done successfully by using obsolete systems and processes. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Lack of communication — Next to building solid relationships, communication is always key to a successful team, even more so when you don’t have the luxury of seeing each other, taking breaks together, etc. It’s how you keep your workforce engaged and committed to the work at hand, the company vision and success. Lack of communication leads to all kinds of inefficiencies and costs money.
Providing incomplete instructions, steps, and supporting links and documents for remote team members to implement successfully — What I’ve learned since starting my online business is that management projects, tasks, team, and even clients, is not one size fits all. Each team member digests their task or project instructions differently. Those who think in terms of process tend to be list checkers. The creatives like visuals. Some need each and every tiny step laid out for them to read through and check off. Some just want the high-level steps because they know the small stuff. Most don’t like tasks that are laid out in levels like 1, A, a, b, 2, B, a, b and so on because they might miss something. So, it’s important to take this into account as much as possible to create maximum efficiency and effectiveness, reducing the chance of errors. That being said, if you are managing a large team, the opportunity is limited due to time constraints. Web developers may like a link to another website that is similar to what you want. Same with the graphics person. The copywriter may need some thoughts and verbiage on the message she needs to create to represent the company accurately. Point is, give everyone what they need up front, so you don’t have to go back and do it anyway.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

See above.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you, much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

Providing honest feedback to a remote team member can be tricky. For it to be effective and positive, it starts with the relationship. If the operations or business manager has taken the time to build team relationships, then any constructive criticism will be more palatable.

Personally, if the feedback is weighty, I like to schedule a 1:1 Zoom meeting with the team member. At least that way, body language and facial expressions can be read more easily, and you’re less likely to offend your team member.

Always start with commendation and what you appreciate about them. It makes the feedback easier to take.

Be empathetic, put yourself in their shoes, keeping in mind the level of work that needs to be attained.

For less serious feedback, I find that if you have the good relationship, if you are empathetic and kind, and if you start on a positive note, the feedback will be accepted without a problem. This isn’t for everyone, but I use a lot of smiley face emojis and celebration gifs when appropriate in my team communications because words in an app can feel cold and without feeling.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Providing feedback via email doesn’t always work that well, so I don’t recommend it. That being said, if it is the only option, again, I would make sure to have a good working relationship to start with. Start with genuine positive feedback and commendation on what they do well and what they are appreciated for. Then bring up the project that needs to be addressed and talk about the point in question. Ask them to share their thoughts and suggestions on what they think can make the situation better. Ask them to explain their thoughts on the issue at hand. The one who does the work can often provide valuable insight into ways to make improvements. Then I share my thoughts on what changes need to be made being open to any additional feedback they may have.

Since the pandemic, I’ve read several articles about the reduction in productivity levels of traditionally brick-and-mortar teams who have been forced to work remotely. It makes me laugh because I know just how productive a remote team can be. This is not unusual and should be expected. Traditional businesses don’t have the systems and processes or experience for remote work. However, once all of this is worked out, these same companies will experience a rise in productivity that will be far greater than what they’ve ever experienced, which can result in lower overhead and increased profits.

Here are some suggestions on how to transition to a remote work force successfully:

Understand the online business model. This starts with company leaders and works its way down. Do some research. Learn the differences and similarities. It’s not something that has traditionally been taught in business school unless you have an entrepreneurial focus.
Put someone in the role of managing or facilitating with a newly remote team. Likely, this will be whoever did this before or it could be someone new who had experience in remote team management.
Find and implement the systems and tools needed to manage a remote work force, day-to-day operations, and special projects. This won’t be email. It doesn’t work and it’s frustrating. My favorite project management tool is Asana. It’s simple to learn and use and has free and paid versions depending on company needs.
Set up a central communication tool so team members know where to talk to each other besides email. Slack is a tool that’s easy to use and people like it. It also has free and paid versions. Channels can be set up in Slack to guide where the team communicates about what. Be sure to add a place for personal conversation. The “water cooler” has to be replaced. Project or task communication should be limited to the project management tool for efficiency and so things don’t get “lost”.
Train the team transitioning to remote work on how to use the project management tool and any other new apps. Give everyone time to adjust to new tools and processes. Allow time for a learning curve. Productivity will rebound when the team adjusts to the new workflow.
Schedule weekly team meetings via Zoom. The importance of this cannot be emphasized enough. Having Monday meetings sets the stage for the entire work week and weekly meetings keep the team engaged. Make it fun, make it personal, build and maintain those relationships. Again, it’s simple, inexpensive, and effective. Meetings can be recorded.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

It all starts with growing relationships with your team. Get to know them and what’s going on in their life as you would a friend. Genuinely care for your team as people first, not just employees or contractors. It’s also important to take the time to get to know someone who you are thinking about bringing on to your team. There may not be a lot of time to do this, but try to learn their life values. See if their personality will mesh with that of your existing team. Look for balance in your team when it comes to strengths and weaknesses.

For myself, I really try hard to apply Biblical principles in my life. It’s a very positive and humble approach that yields positive results. I realize that’s not for everyone, so what I would recommend is to be empathetic in all your actions with other people. Truly put yourself in someone else’s shoes and try to look at life through their lens. This is important because every single person alive has a different reality, a different perception of life and what they experience. Their reality is theirs alone. So to create the best relationships, best experiences, and best outcomes, we need to try to look at life through the other person’s lens in any given situation with the goal of attaining peace, harmony, and working together.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Unexpected opportunity is a vehicle for personal growth. Always be open to it. You never know where it will lead you.

Thank you for these great insights!

Starr Oldorff: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Matt Janz of THC Marketing: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Work life balance: My team is one of the hardest working groups of individuals I’ve ever worked with, and I’d bet top dollar on their ability to perform above industry standards across the board. The danger in being a workaholic and working from home is that it’s easy to work from dawn until the early hours of the following morning. Losing that structure of an office can lead to an aggressive work schedule that can lead to a more unbalanced schedule.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team Matt Janz Director of THC Marketing, The+Source.

Matt Janz brings years of industry leadership experience to his new role as director of marketing for one of Nevada’s first cannabis dispensaries, The+Source.

Janz, who says he has long admired the company’s brand positioning, messaging and clean design, is responsible for planning, developing and implementing communications campaigns for The+Source. He oversees the company’s marketing and advertising strategies along with maintaining legislative compliance.

With experience as a Vegas Cannabis Summit marketing panelist and as a published writer in the cannabis editorial sphere, Janz hopes to further The+Source’s mission by developing innovative tactics to effectively reach organizational goals, implement successful growth strategies and exceed marketing objective expectations.

An industry veteran, Janz previously held positions as regional marketing manager at The Apothecarium and vice president of marketing and operations at Oasis Cannabis Dispensary. Janz graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in marketing with a minor in communications from Nevada State College. He is also certified in advertising compliance by the Nevada Dispensary Association.

Janz is an avid supporter of several local community organizations, including Opportunity Village, Three Square, the Nevada Blind Children’s Foundation and Forgotten Not Gone. Janz enjoys spending time with his dogs, hiking, cooking and playing music.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Prior to transitioning into the professional world, I was a touring metal musician; I had the long hair, Hagrid-inspired beard, and cut-off sleeves to match. I took aptitude tests and kept receiving “marketing” as a potential career. Unbeknownst to me, I had been marketing all along. Building a social following, driving fans to shows, and encouraging them to purchase our products (CDs and merchandise) and services (live shows) was my job.

Medical dispensaries launched in late 2015 in Nevada, and I was fortunate enough to acquire a marketing coordinator position at The Apothecarium. I was eventually promoted to regional marketing manager, which allowed me to build the foundational elements of their marketing mix including their website, social strategy and paid advertising. After leading their recreational launch in both Nevada and California, I was presented with an exciting opportunity to help reinvent Oasis Cannabis Dispensary.

As the vice president of marketing and operations for Oasis, I rebranded, re-strategized and renovated their organization. With the help of an incredible team, we were not only able to elevate their marketing but also completely remodel the dispensary which ultimately led to Oasis being awarded “Best of the City 2019” by Desert Companion magazine.

The success of Oasis opened the door to my biggest blessing yet, The+Source. As the director of THC marketing, I’m responsible for leading messaging across all markets for The+Source, as well as our vertically integrated brands, CAMP and 8|Fold. I also lead and develop our communication and marketing strategies and am ultimately responsible for those brands’ articulation at retail. This includes team, omnichannel, and consumer strategy development across all regions as well as maintaining leading practices in digital retail marketing and brand development and acting as our team’s in-house cannabis expert.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

During my time at The Apothecarium, I’d frequently consult patients to get a better understanding of who our customers were and what their needs were. We had a patient with Parkinson’s Disease that I had become close with, and one day he came in with violent tremors and was anxiously asking me for his normal medicine, a 1:1 THC to CBD ratio Trokie Lozenge. After we finished checking out, he headed to the bathroom and took one of his normal doses (without our permission). By the time he reached the front door, he had completely stopped shaking and was almost brought to tears in the relief he felt.

To me, this was definitive proof of the power of cannabis and its ability to improve the quality of life. It’s this kind of compelling experience that drives our industry to innovate and create better products for patients across all kinds of wellness needs.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

During my time at The Apothecarium, we manufactured an edible gummy called Valhalla. One day at an off-site office, I noticed an open pack and had assumed they were non-medicated. We often made non-medicated samples to use at grassroots events and for potential new vendors.

Apparently, these were not one of those samples. Without this critical piece of knowledge, I ate the entire bag (10 pieces/100MG) and slowly started feeling… different. It was around the time when I felt glued to my chair that I realized what had just happened. Long story short, I spent a little more time in the office than normal trying to avoid all human interaction and re-learning how to breathe. The lesson I learned here is to always assume edibles are infused and ask before you eat someone’s food.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Utilize your emotional intelligence to be present and empathetic; act as your team’s pressure valve; and find time to celebrate and appreciate your team. During these unprecedented times, it is important to recognize the additional efforts your teams are making and respect their need for a feasible work-life balance.

By being present and empathetic, you’ll pick up on cues when your team may need to grab a coffee outside of the office to talk about something that’s on their mind or an issue they are facing. Happy teams are effective teams; the more exhausted your team is, the less productive they will be.

Effective leaders lead from the front and it’s pertinent to showcase your dedication to your team and willingness to help them by any means necessary. Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty when your team is approaching an overbearing workload. Every CEO has started from the foundational level. A willingness to help your team accomplish your goals by direct involvement goes a long way to show your humility and team-oriented mentality.

And finally, always find time to celebrate and appreciate your team. When we work at high intensities, it’s easy to forget our “why.” No matter what your deadline looks like, you can always find ways to let your staff know that you see them, you appreciate their hard work and that you’re proud of the victories they’ve accomplished.

My experience managing remote teams stems from my time at The Apothecarium. In 2018, California opened its recreational cannabis market and I was fortunate enough to assist in the launch of our San Francisco location’s entry to retail. While I was based out of Las Vegas, I had a talented team in California ranging from a “Minister of Culture” to a content curator. Utilizing the Slack software, conference calls and a shared CMS, we were able to put together and execute the full launch campaign without meeting once in person. Considering the work we did together, it’s fair to say I have just over two years of experience managing remote teams.

Lack of real-life interactions: This may sound like something Michael Scott would say, but part of my morning routine at my office (pre-pandemic) is to make my team laugh. It’s the best way to break the ice in the morning and start our days off on a positive foot. Unfortunately, there isn’t the same level of engagement you get from in-person reactions through Zoom calls, and that lack of connection can be challenging in this time.
Virtual emotional intelligence: In the same vein as the lack of real-life interactions, remotely accessing your team’s energy can be challenging. While I do typically focus on the tangible, there’s something to be said for “feeling” your team’s “vibe.” When you walk in the office and feel that stale sense of discomfort in the air, you can identify if there is an issue and try to remedy it with your staff. However, on a Zoom call, your team’s virtual beach background may be your only indication to how they’re feeling that day.
Ideation/conceptualization: Part of marketing includes being visually creative — whether it’s constructing mood boards, packaging prototypes or sample print ads. While sharing a screen is an easy option for virtual calls, it’s not the same as the hands-on approach of in-person ideation and conceptualization. As with learning, your team has different ways of expressing and employing their talents. For example, my marketing manager, Michael, is the type of visual creator that constructs miniature display prototypes and brand identity boards. Part of his magic comes from that physical construction aspect and his ability to articulate his ideas in a palatable manner, versus purely digital. The physical manifestation of ideas can be conducive to the creative process and proof of concepts.
Morale: As Jim Collins has stated, “Culture is not in support of strategy, culture is the strategy in great organizations.” Part of what makes a company great is the culture it employs, which fosters high employee morale and engagement. Supporting employee morale can be challenging when working remotely — there’s no mid-day nerf battles, turning desks upside down or surprise cookies.
Work life balance: My team is one of the hardest working groups of individuals I’ve ever worked with, and I’d bet top dollar on their ability to perform above industry standards across the board. The danger in being a workaholic and working from home is that it’s easy to work from dawn until the early hours of the following morning. Losing that structure of an office can lead to an aggressive work schedule that can lead to a more unbalanced schedule.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

While this seems somewhat obvious, encouraging video meetings can make the world of difference. At the start of the pandemic, my team was using Zoom, but wouldn’t activate their cameras. While it may seem like an odd request, we decided that real video chats were necessary. You wouldn’t believe the smiles on our faces getting to see one another — that small amount of human connection felt like a long-awaited family reunion.

We’ve also made time for discussions about life outside of work and often ask team members about their highlights of the week. Another tool to help mitigate the challenges of virtual emotional intelligence is to do weekly check-in calls with each individual on your team. Take the extra time to check in on their workload, any challenges they are facing, and any potential tools you can provide them to work most effectively.

Part of our company’s core values is being “seriously fun.” It’s something that’s deeply embedded in our secret sauce and was a challenge at the start of our remote work. However, there are ways to virtualize your company’s culture. For us, it was bespoke memes. My boss and I had created a manual NPS process in the interim of our new system. It was an everyday task (weekends included) and wasn’t the most fun, it was mostly serious… At a certain point, we started creating and exchanging memes with every manual NPS email. I found myself chuckling at my desk (like a crazy person) and the once monotonous task of manual NPS surveys became enjoyable and felt a little like our normal office banter.

For me, it’s important to start any constructive criticism with some positives. No matter what the situation is, start your conversation discussing the positives you see in their work. Constructive criticism can come off too harsh when you start with the negatives, instead of seeking to positively encourage beneficial change. In addition, constructive criticism that is delivered over video meetings help retain those facial expressions and body language that can help soften the delivery of critical feedback. It also allows you to better gauge your team’s response and react accordingly.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Start your email off with thanks: “Thank you for taking the time to put this together, I appreciate your work and effort.” Reinforce a positive prior to critical feedback: “The messaging here is consistent with the campaign theme of Better Together and I like the functional drop shadow on your edit.”

Move into the constructive feedback with additional perspective: “However, there are a few too many elements and background noise. When we are constructing email graphics, we want them to be visually engaging and easily digestible. If our customers aren’t sure where to draw their attention to, we may lose out on the opportunity to convert them.”

Provide suggestions on what improvements you are seeking: “Try removing the background text blocks, the additional shapes in the header, and the grain filter on the edit. You did a great job on the Better Together print ad; think of that streamlined concept and visual when you’re making your edits.” Close out with an additional thanks: “Thanks again for your work, I’m looking forward to seeing this revision.”

Be patient, be nimble and think creatively. For many of us, working remotely is a new endeavor. While your Director of IT may be impeccable with zoom calls, your Director of Finance may struggle with getting connected.

Part of successful remote work is being nimble; be adaptable and flexible in your working style. Rigidity will only make the integration process more difficult. The more open and adaptable you are, the easier this transition will be.

Lastly, find ways to stay connected, keep your company’s culture alive and remain hyper-functional.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Be vulnerable with your team and encourage honest dialogue; set meeting structure and standards; and be as communicative as possible. Being vulnerable with your team helps you connect with them on a deeper level, which builds trust.

Setting meeting structures and standards is not only a productive use of time, but it also helps to encourage a routine. The certainty we feel with routine can offset the great uncertainty we feel by being disconnected and living through these challenging times. Routine is also a positive influence on mental health, which can make the world of difference when working remotely.

In a time when SOPs change overnight from governing regulations, communication is key. When you communicate effectively you keep your teams informed, focused and give them the peace of mind that there is indeed a plan through the chaos. It’s a mechanism of stability, direction and assurance.

If I could inspire any movement, it would be for people to “act like it’s the holidays” every day. The holidays are my favorite time of year; not only because of the gifts and delicious food, but because it’s a time we all treat each other more like humans. The holiday state of mind fosters more compassion and empathy. We should want to bring a smile to our neighbor’s faces year-round, not just when we are bringing them our finest batch of snickerdoodles. We should want to volunteer and express thankfulness for those in our lives as often as possible, not just during Thanksgiving dinner. It’s easy to get lost in the madness of life, but a holiday state of mind could help people treat each other like… people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Good is the enemy of great.” — Jim Collins.

I’ve had some near-death experiences and lost some of the most important people in my life — both of which have taught me that life is short and finite. Every day we wake up, we have the opportunity to leave this world a better place, to inspire others, and to reach our greatest potential. I want to maximize my time on this earth and work relentlessly towards greatness in everything I do. Before my Grandmother passed away, she told me that I was capable of achieving my wildest dreams. It’s my obligation to work towards her vision of what I could be and make her proud. Good isn’t going to cut it, great is the only outcome I accept.

Matt Janz of THC Marketing: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rebecca Page: “Working in a genuine learning environment helps to promote a two-way process of…

Rebecca Page: “Working in a genuine learning environment helps to promote a two-way process of constructive feedback”

Working in a genuine learning environment helps to promote a two-way process of constructive feedback that prevents a blame culture creeping into conversations. I have also found that it is important to set expectations up front about the regularity of and process for communication, along with agreeing what the team member needs from me (or someone else), action points and a realistic timeline.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rebecca Page.

Rebecca Page is the co-founder and CEO of Rebecca Page, a popular global sewing brand with a community of over 500,000. She has spent over 30 years sewing and is the creator of the leading Sewing Pattern Subscription & The Sewing Summit, and is a published author. Rebecca has been featured in The Times, on BBC Radio 4 and in numerous industry publications. An entrepreneur by heart, Rebecca has run multiple businesses. She is a huge advocate for moving away from fast fashion to beautifully fitting hand-made clothes.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Thank you! I started sewing when I was around 8 years old. I remember so clearly my Mum trying to steer me towards simple, beginner level sews… and me setting my heart on complicated coats and ballgowns! I worked my way through her sewing encyclopedia, trying every technique on scraps of fabric and saving them all in a big folder. I had a huge desire to have my own business right from when I was little and quickly started making things to sell. Over the years I’ve always come back to sewing, and now being able to combine my love of business with my love of sewing is the dream role for me!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I actually started the business after being the standby contestant on the Great British Sewing Bee. I was on maternity leave with our second child and applied to go on the show. I didn’t get on, but if someone couldn’t make the live filming dates, I would have to step in. I got to do all the same prep and practice behind the scenes as the contestants. They didn’t need me for filming in the end, but I had such fun with the process, I decided I wanted to take some of my homemade sewing patterns and put them on Etsy for sale. The rest is history!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Ahh, once I was making matching PJs for our two eldest kids who were quite different heights. I was so busy watching Netflix while I sewed that I didn’t notice I had sewed mismatching bottoms together… I ended up with two identical pairs of pajama bottoms, each with one long leg and one short leg.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Everyone in our team is based remotely and has complete flexibility as to how and when they work. The ability to manage families and non-work responsibilities, along with the time saved not having to commute, allows our team to establish a routine that works for them. This reduces stress and burnout, which means our team can thrive in their work and home lives. One of our marketing team, Bronwyn, says ‘I’m an introvert so prefer to be in my own space, and find I am way more productive working remotely; I can just put my head down and go, but also walk away if I need to run errands and then balance out the time later out on’.

Rebecca Page Ltd was registered in March 2018, so it’s been over two years now.

Managing time and productivity — the added complexity in managing remote teams needs to be balanced by sharing the responsibility between management and the team. In return for flexibility, the team understand that there needs to be the means of having technical oversight around time and productivity. Before we implemented a technical solution, it took time to manually prepare timesheets and accuracy and tracking of time was an issue.
Managing communications — finding the right technology to enable quick and effective communication across many different time zones. Email can be appropriate between two people, but we found that when there were more than two people there was that inevitable lag due to people working in different time zones.
Getting the right cultural fit — when we started Rebecca Page we operated on a good ‘gut-feel’ and this has, for the most part, worked well in a small team environment. Team members who have come from a design room notice and enjoy the absence of stereotypical ‘divas’ and office politics. We are mindful that as we scale, we will need to move away from gut-feel as the primary method for getting the right cultural fit.
Establishing an organisational structure that aligns to scaling a remote team — as a start-up scales, it is inevitable that more and more of the team report into the CEO. It can be tricky dismantling a flat structure and implementing something that supports natural workflow.
The fun ‘human’ stuff — the team is growing rapidly, which means it is important to quickly integrate new people and make them feel welcome. We are pretty much all creative people at heart, so we identified that our team fun needed to be centred round our creativity.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Managing time and productivity — we use Time Doctor, a web-based solution that provides time tracking, computer work session monitoring, reminders and screenshot recording for remote teams. It is very easy for our flexible team to capture the time they spend on different tasks and it’s also easy for us to monitor and report time accurately.
Technology to manage communications — we use Slack, Zoom and WhatsApp for team communications. We’ve found that this combination quickly solves any miscommunications that may pop up in written form, and we don’t believe this is less effective than being in a face-to-face environment. As Bronwyn in our marketing team says ‘being able to work from anywhere is fun and opens up so many possibilities — I can work from a friend’s kitchen, from another country if I travel, or from the couch’.
Employing for the right cultural fit — we have been lucky because we have found most of our team directly from our customer base and these positions are highly sought after. Everyone involved in the pattern making process enjoys sewing, and we think this authentic love of the patterns that we produce shines through. As a global company, we are overwhelmingly fortunate to serve a customer base made up of all different races, religions, ethnicity, and creeds. Diversity in all ways is integral to the makeup and culture of Rebecca Page, and we are welcoming and proud of the various backgrounds, beliefs, and incredible individuals that make up our ‘team’.
Organisational structure that aligns to scaling a remote team — I liken our organisational structure to a beehive, but without a queen bee! We work cooperatively towards our larger goal, but operate on a day-to-day basis within smaller teams. Jo in our pattern team say that ‘just like a beehive there is no close of business, no 5 pm out the door and that’s it, job done until the next day…everything keeps turning with each time zone, the process never stops!’.
The fun ‘human’ stuff — we have built comradery through creative sharing on our Monday afternoon team Zoom call. We also have a ‘random’ channel on Slack where we can post anything and everything we want to about what we are up to in our lives. There’s lots of pictures of everyone’s kids, dogs, dinners and road trips!

Working in a genuine learning environment helps to promote a two-way process of constructive feedback that prevents a blame culture creeping into conversations. I have also found that it is important to set expectations up front about the regularity of and process for communication, along with agreeing what the team member needs from me (or someone else), action points and a realistic timeline.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I don’t recommend using email for constructive feedback. I prefer to speak to the person directly. Usually there’s a reason why they did or said what they did. If we can find out what that is, it’s much easier to address what happened directly, letting them know what the impact was and how we’d like it done in future. With Zoom and WhatsApp, most of our team can jump on a call quickly.

A team used to working closely together can implement a routine during the pandemic that helps to keep everyone in touch. Establish Zoom ‘catch-ups’ each morning and afternoon, that are just the same as coffee-time in the office. Team members can ask any questions, discuss issues or just listen in the background to what’s going on. Having a set time to login to the team catch-up avoids the potential obstacle of isolation. An added benefit is that it’s an efficient use of time, as the team don’t need to individually contact the team leader whenever they have a question. Whether in person or on screen, this kind of interaction creates a learning environment for everyone in the team. I’d also suggest retaining any team cultural norms, such as having a drink together after work on a Friday. It’s not quite the same on Zoom, but you can mix it up by making someone different in charge each week of a team activity or challenge.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

We have a team call at 5pm on a Monday and everyone from all around the world logs in — often with kids and pets in the background! I have a quick round-up of what we are focusing on in the coming week and then each team member shares a creative project they have been working on and answers a fun weekly question. This has helped the team get to know each other better, which has resulted in friendships developing. Because we all come from all over the world, and use language differently, we learn to look at things from different perspectives and this helps us to avoid misunderstanding or miscommunication. Bronwyn from our marketing team sums up the team culture — ‘one of my absolute favourite things about Rebecca Page and the global nature of the team is “meeting” people from countries and cultures I may not have had a chance to otherwise’.

I would love, love, love more people to think about the sustainability of their clothing. Not just where it comes from and who sews it, but also having clothing really fit their body how they want it to. If you have quality clothes you love, that fit how you want them to, you are far more likely to wear them and look after them. This both reduces waste and has people feel better about themselves.

Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My co-founder, Janine, sent me a card very early on in the business with the quote “She thought she could so she did”. I saved it and still have it up on my wall today. It really says it all to me. Anything is possible. The key is believing you can.

Thank you for these great insights!

Rebecca Page: “Working in a genuine learning environment helps to promote a two-way process of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Peter Imburg of Elfster: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

It is a pain — but it is so helpful! — to get your remote team all together in one location from time to time. It is also essential to get your leadership team together in real life even more frequently. Try Asilomar or somewhere not too far flung but kind of exotic like Montreal.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Imburg.

Peter Imburg is the CEO and founder of Elfster. He launched the Oakland, California-based company in 2001 after his wife and sister realized how complicated it was to coordinate a cross-country Secret Santa exchange.

Since then, he has grown Elfster to 17 million users worldwide, partnering with dozens of the most popular retailers and brands while collaborating with organizations like Toys for Tots to encourage charitable giving during the holiday season.

Upon founding Elfster, Peter brought more than 10 years of experience working in technology, finance and business at companies including Exigis, BenefitStreet, QuantumShift, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo.

He is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and the Executive Leadership Program at Stanford University, as well as attended leadership programs at Babson College.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I’ve got more than 20 years in technology, business and finance, growing Elfster, which I started developing in 2001, to more than 17 million users from 50+ countries. I started designing this application during the holiday season when my wife and sister realized how complicated it was to coordinate a cross-country Secret Santa exchange. Five years after its inception, I was able to quit my day job to lead the growth of Elfster as its CEO and Founder.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

We see many really amazing stories at Elfster about how different groups and communities support each other by fostering generosity. For example, one group of 491 Triplet Moms comes together for a Secret Santa Gift Exchange at Elfster each year. Their story of helping one another with support and kindness was so compelling we wrote a story about them on our blog. Later one of those triplet moms (and her husband, too!) joined us on the team at Elfster to help other users who were spreading the love.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I wanted to throw a launch party the first year we made Elfster.com public — I thought it would be fun and we could support a good cause as part of it. It got so time consuming and the expected budget kept rising — all while we were starting to get traction. It became a big distraction. I learned so much from that: to stay focused on the customer, to not get distracted by inessentials, and there are easier ways to support good causes!

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I have learned the hard way the message I am about to share! For your company and staff to thrive (you need both), make sure your staff is clear and aligned with respect to where the company is going. Communicate, repeatedly, that direction to your team and make sure that they are motivated to achieve well-aligned objectives that all support the well-understood company direction.

To avoid burnout on your team, try to avoid sending email and slack at night or on weekends. Make time to connect with staff members for something fun online, like a Zoom happy hour or a Jackbox game session. To deepen personal connections with teammates, we have started using Donut in Slack — it’s great to get to know more members of the team.

Before it was as commonplace as it is today, through its 15+ year history, Elfster has worked with 100% remote staff since the beginning. Currently we have 15 year-round employees and an additional 35 seasonal “elves” around the country.

1- You’re in many different time zones. — e.g. all hands meetings are at barely the intersection of when everyone works.

2- It’s impossible to stay in contact without reliable communications (can you hear me now?) — e.g. group videoconferences routinely include 5 or more people — being set up and ready a couple minutes before the start is necessary — too often the first few minutes of the meeting can be fiddling with cameras and mics.

3- You must have outstanding support systems to help coordinate project management and workflows — e.g. Jira, Trello, ProductPlan, Slack, Hubspot, Github, 15Five, and of course, Spotify.

4- It is a pain — but it is so helpful! — to get your remote team all together in one location from time to time. It is also essential to get your leadership team together in real life even more frequently. Try Asilomar or somewhere not too far flung but kind of exotic like Montreal.

5- A video call is always better than just audio to really be able to connect with your staff.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

(Please see above where I incorporated solutions).

This really begins with building a trusting and collaborative environment. That is done by ingraining in the team the importance of some basic communication skills, like don’t take things personally, appreciate others’ perspectives, be kind, seek to understand not to win, etc.

With that backdrop, candid feedback will land much more softly. In the moment of providing feedback, make sure it is a good time, ask permission to deliver some candid feedback, and deliver your message in a constructive way.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Don’t Do It! Pick up the Slack Phone / Facetime if there is something meaningful to be conveyed.

Find a comfortable / proper place to work. It is enticing to think you might work from your La-Z-Boy and you may do it from time to time, but you really need a good workspace with minimal distractions.

Also, take some regular breaks! You need to step away from work periodically to really function at your peak; maybe take a walk around the block. The fresh air is great for keeping you sharp and creative.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Once COVID is over, plan to get together in person! In the meantime, have some fun online together — take time out for a Zoom happy hour or Jackbox session.

What if every person took just 30 minutes a week to think about how they could be kind and generous to someone else — and acted on it?

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars, to change the world.”

Harriet Tubman

Thank you for these great insights!

Peter Imburg of Elfster: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Kip Wright of Genuent: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Communication. The lack of proximity presents an immediate challenge around communication. When teams work closely together in the same physical environment, they are able to quickly voice questions, share ideas, and receive feedback on their performance. A remote environment removes the conveniences of proximity, forcing teams to find alternative ways to collaborate.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kip Wright.

Kip Wright is President & CEO of Genuent. Wright is a staffing industry veteran instrumental in shifting the landscape of the human capital industry. Known as a passionate leader with an innate ability to drive both growth and organizational efficiencies, Wright is responsible for all facets of executive strategy and leadership for the Genuent organization.

In his 26-year career, Wright has served in numerous leadership roles with public and private staffing and workforce solution companies. As Senior Vice President of Manpower, North America, he successfully led Manpower’s $2 billion contingent staffing line of business for the United States and Canada. Wright also served as Senior Vice President of ManpowerGroup Solutions in North America, which include service offerings of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Managed Services Provider (MSP) and Talent Based Outsourcing (TBO). Wright joined ManpowerGroup through the acquisition of COMSYS / TAPFIN where he served in several executive roles including Senior Vice President of Managed Solutions, Chief Financial Officer and President of TAPFIN. Wright began his career as an auditor with Ernst & Young.

Considered a leader in the field of human capital and workforce fulfillment, Wright is the recipient of numerous awards. He is a five-time recipient of Staffing Industry Analysts’ “Staffing 100” award, recognizing the most influential leaders in the staffing industry. Under his direction, TAPFIN became the gold standard for contingent workforce management providers, and was the largest global MSP for four years running. TAPFIN has also been recognized by Everest Group as the top performer in the MSP space for the last three years.

Wright carries his business degree from Louisiana State University. He currently serves on the board of Genesys Talent and has participated on numerous other boards, including OnForce and Homemade Gourmet.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Born in Louisiana, I grew up in Houston. LSU is my alma mater, where I got my degree in Accounting. After college, I started my career in Big Six public accounting, but quickly moved into the services and workforce management space where I have now been for 28 years. Throughout my career, I have had the chance to work for several fantastic companies across a variety of labor categories. I have worked in IT solutions, finance, administrative, light industrial skills, and even built comprehensive solutions for Fortune 100 clients to help them better manage their contingent staffing spend.

A couple of highlights:

— Recognized six separate times as one of the top 100 most influential leaders in staffing

— Built TAPFIN, which became the world’s largest provider of contingent workforce management outsourcing

— Ran Manpower North America (US and Canada), which included oversight of 550 separate branch offices, employing on average of 70,000 associates

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I remember when we set up our first global office for TAPFIN in London. At the time, we were supporting one of the top five global banks with a contingent workforce management program in the U.S., when on a handshake we were asked to open the London office. I sent my team three weeks ahead to get the program started, and scheduled an in-person visit shortly thereafter to check on progress. We were still negotiating the contract at the time, so the work we were doing was at risk.

The first night I arrived, I received a call from our CEO. He had not been keeping up with his weekly status reports, and decided we needed to pull out immediately since we didn’t have the contract signed. Knowing the implication this would have on both our reputation and the business that the bank had us supporting, in defiance I refused and instructed my team to continue work. It took another week to finalize the contract, but resulted in more than 10 years of work with that client, and the launch of our European business. Had I followed orders, none of that would have happened. Sometimes you have to take risks to do what’s right.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’m not sure it’s necessarily a “funny” story, but it does speak to being aware of your surroundings and location. In one of my first positions, I was asked to fly to Chicago and run due diligence on a potential target company. Living in Texas, and spending most of my young career in the state, I didn’t think through the differences in temperature, particularly as I’d be traveling in February. So I flew to Chicago wearing only my suit and changes of clothes; no jacket, no gloves, no hat. I learned the hard way to check the weather and plan ahead for any and all business trips.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

In my opinion, there are three simple rules to follow:

Communicate, communicate, and then communicate again. There is no replacement for a steady, honest, and confident flow of communication.
Set clear expectations. There is nothing more frustrating than wondering what each employee needs to do to be successful. In times of crisis, this is even more important. Set specific, measurable goals and action items, and help your teams track progress.
Recognize great work. When times get difficult, people need to know that their work is valued and making a difference. In times like these, find a reason to reach out to your team members with a note, text, email, or phone call.

Managing an entire company in an entirely remote environment? Counting the last five months… five months. All kidding aside, I’ve always managed organizations that have a distributed workforce. In many cases, that includes managing separate branches or operating locations while in others, it includes managing team members that work remotely or from home. So, I’ve always understood the basics of engagement in a remote environment. Again, streamlined communication, clear expectations, and measurable progress are key here. Fortunately, technology has revolutionized the way remote teams collaborate — leaning into platforms like Zoom and MS Teams has been instrumental for Talent Path throughout the pandemic.

From our perspective, there are five main challenges to managing a team in a remote environment:

Communication. The lack of proximity presents an immediate challenge around communication. When teams work closely together in the same physical environment, they are able to quickly voice questions, share ideas, and receive feedback on their performance. A remote environment removes the conveniences of proximity, forcing teams to find alternative ways to collaborate.
Productivity. One of the biggest crutches managers use to claim that a remote work structure is not effective stems from the theory that the physical presence of the team allows supervisors to ensure that work is being done. Aside from the reasons this is a misguided theory, it’s difficult to manage productivity in a remote environment, particularly without setting proper expectations and incorporating an effective measurement system.
Culture. We have long believed in the importance of building and maintaining an effective culture as a direct link to the success of any company, organization, department, or team. It should be quite obvious — as humans we have an innate need for interaction with others who share common interests. As we have mentioned before, the remote work structure removes the convenience that an office can provide, forcing the need to establish a proper structure that compensates.
Building Trust. While trust is often an important element of many cultures, it is by itself an important success factor for the performance of a team. The reason is simple — trusting in your team members to do their job allows you to focus on yours. That trust allows effective teams to work both separately and together toward a common goal. Again, physical proximity provides the convenience of continuous validation of each individual’s progress, reinforcing trust. Remote environments complicate that validation.
Technology. So many of the factors we mentioned above — communication, performance, culture, and building trust — can only be achieved with the proper framework that facilitates the visibility and interaction necessary to compensate in a remote environment.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

To bolster communication, implement and utilize a number of different media platforms for communicating. Email, video calls, conference calls, e-newsletters, etc. Second, develop a timely, routine, and ongoing communication plan. Finally, communicate with as much clarity as possible. Even when there is nothing new to share, share that there is nothing new.

There are two solutions when it comes to productivity. First, set very clear expectations of performance with every member of the team and hold them accountable to those expectations. So many companies fail to do this first, which cancels any subsequent effort to compensate. Second, measure and report progress through dashboards, scoreboards, power rankings, etc.

Building a company’s culture is done every day through every action of nearly every person in a company. We have always found that regardless of proximity or work location, culture building is about setting and communicating clearly the purpose and vision of a company, and then living true to that through your actions. It requires intention, commitment, and persistence. It also requires visibility; the team needs to see the actions and the connections to the culture you are trying to build.

To be successful building trust in a remote team, you must develop the mechanisms to validate individual performance/progress thus building that trust. Some of the same tools you will use to address communication, productivity, and culture will also help build trust.

Technology is where email, video conferencing, operating systems, performance dashboards, and content sharing becomes so important. Tools like MS Teams are godsent for tackling this challenge.

First of all, I tend to take the approach that feedback can’t be received unless the individual is receptive to it. So, it’s important to first create an environment where advice can be received — which takes time. Over time, people learn to trust that feedback is constructive and useful if they see it’s fair and consistent.

Second, it’s vital that feedback is not always negative. If a manager solely provides feedback when it’s negative, the employees receptivity will be shut down.

Third, make sure you distinguish between reality and perception. In my case, I’ll often give feedback that recognizes that an issue may only be a perception, but in many cases that perception turns out to indeed be fact.

Finally, the way your employee responds to feedback is entirely dependent on the way you deliver it to them. Oftentimes, people don’t realize their own behavior, so try something like this: “I don’t know if you realize X, but when you do X, I see/process X, and it makes me feel X.” Assume that the person doesn’t know they’re doing it or have any idea that it’s impactful. This way, your response is never perceived as intention to do harm, but merely a consequence of their approach or actions.

Notably, none of this is directly tied to whether or not an employee is working remotely. If you are consistent, provide both positive and negative insight, approach conflict from a constructive standpoint, and frame it correctly, it won’t matter where your staff is.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Personally, I try to avoid giving feedback solely using email to avoid misinterpretation. What I prefer to do is have sensitive conversations in-person or at least via phone call or Zoom so that my employees know for certain that they are heard and understood. Doing this also enables a two-way dialogue where employees can ask questions.

There are so many things to consider when you take a team used to working in physical proximity and asking them to work remotely. But if I were to pick three key suggestions, perhaps I’d go with the following:

Follow a routine. Teams function better when they engage on the same time table, especially if they were previously used to doing so in close proximity. So, establish a clear schedule that everyone agrees to follow — one that enables a necessary time overlap to encourage interaction.
Establish frequent check-ins. When we shifted our team to remote work, we asked our team leaders to set up morning, noon, and afternoon check-ins that take place over video or phone calls.
Mix things up. Team meetings and check-ins don’t always have to be addressing business. For example, make the morning call a check-in to share personal goals for the day. Make the midday or early afternoon call a team “walk the dog” call.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Many of the elements we previously outlined, if properly implemented, will create a healthy and empowering work culture, regardless of proximity. Those include:

— Effective, consistent, and transparent communication. Provide as much information as possible as frequently as you can. Too much is never enough.

— A culture of performance. Set clear expectations and hold people accountable. Team members want to know how they’re doing.

— Recognition and rewards. While holding people accountable, make sure they are recognized for their performance. A good rule of thumb, recognize 10 times more often than you criticize.

To be honest, we truly believe that we are inspiring a movement with our work at Talent Path. As a company, our purpose is to “Enrich Lives by Connecting Talent.” We do that every day by helping our contractors find meaningful work that maintains their livelihood, all while helping our clients find the talent that can achieve their business goals. At Talent Path, we have the privilege of getting to do something very special: we help launch careers. We help new graduates find a path to gain both the skills and experience they need to start a career in technology. And because we can do this with purpose, we intentionally recruit to achieve a richer balance of diversity in our consultants, in terms of both race/ethnicity and gender. I’m blessed to run a company that allows me to inspire a movement, but beyond that, I’d say the biggest challenge we have in this country today is the inequities our system creates. What I’m referring to here is access; access to the jobs that pay the salaries that allow people to live the lives they want. And access can only be supported if we strive for the following:

Stable, safe environments. Communities that are safe for our children, where they can learn, develop, and grow.
Proper guidance. Morals, values, and principles are just as important as professional development. So is recognition, encouragement, and support.
The right education. At the heart of some of the racial inequities we have in this country is the lack of access to education and training. We must all band together to solve this, now.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Oh my, there are so many quotes I use and reference as lessons for leadership and life. In fact, my leadership blog (www.leadingwright.com) is filled with them. For now, here are a few that I truly love:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” — Peter Drucker. This may be the biggest truism in business that I have ever seen. If you build the right culture, based on purpose, principle, clarity in vision, and in what you want to stand for, you will find success. I recommend taking it a step further: build a strategy that intentionally creates and maintains the culture you want, and you will be unstoppable.
“There is no ‘I’ in ‘Team.” — Peter Drucker. I am, and have long been, a proponent of the importance of teamwork, leveraging strengths and compensating for weaknesses.
“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” — George Adair. I leaned on this quote as my mantra when I took a huge leap of faith to leave my job running all of Manpower North America to run Genuent and launch Talent Path.
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill. This one’s more of a life lesson than a business lesson. There are so many ways to say it, but Winston does just fine with his words. Pay it forward, and it will pay itself back.

Thank you for these great insights!

Kip Wright of Genuent: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Ashley Armstrong: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Communication can be a challenge at times. With remote teams, many people may be working in different time zones or experience language barriers. Therefore, meetings, follow-ups, etc., must be scheduled ahead of time on a schedule that works for everyone. Communication can also be slow as you cannot turn to the person sitting in the desk beside you to ask a question so you often have to expect delays when waiting for an answer.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Armstrong.

Ashley Armstrong, E-Commerce Expert and Best Selling Author, helps sellers successfully navigate the in’s and out’s of Amazon to scale their businesses to 8-figures and beyond.

After building a 7-figure physical product business, Ashley went on to establish an eCommerce consulting firm that specialize in navigating Amazon’s ‘hidden rules’ of engagement. Her expertise has helped thousands of sellers properly position their product lines in order to increase sales, build a loyal customer base, and drive revenue. On average Ashley’s top clients see a 140% increase in sales in 30 days.

Ashley has partnered with Amazon and Marketing guru, Dan Hollings, as well as companies like Sustain Natural and Viome, who won awards like The Digital Health 150’s Most Innovative Digital Health Startups of 2019, Frost & Sullivan’s 2019 Company of the Year Award and the Top Nutrition Startup Award 2020.

She has also consulted for influencers like Naveen Jain and Jeffrey Hollender, and worked with experts including Joe Polish, Jason Fladlien, Philip Jepsen, Greg Mercer, Ori Firouz, Abdul Samad, and Chance Anthony. For her expertise, she has been featured in Medium, Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, The List TV, CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX NEWS. https://amazauthority.com/

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Anyone who knows me knows that my energy and my drive is extremely high, so with being a stay at home mom I had to find outlets in which to direct my energy. It began with writing books for my children, of which I earned a best seller, and through my online marketing I quickly learned there was so much more to Amazon and other selling platforms than meets the eye.

So many hidden secrets that no one seemed to be willing to share so I took it upon myself to learn everything there was about having a successful eCommerce business. This knowledge led my own products selling to a 7 figure success but with my energy…I had to do more!

I knew this information could stop so many other sellers from falling through the cracks leading to the establishment of my eCommerce consulting firm that specializes in navigating Amazon’s ‘hidden rules’ of engagement. I have had the honor of helping so many established businesses and upcoming entrepreneurs find huge success in the massive eCommerce world, growing many of them to 8 figures plus!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

There are several stories that come to mind, however, if I have to choose one I would have to say it would be when I learned that when you are excelling and exceeding all expectations you are a target for on-lookers to copy! I found quick success when I launched my eCommerce business. One product after another was a #1 best seller and my revenue went from 0 to $30K in 30 days with many of the products I launched.

This success started to gain a large following and low and behold, I started getting “copy cats”. People stealing not only products but my intellectual property as well. Soon I had to fight these copy cats off by sending Cease and Desist letters, getting lawyers involved and it was a lot of time, energy, and effort to protect what I had built.

Luckily I was smart enough to trademark and copyright everything I was doing and because of that I was able to win every case we went after.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Often when creating your own business from scratch you are too close to the situation to notice an error and thank goodness I had mentors in my back pocket to help me through them.

When you are a manufacturer, it takes a great deal of time to do market research, competitor analysis, product development, sample test runs, and then final production. You have to estimate how much inventory to manufacture and you need to have the cash on hand to pull it all off.

Well, the problem was quickly realized when my sales were out of control! They doubled and then tripled to a point that I had to triple my sales prices to try and slow sales down just to give me enough time to get more inventory in stock. Low and behold — the drastic price increase did not slow my sales down! Instead it actually increased them forcing me to sell out of inventory sooner than I wanted. We still laugh about it to this day, it was a great problem to have!

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Burnout happens to the best of us. Poor planning, not knowing when to stop working, rushing to finish a project on time, and more. Thankfully, there are great ways to avoid burnout if we take the time to follow them which isn’t always easy when running your own company!

It begins with knowing when to delegate the workload. This is, at times, hard to do as only you can achieve the results you want right? Wrong! By placing trust in our teams, we have the opportunity to let some of the stress that leads to burnout go. Knowing a portion of the workload is being taken care of by capable hands allows you time to focus on other things…including yourself.

It is vital to take time for you! Hit the gym, visit a spa, go for a walk, enjoy time with family, and any other activity that allows you to put down the cell phone, close the laptop, and focus on something other than work for a moment. You will be surprised how even a short break to go outside and enjoy some fresh air revitalizes your mind and brings new ideas to the table!

Having dedicated work hours is also very important and even more so when working for yourself. It is much too easy to grab your phone and answer that quick email at 11 pm at night when in reality that time should be spent on you. Without dedicated work hours, you will find work becomes your entire life quickly leading to burnout where productivity comes to a standstill. It’s ok to set boundaries and it is highly recommended.

First off, I must say without my team I would be lost! That is not to say it was easy finding a team that connected with my insane energy and commitment, however, after several misfires, I have been able to create a team of dedicated people who compliment my ‘craziness’ making for an excellent, and very productive working relationship!

Now how did I get here? With a ton of trial and error! From the start, I knew I needed someone to get me organized as I am the type of person who has a ton of ideas and wants to implement them all right now! I needed someone who could tell me “Ashley…slow down, let’s focus on ABC instead of jumping to XYZ.”

This for me had to be someone who could be my right-hand person and be able to organize the millions of ideas coming from my mind in a way that betters the business as a whole. For when I succeed, they succeed and that is the ultimate goal! My executive assistant keeps me grounded, organized and focused on the tasks at hand and I wouldn’t be here without her support!

I could not afford a structured business location to house my team when starting out, so remote team members were a great way to get qualified staff while saving money on office space. Over the last decade I have been able to work with a variety of people from locations around the world who I would have never had the opportunity to work with if I had chosen a more traditional business environment.

There are so many benefits to having a remote team, but yes, there are also several challenges as well. All of which can be overcome with experience and knowledge as well as an understanding of your wants and needs and having the faith and trust in your team and yourself.

I would have to say one of the main challenges would be tracking your team’s productivity and work progress. There is no physical workstation for you to check on, no daily in-person contact to touch base and see where they are at so you must be diligent in setting up schedules, deadlines, and expectations right from the start. My executive assistant keeps my entire team in check…especially me! She has implemented great programs for file sharing and progress tracking that helps the entire team function at their peak performance!

Secondly, communication can be a challenge at times. With remote teams, many people may be working in different time zones or experience language barriers. Therefore, meetings, follow-ups, etc., must be scheduled ahead of time on a schedule that works for everyone. Communication can also be slow as you cannot turn to the person sitting in the desk beside you to ask a question so you often have to expect delays when waiting for an answer.

The third challenge, and often the most difficult, would have to be hiring. You do not have the opportunity to sit down over coffee and get to know the person on a more personal level. No handshake to judge their initial confidence, and no immediate clarification if this is someone you can work with on a daily basis. You are relying solely on what you read and hear instead of being able to use all your senses which can make it difficult to find the right fit for your team.

Fourthly, another challenge you face when working with a remote team is there is no company culture leading to social disconnect. No “water cooler talk”, no team-building outings. These types of team events create a bond between workers and without them, it can become difficult to form these relationships.

And fifth but definitely not the least important…building trust. When working with someone in-person on a day to day basis you form bonds of trust. This is more difficult in a remote setting as there is no physical person to connect with. Managers may not trust their workers are completing tasks as scheduled and workers may not trust they will be paid on time…if at all. Trust does not come overnight, but with consistent and transparent expectations, trust can also be formed remotely. For example, when I send work off to be edited by my content writer, I can trust she will complete the work on time and as expected. She in turn can trust consistent pay and recognition which has allowed us to form a bond of trust without ever meeting in person!

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

With each challenge comes its own form of unique handling. Tracking your team’s productivity and work progress is a vital part of your success and you must implement software like Asana, EasySuite CRM, Basecamp, Trello, etc. where work can be shared and progress can be tracked daily in order to know your team is doing the work as required. Always have milestones in place instead of just a full project deadline so that you are not blindsided by incomplete work on the due date. This will help you keep track of everyone’s progress and know which areas need support long before they become a problem.

Communication issues can and must be addressed from the beginning. This can, at times, be difficult to implement, but having a consistent schedule makes it much easier to get the team together remotely to discuss ideas, thoughts, problems, or concerns easily. You must also remember that everyone’s time is valuable, including yours. If you expect your freelancers and team members to attend mandatory meetings, be prepared to pay them for their time. This makes it much easier to have your team attend on time, every time, as they know that you respect their time as being important to both you and the company.

The best way to handle the difference in hiring procedures is to begin by clearly stating your expectations and needs. I often take up to a week to design a job posting as I want any potential hirees to know everything they can before applying. Have an in-depth application for job seekers to fill out but I don’t stop there!

I always ask for a screenshot of their internet connection, I ask them to rate themselves from 1 to 10 on each skill I require, I ask them a fun question to get to know if they like to laugh a lot and have an upbeat personality, I often ask my potential new hires to submit a quick video introducing themselves and I ALWAYS end each job posting with, reply starting with “I am the person for you”. This will tell me if they read everything and I can quickly delete anyone who doesn’t follow instructions saving me time interviewing incorrect applicants.

Avoid hiring a jack of all trades. Instead, hire specific members for each task because someone who is an expert in everything often means their performance will be simply average instead of excelling at one or two things.

Building a company culture to avoid social disconnect can be managed by adding a virtual watercooler for more casual conversations such as weekend family plans or employee weekly wins and gratitudes. Adding physical mail-outs of gifts and company merchandise to your team members and cash bonuses go a long way and they truly appreciate that more than anything. Weekly group calls to discuss more than just business is also a good method to promote your company culture. Remember that you are your company’s culture so be sure you are a living example of the culture you wish to form before trying to encourage others to do so!

Lastly, trust-building. Simply put, you must be transparent about your company goals, expectations, rules, and limitations. Do not expect your team to just know all the in and outs. By being fully transparent about everything from pay dates to deadlines, struggles you are dealing with etc, you will be able to form a trustful bond between your team members.

My company motto is, “When I rise — we all rise!” I like to support and lift my team members up individually and support them on their extra curricular work as well!

We live in a very technological world and with many people choosing email and texting over picking up a phone and calling someone, it can be difficult at times to read the ‘tone’ of the sender. They may be expressing concern in a light manner, but you may take it as they are angry and full of resentment. This often leads to many conversations between two people being ‘taken the wrong way’ by one party or the other.

The same goes for remote workers. You cannot simply assume your tone will come across as you meant it through an email or text. Some tips to help combat the misunderstandings through both non-verbal communication and visual communication while giving constructive criticism are:

Video Call is Best — Whenever possible try to give constructive criticism through a video call. This is the best way to still be able to express yourself while having your remote worker be able to visually see you so there are no misunderstandings in your tone.
Don’t Wait to Give Praise — They often say it takes 10 good things to level out 1 bad thing, so when your workers are doing great…tell them so! Consistent feedback, both the good and the bad is much better for both parties than choosing to only point out the negative once in a while. Positive feedback also boosts morale which, in turn, boosts productivity!
Employ both Care and Empathy — When physically working with someone on a daily basis it is much easier to form bonds that allow you to genuinely show care and empathy to your workers. Remotely you do not have that daily interaction so you must show both without coming across as disingenuous. You can apply this by ensuring your feedback also helps your worker grow. A great tool for learning this is the Radical Candor approach which helps you give guidance and feedback that’s both kind and clear, specific, and sincere.
Don’t Be to One-Sided — Constructive criticism should go both ways and as an owner, you should also expect to hear some feedback on yourself as well. Both giving and receiving feedback should help your team grow, produce new ideas, and develop your team towards an ultimate goal. So remember, you are human and are not perfect so always be ready to learn about yourself as an owner as well.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Feedback over email is a delicate balance that can be difficult to navigate without sounding harsh. If I had to choose an email over a video call, I would begin by asking questions. Your team is how you reach success so you must show an interest in their thoughts before jumping to criticism. By asking questions such as “How do you feel about the project you were assigned? Did you encounter any issues you would like to discuss?”, you open the door of communication allowing you to then provide constructive criticism both parties need to grow.

Be sure to not simply criticize, but also provide clear actionable direction for your worker to follow along with sincere empathy. Perhaps they were late with a required delivery for the second time, instead of saying “You were late yet again”, try saying “I have noticed you are having trouble meeting deadlines, how can we resolve this so that we can all meet our goals?”. By asking a question, it allows the worker to become involved in the process without the feeling of being attacked.

Without criticism, we cannot grow and it has been shown the people actually appreciate criticism when delivered correctly. My best advice would be to write the email…then rewrite it. Often we spew out too much within the first draft, so it is always great advice to reread and rewrite where needed to ensure you are being constructive, providing actionable direction while also listening to your worker.

Plus, you always want to point out what they are doing right! Give them that boost in confidence they need especially if you have to provide constructive feedback, it can really help minimize animosity.

I would say the biggest obstacle when getting used to remote working would have to be time management. When working from home, it becomes all too easy to be distracted by our surroundings such as kids playing in the next room, dogs barking, etc. which can lead to missed deadlines. However, working from home can also lead to burnout as you don’t have a set time to finish work. It is all about time management.

That comes easy when in a physical work building with scheduled breaks, lunches, and a dedicated end of the work day, but can begin to become difficult in a new remote setting. When switching to a remote setting, maintain the same work schedule every day just as you would if you had to get up and leave for work.

Set an alarm, shower, and get dressed for the office, even if your office is now your kitchen table. Keeping the routine allows your body and mind to switch to ‘work mode’ helping productivity and time management.

But sometimes you can’t follow your normal working hours when you have kids to educate at home too. To manage this, I do not micromanage my team.

We are ALL having to deal with the uncertainty of work life balance due to the pandemic. I set clear goals, we have daily check-ins at a specific time that everyone must arrive for, and we have end-of-day reports that must be submitted. Other than that my team can work on whatever schedule works best for them as long as the work gets done and you are online when I am to answer questions in real time. I do not care what hours my team works. We all have to be flexible in today’s world.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Your company culture always begins with you. Your values, your goals, and your energy. Ensure you clearly describe your values, and encourage others to communicate openly about ideas and thoughts.

Introduce new team members to the entire team. Do not assume they know there is a new person, take the time to fully introduce them, and encourage introductions from all parties. Have a dedicated ‘water cooler’ channel within your organization’s chat forums. This allows for more personal talk such as a great weekend, or a child’s birthday celebration. Simple tricks like this will help you build a community of team members who enjoy working and talking together, leading to better productivity as they feel welcomed and part of the whole team.

This might sound crazy but smile!

I want you to legitimately reduce your stress and heart rate on purpose by cracking a smile, yes, even fake it if you have to! Smiling supercharges your mood, builds your immunity, lowers stress, and helps to generate more positive emotions which allows you to be more productive at work and make more money.

Our bodies release cortisol and endorphins that provide numerous health benefits when we smile. Quickly shift your mood and stay more energized while avoiding burnout.

The brain doesn’t know the difference if you are smiling because something made you happy or not, it just notices the trigger from the muscles. For a faster effect, smile at yourself in the mirror because our mirror neurons enable us to copy the behaviour we see.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“When I rise, we all rise”

This is my company motto. I don’t take the people in my life for granted even if I am paying them. We all have something amazing to contribute to the world and I am not the only one to have dreams, aspirations, and goals. Every person on my team has them too and I honestly believe that when I grow and succeed, I can then lend a helping hand to my team members as well.

Thank you for these great insights!

Author Ashley Armstrong: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jonathan Slain: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

With our employees, we always want to make sure that they’re providing a return on investment, in other words that the expense the business has in paying their staff is returned as profit. This calculation of return on investment when it comes to staff was easier before Coronavirus. Today, we have to question if people are as productive working remotely as before. Do we still get a full day’s work for a full day’s pay? Is the reduction in productivity due to remote work or due to a reduced demand for products and services globally since this is the worst recession in history.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jonathan Slain.

Jonathan Slain spent the Great Recession huddled in the fetal position on the floor of his office. He borrowed $250,000 from his mother-in-law to survive. Jonathan paid his mother-in-law back and is now a highly sought-after consultant (and, yes, he’s still married!). Jonathan leverages his experience in investment banking and as an entrepreneur on the keynote speaking circuit because he doesn’t want anyone else to have to borrow money from their mother-in-law in the next recession.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I am a recovering investment banker! This was my first real job after college doing mergers and acquisitions work in Cleveland. Since then, I’ve owned gyms and I’ve travelled the country working with management teams on strategic planning. I average about 100 sessions of all day planning per year, meaning that I now have close to 5,000 hours of helping teams figure out how to grow and prosper!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I SURVIVED THE GREAT RECESSION BY BORROWING A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS FROM MY MOTHER-IN-LAW! I owned a number of franchises of something called Fitness Together. These personal training studios did great at first — we grew very fast, opening several new locations. Our studios achieved new franchise records every year. It felt like we couldn’t miss! In 2008, we set a world record for the most personal training sessions ever in the history of the franchise, and later the most locations ever. We just grew and grew and grew… Until we ran into the Great Recession.

The only reason we survived at all was that I borrowed over $250,000 from my mother-in-law. Amazingly, I’m still married, and I have paid back what I owed at this point. But it was bad.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Coronavirus’ biggest advantage is its patience. The virus doesn’t get bored or stir crazy, it simply waits for us to make mistakes, to lower our guard and that’s when we spread it. Our best defense is social distancing and masks, but both of these solutions result in dehumanizing interactions! For CEOs and founders to thrive, we need to dig deep, find another gear inside of ourselves and offer comfort and hope to all of the people that trust us enough to work for and with us. By serving others who are having a tougher time in the pandemic than we are, we win.

I’ve been consulting full time for four years for companies all over the country. In that time, I have worked with my clients in person and remotely.

Accountability — Managing people is hard enough when you can meet with them face to face, explain the task at hand, give them the opportunity to ask questions and then follow up to check in on progress. When people are working at home, how can you make sure they are doing their work? One of the companies that I work with on strategic planning was recently lamenting that the software developers that they employ are supposed to write a daily update on what they are working on so that management can track their hours and hold them accountable. Often, these updates are generic (probably copy and pasted from prior updates) and refer their managers to other documents. In other words, “today, I worked on the coding specified in our project timeline.” For a manager to get value out of this update, the manager would have to find the project timeline, open it, find the employee’s scheduled task and cross reference it with the code the employee wrote that day.

The solution is to give your employees more guidance on what a good update looks like, a template to complete it and an explanation of why it is important (and, hopefully the why you give them is something better than “I want to make sure you’re not just eating Doritos all day on our dime…)

Bankability — With our employees, we always want to make sure that they’re providing a return on investment, in other words that the expense the business has in paying their staff is returned as profit. This calculation of return on investment when it comes to staff was easier before Coronavirus. Today, we have to question if people are as productive working remotely as before. Do we still get a full day’s work for a full day’s pay? Is the reduction in productivity due to remote work or due to a reduced demand for products and services globally since this is the worst recession in history.

To combat these questions of bankability it’s important for us to think thru new metrics to measure success. As leaders, we need to provide our people with a clear measure of how they “win” each day when they logon to start working. They need to know clearly how far they have to move the ball for us to get a “first down.” Clear measurables are even more important during Coronavirus and paradoxically seem to be less available.

Comfortability — The number of Zoom users has gone up 20X since the start of the pandemic according to iPhone Life Magazine. And, we are all still learning best practices on how to be comfortable on video calls. What’s the right protocol? Can we dress more casually? Do we always have to have the video on? What’s an acceptable video background? Should I look at the camera or at the other person while I speak? Being on camera isn’t comfortable, it’s a skill that needs to be cultivated. I write this with the news of Regis Philbin’s death on in the background. He set the Guinness World Record for most hours on TV (17,000ish) and his comfortability on screen is testament to that volume of practice.

I recommend that teams default to having the video on during calls because the reward of face to face human connection is more important than the pain of poorly lit backdrops! And, if one person is on video, everyone should be on video (it’s only fair, unless you’re driving and can’t help it…) But, I also like the idea that every once in a while, it’s OK to just doing a regular old phone call. Not EVERY call has to be a video chat these days!

Dependability — Let’s face it, things come up when we’re working from home. In one day, I had visits from: FedEx, UPS, Postal Carrier, Amazon, a guy trying to sell pest control services door to door (I sent him on his way), gardener, Poop911 for dog waste (I understand it’s lazy, but we have a doberman…), and my parents. All of these interruptions caused me to pause my day and answer the door. A few times, I had to ask a video call to hold for a moment. And, it’s currently the summertime when school isn’t in session. When our kids start school again (right now they’re telling us they will attend in person in the mornings and do virtual school at home in the afternoons) all bets are off since the kids interrupt my work every 10 minutes with a homework question (most of them legit, some just asking if they can watch Dobre Brothers on Youtube after they finish their schoolwork…)

For me, I ripped apart my guest bedroom in January, when the pandemic was first starting, and converted it to a virtual studio. A room where I could put in multiple video cameras, lights, and audio equipment to improve the experience of video conferences. Over the past six months, this 15’x15’ bedroom has been transformed into a studio. I use it to conduct strategic consulting (EOS™ Traction sessions with my clients), to film television and podcast interviews, as well as conduct virtual coaching sessions with clients. More importantly, it has a door that can be shut! My family knows that when the door is closed, they shouldn’t interrupt unless they’re bleeding!

Exhaustibility — Let’s be honest, a day full of remote work is isolating and can be exhausting. How much can we take? My goal in building a virtual studio in my house was to improve the experience of a virtual meeting for my clients and myself! I wanted to experiment with how to use hardware, software, and ingenuity to make video meetings more fun, engaging, and productive. Perhaps the highest compliment that I’ve received was from a top sales executive at one of my clients who said “I was suspect of conducting an all-day online meeting, but Jonathan far exceeded my expectations. The way that he integrated technology made it very entertaining. Keeping a sales guy engaged for six hours over Zoom is quite a feat!” — Mike Barrett, Sales Director at TestOil.

After all of the effort to research the right equipment for the studio, install it (often with the help of professionals), and make plenty of mistakes (lots of trial and error and returns to Amazon and other equipment vendors), I wanted to share the current layout. I’m not expecting that everyone will want to go off the deep end like I did with this build-out, but my hope is that you’ll pick out a few elements that are right for your situation. www.AutobahnConsultants.com/VirtualTour

Jonathan Slain: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Keegan Peterson of Würk: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Some team members struggle with distractions, whether it be family members or housework, so they tend to be underproductive. Others are too focused and available, working until they realize it’s past their normal stop time. It’s helpful to have a mechanism that tracks who may be underperforming and who is pushing themselves too hard. Stand ups help communicate the expectations and support the employees while getting a grasp on their workload. For example, CRMs for sales helps measure deal progress, while ticket systems help measure productivity on phone calls.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Keegan Peterson.

Keegan Peterson is Founder and CEO of Würk, the leading human capital management company for the cannabis industry. Keegan founded Wurk in 2015 after recognizing that cannabis businesses didn’t have access to the same scalable HR technology solutions as mainstream companies. Cannabis companies were repeatedly being dropped by workforce management vendors and Keegan saw the opportunity to build an HR and Payroll platform specifically to serve the rapidly growing cannabis industry. Under his leadership, Wurk now serves hundreds of clients across 33 states, including some of the largest publicly traded cannabis corporations in the nation. Würk now pays one in ten employees in the cannabis industry.

Prior to founding Wurk, Keegan spent over a decade working for high-growth HR technology companies, developing a deep understanding of how to build and scale software solutions that automate critical HR functions of business operations.

Keegan is active in lifting up other entrepreneurs in the cannabis space. He is a mentor at Canopy Boulder and Canopy San Diego, a mentorship-driven, early-stage investment program for startups in the cannabis industry, with a focus on ancillary products and services. Keegan is an outspoken public advocate and thought leader for the cannabis industry and is associate producer on the 2018 documentary Weed The People, which aims to educate mainstream audiences about medical cannabis as a human rights issue.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I grew up in Florida and studied finance and biology in college. After college, I found myself living in Colorado working in the human capital technology world, partnering with enterprise restaurant and retail brands on how to utilize technology to best deploy their people to drive stronger customer experiences. Being in Colorado for the past 10 years, I witnessed the state legalize recreational marijuana and all of the good it did for our community. Coming from Florida, where my mom was a social worker and my dad was a software engineer, the thought of bringing technology to the cannabis industry was a dream come true. If I could help these companies grow and stabilize their business so they could maximize their impact in their communities, then I could participate in making our communities and our world a better place. So cannabis technology quickly became my ultimate life passion.

I founded Wurk in 2015 after recognizing that cannabis businesses didn’t have access to the same scalable HR technology solutions as mainstream companies. Cannabis companies were repeatedly being dropped by workforce management vendors because these providers did not have the compliance or banking infrastructure to support cannabis operations. I saw the opportunity to build an HR and Payroll platform that meets industry compliance and is supported by cannabis-compliant banking to specifically serve the rapidly growing industry.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The most interesting thing that happened to me since I began my career was being involved as Associate Producer for the Weed the People documentary. I sat next to Ricki Lake at a networking event in Utah and she told me about a documentary she was working on. I was able to jump in on the project and help produce it. The film ended up getting into SXSW and was eventually picked up by Netflix with a successful run last year.

The documentary follows the story of six children suffering from cancer and receiving chemotherapy treatments. They used cannabis for relief from the side effects and for the best experience possible while going through that traumatic time. The film shows how cannabis can really help suffering people.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Wurk is the first company I’ve ever started, and I didn’t fully understand some of the metrics that investors care about. I was confidently presenting decks with my misunderstood metrics to potential investors who had to tell me what the metrics meant. I left those meetings feeling like I completely missed the mark, spending a lot of the time being corrected by people I was trying to impress.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

It’s important to understand how much work your employees have on their plate so you don’t overwork them. You must be realistic about priorities and workload, and it’s your responsibility to be constantly aware of your company’s happenings so you can protect your team. Everyone is trying their best to get their work done, and it’s the manager’s responsibility to know when they are burning too hot, when to back off and to make sure employees find time to take off.

I have been working remotely for a decade, since 2010. My first job out of college was managing a remote team, so really my entire career has been remote. Wurk was the first office environment I’ve ever been a part of but we have always had remote workers.

The first challenge is communication. About 50% of communication comes from body language but you don’t get the same experience in expressing body language remotely. It’s difficult to know what people are doing and how they are feeling when you don’t have that level of communication. It’s more important than ever to ensure managers are trained to have a weekly one-on-one with their employees. Daily stand ups and overcommunication is important, as well. It’s okay to be redundant. In fact, you probably aren’t saying it often enough.

The second challenge is productivity — both overproductivity and underproductivity. Some team members struggle with distractions, whether it be family members or housework, so they tend to be underproductive. Others are too focused and available, working until they realize it’s past their normal stop time. It’s helpful to have a mechanism that tracks who may be underperforming and who is pushing themselves too hard. Stand ups help communicate the expectations and support the employees while getting a grasp on their workload. For example, CRMs for sales helps measure deal progress, while ticket systems help measure productivity on phone calls.

Prioritization is another problem. Everyone uses email and chat rooms when working remote so you lack the normal, conversational back and forth. Some may not realize another’s workload when asking for help. It can be difficult for employees to understand what is important and what isn’t when prioritizing. Having frequent check-ins with managers and allowing employees to dismiss a request if they are overwhelmed helps to prioritize tasks. Create weekly, monthly and quarterly goals and provide a tool for decision making.

Another challenge is avoiding burnout. Work from home environments can be traps for burnout because work is home and home is work — there aren’t any boundaries. The ability to work from home is a perk to some if they prove they can do it, but sometimes they push themselves too hard to maintain the perk. I’ve had many conversations with executives who are surprised by the amount of productivity from remote employees. What is not being discussed is the looming burnout of team members who are pushing themselves too hard from home. Managers must understand the amount of work each employee has, using tools to measure their productivity.

The final challenge is culture. We’re entering a new era where we must build a virtual culture. Employees often form friendships while going out to happy hours together, grabbing dinner or even traveling together. A majority of our time is spent at work, but we are also social beings. That aspect is removed when working virtually. The only chance to catch up is over Zoom. You need to recognize the values that make up your company culture and have systems in place where employees can recognize one another when they live up to their values. It’s important to also continue to hire people who further your culture and help you move it towards your ideal environment.

Use a feedback model that works for the type of company and culture you have. There are many models available, including Cedar, Star and SPI. Both employees and managers will need training on how to give and receive constructive criticism. It’s difficult to provide feedback virtually because you lack the body language component of communication and can’t easily detect how it’s being received. I find that it’s best to be honest and upfront with your employees and ensure both sides recognize the limits to virtual communication. Check in and ask how it went afterwards to perceive each side’s perspective and discuss any challenges to better understand what you can do to improve the conversations.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Email is not the place to give constructive feedback as you never know how it will be received. It’s common to misunderstand the tone of an email that isn’t clearly composed. It’s also easy to hide behind emails and relay whatever feedback they want because they aren’t facing the employee. It’s better to utilize the technology we have available today and set up a phone call or video conference to provide the most person-to-person experience possible. Understand the feedback model and attack the issues at hand, not the person.

There are four stages of team formation: forming, storming, norming and performing. Forming is when people are just starting to work together, are making an effort to get to know each other and are positive and polite. The next stage, storming, is when team members start to push against the boundaries established in the previous stage, like when there is a conflict between members’ working styles. The team gradually moves into the norming stage when they begin to resolve their differences, appreciate each other’s strengths and respect authority. Team members are better acquainted and may begin socializing together. Finally, the performing stage is reached when the team achieves their goal without any arguments.

Ensure your team members understand what stage they are in and help them move onto the next stage. It’s alright to call out any discomfort and tell them it’s okay that it’s not perfect, using it to build morale around the fact that they are working together to get over this challenge. It can be more challenging when working remote, but easier if you set expectations that they are going through these stages virtually.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Provide tools that remove the tactical work so they can focus on what really matters rather than mundane tasks. Find times to engage employees and use communication tools well, like chat, email and video conferences to communicate between employees. It’s okay to over communicate through these channels. Teams may feel as though there are more meetings than usual, but it’s necessary to get people plugged in. Set up one-on-ones with each team member to ask how they are doing not just with work, but also home life to see what you can do to better support them.

Virtual team building is also helpful, like virtual scavenger hunts or buying a team lunch so they can enjoy it together. There are a lot of available resources and assessments that help people learn about each other and how they approach work and teamwork. Since they’re not going into the office together, this helps discover their communication style and personality, and vice versa.

Legalizing cannabis is the obvious first move. People are still being incarcerated and lives are being ruined over something natural, with evidence that it improves people’s quality of life. We need to get to a point where no one’s lives are negatively impacted by this plant.

Also, fair and equitable work environments would change the world. We are currently operating with a fraction of the intelligence available in the world by putting certain people in positions of leadership. The quicker we can achieve more diverse perspectives, especially within the leadership team, the sooner we will recognize the full potential of human intelligence.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite quote is “The one who endures until the end will be delivered.” I put this in my locker when I was playing football in college. I wasn’t surrounded by the best leaders, but by people who didn’t give me the feeling that they wanted me to succeed personally, just to perform. I had to find my own strength to do well because it was my goal. It reminded me every day of how hard it would be, but that I have the ability to get there and just have to endure the challenges that come my way. I ultimately became a scholarshipped division 1 athlete ranked top 20 in my division.

Life is challenging for everyone and we are all going through our own personal difficulties. All great things work through a difficult time, but we must push our boundaries and endure that experience. We must step into uncomfortable situations to have an expanded consciousness.

Thank you for these great insights!

Keegan Peterson of Würk: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Matt Martin of Clockwise: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Every calendar needs long blocks of uninterrupted time for heads-down, focused work. Proactively setting aside time for deeply focused, proactive work prevents you from saying yes to too many reactive requests from others. Set aside at 15–20 minutes at the start of your week to proactively plan what you want to accomplish before the end of the week and 15–20 minutes at the end of each week to journal what you accomplished and what got in your way. In the first sit-down, write down what you want and need to accomplish.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Martin, Co-Founder and CEO of Clockwise.

Matt Martin co-founded Clockwise along with Mike Grinolds and Gary Lerhaupt in 2016. The intelligent calendar assistant frees up your time so you can focus on what matters. It uses AI to understand your work and life commitments and automatically organize your calendar to help you focus on your priorities.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

In elementary school I made hyper card stacks with Mac 2s. I loved the possibility of the computer. In school I developed an affinity for history and desire to impact systems at the highest level. Then going to law school and starting in Big Law, where you measure your time by six-minute increments, gave me an appreciation for the preciousness of time.

So, I left law and pursued a career in software engineering in San Francisco. This brought me to several companies, the most impactful of which was RelateIQ. That’s where I met my Clockwise co-founders.

We shared, and continue to share, a common goal: Giving our users more time for focused work, family, and friends. More time that matters to you.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Shortly after RelateIQ (the startup I was at before I started Clockwise) was acquired by Salesforce, Marc Benioff came down to our office in Palo Alto to attend our quarterly Hack Day. Our offices were in the basement below West Elm on University Avenue. So, first thing, you have to imagine Marc Benioff squeezing into this subterranean startup office and taking roost on a bench at one of the picnic tables in our lunch area — he’s a larger than life character.

As was a personal Hack Day tradition, I presented my demo in character, and this time I had chosen Steve Jobs. Of course, I had no idea when I prepped this that Marc would be there, but every day is a new adventure! So, I was up on stage in a black mock turtleneck presenting God knows what, and here was Marc Benioff questioning me as Steve Jobs (who he knew quite well). It was absolutely surreal and all I remember is him telling me afterwards that I wasn’t quite as good as the real thing, but close. That’s high praise in my book!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I used to really overthink investor communications. I would ask colleagues to vet drafts of an email to inbound and existing investors. In retrospect, that sounds hilariously overwrought. And it was. It got in the way multiple times because it would delay timelines. Asking three or four people to vet one email draft means it takes three to four cycles to actually send the email. That’s not effective. But it comes from this insecurity and this impostor syndrome around being the leader of the company and wanting to maintain that outward appearance. And once I became comfortable with who I am and my tone of communication I realized that I am more than perfectly capable of emailing investors and giving them responses.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I think the first lesson is just being comfortable in your own shoes. There’s just this innate impostor syndrome around not having credibility to lead the team. You start the company with a set of people that you know and have worked with before. But starting a company doesn’t change who you are. The expectation that it should do so is one that’s completely self-created — I think that most people who start on any endeavor create an expectation around, “I should be a leader now. I should be more commanding. I should act more like a leader.”

You compare yourself to leaders you’ve worked with, and that’s just not you. No leader you’ve experienced before is going to lead in the same way that you lead. It was a journey for me to get more comfortable in my shoes. I can’t say that I’m fully there yet. But, the self-acknowledgement that you’re going to lead differently than anybody else, and that’s okay, has been huge. You’ve got to find what works for you and meld that with what works for the company.

Find the ability to separate the short-term wins and losses and long-term wins and losses. If you spend too many emotional cycles down in the nitty gritty you’re just going to wear yourself thin. It gets even more complicated when you attach that emotional connection to it. I think that’s the biggest thing.

Another thing is, you need to make space to feel healthy. If the way you feel healthy is by taking a walk through nature, or by going to the gym and pumping out reps on a cardio machine, or if it’s going for a run or a bike ride, or if it’s just taking a walk and listening to a podcast, physical health, and giving yourself the space to pay attention to that, is really critical. And pay close attention to sleep. The number of people I see give up the long game because they wanna win the short game by not sleeping as much… you’ve got to find your threshold of how much sleep you need and live by it.

This is the first time.

A No Meeting Day can improve focus and productivity

Companies from Shopify to Facebook to Asana have embraced the “No Meeting Day.” Setting aside one day per week to focus on heads-down work without being interrupted by meetings can increase productivity and reduce stress.

Eight hours of uninterrupted Focus Time means less context switching. Context switching is deadly for focus and productivity. When you switch tasks, part of your brain is still thinking about the previous task. It takes some time for those thoughts to quiet down so you can concentrate fully on the task at hand. In the meantime, your performance suffers. Researchers call this “attention residue.” It takes 25 minutes and 26 seconds on average to get back to the level of efficiency you were at before an interruption. This means task shifting, even briefly, can cost as much as 40% of your productive time. Harvard Business Review found that context switching cost one large software company more than 450 hours per year, per manager.

The other big benefit to a No Meeting Day is that it can help cut down on the number of meetings. The average worker attends 62 meetings per month and considers half of those meetings a waste of time.

Heads-down work time really needs to be scheduled

Every calendar needs long blocks of uninterrupted time for heads-down, focused work. Proactively setting aside time for deeply focused, proactive work prevents you from saying yes to too many reactive requests from others.

Set aside at 15–20 minutes at the start of your week to proactively plan what you want to accomplish before the end of the week and 15–20 minutes at the end of each week to journal what you accomplished and what got in your way. In the first sit-down, write down what you want and need to accomplish.

People who write down a specific place, date, and time for a task are more likely to complete it than those who just think about it. You don’t need to think of every possible task. Just pull together a list of everything you might want to do in the next week.

Then prioritize that list. You could use the Eisenhower Method, for example. You can also look at your annual goals and ask yourself what tasks would help you achieve them.

Once you have your prioritized list of tasks, estimate how much time each task will require. If the task will take more than one session, try breaking it into micro-tasks. Or, decide how long you’d like to spend on each session and how many sessions it will take.

Avoid the Planning Fallacy by doubling or tripling your initial estimates. It’s much more fun to finish a task early and take a break or get started on the next task than it is to have to push everything out.

Last, create calendar events and name them after the task you want to accomplish during that time. Creating calendar events with start and stop times for each task helps you battle perfectionism by deciding ahead of time when you need to wrap up a project. Putting your tasks on your calendar forces you to reckon with the finitude of time. Every block is a zero-sum game, which makes it easier to say “no” to lower value commitments. Plus, scheduling your tasks on your calendar means your colleagues won’t schedule over them.

Your workers need mental health resources

COVID-19 is taking a massive toll on workers’ mental health, with 86% of Americans worried about Coronavirus. Workers are busier than ever, especially working mothers. In an April study, 67% of workers reported higher stress, 57% greater anxiety, and 53% more emotional exhaustion. Other studies show higher rates of depression, PTSD, domestic violence, and substance abuse. For 69% of employees in one survey this is the most stressful time of their career while 88% experienced moderate to extreme stress over the past four to six weeks.

It’s heartening to see that over the past two months many companies have deepened and broadened their mental health and well-being benefits. In fact, just over half of employers in one survey said they’d recently introduced new or improved existing emotional and mental health programs.

Benefits you could offer for free or at a large discount:

Online counseling sessions
Online meditation classes
Meditation apps
Mental health apps
Remote fitness/yoga classes
Coping and stress management virtual classes
Well-being coaching sessions
Monthly stipend for mental or physical health

Providers include Sleepio, Wellbeats, Modern Health, Thriving Mind, Plum Village’s Zen Meditation app, and Daylight. Making resources available isn’t enough. According to one study, nearly half of workers haven’t heard from their companies about what’s on offer. Workers whose companies have told them are 60% more likely to agree with the statement that their company cares about their wellbeing.

Mental health events and check-ins keep morale high

In an April study, 75% of workers reported more social isolation since the pandemic started. Nearly a third of employees said they haven’t had any informal contact with their team while working remotely. And socially isolated workers are 19% more likely to say their mental health has declined recently.

Companies have an opportunity to create spaces to bring employees together for socialization.

At Clockwise we do Trivia every Tuesday to connect over something that isn’t work. We’ve also experimented with Drawful and other online games. Some companies are holding online events for employees’ kids as well. Whether it’s virtual happy hours or games, it’s important to get employees talking to each other and having fun regularly to boost morale and mental health.

Regular check-ins are also essential. Nearly 40% of workers say that no one at their company has asked them how they’re doing since the pandemic began. Not shockingly, these workers are 38% more likely to agree that their mental health has declined since they went remote.

And they shouldn’t just be about status updates and projects. They should also be about the worker and how they’re doing. And the person to reach out should be the manager, not HR.

In a Qualtrics survey, people listed HR last among those they’re willing to talk to about mental health concerns, after manager, peers, subordinates, and company executives. Employees with a manager who they say is bad at communicating are nearly a quarter more likely to see their mental health decline.

Workers may need mandatory PTO

Clockwise, along with other companies, is implementing mandatory PTO. Most workers are working more hours than ever, and with nowhere to go, they’re less likely than ever to want to take time off. But overwork leads to burnout and depression. Making the time off mandatory and companywide removes any pressure or incentive to work anyway and gives people some much needed rest while also sending a signal that long-term employee well-being is more important than short-term objectives.

We also use Clockwise Slack sync, which adds a symbol next to your teammates’ names in Slack to indicate whether they’re available, in Focus Time, or in a meeting. It’s great for OOO and after hours, especially if teammates are in different time zones.

If you’re out-of-office or otherwise unavailable, it will also automatically turn on Do Not Disturb. Clockwise for Slack will send you a daily forecast of your meetings to help you prepare for your day. And Clockwise will notify you via Slack when your meetings change.

This is so incredibly difficult. First, it’s important to ground all feedback right now in compassion. We’re living through a very strange time and people have many personal circumstances they’re dealing with. So, anxieties can be high and are somewhat unpredictable. Second, to the extent possible, establish a regular cadence of check-ins. One-on-one check-ins are especially important right now and create the space for more casual conversations. I personally like to do these over phone instead of video — it gives both parties the opportunity to get out for a walk and removes the distractions on the computer. Keep in mind, however, that if you know you’ll need to give particularly difficult feedback, you’ll want to do that over video. You’ll be surprised how much you can pick up over voice, especially when it’s a good connection, but you are without body language, which can be critical in sensitive conversations. Third, be yourself, be vulnerable, and feel it out. This is tricky, but that doesn’t mean you have to develop a whole new language — the same niceties and small talk are still welcome here. And if you acknowledge of the weirdness of it all, it creates the space to work through it together.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

If it’s significant constructive feedback, try not to. It’s really not that difficult to at hop on a phone or video call, and it avoids the coldness of written communication alone. One tactic I (try to) use: write the feedback out and then try to put yourself in the shoes of the recipient; if it feels likely to generate a negative reaction, try to hop on a call.

Now, there’s still a time and place for feedback via email (or chat). Make the effort to give small points of written feedback (both constructive and positive!) regularly. Doing so creates the expectation that written feedback is normal and defuses the feeling that something is really wrong when that small piece of constructive feedback comes through. It’s helpful to (a) keep the feedback concise, (b) avoid generalizations, © ground the feedback in specific actions, (d) give specific examples of ways to improve, and (d) try to reorient away from “you” statements to statements about how the action impacts others (e.g, “I feel like you’re not considering my viewpoint when you cut me off in meetings” instead of “you always talk over other people). And remember the positive feedback! Keep the positive feedback separate from the constructive, when possible.

Coronavirus wreaked havoc on workers’ calendars. Our data showed workers became busier, we worked longer hours, and we saw their calendars get more chaotic after our employers started mandating that we work from home. Specifically, we found that people are spending a lot more time in meetings — an extra 1–1.5 hours per week in team sync meetings, a 29% increase, and 24% more time in one-on-one meetings.

To take back control of your day and improve productivity, it’s a good idea to audit your calendar. Prioritize meetings that you need to attend, vs. those that can be canceled or pushed back. When needed, push back in a nice way to see if you’re truly needed. Learning how to better train your team and delegate, will open up more opportunities for your team to grow while giving you more tools on how to juggle expanding responsibilities.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

There are endless possibilities to bring your team closer together while working remotely. If your company culture was collaborative and fun spirited before the pandemic, then shifting activities that co-workers can do virtually will be less challenging.

There are several ways to build camaraderie while working apart, at Clockwise, we take pride in celebrating our employees and milestones reached. At the end of each week, we gather on Zoom for “demos,” where employees present their accomplishments of the week and if we reached a particular milestone, we’ll celebrate by wearing silly party supplies like hats or sunglasses.

We also host virtual weekly team lunches for co-workers to chat and catch up. We’ll break up into smaller groups to facilitate conversation and bring everyone together. It’s also important to get employees together off the clock to form bonds and boost morale. Consider organizing a virtual happy hour, game night or some other event that your team will enjoy.

In a remote environment, it’s more important than ever to check-in with your employees and normalize the new landscape as much as possible. For example, we continue to make welcome care packages for our new employees as part of the onboarding process and mail them to their home. Something as simple as this can go a long way to show the company values them.

Well, there are movements of critical importance to society like that are far beyond my area of expertise. If I could inspire any movement at all, it might be to restore the importance of the scientific method, to see the corrosive flaws in our criminal justice system, to create a healthy space for fact based reporting, or to inspire everyone to embrace government’s role in capturing economic externalities. But, grounding this question to areas where I have some expertise with which to inspire…

I would love to inspire a movement that asks everyone to take back control of their time. To inspire people to question how you really want to spend your days, and empower them to make more informed, more considered choices around how to invest their most precious resource.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“This is water.” David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech is a piece I return to often. The speech, which you really should read in its entirety, is a critical, always relevant, reminder of the central importance of empathy and the very real choice we have in choosing how to engage in the world around us.

Thank you for these great insights!

Matt Martin of Clockwise: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sarah Frankel of Stretto: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Trusting: We don’t see our team and a random delay can send your mind spinning wondering if they are even working. The truth is, they might not be, at least not right then. The question isn’t “are they available this second,” it’s “are they getting their work done?” That is what is important right now. We are all dealing with a number of factors as we are trying to manage working from home, many of us without childcare or many of the luxuries and time savers we are used to have. Be sensitive to that and trust your team.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Frankel of Stretto.

With nearly 15 years of industry insight and professional-services know-how, Sarah brings substantive expertise to her role as Executive Director at Stretto where she creates and implements the business development strategy for the company’s corporate-restructuring services. Working with a roster of former turnaround professionals and subject-matter experts, Sarah outlines both individual and team client-acquisition plans with a focus on increasing Stretto’s chapter 11 market share. Drawing on her business acumen, she oversees the development of service and proposal materials that speak directly to the company’s capabilities to meet clients’ diverse restructuring needs and objectives. Clients and industry colleagues value Sarah for her insightful perspectives on market conditions impacting case administration and claims management. Sarah is also recognized for her keen ability to pair bankruptcy professionals together in dynamic social settings, facilitating business relationships and firm growth. She plays an active role in the corporate-restructuring community as a member of the TMA, ABI and IWIRC, previously serving in board positions for TMA NextGen, IWIRC and IWIRC NY. Sarah has been recognized as an Emerging Leader by M&A Advisor and was awarded the International Rising Star award by IWIRC.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I grew up in Palm Springs, California, the youngest of three and the only girl. I spent my childhood in a Dodgers cap trying to keep up with the boys and dreaming of what life in the big city would look like! I went to college and started working in So Cal before convincing my then boss to let me up and move to NYC. This boss was my first mentor, the first professional to truly believe in me, and his “yes” launched me on my first real journey. This set the tone for a career driven by passion and mostly devoid of fear that has seen me climb from data entry to department head and led me to build and sell my own business. Having others believe in me along the way has always allowed me to believe in myself and continue to dream bigger and bigger. You can still catch me in my Dodgers cap, but it’s the boys that are trying to keep up with me now!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The list of funny mistakes is long, and continues to grow, but there is one that stands out in my mind. There were two men in my industry that look VERY similar. One, a strong professional in the middle-market and the other, basically “The Man.” “The Man” had never given me the time of day. At this point I had met him a dozen times and re-introduced myself to a blank stare every time. The “regular guy” had always been extremely kind and gracious to me. One night at an industry event I saw “The Man” as I walked into the room. He immediately waved and yelled “Sarah! Join us!” I had to look over my shoulder for the other Sarah because surely this wasn’t for me. Nonetheless, I let the moment balloon my ego and help me float right over to the conversation. I stayed with him and we held court the entire night. I never felt more powerful and in control of my career in my life. I was “The Woman,” I felt amazing and I acted with more confidence than usual, which is saying a lot because I’m not much of a wallflower to start with! Towards the end of the night, someone came up to our cool kid circle and introduced themselves. “The Man” then turned and introduced himself. I stopped in my tracks. This was not “The Man” acting out of the norm by being kind to me, this was the “regular guy” who had always been kind to me. I thought I was kicking it with Leo at the Oscars, but I was with his friendly stunt double at a viewing party instead. Nonetheless, this was a beautiful lesson in “Fake it till you make it!”, even though I didn’t realize I was faking it. The “regular guy” remains one of my favorite people in the industry and while he might not elevate me the way my previous placebo interaction did, he is kind and gracious and gives me the confidence to be myself, which is even better.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Plan breaks for yourself and your team so you (and they) hit pause before folks reach their breaking points. There are a million ways to do this functionally, but make it a priority — it encourages team support and allows for the best of your team to emerge.

From the earliest days of my career, I’ve worked with and managed teams based in various locations. The challenge now is that none of them are in offices, so simple logistical challenges have to be overcome through process and not ad-hoc reactive thinking. Further, because we are client-facing and entertaining is our main source of interaction, we were forced to pivot completely, which presents both challenges and some interesting new opportunities. To that end, we have a full year of virtual events planned, something we would have never considered before. While it was daunting at first, we are now loving the new landscape it offers and are running full speed ahead.

Whiteboard Meetings: I love a good whiteboard meeting! I’m a visual thinker and communicate with and organize my team best when we can map out a vision and build it on a whiteboard. I miss that. My favorite meeting each quarter is a marathon whiteboard session with my events team. We now try and manage with shared screens and design programs we haven’t used in the past. I often just sketch what I’m thinking and send a picture to the team. It is exposing us to technology and resources we wouldn’t have found in the past, which is great, but I do miss my whiteboards!
Trusting: We don’t see our team and a random delay can send your mind spinning wondering if they are even working. The truth is, they might not be, at least not right then. The question isn’t “are they available this second,” it’s “are they getting their work done?” That is what is important right now. We are all dealing with a number of factors as we are trying to manage working from home, many of us without childcare or many of the luxuries and time savers we are used to have. Be sensitive to that and trust your team.
Time Zones: Quarantine has provided a few silver linings, one of which is that working remotely could really mean anywhere. Some folks have taken advantage of that and relocated their families, sometimes numerous time zones away. Be aware of where folks are and try and find times that are reasonable to all.
Soft Touches: We have lost our water cooler chats. Our walk by the office and notice the balloons to remind us it’s your birthday moments. Our soft touches. Try not to be all business on your calls. Seek out some human moments with your team. In a world of non-stop video and virtual meetings, it’s still okay to just call and say hi.
Boundaries: One of the biggest dangers of working from home is the non-existent line between work and home. No one really stops working at 5 anymore, but in these times we find ourselves working at midnight. Worse, we work and live in the same space and blur the lines ourselves. Encourage your team to set boundaries and “turn off” when they need to. That doesn’t have to mean they are “off” at 7, but they should have dinner with their family, or spend an afternoon in the yard with their children. Let them pick what is important to them, let them disappear then and cover them during that time.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Answers folded into previous question.

I always like to think bigger picture when I’m giving feedback. Is this a trend or a one-off mistake? Don’t criticize when angry. Unless something requires you to stem the bleeding, sleep on it. You want criticism to be constructive and productive, not reactive and demeaning. Always remind them you are on their team and offer solutions to improve. When you are ready to discuss, call. Don’t email. Too much gets lost on email.

One of my team members recently did something that wasn’t awful, but unfortunately could have had some pretty significant consequences for them and the firm. I had to talk to them about how we could have handled the situation better, but that we were on the same team and prepared to solve it. They were really down on themselves for the misstep and in those cases, further criticism has no value, they just need support. We kept it at a simple conversation, I left them alone for the day, and that afternoon had some beer and chips delivered to their house with a note from the team saying, “we have your back.”

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

The best thing I can say is to just not do it. Always call instead. Make the goal of the call not to punish, but to discuss and problem-solve. If it needs to be memorialized for any reason, follow it up with an email that can take a more positive tone of “Thank you for discussing X with me, I think we have some good solutions to help prevent this from happening again.” And then recap those solutions.

I realize that is a clean answer for ideal situations. If something is so egregious that it isn’t about problem solving, but just course correction, be direct, be clear, be organized and remove all emotion. Regardless, try and remember you are still a team and be supportive to the extent possible.

Planning and organization is more important than ever. Leadership needs to have clear goals and a plan in place with benchmarks to meet those goals. Zoom fatigue is real, and most professionals have a number of meetings with folks outside their own team. You can’t have daily marathon zoom meetings to ensure you are all on the same page. Have a clear plan, set clear expectations and deadlines and utilize technology when possible to help folks stay organized and on the same page.

One silver lining of the pandemic is that it has forced us to plan further out than we ever had before. With so much uncertainty and new logistical challenges, you need to take action earlier than usual to allow for the unknown.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

This is a tricky question right now. In a normal remote working situation I would emphasize a need to make sure communication stays strong and no one feels out of the loop. But in the COVID working environment we are all dealing with so much more. From “simple” things like working from home with two working parents while all of a sudden taking-on a full-time care giver and/or teacher role to the more serious and very real mental health concerns, there is so much more to our “new normal” than a traditional remote working situation.

Being there for your team is important. Asking “how are you doing” at the start of all calls is simple, but extremely important. Ask and listen. Allow time for this. My husband finishes all calls with his team with “what can I do for you?” I absolutely love this. It is a simple question but such a grounding way to wrap things up.

We have also shifted to more “small team” projects than we previously had done. Business Development folks, by design, are often out in the field on their own. Everyone working remotely, and not traveling, has given us a new opportunity to get new initiatives off the ground and to have them be run by folks that wouldn’t normally have the time. It is empowering and engaging and exciting to see what people can do outside their comfort zones.

I also like to keep things fun and insert challenges where I can. A little friendly competition is a great way to mix things up and build comradery. Simple challenges that we end up rewarding with desk trinkets or items to solve a new found remote working issue they have can be an inexpensive and really easy way to bring a smile to their face and help them feel connected.

Keep perspective. Very few of us are curing cancer for a living. Remember what is important. Remember people are important and are doing the best they can — and if not, find out why. Be compassionate now more than ever.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” Slow down and enjoy what you are doing. Set priorities and set boundaries. Know what is important to you and make time for it. I could lose myself in work 24 hours a day. I have an amazing team and the luxury of coming up with ideas that the experts around me can execute and thrive on. I love it! But I also have a daughter, a new baby on the way (I’m writing this from the hospital awaiting Little Bit now), and a husband that bring me incredible joy. I love my friends. I love baseball. I love my garden. I love to travel (you know, when that was still a thing). I need all these things in my life to have balance and happiness. That is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to embrace that will make you better at everything else!

Thank you for these great insights!

Sarah Frankel of Stretto: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dr. Christian Gonzalez: 5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic

There might not be any existing Instagram pages for what you need, so create your own community. The beautiful thing is when you create with intent, you attract. So, for folks who want to build pillows, start your own blog, Instagram or Facebook. And then all you need is to meet 10 like-minded people and then you already have your sense of community. You can meet up with those people. It’s not only for the mental but it also addresses the physical.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Dr. Christian Gonzalez.

He is a Naturopathic Doctor who specializes in Integrative Oncology. Dr. Gonzalez completed a two-year residency position at the competitive Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’s also the podcast host of Heal Thy Self, a popular podcast about holistic healing that has nearly 1 million downloads per episode.

As an authority on non-toxic living, his viral “product reviews” on his Instagram have caught the attention of some of the most prominent health brands such as Oatly, whom he’s advised on creating more consumer-education and less chemically-based products.

Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

I was going to be a dentist, and during my time in dental school my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. The diagnosis led me down a path of being exposed to the huge deficit in understanding nutrition and overall holistic care — inside out, head to toe, and multisystemic when it came to cancer. And I saw that they were making nutritional recommendations that were really poor, especially because I knew enough about nutrition to understand that calorically-dense doesn’t mean “not healthy”. So for me, that was a big problem and it planted the seed. I saw how irresponsible the recommendations by the oncologist and the nutritionist were.

I started giving my mom calorically-dense foods and then when I went back to school for the other semester, I was reading a book on the plane that my mom gave me about a natural detox diet. The author was an ND. I thought the ND was a mistake, and it should have been MD. Then I realized ND was actually a real thing. When I touched down that night, I researched naturopathic doctors and then I was like, holy moly like this is exactly aligned with me.

So, I dove in and I made calls to different schools immediately. I followed my intuition and that’s sort of how it started. When my mom passed, it was really the catalyst for me going into cancer, and dealing with death and chronic disease. It made me stronger to do that, because otherwise, I would have just not dealt with the heavy stuff.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

One thing that sticks out is when I started exposing Boost and Ensure, just putting it out there how crappy this stuff is, how it’s making people sick in hospitals, and how they’re giving it to cancer patients. Then I got a DM from the lead nurse at a hospital in Canada. She said that the head of oncology got wind of that story, watched it several times, and began the first steps to get rid of Boost and Ensure from the hospital. That was incredible for me because it was really interesting to see the reach and the power that I can have. Just from something little that you’re doing for your audience — it can have a ripple effect.

Now, this hospital in Canada is not is not serving Boost or Ensure, and in essence, putting their patients in a better place to heal after surgery. Who knows what the effect could be if they got more holistic nutritionists and naturopathic doctors, but I think that was really interesting and something that’s always stuck out to me.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?

Now this one’s kind of a hard one because it’s difficult to gauge something that’s humorous in medicine because a mistake of medicine can be a problem. I’ve definitely made some goofy mistakes in the beginning of my podcast where I like slipped up a few times.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m a co-founder of an online store that is going to sell the highest quality products and consumer goods. It’s not just supplements but also beds, pillows, blankets and hopefully furniture at some point soon — basically everything that can go into a home or anything that’s related to health.

It’s also going to be huge because it’s basically goop meets Thrive Market, because it’s subscription based. It will help people because it gives them a massive opportunity to have access to the best quality of each category of supplements. For example, the best quality magnesium. There’s going to be a score that we will use to score every product on there. And if it’s not an A or B based on certain criteria, then it won’t be on there at all. Basically, it’s going to be the only store around that has the best of the best. I think it’s gonna be a massive opportunity because it’ll also have online courses, like how to stop smoking, top three things for weight loss, etc. We have a team of few doctors, a microbiologist, and big influencers from Instagram signing up.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

When it comes to the Loneliness Epidemic, I think my angle may be a little bit different in two ways: I’ve seen the loneliness epidemic manifest in cancer patients, some of the worst outcomes come to those who were lonely. Loneliness is major because you don’t have a sense of “tribe” or community. It’s a known risk factor stronger than obesity, stronger than smoking. So, loneliness is massive when it comes to overall health outcomes. I’ve seen it when I was in my residency. I’d have people come in with no caregiver, and I just noticed a pattern that these patients didn’t do well with their symptoms. You always need a confidant, you need support, you need to feel supported — that concept of tribe and community is major. In how I avoided loneliness, the mental & emotional part of it and how things I needed to work on would come to the surface, that’s the whole personal side of it.

According to this story in Forbes, loneliness is becoming an increasing health threat not just in the US , but across the world. Can you articulate for our readers 3 reasons why being lonely and isolated can harm one’s health?

I mentioned the importance of social relationships. Basically, they can help. And overall, they have an influence on health outcomes, so it’s not just a mental thing but it’s a physical thing as well. There was an article published in Science Magazine that showed that a lack of social connection is basically a greater detriment to health than obesity, lack of physical exercise, blood lipids, smoking, and high blood pressure. We also see it affects longevity. For about 30 years, we’ve known that folks with longer relationships, or more lasting and quality relationships, live longer than those who are isolated. There was a meta analysis in the Journal of Psychological Scientists back in 2010, where they reviewed 140 articles with close to over 309,000 participants. They analyze individuals’ mortality as a function of their social relationships, and they found that basically as I just mentioned, people with stronger social relationships had a 50% increased likelihood of survival and those were the weaker ones. And that was consistent across age, sex, health status and cause of death. So, it’s really important.

As I mentioned, the lack of social relationships increases your risk of death, and it’s comparable to well-established risk factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption, and actually exceeds the influence of other risk factors such as physical inactivity, and obesity. That’s incredible. There’s a few theories as to why. But really, we know that it can have a huge effect. We see that also with pain recovery, because the subjective experience of pain is more when they are lonely, versus when they are not. When they have a confidant, they feel connected and supported on a broader society level.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

You don’t have to look further than the Blue Zones, which have the highest number of the world’s healthiest people over 100. That’s in Greece, Okinawa, Japan, Loma Linda, California, Sardinia, Italy and Nicoya, Costa Rica. They have varying diets and varying amounts of exercise. But one thing that is consistent across every single Blue Zone, is that community, social support, social well-being, and connection. If you think about us psychologically and evolutionarily, we are social beings. We are predisposed to be part of a tribe. And the worst thing you can do to someone is ex-communicate them, which is what we do in jail. We isolate them and put them in solitary confinement. So it’s incredible to think that the healthiest people also have the strongest sense of community.

The irony of having a loneliness epidemic is glaring. We are living in a time where more people are connected to each other than ever before in history. Our technology has the power to connect billions of people in one network, in a way that was never possible. Yet despite this, so many people are lonely. Why is this? Can you share 3 of the main reasons why we are facing a loneliness epidemic today?

Here’s a few examples that I can pick up on:

Social media has been mentioned and that’s interesting because, in one sense, we have a sense of community because we can follow all these random pages. For example, I follow this page that’s all about basket weaving, and your sense of community is there, but it’s false because it has a ceiling. And you’re not going to truly interact, because DMing, or texting, never takes the place of the energy we exchange face-to-face. So the importance of that can’t be understated — what we have right now is a false sense of community, a virtual community. You feel that sense of community when there’s like-minded people all under one roof. That’s why people love going to concerts, because it’s like-minded people who share the same interest.

The second one I can think of is the lack of community when it comes to living in places that don’t have “centers”. Think about when you go to Europe, and everything is right there. When I was in Portugal, everything was outdoors, there was always music in the town square, etc. The town square was where everyone met, and we have that a little bit in New York where there’s performers on the subway, sometimes Union Square or Central Park. But we generally aren’t structured like that in America. So I think that even the way we approach community as Americans, is really falling short. When you walk the streets of Italy or Portugal, you see that the energy is very different and charming, and that’s because everyone is interacting, everyone is outside. The American sense is very go-go-go, thinking for yourself, doing for yourself. You may see it in smaller towns in America, but in big cities like LA, it’s hard to find your true community.

And then the third one is medicine. If you look back to New Year’s, “community” was on my top five things that we need to address this year. It holds true, and I think that not enough medical professionals are speaking about it. If we have the opportunity to do that, especially with the knowledge that I just mentioned of how important social connection is to your physical health, I think there needs to be a massive intervention. This should be something that all medical professionals are talking about. Every one of my patients I asked, alright, what do you do, aside from your family? Do you have a community? Do you feel like you’re socially connected to these folks?

What are 5 things each of us can do to help solve the Loneliness Epidemic?

Here’s five things we can do to solve the Loneliness Epidemic:

In general, find your passion. Figure out what it is that brings light and fire to your life. But really start looking for that small community — start with virtual to make friends, attend meetups, etc.
Set up dinners. So instead of going out to eat twice a week with different people, have a big dinner. Those are important because for me, I’ll have these dinners and sometimes we don’t even talk about wellness, we just connect. We just want to connect and feel like we’re vibing. Even if someone’s talking about something random, we could still vibe because it’s a passion that’s overriding.
Go to your neighbor’s house. Go talk to them and see how open they are about building a community in your own neighborhood. When I lived in New Jersey, I didn’t even know my neighbor. Get out of your comfort zone, go next door to say hey, and offer them something. And I think that’s something really powerful we can do to help foster community, just every day in our own neighborhood, and they don’t even have to be like-minded people.
If you can’t meet up with your neighbor, then go to a centralized part of your town. For example, if you have a dog, go to a dog park. That’s the best way to go. When I went to PA school for a little bit, I would take my dog to the dog park, and then I’d meet so many new people because by default, you already have a common interest — dogs. So having that common interest opens up a safe space for folks to talk about other things, like what part of town they live in, or what’s their favorite restaurant. It’s hard for people who are super introverted, or don’t like being out of their comfort zone. But these are times that we can really make a massive shift.
Lastly, it might be hard to find your community. There might not be any existing Instagram pages for what you need, so create your own community. The beautiful thing is when you create with intent, you attract. So, for folks who want to build pillows, start your own blog, Instagram or Facebook. And then all you need is to meet 10 like-minded people and then you already have your sense of community. You can meet up with those people. It’s not only for the mental but it also addresses the physical.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

You can definitely inspire a movement, and you never know what an idea can trigger. What we’re doing is a “swell” score, which is a “science of wellness” score, and that can do a lot of good for people because now they have access to really good quality information. They don’t have to do the research, or be at risk of buying something on Amazon that doesn’t serve them. So really it’s all about empowering people, and it’s aligned exactly with the message on the podcast, which is informed consent and empowerment.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?

Oh my god, Jim Carrey. I would love to sit down and just listen to everything. I’m such a talker so he would be the one person that could shut me up. I could absolutely listen to his perspective on life, spirituality and reality, his own struggles in ascension, and what he thinks about ego and spirit — that would be really amazing to have a conversation with him.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@doctor.g_ on Instagram and my podcast is Heal Thy Self available for listening on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and Google Play here.

Dr. Christian Gonzalez: 5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “Pushing The Limits Of What An AI Assistant Can Help With” With Saideep Gupta of

The Future Is Now: “Pushing The Limits Of What An AI Assistant Can Help With” With Saideep Gupta of Wing

Imagine being able to say, “hey Wing can you walk my dog and make sure the dry cleaning is picked up and schedule a meeting with the dentist for tomorrow and maybe also order a cake for dad’s birthday” — and voila — consider it done. Wing is really pushing the limits of what’s achievable and stepping into this new era of automation. Imagine what this can do for our differently abled friends, for our senior citizens, for working moms and dads, for the nurses and the doctors during this crisis, and for the millions others who need help, somebody that can just take some things off their plate. Well now — they have Wing.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Saideep Gupta, CTO at Wing.

Saideep is a technology enthusiast, ambitious entrepreneur. and a passionate leader. As Wing’s CTO, it is his responsibility to lead the company forward with cutting edge technology and innovative solutions to add more value for Wing’s customers. Saideep and his team are at the forefront of AI revolution, always striving themselves to be better than ever before

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Ever since I was a young kid, I have always been really fascinated with creating. I absolutely love to create and innovate, to use my technology to make the world a better place, and to find solutions that would usually be termed as crazy. Started coding when I was like 10 years old, very early trying to find simple and easy ways to learn and teach myself. I originally hail from India and grew up in a normal home with limited access to technology. I remember going to the computer store near my house and spend hours, just trying to use the internet, something that was new and emerging at the time, that nobody understood exactly, but everybody wanted to be on it. There was just this crazy drive to know it all, to click every possible link on google (trust me that list of links was shorter back then :D). My parents were amazed by this passion of mine and supported it with an unstoppable force. Their energy to push forward still drives me. And finally the day came — I woke up to see my dad standing next to a new computer. MY NEW COMPUTER. It was this huge and heavy box with wires going in and out of it and a million other things connected to it — would probably find it down the road at Silicon Valley Computer Museum :D. But yes. The computer was here and I was, unsurprisingly, jumping.

I think this one project of mine was the game changer — the sense of satisfaction was unreal. I must have been 13 or so. There was a major problem and I just had to find the solution. So problem — our water tank for the house would overflow every day as there was no way of knowing when it was full and cutting off the water pump. Can’t forget my mom’s face worried every day about how full the tank was. So I decided to do something about it. All I needed was 1 motion senser, 1 small bell, and 1 cheap arduino board (and definitely the box of a computer to write code on). Some 12 hours and 100 lines of code later — I had a solution — my mom would now get alerted by the bell ring which would get activated as soon as the water touched the motion sensor placed an inch from the mouth of the tank. Such a trivial solution to such a painpoint. By this point — I think my parents had seen me do everything from making them play the weird games I would code, or having them drive me to a hackathon 3 hours away, or even taking the computer apart and putting it back together. There was no turning back from that point on. So I think the water-tank-overflowing-sensor-ringing project is definitely at the top of my hall of fame :D.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Oh it’s interesting stories after interesting stories. Trust me, running a startup is a rollercoaster where you dont know whether the next move is up or down — you just go with the flow screaming with excitement and holding on :D. There’s definitely the occasional story of not knowing that we have a scheduled demo in the morning with a billion dollar fund and then spending the night putting the demo together — killing it always :D. But I think the most interesting story, for me atleast, would have to be from the early days of Wing, back at UC Irvine when Wing was just a baby. The big launch was coming up, we were in the deep end of development, working 80 hour weeks, while creating buzz around Wing. I remember in order to sustain our tech costs and marketing expenses, my co-founders and I would buy a bunch of cheap Costco pizza and sell it outside the bars down in Newport Beach — people coming out would be willing to pay upwards of $5 for a slice :D. I think looking back to that and seeing how far we have come — that’s what makes it really interesting for me.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

My goal is simple — I want Wing to be able to leverage our highly advanced and skilled Hybrid Intelligence concepts powered by proprietary technology and be able to solve the toughest of problems, to allow us to be free of the boring and tedious tasks in life, and to spend time with the ones that matter most to us — our family and friends. We have gone to great lengths in order to ensure that everything we do at Wing is to enhance our customers’ lives and to add value at every step of the way. My teams are working towards further perfecting our systems thereby increasing our AI’s success rate — which could really open up the world at our fingertips. Imagine being able to say, “hey Wing can you walk my dog and make sure the dry cleaning is picked up and schedule a meeting with the dentist for tomorrow and maybe also order a cake for dad’s birthday” — and voila — consider it done. Wing is really pushing the limits of what’s achievable and stepping into this new era of automation. Imagine what this can do for our differently abled friends, for our senior citizens, for working moms and dads, for the nurses and the doctors during this crisis, and for the millions others who need help, somebody that can just take some things off their plate. Well now — they have Wing.

How do you think this might change the world?

Every tech entrepreneur likes to say that they want to change the world and that their tech will change the world. I guess at Wing, our ideology is more oriented towards maybe not so much as changing the world but rather more towards changing the way the world works. We still anticipate all the billions of things continuing to happen as is — you are still going to want to get dry cleaning and the dry cleaning shop is still going to do the dry cleaning, your cat will still need her food and the grocery store is still going to sell that food, and yes — you will still have your birthdays and anniversaries and will still visit your favorite places to celebrate — things are as is, but what we want to do is change the interactions and the processes of doing things. Rather than collecting all your dry cleaning from throughout the house, bagging it up, taking it down the stairs, stuffing it into your car, driving to the dry cleaner through a 30 minute bumper to bumper, maybe have to get gas on the way, and then arguing with the shop over rates and pickup date (oh and repeating most of this again when you have to go pick it up), why not just ask your friendly assistant 😀 “Hey Wing can you drop off the dry cleaning at the usual place and have it picked up? I need it before the end of the week”. Trust me — its that simple. And this simplicity is I think what makes it so interesting.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Trust me, there is nothing terminatory in this technology. I think over the years, Hollywood has thrown such wild and vivid imaginary about this alter universe where AI has taken over the world, robbing us of the opportunity to see what it can do for us, the kind of wide scale benefits it can bring. I understand the concerns that all of us have, but I can assure you as a tech professional — we have designed and developed our technology from day 1 as a secure vault, investing numerous hours of engineering time to ensure safety of our customers’ identities and privacy of their data. Wing olds itself to the highest standard of security and as such we use the latest in-class technologies like Google Cloud’s Secret Manager to store user information (using banking level encryption) and Stripe enabling us to securely make purchases without exposing user payment data. Checkout our YouTube channel or even the website, we have a 10 minute long video explaining more things 😀

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

Theres always that tipping point, that one moment when you feel it from within, like the entire universe is telling you to do it, like this is everything that you were working towards but did not know what it was — until now. We had that too. This goes back to our freshman year at UC Irvine. Karan and Martin, my two other co-founders, were roommates and I used to live across from them. We were all hanging in their dorm room this one silly night at like 2am when Martin realized that his parents were going to drop by in the morning. And the room was, for lack of a better word, trashed. Oh we were so worried. And hungry. We just wanted someone to get us some Jack in the box from across the campus. Oh, and clean the room too. We tried looking online for cleaners but no help. We even tried posting on our residential hall facebook group offering $20 for cleaning help but to no avail. Oh, and still no food. This was a problem, one which we couldnt find a solution to. We even saw something interesting — our “Cleaning Help; $20” facebook post got a lot of comments — but not of people offering help but +1ing it as they wanted cleaning help as well. We began thinking — how many others wanted cleaning help, or food delivery, or a car wash, or homework help, or dry-cleaning pickup, or the tons and tons of other chores we all take on everyday. We were just a bunch of young kids with a desire to help I guess. That was where Wing was born — the tipping point of everything.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

That’s a very interesting question — something my team and I try to answer everyday. I would say its not a single entity or a 1-D model but rather a system of components that all work together to allow adoption. Wing works very hard to ensure the highest levels of quality service through next generation proprietary tech that has been battle tested. Wing’s business model is setup from a customer-first perspective — we rely heavily on our trusted partners (which also go through a rigorous onboarding process as well as internal rating algorithms) to render services to our customers. A hurdle that we at Wing are actively chopping away at is having qualified partnerships for our list of 100+ services in every corner of the country, and then eventually the world. As far as what can help enable adoption easy? Customer education. Most of us out there have never experienced having somebody always there to help, having someone who can take things off your plate, having an actual assistant. As a result — we are very used to doing everything by ourselves, without asking for help. But this is exactly what we eliminate through Wing. You now have this superhuman assistant with all kinds of superpowers to help you within the palm of your hand. Need groceries? check. Need to renew your car registration? check. Need to make a reservation? check. Need to cancel a reservation? check. Need your dog walked? check. I can keep going on and on. But this right here. What I am doing right now is exactly what we need for widespread adoption — for people to realize the potential we are offering at just $10 a month (or $20 a month for the plus plan) to have a personal assistant (which would otherwise cost thousands of dollars) to get anything done.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

Definitely. My marketing team is working round the clock — writing and pushing out articles on a whole list of topics to public forums as well in-house publicly-viewable blogs, increasing our social media presence on all platforms including instagram and tiktok, as well as coming up with new and innovative ideas for ad series that can be features on platforms like YouTube. I have in-house creative teams whose full-time job is to create more and more videos that allow us to educate our customers while presenting the value proposition in an entertaining way. We just created another great piece on one of our newer product offerings — Wing for Business. You can check it out on getwingapp.com/forbusiness and click to play video. We are also doing alot of various different marketing campaigns including digital billboards, google ads, facebook ads, and a whole series around user testimonials and how Wing has been instrumental in helping them get through these past few months. We have also been receiving alot of media attention — Wing was just recently written about in Forbes as well as Business Insider. I just recently got published as well in TechPanda as well as StartupBeat magazine. So I would say we are definitely making a splash and seeing traction as well.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Couldnt agree more. I have always believed in the fact that my success has never been of my alone — but of all the people who have helped mold me into the leader that I am today, both personally and professionally. However, the most impactful person, or rather group, has been my family. Their support is the fuel to my fire. Their faith in my success has been nothing short of a blessing. Over the years, we have seen lots of ups and downs — trust me — running a startup is not easy :D. But they are always there to lift me back up during the lows, pumping me with the belief that success is right around the corner, and also always there to support and celebrate my wins. Their unending faith in me drives me. It always has. Oh, and it fills me with happiness when I see them actually using Wing. I built something to make their lives better :D.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

My culture we believe in goodwill, in the act of karma, and of giving. When COVID hit, Wing was one of the first tech companies to respond. We immediately launched a platform, “Wing in Crisis”, that was solely geared towards providing assistance to not only our users but to anyone visiting the platform, without any associated fees, by letting people post their needs and then our AI systems working to connect them to those goods and services. We had testimonials coming in calling us a “savior” as well as “essential”. I remember I myself was deep into the trenches. My engineering team and I spent 48 hours of nonstop development to code, test, deploy, and promote the entire product. We also geared our customer apps to offer COVID support including providing directions and information for the nearest relief center, sending supplies to your loved ones, arranging masks and other PPE items for yourself, as well as partnering with Postmates to offer fast and easy delivery of food and grocery. We also had our corporate partnership teams starting to look for more ways where we can be of support. And we found the answer. The frontline healthcare workers, the doctors and the nurses, were the ones under heavy fire and pressure during this time, risking their lives everyday to help the rest of us in need, and we wanted to help. Wing partnered with Kaiser Permanente as well as John Muir Medical Group to offer Wing absolutely free to all their staff. That was magical to see how much pain Wing could ease in these times.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

I wish someone told me that “its not going to be easy” to chase your dreams, to actually become the next big thing in tech, and to achieve success. We are all so deeply invested in looking at the success that we never think about the grunt work and the long nights that go into achieving that success. There are days when you wont get to have a meal for 20 hours at a go cause of back to back meetings, when you would just lose a contract and the world seems to be crumbling down, and when it would seem as if all efforts are futile. You have to keep pushing forward and focus on the next day.
I wish someone told me that “leading is tougher than it looks”. Being a leader at Wing, I have a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders, I have people who look to me for direction and mentorship, I have teams who are following a roadmap I have built, and I have stakeholders who have have entrusted their faith in me to lead the company forward. Part of being a good leader, as I have come to learn, involves not one but many functions — listening to your team’s concerns, creating an open work environment, trusting your team members that they are acting in the best interest of the company, trusting your gut as your decisions could impact the entire functioning of the company, and sometimes even acknowledging that you may not be right about something. Its fun 😀
I wish someone told me that “team work makes the dream work”. At the end of the day, it is the team that has to stick together and make sure the trains keep moving forward. Running a company is not a one man show. People come together, form ideas, and that’s how you create a billion dollar company. As a founder it is important for me to make sure that the value of team work is something we set from the top down.
I wish someone told me that “you have to focus on the big picture”. Running a startup and then leading it to become the next unicorn (or decacorn) is not about “I got us here” but “we got here” — that’s what matters, and something that I have learnt is that you cannot only focus on the small things. Celebrate the small wins definitely but dont make it an issue about who gets credit for that small win. That is the single most deteriorating thing to success. Everybody deserves to get their moment — if they have worked hard for something, then I make it my personal duty to make sure they get rewarded for it.
And last, I wish someone told me “to never get emotionally attached to a product”. We are running a business and part of it is developing products for others, not just for yourself. Something that may fit perfectly into your world may not fit into the broader’s group’s world. And being able to accept the truth and letting go of something that you may have been working on for days — that’s I think the hardest challenge for a developer. It is never an easy call to make, but as a leader, sometimes even the toughest and critical of decisions are on me to take. Everything we do at Wing is to add more value to our customer’s lives and to make their lives easier.

That is a really excellent question. There’s definitely something that I have been wanting to do for a while, and have even kinda undertaken in the past — I want to enable younger kids — between middle and high school — to pursue “something” in tech. There’s a specific reason i use the word “something” — its because most kids who might even be very interested in learning more about or even passionate for tech but may not know where to start or what to do. I think as young professionals and leaders of tomorrow, we have the power to have the most impact on them. I think these young adults are able to connect really easily with lets say someone like me. Late last year, in pre corona times, Wing actually organized a hackathon where we opened ourselves to all high schoolers as well as freshmen to come try their luck at winning a Wing internship. The quality of work that we see pursued by ambitious ideas was really empowering. Most of my colleagues will tell you how excited I get when a teenager applies to Wing for an internship role. One of my current interns, really brilliant guy — hes currently a high schooler, buy you will be amazed at what all he’s worked on, pushed entire projects to finish, in the past couple months.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Steve Jobs, one of the greatest of our times, somebody who I and millions others look upto, during his “Crazy Ones” speech said something that has stuck with me for years at this point. It was the tail end of his words, but the most impressionable ones — “the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do”. I dont know what it was about what he said, but it still fills me with a sense of drive. I think the reason may be that in my mind, I can picture myself as one of the “crazy ones” or as Jobs says, “the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently”. I am never the one to settle for the status quo, to accept things as is. I have always been a sucker for innovation and for bringing a change. Trust me, when we started Wing — it wasn’t all rainbows and stars (it still isnt :D) — we did meet with lots of criticism and push back — from investors, from friends, from professors, from colleagues, from incubators, from banks, even from strangers — things like “this wont work”, “can you really build this”, “why would this work”, “you will get crushed” etc etc. Earning people’s belief that what we are doing is not only going to work but actually become the next big thing was challenging, but it starts with believing in yourself. And I think those words really resonated with me. It was kind of like, “yeah you think I am crazy, wait till I change the world”. And here we are 😀

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Imagine having a superhuman with you 24/7 to take things off your plate, to free you up of the mundane tasks, to have somebody always there that you can count on. Need groceries or food? done. Need your dog walked? done. Need someone to babysit the kids? done. Want someone to go wait in line for you at the apple store? done. You can literally get anything done with the tap of a button. We have had people ask us to book private jets, to buy homes, to get their parrot’s toenails cut, organize events, setup appointments, and anything else. Its like having thousands of specialized assistants jumbled into an app, powered by proprietary AI and technology of course. And for a fraction of the price — just $10 (or $20 for the plus plan) a month. If you are a wing user, you can access us through the mobile apps, through chrome extensions and the web, through slack, or even directly through text and phone. We launched February 7 on Product Hunt and were immediately crowned Number 1 globally — we had thousands of people visiting the websites and about 2500 requests flow through in the first 3 hours. Shortly after we became part of Berkeley Skydeck, one of the top accelerators in the country, and have been growing crazily ever since. We also recently just launched “Wing for Business”, a product geared towards small and medium sized businesses to help as an office assistant at only $1000 a month (⅕ of what you would have to pay someone to do these chores) and have already onboarded many paying businesses. There’s so much more to talk about. Just shoot me an email or a LinkedIn message, and I would be happy and excited (trust me I get very excited talking about Wing — I am sure you can tell) about chatting further.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Linkedin is definitely the best way. Am always down for a fun chat as well. https://www.linkedin.com/in/saigupta/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Is Now: “Pushing The Limits Of What An AI Assistant Can Help With” With Saideep Gupta of was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “A Faster Way To Communicate With Emergency Dispatchers” With Steven Raucher of…

The Future Is Now: “A Faster Way To Communicate With Emergency Dispatchers” With Steven Raucher of RapidDeploy

RapidDeploy is on the forefront of technology innovation in 9–1–1 and public safety. “Bleeding edge” in public safety is not necessarily bleeding edge for other industries. Public safety is one of the final frontiers when it comes to digital transformation. We are helping public safety agencies digitally transform so that the communities they serve can interact with 9–1–1 in personalized ways. We are implementing text-from-911 and text-to-911; we enable language translation via SMS, so that non-native English speakers can easily communicate with dispatchers; we are working with industry leaders to tap into IoT data that lives in the cloud like weather, traffic, location, etc.; we have embedded intelligence into our analytics tools so that agencies can better predict staffing surges.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Steven Raucher.

Before co-founding RapidDeploy, Steven had a 20-year career in investment banking at SG Warburg, UBS, Credit Suisse, ICAP, and Sunrise Brokers. He started designing trading systems but then spent more than 12 years broking derivatives and emerging markets businesses. Steven was born in South Africa, but spent his career in both London and the U.S. He currently serves on the Board for the African Federation of Emergency Medicine.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

One of the most tragic moments of my life was also the biggest turning point — when I lost my brother in a horrific accident at sea. Ten years later, I decided to move my wife and three daughters from London back to Cape Town, where I had grown up, to reset my life. While investment banking afforded me a great lifestyle, this tragedy inspired me to pivot and focus on giving back. In Cape Town, I trained to become a Sea Rescue First Responder with the organization that had tried to save my brother. Inspired by the first responders that I worked with, I knew from that point on that I wanted to help those that serve on the front lines. Since then, I have been working to up-level public safety technology and use data and technology to give first responders better tools to do their jobs.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In August 2016, I met my business partner and RapidDeploy’s CTO, Brett Meyerowitz at a dinner party in Cape Town. We hit it off as soon as we realized that we were both volunteer first responders. Brett is a developer and systems architect and he’d been working on a cloud-based Emergency Response platform to help improve emergency response at the Agency he was volunteering at. He invited me to stop by and check out the work that he had been doing. The minute I saw it, I was hooked. We agreed on a deal a week later!

It’s incredible how one’s life can change on a decision to attend a dinner party.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

RapidDeploy is on the forefront of technology innovation in 9–1–1 and public safety. “Bleeding edge” in public safety is not necessarily bleeding edge for other industries. Public safety is one of the final frontiers when it comes to digital transformation. We are helping public safety agencies digitally transform so that the communities they serve can interact with 9–1–1 in personalized ways. We are implementing text-from-911 and text-to-911; we enable language translation via SMS, so that non-native English speakers can easily communicate with dispatchers; we are working with industry leaders to tap into IoT data that lives in the cloud like weather, traffic, location, etc.; we have embedded intelligence into our analytics tools so that agencies can better predict staffing surges.

How do you think this might change the world?

It’s pretty simple. There are 240 million 9–1–1 calls every year. Providing 9–1–1 telecommunicators and first responders with more real-time information and situational awareness will reduce overall response times and save more lives. On top of just innovation for the sake of innovation, building a cloud-native solution for 9–1–1 will truly democratize public safety. We believe that a life in Boone County, Arkansas is just as important as a life in Chicago. Every 9–1–1 agency, regardless of geography or budget, should have the ability to access the most innovative technology solutions.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

While frustrating that public safety is not further ahead when it comes to digital transformation, the good news is that the technologies that we are implementing have been tried and tested in other industries and we can learn from them.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

As a volunteer paramedic, Brett has been blown away by the lack of data and context that was provided by the telecommunicator to the first responders. He started to peel back the layers and realized that he could make a huge difference by providing better tools.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

While there are some early technology adopters in public safety, the industry overall is still evolving and transforming. Widespread adoption will ultimately be driven by industry leaders that are curious and agile, and open to calculated risk. Too many agencies are still not comfortable with the ‘cloud.’ We are seeing more openness; for example, RapidDeploy now has four statewide deals in the U.S. including California, Arizona, Kansas and Minnesota and we expect that momentum to continue.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We are working to establish a new category within public safety technology. We believe that the only way for this industry to evolve will be through an open and collaborative ecosystem. We are establishing this ecosystem with big name partners like AT&T and Microsoft. We have some really exciting ecosystem announcements happening this Fall.

In the early days of 2017–2018, we were bootstrapping the business with personal investments and a few customer contracts. We knew we had to raise money to scale the business, yet the typical Silicon Valley investors did not believe that a South African tech company could succeed in U.S GovTech. A friend of mine introduced me to Great Point Ventures and helped organize a face-to-face meeting with Ray Lane. Ray is a legend in Silicon Valley and has been the COO of Oracle and he is also an HP board member. I almost didn’t make it to that first meeting with Ray, because of an unexpected turn of weather and no available ride shares. In desperation, I offered $100 to anyone in the lobby to drive me to the meeting. Luckily a volunteer got me to the appointment just in time, because in that initial meeting, Ray immediately understood the industry problem that RapidDeploy was trying to solve and jumped in with both feet! He led our Series A investment and continues to serve on our board. There is no greater gift for a founder than a seasoned operator as a backer. He’s become a great friend and mentor.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We are a purpose-driven company, so I see the impact of our work every day. We hear stories from agencies that now have better location accuracy, better situational awareness and lower response times. Our technology is lifesaving for the communities we serve. Additionally, cloud-based solutions mean that 9–1–1 agencies are more efficient and can repurpose dollars earmarked for legacy infrastructure to process improvements and staffing. I firmly believe we are using technology for good and are having a huge impact on citizen’s lives.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Anchor on the industry problem that you want to solve, not the possible solution. Staying focused on what we knew we wanted to fix, enabled us to better frame our Northstar and to become a more agile, curious and risk-taking organization.
Protect your equity at all costs. Giving equity away to friends and family might be fun in the beginning but can cost you a considerable amount if you hit it out of the park.
Get the best legal representation you can afford. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. We now have world-class counsel representing us and it has made a massive difference.
Corporate structure is everything. Spend the time making sure your legal entity is properly set up, as this will save you huge headaches down the road.
Hire slow and fire fast. In the beginning we were struggling to be viewed as a serious employer. As a result, we compromised on quality and culture fit. Now we take a different approach to make sure that there is a mutual fit with the employees we bring on, and that we build the most diverse team.

Joining the National Sea Rescue Institute in South Africa (NSRI) as a volunteer first responder was a game-changer, not just for my career but for my life. I believe that everyone should carve out meaningful time to volunteer within their community. Personal growth drives professional development.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” I have found that to be true. From 2000–2002 I rode a motorcycle from London to Australia, and the vast majority of this journey was through the poorer countries in Asia. I spent most of my nights in a different city in another stranger’s house, being fed by them. As I arrived back in the western world all this humanity disappeared. I learned that the less people have, the more they give. We need to remember that, and let that ground us, otherwise we will be swept up in our first world lives and risk losing our humanity.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

RapidDeploy is disrupting the way emergency services does business. Public Safety is the last enterprise vertical to move to the cloud, and we have built the dominant ecosystem, setting us up to be the category leader of public safety.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/company/rapiddeploy/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenraucher/

The Future Is Now: “A Faster Way To Communicate With Emergency Dispatchers” With Steven Raucher of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “Now You Can Buy Buy Fractional Shares of Alternative Assets” With Joe…

The Future Is Now: “Now You Can Buy Buy Fractional Shares of Alternative Assets” With Joe Mahavuthivanij of Mythic Markets

Alternative assets like rare and appreciating vintage comics, collectible cards, and fantasy art have been outperforming traditional asset classes like the market, gold, and real estate over the past 10+ years. However, due to their high-value and rarity, these assets have only been available to an elite select few.

We’re democratizing investment access to these beloved pop-culture artifacts, making it possible for the fans who love them to engage deeper into the fandoms they love.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joe Mahavuthivanij.

Joe is the co-founder & CEO of Mythic Markets, an investing platform that turns high-value, geeky assets like vintage comics, collectible cards, fantasy art, and e-sports teams, into stocks that almost anybody can buy.

Prior to co-founding Mythic Markets, Joe worked in venture capital, investing in fintech and enterprise SaaS startups,. He’s a serial entrepreneur across various industries, headed product and growth at startups of all stages, and was the host of the VentureForth podcast.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I never went to business school, but I was always surrounded by business one way or another. My parents owned a string of small businesses, including a couple of restaurants and a video store. There were good times and times when we struggled…

I learned pretty quickly that trends don’t last, that you have to adapt and always keep an eye out for opportunities, sometimes you’ll win and sometimes you’ll lose. We thought we were flying high with the video store until Blockbuster came to town. Then Netflix happened. You just never know. All you can do is work hard and stay vigilant, and not take failures too personally.

I thought I was going to own a small business when I grew up, because that’s what I knew. I spent my formative years at the video store rewinding VHS tapes, then graduated to my version of a lemonade stand, selling booster packs of Magic cards on the schoolyard. Over 20 years later I’m still running my own business and playing the game!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In my very first job out of college, I worked in marketing at a mid-stage startup in the events industry. It was a poor fit and I was fired less than a year into the role. Shortly after, I joined a tiny, 7-person startup. The relationships and experiences from that one company would become the foundation for the rest of my career.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Our investing platform leverages new regulatory rules (Regulation A+) to make it possible for fans to buy fractional shares in assets that were previously only available to high net worth investors. This is done through a legal structure that creates a mini company that owns each asset, is split into shares, and securitized. This structure provides a strong legal framework and corporate governance, protecting shareholders from fraud and disputes with other investors.

How do you think this might change the world?

Alternative assets like rare and appreciating vintage comics, collectible cards, and fantasy art have been outperforming traditional asset classes like the market, gold, and real estate over the past 10+ years. However, due to their high-value and rarity, these assets have only been available to an elite select few.

We’re democratizing investment access to these beloved pop-culture artifacts, making it possible for the fans who love them to engage deeper into the fandoms they love.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

In a completely dystopian world where everything is publicly owned and traded, it’s possible that soulless markets form where all intrinsic value of these beloved assets is commoditized and traded, leading to the erosion of any real connection to these fandoms.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

In April 2012, President Obama signed a piece of bi-partisan legislation called The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act into law. The JOBS Act expanded entrepreneurs’ access to capital, allowing them to publicly advertise and raise money from the public.

Prior to The JOBS Act, private companies could only crowdfund from accredited investors, basically the top 1–2% of Americans. On June 19, 2015, three years after the JOBS Act was initially signed into law, Title IV (Regulation A+) of the JOBS Act went into effect, allowing private companies to raise up to $50M from all Americans, regardless of accreditation.

Coupled with the Series LLC corporate structure, Regulation A+ makes public offerings like ours possible.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

As a brand new technology and concept of ownership, building trust and education is a challenge. We’re making progress on this front and working to help our investors be successful on Mythic Markets.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

Through a cold email in our earliest days, we were really lucky to partner with Jon Saso, Founder & CEO of ChannelFireball. This opened amazing opportunities that included access to assets, their online platform, live events, and prominent figures in the Magic community — all of which we needed to get the word out and build credibility.

Press coverage is another great way to get the word out and build credibility. We got some nice bumps in traffic when TechCrunch, The Hustle, Bloomberg, and HYPEBEAST wrote about us, but you can’t rely on getting steady press. Day to day, we focus on partnerships, content marketing, word of mouth, direct sales, and email.

After our first and second offerings, we sent all of the investors a special care package and thank you card signed by the whole team. People really loved them and posted about them on social media. We just launched our third offering and are finding that a lot of the same people are coming back to invest with us again.

We’re constantly asking for feedback and learning about our users. We use our newsletter to keep in touch, ask for feedback, and share surveys. We want it to feel personal because even if we can’t talk to each user directly, we’re grateful for each one of them.

My parents were the most important influence in helping me get to where I am today. Although most Asian parents have only three definitions of career success (doctor, lawyer, or engineer), my parents achieved their American dream through entrepreneurship. I’ve been fortunate that they supported my dreams of following in their footsteps.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I love leveraging my experience to work individually with entrepreneurs, helping them to solve problems and see around corners. This allows me to have a deeper impact and involvement versus working broadly.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Entrepreneurship is hard…like, crazy hard
Although my parents did eventually support my aspirations to follow in their footsteps and become an entrepreneur (instead of a doctor, lawyer, or engineer), it wasn’t without a fair bit of grief. They always told me that they came to this country and worked their butts off as entrepreneurs, so their kids wouldn’t have to. Although I could never compare my challenges with my parents’ (theirs were far greater), I’ve come to experience many of the things they’ve described. There are far easier ways to make a living than being a founder. Instead, do it because you love it.
Don’t be afraid to throw stuff out
Our team started off building a blockchain version of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. In retrospect, it was a service that few people wanted, was never going to be 10x better than its competition, and that none of us were passionate about. It felt terrible to scrap what we’d built, but once the team internalized this understanding, we quickly pivoted into a project we loved working on together. We all happened to share a love of geeky things, and already had a talented team who wanted to switch gears and pursue something we all loved.
Talk to people about your idea — especially the critics
It’s a common misconception to keep ideas a secret. After all, we don’t want anybody else stealing our billion dollar opportunities! The truth is that ideas are cheap; execution is everything. Instead, our team talked to as many people as possible to understand what people liked and disliked, how our prospective customers behaved, and what problems they faced. If people like your idea, ask them why? If they don’t, ask them why? The very best insights often come from the most dissenting opinions and counter-intuitive conversations.
Embrace your competition
Although we’re pioneering a new investing framework, there are several major competitors fighting to grow as quickly as possible. We try not to let them distract us from our team’s mission, and instead let them keep us on our toes. By focusing on innovations that differentiate our business, we can validate our customers’ decision for choosing us.
Work with quality partners
We all need partners and specialists to help move our businesses forward. However, not all partners are equal. Under tight time and budget constraints, it can be tempting to work with the first person to come to the table. However, it’s absolutely worth vetting several partners before making a decision. Making the wrong partner decisions can cause devastating delays and expensive setbacks in your business.

A major aspect of Silicon Valley’s startup success is the culture of founders helping founders. In many other regions, the willingness to share ideas, help with intros, giving without reciprocity, and investing in each others’ success is much less common. By shifting to a sharing mindset, startup communities can tap into some of Silicon Valley’s “secret sauce”, and help each other grow and thrive.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Bear the bitter. Savor the sweet. — Dad

On a trip to Thailand, my Dad brought me to a local shop where I was asked to drink two small cups of tea. One was bitter and the other was sweet. Being a young kid at the time, I immediately went for the sweet tea and finished the entire cup in one gulp. Then I sampled the bitter tea and immediately wretched due to its foul flavor. I didn’t want to drink it, but we weren’t leaving until I finished the tea. We ended up sitting in this shop for a half hour while I watered the bitter tea down to make it drinkable. When I finally finished it, my Dad explained the purpose of the lesson.

The entire experience could have been incredibly pleasant had I held my nose and quickly shot the bitter tea, ending the dismal experience quickly. Instead of gulping down the sweet tea, slowly sipping it would have offered a pleasant, long-lasting experience.

Ultimately, I learned that, when facing difficult situations and unpleasant tasks, powering through and overcoming them quickly ensures the suffering is only short term. When times and experiences are great, embrace the opportunity to enjoy and prolong them.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

As alternative assets continue to out-perform the market and the social concept of ownership changes, Mythic Markets will be ready at the forefront of the future of finance and fandom.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Is Now: “Now You Can Buy Buy Fractional Shares of Alternative Assets” With Joe… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “AI To Help With Medication Safety” With Dr. Ram Subramanian of PerceptiMed

At PerceptiMed we are working on harnessing the cutting edge AI techniques to make a mark on medication safety. Be it in a pharmacy, hospital, managed care facility, our products are focused on eliminating medication errors. Over the years our products have eliminated thousands of potential errors, avoiding adverse drug events (ADEs). We have been able to develop machine learning models to identify thousands of medications with near 100% accuracy, which can prevent medication errors in pharmacies and managed care facilities. This technology will assist pharmacists and nursing staff to focus on patient care and less on medication dispensing and administration.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Ram Subramanian.

Dr. Ram Subramanian is the CTO at a quintessential silicon valley startup, PerceptiMed Inc. His efforts have been focused towards the healthcare space for nearly 20years. Where he has been developing hardware-software solutions for medical diagnostics, automation, and safety. His expertise is primarily in computer vision and machine learning. In addition, he has developed new products, prototypes, launched hardware-software solutions and scaled them up to meet enterprise requirements.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I believe in happenstance and in perseverance. I have had the urge to invent or develop something that would be of use to the general population. I started work in this direction 22 years ago by talking to doctors to develop diagnostic aids for corneal diseases. I have progressively sought out opportunities be it in academic life or in my professional life. After graduating with a PhD, I started my career in a large firm with a pitch to innovate and incorporate machine learning and computer vision into an existing product line. I quickly realized that I needed to switch gears and be a part of a more dynamic and faster paced environment. I sought out early stage startups in the medical devices and diagnostics field. I joined PerceptiMed as the company’s mission, geared towards medication safety, was something that resonated with me, personally.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One interesting story that I can recollect happened recently. I was at a trade show talking to potential customer who was, on the first day of the show intrigued by one of our products. I ended up talking to them 3 more times and finally as the show was closing, they made up their minds to purchase. But they had one condition, I had to be the one to do the install of the system. They have been happy with the product and subsequently have stopped by our booth at other trade shows and even recommended other customers to purchase our product. It is always nice to see that the product we have created at PerceptiMed is making an impact at pharmacies every day. It just goes to show that it’s not enough to have the best or latest technology. It really matters to connect with customers, make them feel confident about their investment and make sure the product is supported well. I make sure that all engineers participate in customer support activities, which includes me as well. Our customers find this very refreshing; they sometimes take time to talk with me and provide valuable feedback and provide new ideas as well. This has the added advantage of providing an avenue for our customers to add value to a commodity that they use. From a product and company growth perspective, I feel this has been very good for me and the company.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

At PerceptiMed we are working on harnessing the cutting edge AI techniques to make a mark on medication safety. Be it in a pharmacy, hospital, managed care facility, our products are focused on eliminating medication errors. Over the years our products have eliminated thousands of potential errors, avoiding adverse drug events (ADEs). We have been able to develop machine learning models to identify thousands of medications with near 100% accuracy, which can prevent medication errors in pharmacies and managed care facilities. This technology will assist pharmacists and nursing staff to focus on patient care and less on medication dispensing and administration.

How do you think this might change the world?

With more innovation pushing this technology, we would be able to ensure patients would better adhere to their prescription medication with an assurance of safety. Allow care givers and prescribers to monitor medication therapies more closely. Overall, we would shift to a more patient centric care. We would reduce medication errors and the complications associated with adverse drug reactions.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

The biggest concern would be how adherence data get used by healthcare system and insurers, etc. E.g. If insurance companies decided that they would not cover complications or certain healthcare costs because the patient did not follow a strict medication regiment. This could be yet another piece of personal information that if in the wrong hands can be misused.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

Have more pharmacies see the benefits of the technology and the solutions we provide, so that they can realize their true potential to be more patient care focused. We also need to have a end consumer/customer product to allow better tracking of medications, especially very high value drugs.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

I take every opportunity to talk to people about medication safety, from ordinary conversation to talks at conferences, booths at tradeshows, marketing materials in trade journals. I try to publish research work in machine learning conferences, take part in panels at trade shows and extensively talk to customers and investors.

There is no one single story, event, or anecdote that I can attribute my current status or success. I would think of it as a series of events, inspiration from people and being at the right place and the right time with just a touch of luck. If I had to start talking about the help and opportunities I have received, I would have a long list and need a lot of time. I believe that personally and professionally all success stems from teamwork.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I would like to think that my role and work at PerceptiMed has not only helped me to grow professionally, but also allowed me the opportunity to help develop a line of products that potentially saves lives. Until date our products have processed over 7 million prescriptions in pharmacies alone and have prevented thousands of potential medication errors. But I do not believe that I have made a big enough impact, there is always room for improvements and space to do more. I have but hit the tip of the iceberg.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. The amount of time commitment that would be demanded — I didn’t realize the amount of commitment that would be needed at an early stage startup. Where we as a team at times have spent days without leaving the office to solve a critical issue.

2. No product is perfect — No matter how rigorous we implement reviews and test plans, there is always an issue that will crrep into the product. No matter how hard we try. There was a time once where out product was to ship out to our first customer. As we were moving the boxes to be shipped we noticed the devices were failing and sending an error signal. After everyone in the entire company spent a day reviewing the devices we found that the packaging was causing a short circuit making the devices fail.

3. Even the simplest of products have complications — Even with the simplest of features that get implemented, with in a few iterations based on suggestions and recommendations from different sources, the feature becomes complex enough that it becomes hard to support. It then needs to be reworked or rearchitected.

4. Never take no for answer — When a new concept, feature or design is conceived there is always resistance to change. If you really believe in it, you need to do what it takes to convince everyone, and it wont be easy. But if we truly believe in the new feature or concept we need to collect collect the data to prove the point, and its never easy to convince people.

5. Selling even the best product is not easy — Even when you have the best product in the market it still takes a lot to convince potential customers to make a sale. I have had to talk to potential customers at trade shows and sometimes I would have to talk to a potential customer 3–4 times in a 2 day period to close a sale.

It would be great, if we can bring people to realize the criticality of medication safety and medication adherence. With around 4 billion prescriptions that are sold in pharmacies every year in the US alone. There are approximately 16 Million errors that occur, where many thousands are potentially fatal. If we can get people to be more aware of the medications that they take and provide them and others in the health care chain tools to facilitate safety, we would be able to save many lives.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Never be afraid of failure, it helps reveal one’s self-imposed limits. Many will choose to live with them and never move past them. Other will venture with big leaps beyond it. There may be pit falls and sacrifices along the way, but if we never try or push ourselves, we will not have the innovation we see around us.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Our current health care system focuses on efficiency through rigorous process control, incentivizing throughput to increase revenues. But this has led to system that has dehumanized health care. We need to use innovation and technology to add the human element back into the system. We need use technology to free up the health care providers so that more attention can be placed on the care aspect of healthcare. Products and solutions that aid the pharmacies, hospitals and managed care facilities, e.g. freeing up the pharmacist in a pharmacy from counting and verifying pills being packaged for a patient or customer and allow them more time to interact with the customer/ patient to better understand their needs, aid in medication therapy management, help increase medication adherence. This will in turn allow better therapy outcomes for the patient. It will reduce overall health care costs by reducing / prevent ADEs and complications due to errors in medication dose, skipped medications, negative drug interactions, etc. Our products also allow the busy pharmacy to be assisted by a pharmacists remotely from another pharmacy, this will allow communities that are remote and currently do not have a pharmacy to be serviced by a remote pharmacist.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Yes

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Is Now: “AI To Help With Medication Safety” With Dr. Ram Subramanian of PerceptiMed was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future of Retail Over The Next Five Years, With Dr. Eugene Izhikevich of Brain Corp

Embracing clean as a new brand value: Before COVID-19, cleanliness was a concept that was more or less assumed as standard by consumers, with less bearing on overall brand equity. Moving forward, however, brands will need to embrace cleanliness as an essential attribute that is not only expected by consumers, but one that can actually enhance overall brand value. When retailers make an investment in cleaning robots, they address consumer health and safety concerns stemming from COVID-19, and visibly demonstrate to their customers that cleanliness is a core value.

As part of our series about the future of retail, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Eugene Izhikevich, a world-renowned computational neuroscientist, is the co-founder and CEO of Brain Corp, a San Diego-based AI company creating transformative core technology for the robotics industry.

The BrainOS® platform and its cloud-connected autonomy service are used by global manufacturing partners to successfully build, deploy, and support fully autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) at scale. Robots powered by BrainOS navigate autonomously, avoid people and obstacles, adapt to changing environments, manage data, generate reports, and seamlessly interact with operators. Brain Corp and its partners have deployed over 10,000 robots for floor care, in-store delivery and other key applications within retail, grocery, malls, airports, hospitals, warehouses, and other industries.

Eugene is an expert in the field of AMRs. His vision is to create a world where intelligent and autonomous machines make our lives safer, easier, and more productive.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I spent my academic career studying computational mechanisms of the real (biological) brain and after 20 years I decided to build an artificial brain for robots. I was approached by Qualcomm in 2009, which supported this idea, and I went on to build a computer based on the human nervous system to investigate how mammalian brains process information. Qualcomm funded Brain Corp and gave it a number of R&D projects in computational neuroscience and machine learning.

While exploring different product directions, I realized that the robotics industry of the day looked just like the personal computer industry before Microsoft — dozens of small companies all designing their software and hardware. Back then, lots of different types of computers existed, but they were all very expensive and did not work well. The same problem exists in the robotics industry — many robotics startups designing their own software and hardware. This is why robots are very expensive and not useful. A “Microsoft of robotics” is bound to appear and I decided that Brain Corp will be such a platform company.

I brought together a close-knit group of scientists and engineers and we saw the value in creating an operating system for robots that would unite all of the disparate robot solutions under one cloud-based AI software platform. Our goal became to help build out the emerging category of AMRs by providing autonomy software that others could use to build their mobile robots for a variety of strategic applications. We decided to focus on making a hardware-agnostic operating system for AMRs. The idea was simple: to enable builders of robots, not build the robot ourselves.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I have a PhD in pure mathematics and spent my career studying the brain, writing peer-reviewed papers and textbooks on brain modeling. However, after starting Brain Corp and deciding on the first robotic application — commercial floorcare robots — I became an expert in commercial floor cleaning. I got to know everything about different floor types, different brushes, squeegees, and the types of cleaning, such as sweeping, scrubbing, and burnishing. I would have never thought I would be an expert in that area. However, for the CEO to be an expert not only in AI and robotics, but also have sufficient understanding of different robotic applications, is of paramount importance to the success of the business.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

I started Brain Corp as an academic business, focusing more on research than product development. However, after the first five years, I realized that we would never be successful unless we built and scaled a product. I should have realized this sooner because when we started to build the product — a brain for robots — we saw the real value and success. Today, I am proud to say that Brain Corp powers more than 10,000 robots in retail, malls, airports, hospitals, and more, and the fleet continues to grow with each new deployment. This represents the largest fleet of AMRs operating in public indoor spaces in the world.

Are you working on any new exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

We have a lot of projects and products in the works that leverage our technology to develop new applications beyond commercial floorcare. This is exciting for the company because it shows the progress we are making in bringing our vision to reality.

Our latest robotic application is an autonomous delivery tug, powered by BrainOS, that seamlessly moves stock carts and loose-pack inventory from one point to another. A major ongoing challenge for retailers — one that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 health crisis — is maintaining adequate stock levels in the face of growing demand from consumers, particularly in grocery. The delivery tug automates the safe movement of up to 1,000 pounds of goods from the stockroom to store shelves, enabling faster restocking and reducing the strain on employees who no longer have to haul heavy, stock-laden carts back and forth.

Based on initial tests, we estimate the autonomous delivery tug will save retail employees 33 miles of back-and-forth travel per week, and increase productivity by up to 67%.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Don’t do anything that you are not enjoying.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I’m very thankful for my co-founder and serial entrepreneur Dr. Allen Gruber, who has been a big influence in my professional life. When I was starting out, I knew everything about technology, but nothing about business. Allen taught me what I needed to know to successfully start Brain Corp. He guided me through the first few years of transitioning from research to developing our first successful robotic applications.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important it is to maintain a safe and clean environment for public spaces and commercial businesses. There has been a particular focus on grocery stores, airports, hospitals, malls, and commercial buildings — places we all go during our daily living. At the time of this writing, BrainOS powered robots are providing 11,000 hours of autonomous work each day. I never thought that our robots would be indirectly saving lives by keeping these public areas clean, supporting frontline workers with restocking shelves, and giving them back time to focus on other critical tasks such as disinfecting high-touch areas.

Of course, the real heroes of the pandemic are retail workers, custodians, and other employees in essential businesses. They have shown their commitment to their communities over the last six months by working tirelessly to ensure we continue to have access to the services and supplies we need. We are committed to supporting their efforts by providing the technology that powers advanced robotic equipment (e.g. autonomous floor scrubbers, autonomous delivery tugs) to help them in their jobs.

Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main question of our interview. Can you share 3-5 examples of how retail companies will be adjusting over the next five years to the new ways that consumers like to shop?

Embracing clean as a new brand value: Before COVID-19, cleanliness was a concept that was more or less assumed as standard by consumers, with less bearing on overall brand equity. Moving forward, however, brands will need to embrace cleanliness as an essential attribute that is not only expected by consumers, but one that can actually enhance overall brand value. When retailers make an investment in cleaning robots, they address consumer health and safety concerns stemming from COVID-19, and visibly demonstrate to their customers that cleanliness is a core value.
Using robots to enhance productivity at lower costs: Retailers are focusing on the in-store customer experience more than ever, prompting them to adopt systems that allow workers to be more customer-facing. The idea is that these systems free workers’ time, allowing them to focus on high-value, customer experience-centric tasks. This approach creates more work hours for stores at a lower cost. While workers focus on tasks only humans can do, robots can focus on the “dull, dirty, and dangerous” work they are designed to perform. This work includes things like cleaning floors, moving inventory or goods, and scanning shelves to check prices and available inventory levels. This type of automation will be a major focus for retailers in the next several years.
Leveraging data and insights to optimize operations and improve customer experience: We believe, and analysts agree, that this pandemic is accelerating the adoption of robots. Brain Corp and our partners have seen the interest in AMRs among retailers heating up. The appetite for operational insights on things like cleaning performance, shelf stock levels, and movement of goods in the store is also increasing as retailers see they can collect data they have never had before. As this trend continues and multi-robot deployments in a single store become a reality, retailers will need to centralize fleet management and data processing from these robots or risk becoming overwhelmed with processes and data that vary by manufacturer. To solve this problem, you need a common platform that connects robots from different manufacturers that are owned and managed by a single end customer. Brain Corp took this approach with BrainOS, a cloud-connected robotic platform that different OEMs use to turn their machines into robots. This gives retailers flexibility and choice while having a unified way to manage the robots, collect the data, and understand operating performance and impact. We believe this greatly simplifies things and lowers the barriers to adoption. At the end of the day, retailers benefit because they get the best of both worlds: proven equipment combined with world-class AI technology to run the machines. And most importantly, this approach enables them to leverage robots not just to perform a task, but to gather insights that help them improve store operations and the customer experience.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

We’ve already started a movement with what we are doing now — building brains for robots that are making our lives better and support us by doing mundane tasks like cleaning or delivering goods. The Internet allows us to touch every piece of information on this planet; robots allow us to touch every physical object on this planet. I believe that the impact of robotics on our lives will be bigger than the impact of the Internet and I’m excited to continue driving innovation in the field.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow me on Twitter @braincorp, LinkedIn, and Facebook. We also share company news and industry trends on our blog.

The Future of Retail Over The Next Five Years, With Dr. Eugene Izhikevich of Brain Corp was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nora Sheils of Rock Paper Coin: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Feeling connected to your team — Zoom isn’t the same and nonverbal communication can get lost in emails. One of my planners came into the office often and we connected on a regular basis. She rarely called with problems, we talked them out in person instead. When we went remote for COVID, she began saving up her questions for a call. Before that call happened, she became so overwhelmed with all this pent-up anxiety that she wasn’t able to get off her shoulders. She called me in a ball of tears over something silly that put her over the edge, which never would have happened if we were not working remotely.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nora Sheils.

With over 18 years running award-winning planning firm, Bridal Bliss, founder Nora Sheils possesses an intimate grasp on the ins and outs of the wedding industry. In her time working with countless couples and leading a team of 30+ women, she recognized a need for a more effective, streamlined approach to the often-daunting contract and invoice process. Thus, in 2018, Rock Paper Coin was born in partnership with her sister-in-law, Elizabeth, and the two have been committed to bringing together event professionals and couples ever since.

Nora’s industry experience has led her to become a thought leader in the way of project management, operational efficiency, business expansion, and team dynamics. Her expertise extends to event professionals who discover increased productivity through Rock Paper Coin, as well as those who hear her speak onstage. As a well-known and sought-after speaker in her local speaker circuit, including with associations like ILEA Portland and Seattle Business Babes, Nora is always prepared to share her favorite strategies for simplifying, refining, and refreshing business workflows. She was recently recognized by Portland Business Journal in its 40 Under 40 series.

In her spare time, Nora can be found spending quality time with her family, often over a long family-style spread of food and a glass of great sparkling wine. She also appreciate the chance to explore the vibrant culture and food scene of the Pacific Northwest, particularly in her beloved hometown of Portland.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I am a true Portlander, which is hard to come by these days. Born and raised in the City of Roses! Born to Iraqi immigrants, I was raised in a culture of over-the-top celebrations and, from the beginning, event planning was in my blood. After graduating from Gonzaga University (Go Zags!), I started Bridal Bliss in 2002, slowly growing the company to become a team of 30+ women who produce upwards of 120 weddings and events each year. In 2016, my sister-in-law and I noticed a gap in the planning industry and developed Rock Paper Coin, a forum that brings together event professionals and couples to streamline the often-daunting contract and invoice process.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

An interesting story is how I first got my start! Had it not been for Gonzaga University’s Hogan Entrepreneurial Program’s Business Plan Competition in 2002, I’m not sure I even would have started a business. I was a psych major and business minor, so I wasn’t confident in my abilities to start or run a business without any experience. It felt like a pipe dream until I entered the competition with a friend and my wedding planning idea. I received the support of professors and local businesspeople and we won! It provided me with my startup costs right out of college and, at that point in my life (22 years old!), I had nothing to lose. I hit the ground running, filled my days meeting local event professionals and booked my first few clients. The rest is history!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This story absolutely wasn’t funny at the time, but here goes. In my early years of wedding planning, I was working with a client on their invitations. We fine-tuned the design, then focused on wording and adding in all of the information. However…there was a huge oversight made on my part. The address listed for the church was the church’s business office address, not the actual church address! Thankfully, the business office was only a few blocks away and we were able to station a planner on-site to guide guests in the right direction day-of. Because, of course, it wasn’t discovered until the day-of! I was absolutely mortified! That mistake was certainly never made again and has now become part of our new planner training.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Nothing kills an employee’s morale like being micromanaged. Provide them with the tools and resources to do their job and then give them the autonomy to learn and grow. Mistakes are how people learn and we’ve all made more than we can count throughout our careers.

In addition, give your employees flexibility for when and where they work. As long as they provide good customer service and do their job well, why does it matter when and where they work? Give and encourage use of vacation time — recharging is important for everyone from the highest level executives to your entry level employees.

We expanded Bridal Bliss into a new market ten years ago. It was at this time that I began managing a remote team and have done so ever since.

Feeling connected to your team — Zoom isn’t the same and nonverbal communication can get lost in emails. One of my planners came into the office often and we connected on a regular basis. She rarely called with problems, we talked them out in person instead. When we went remote for COVID, she began saving up her questions for a call. Before that call happened, she became so overwhelmed with all this pent-up anxiety that she wasn’t able to get off her shoulders. She called me in a ball of tears over something silly that put her over the edge, which never would have happened if we were not working remotely.
Work environment — At the office, we can control the environment. However, when someone is working remotely, their environment impacts their work but it’s something I don’t have control over. Several of our team members have mentioned that what changed their remote experience from negative to a positive was finding a space in their home that was a designated work space. Not the kitchen table, not a couch, but what felt like their office. It had to be cozy, styled, void of distractions and a place where work would get done.
Tracking productivity — I am absolutely not a micromanager, but I do appreciate formal monthly check-ins with updates on each planner’s progress. If work is being completed in a timely manner and clients are happy, then I’m happy. However, for those employees who need a little more of a nudge, there are many time tracking tools to keep them on track. For employees struggling to complete their tasks on a regular basis, it is so helpful to have a history of their productivity as we brainstorm solutions or as a worst case scenario have to terminate the relationship.
Team building — Without face-to-face interactions, building interpersonal relationships between the team is tough. We tried to combat this by planning step challenges, treating our team to ice cream deliveries and playing a guessing game to determine which flavor fit who best, or even hosting a virtual drag event. Sure, we are not all together in a room, but we are still laughing and bonding together as a team.
Hiring a remote employee has its challenges as well. During COVID, we hired three new key employees. Without being able to train in person, we had to do our best with Zoom, screen shares and multiple meeting times to get the basics across. Each employee has a mentor that is holding their hand through the process in such a weird learning environment. As a firm believer in learning by experience, this was a bit difficult to achieve. However, we made sure with what little action there was at the time, our new employees took part.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Walk and talks — During check-ins, encourage your team member to be on a “walk” with you. People can open up, talk more freely when walking outside as opposed to sitting at a desk. This could happen in person or over FaceTime as well! Just moving while talking will open up the conversation.
Connect with everyone to see what they need to make their work environment successful for them. If that means providing more tools, you can know early on and set them up for success.
Plan regular check-ins. Make sure your employees are happy, healthy and feeling supported.
Plan team experiences! In person or digitally, there are so many things you can do to keep your team connected personally and professionally.
Lead by example. Your team tends to follow your lead, so if you don’t show your face during a digital meeting, neither will they. Or, if you show up dressed sloppy/unprofessionally, so will they. Your actions will reflect your brand and your expectations, so walk the talk.

Honest communication with examples is best. Instead of going over work that has been done in the past, focus on what should be done in the future. Concrete, actionable items are key to a successful deliverable. In addition, start with the good! Build your employees up by giving them good feedback first, and then sharing the areas in which they need some attention.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Constructive criticism is actually best shared over the phone. An email can be sent to open the conversation or set a meeting. Send an agenda and give your employee an opportunity to discuss anything on their end as well. An email is also a great tool for a follow up and reference to the conversation. This being said, the bulk of constructive feedback should be done verbally. This is absolutely a conversation that could go sideways if tone is lost.

The transition from working in an office to working remotely is more difficult for some than others. With so many distractions at home (spouse, kids, chores, snacks…so many snacks), it can be hard to focus. Give your team some time to build their own routines and get used to the new normal before scheduling regular meetings or requiring constant communication. Scheduling regular check-ins or virtual team building activities can help, but it cannot be too much. Once the team has a better sense of comfort with this new way to work, you can expand the expectations placed upon them.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Open communication and team outings. Even if the “outings” are in each person’s home, you can send ice cream before the meeting, cocktail kits, or schedule an Airbnb Experience for team building. You don’t have to discuss work or have an agenda — these events can be just for fun to allow your team to let loose and build relationships.

I’m not sure if this is necessarily the most amount of people, but it would certainly be significant. I would love to start a movement advocating for more female-owned businesses. Rock Paper Coin has not one, not two, but three women at its core as founders, which is incredibly rare.

I will be honest and tell you that starting out in a male dominated industry was incredibly daunting and intimidating. Elizabeth and I are moms with young children and between managing our families, responsibilities at Bridal Bliss and then a brand new tech startup, we were exhausted. The support isn’t there for women and certainly not for mothers. Successful female executives have strength, resiliency, and grit, but they are also empathetic, flexible and willing to go the extra mile for the good of the team. We need more of this in our lives and in society as a whole!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I love the quote from Jim Collins from his book Good to Great:

“Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.”

This really sticks with me and proves to be true over and over again. If you would have told me Bridal Bliss and Rock Paper Coin are where they would be today, I would not have believed you. But getting the right people into the right roles on the team allows for us to have a team that works well together, respects each other and believes in the core of the product.

Thank you for these great insights!

Nora Sheils of Rock Paper Coin: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lindsey Boyd of The Laundress: 5 Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand

The Product Is Hero: Making the best possible fabric and home care products was always our mission. We never wavered from that and today our top sellers are the products that we launched 16 years ago. We tested every single one ourselves, reformulated to make them perfect and up to our standards, and if we were not satisfied, we did not launch it. You have to focus on making something exceptional that you can stand behind. Otherwise, why does the customer need it? It is a simple philosophy that a lot of brands miss from the beginning.

As a part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Lindsey Boyd, The Laundress.

Lindsey Boyd is co-founder of The Laundress, a premium collection of eco-friendly laundry and home cleaning products.

A powerhouse entrepreneur, Lindsey founded the Laundress after she identified a gap in the fabric care industry. With a degree in textile and fiber science from Cornell University and experience working in fashion at Chanel and Brooks Brothers, Lindsey knew there were alternatives to dry cleaning that were better for fabrics and did not involve toxins or exorbitant bills. After years of researching and developing detergents, fabric solutions, and home cleaners, Lindsey and her business partner launched The Laundress in 2004.

Lindsey’s role at The Laundress melds her textile expertise with her entrepreneurial mind and steadfast commitment to sustainability. She spearheads all sales, product development, marketing, brand partnerships, and ecommerce and sustainability initiatives. Notable achievements include taking The Laundress global in 2006 and securing permanent partnerships with renowned perfume house Le Labo and artist John Mayer.

Lindsey is also a popular speaker and panelist at private and public events across the country, leveraging her knowledge as a female entrepreneur, thought leader, and wellness expert. She has made appearances on national news outlets and has spoken on numerous podcasts. Lindsey was named a top female founder by INC as part of their 100 Female Founders list in 2019.

The Laundress was acquired by Unilever in 2019, where the brand fits seamlessly into Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan. Since then, Lindsey continues to oversee brand strategy and is the face of The Laundress, creating educational content for its social platforms, blog, and website and connecting with clients and retailers.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I was working at CHANEL and spending an exorbitant amount of money dry cleaning my wardrobe, only to have items returned ruined and just not clean. As a solution, I started handwashing my items in the bathroom sink of my 5th floor walkup apartment — I knew from my background in textile science at Cornell that up to 90% of fabrics could be washed at home, meaning there is very little you actually need to be dry cleaning. There were no detergents on the market that allowed you to care for delicate items without the dry cleaning process, so my business partner and I decided to use our expertise to develop a line of consumer-centric, plant-based fabric care that anyone could purchase. I also wanted to create an amazing, unique laundry experience for people that would transform a mundane, everyday task into a luxurious experience. We launched the company with 13 products in 2004.

At the time, eCommerce was just getting off the ground, so I had to put in the legwork to get our products into retailers. I secured our first key account, Bergdorf Goodman, during my lunch hour at CHANEL. My experience in marketing and sales really helped us get picked up by retail locations — US and international boutiques and speciality retailers — very early on.

My parents were both entrepreneurs, so it’s in my DNA to be forward thinking and business-minded. I had a ton of ideas prior to The Laundress — clothing lines, makeup lines, but The Laundress made the most sense because it was fulfilling a big need for people. I’ve always been enamored with product experiences, from branding and packaging down to the scents. I traveled a lot and always returned with arsenals of product that inspired me, be it deodorants, soaps, creams, or baby colognes. It was really important that I translate that special feeling to The Laundress. I thought, there’s no reason why laundry shouldn’t feel luxurious.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

From the very beginning, sustainability has been a core value of The Laundress. We are really looking forward to taking it to the next level with formulas and packaging that contribute to even less waste.

We also just launched our first scent in over 6 years, №723 Laundry Detergent, a spicy rose that’s meant to pamper your senses and your laundry. Laundry doesn’t have to feel like a chore and there’s no reason it shouldn’t feel a little luxe!

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Marketing is so important! It is a scalable way to get your brand out there. It would be fantastic if I could physically get to every market we are in, but that is impossible. Being able to share your story in a cohesive way — globally — can only be achieved by strong marketing and advertising efforts. When we first started The Laundress, our first $10,000 went to public relations efforts so we could be in key editorial spots like New York Times, Real Simple, Domino, Lucky magazine, Wall Street Journal, Oprah, InStyle, Vogue where they were able to tell our brand story. This was vital in driving brand awareness and, ultimately, sales.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

The Product Is Hero: Making the best possible fabric and home care products was always our mission. We never wavered from that and today our top sellers are the products that we launched 16 years ago. We tested every single one ourselves, reformulated to make them perfect and up to our standards, and if we were not satisfied, we did not launch it. You have to focus on making something exceptional that you can stand behind. Otherwise, why does the customer need it? It is a simple philosophy that a lot of brands miss from the beginning.

Find Your Purpose: This is so important. We were our first customers and developed the line because of needs that we had that were totally missing from the marketplace. From day one, education and sharing our knowledge and insight with our customers was always part of our communication strategy. We were never just selling product, we were also giving them the intel and confidence our customer base needed and wanted to care for their fabrics and homes better.

Give Back: I have always been very cause-minded, so this naturally extended to my professional life. Whether it’s giving to local charities or offering products and services to those in need or implementing a donation component to our business, like our The Laundress x John Mayer Out West collection — 50 percent of proceeds go to Montana Association of Land Trusts (MALT). We have always given back and that has always been part of our corporate responsibility.

Value Your Customer: Listen to what your customers are saying and use their feedback to make your brand and product better. They are your best critics.

Have An Honest Voice: Honesty and transparency are everything, and even more so today. Customers want to support brands that not only provide them with good products, but that are genuine and have strong values, too.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Patagonia because they lead with purpose and thoughtfulness. I also love that over the last decade there are more and more smaller brands (like The Laundress!) that are doing a fantastic job. One of my favorite small brands is State Bags.

I think it comes down to having a clear mission statement and brand ethos. Also, you can’t be everything for everyone and that is ok, and really important to know.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

Sales and growth are important quantitative metrics you obviously need for your bottom line — that will always be a mainstay. But we look at other qualitative metrics too, like our customer feedback. We love hearing how they learned about us and how we have made a difference in their day-to-day life. Those are the little “pats on the back” that keep you moving forward. We can also track brand building success through increased awareness holistically. New opportunities open up with brand partnerships, new wholesalers request to carry the brand, and more social media engagement.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

For us, social media really plays a pivotal role in connecting with our consumer; telling our brand story and communicating with our community. Social media lets you connect to customers a lot faster than we ever have before. You can’t be a brand today without having a social media strategy.

What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?

You have to stay absolutely passionate about your business. There will be ups and downs. You have to really believe in your brand purpose, stay inspired, and never waver.

Always come back to being grateful every day for the opportunity to do what you do and do what you love.

This is a tough question because I’m passionate about a lot of things! I rarely say no to helping others, especially if I believe it will make a difference. I am proud to be a part of and contribute to Glass Wing, Self Help Africa, No Kid Hungry, and Black Girl Ventures. These incredible organizations are working to empower communities, end child hunger, and address causes of poverty and violence.

Prior to COVID-19, I was chatting with my husband about creating a foundation where kids could be part of “after school” activities like PE, sports, art, and drama year round — mainly during major holidays and summertime when schools are out. So many children in America depend on school programs and when schools are out, this is hard for them. I know there are community centers and ways in which this is done but it’s not state-wide. I think this would create a more level playing field for the success, health, and happiness of children. After all, they are the foundation for our country — the next generation.

I would also eradicate homelessness, teach people how to love and have tolerance for others that are not exactly like them, stop world hunger, and get people to commit to at least one change in their daily lives that would help save our planet.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

You can resist or push forward. Pushing forward may seem harder at first glance, but the reward and journey is always worth it in the end.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

I never have just one person or one item on a wish list. Business-Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, and Mickey Drexler. Entertainment-Alycia Keys and Kate Hudson.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@lindseyjuliaboyd

Lindsey Boyd of The Laundress: 5 Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rob Collie of P3: Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

In my experience, the first thing to do is just to accept that the differences go much deeper than just replacing face-to-face with video calls. It’s just a structurally different way to operate, and if your plan is just to take your in-person methodologies and translate them to remote, I think you’re asking for trouble. It’s kinda like that “hope isn’t a strategy” thing — if you’re just hoping it will work out, you’re just waiting to find out that it doesn’t.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Collie the founder and CEO of business intelligence consulting firm P3. During his 13 years at Microsoft, Rob led the BI-focused capabilities in Excel and was subsequently one of the founding engineers on Power BI. Through that insider’s perspective and experience with Microsoft, Rob developed successful and groundbreaking strategies that can be utilized across almost any industry. A sought-after public speaker and author of the #1-selling Power BI book, Rob and his team are relentlessly committed to “the new way forward,” making P3 a leading consulting firm in the industry, pioneering an agile, results-first methodology that bucks the traditional BI company model.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I was a product leader at Microsoft for 13 years, primarily building software for the analytics and BI (business intelligence) markets. In the early 2010’s, I recognized that the new generation of BI software was going to trigger mass disruptions in the BI industry:

The duration (and therefore price tag) of the average BI implementation was going to decrease dramatically.

Demand for BI was going to skyrocket in turn. Previously only affordable at the upper levels of the world’s largest companies, industrial-strength BI was now going to be within reach of the small and mid-markets, as well as at the departmental level of the Enterprise.

The existing breed of BI professional services firms was ill-equipped to move at this pace, and would struggle to adapt, leaving a massive void of unmet demand.

This advance perspective on led me to start my own professional services (consulting) firm from scratch, with the mission of filling that gap.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

From the Microsoft days: I was coincidentally in a meeting with the VP’s of the entire Windows and Office divisions on the exact day that the US Government sued to stop the release of Windows 98 (at the beginning of the landmark antitrust case). The meeting had been tensely anticipated and was the bitter culmination of two rival initiatives (and factions) within the company, each of us trying to get the other canceled. The VP’s constantly leaving the room to take phone calls with the attorneys was quite anticlimactic, and the two factions who’d been fighting for a year were left to once again make their arguments to each other, without any sustained attention from the executives who we’d been expecting to bring closure. It was absurdly silly.

From the P3 days: In the early days of P3 (2013), a Fortune 500 company had identified, at the C-suite level, a crucial strategic BI project need. Their traditionally oriented internal IT team estimated it was going to take three years to execute. Due to a chance internet encounter with one of their executives, we were given a crack at it instead. We completed that project in three months of part-time effort, and the resulting scorecards drove $25M in additional profit per year once they were deployed.

That was a validating moment for us — that our approach could scale all the way to the highest levels of the Enterprise, as well as the mid-market and departmental level. We weren’t exactly surprised of course, because we already knew it could, but to see it happen gave us that extra confidence to double down on our bet and ignore the skeptical voices from the traditional corners of the industry.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In the early P3 days, even though I knew it was the central challenge ahead of us, I still managed to underestimate the operational complexity of running a consulting firm that feeds itself on a diet of smaller projects. In parallel, I also overestimated my own aptitude for solving those problems. The company really took off once I accepted that the idea guy slash CEO (me) needed an equally strong COO to drive the creation of software and processes to manage such a high-velocity environment with so many moving parts.

Today, those internal operational processes/systems are so robust and crucial that I consider them to be a form of intellectual property. We simply couldn’t exist at our current scale without them, and they were non-trivial to discover and develop.

It reflects a theme I’ve encountered many times: valuable innovation often requires the marriage of strong ideas with strong execution. Just having one or the other won’t cut it.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I personally believe that burnout is much more of a problem with elite teams than average teams, so in that sense, worrying about burnout is a good problem to have! Not all businesses require an elite team, of course, but our business model absolutely relies on hiring the very best, so burnout is a concern for us.

So, assuming you have an elite team, my advice would be as follows:

It’s a cliché, but even when you’re doing the most MBA-style things, you must continually view your employees as people rather than simply as nodes in an org chart. Whether you’re developing a quarterly business plan or reacting to a crisis, it’s tempting to model the employees as two-dimensional pieces on the board and focus your attention solely on the overall nervous system of the business. You have to resist that and remember that there’s as much (or more) complexity at the individual level as there is in the overall whole.

You might develop a great plan that absolutely works as a business model, but if that model ends up burning out your employees, well, then it actually WASN’T a good business model, and that’s on you as CEO. It’s much harder to try to compensate for such things after the fact, and elite teams tend to see through cheap attempts at improving morale.

So, you have to do the extra work. You have to “wargame” every operational change through the eyes of your team, and what impact it’s going to have on them. That’s just as important an input as what it’s going to do to the P&L. If you develop a track record of leading this way, it has the added benefit of building trust with your team. Inevitably, you will still slip up from time to time, and it’s a lot easier to fix a problem when everyone believes you sincerely want to fix it.

We’ve been 100% remote since our inception. We knew we needed elite talent, and we weren’t going to find enough in a single geography. So, we deliberately chose to ignore location, and instead, we cast a nationwide net. It turns out we make offers to less than 2% of our applicants, so the largest possible candidate pool has been a must.

We’ve never had a central office, and we now have employees in 14 states. Even though we’ve been around for longer, we started seriously hiring at scale in 2015, so let’s call it five years.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the main challenges are regarding managing a remote team?

In my experience, the first thing to do is just to accept that the differences go much deeper than just replacing face-to-face with video calls. It’s just a structurally different way to operate, and if your plan is just to take your in-person methodologies and translate them to remote, I think you’re asking for trouble. It’s kinda like that “hope isn’t a strategy” thing — if you’re just hoping it will work out, you’re just waiting to find out that it doesn’t.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress those challenges?

We’re a bit of an outlier in that for us, remote management is even harder than it is on average. Our consultants need to be highly autonomous, because big teams and heavy oversight aren’t compatible with the high-velocity, zero-waste approach that is our key differentiator. But with such a large percentage of the work taking place between individual consultants and their client(s), the majority of our business “happens” in places the management team cannot see. That’s highly unusual!

That said, I think that it’s been a blessing for us, because we were never tempted to just think the usual methods would work. We were forced, from the beginning, to approach our business in non-traditional ways. Years ago, I read an essay by Charlie Munger (of Berskshire Hathaway) in which he talked about the power of incentives, and it stuck with me. We’ve leaned very aggressively into the idea of variable compensation, and closely aligning employee incentives with the success of the company. It’s taken a lot of thoughtful effort and iteration, but it’s been worth it many times over.

Our employees have access to dashboards which give them real-time feedback on what their bonus is going to look like each month. Big bonus checks only go out when the company is winning as a result of employee efforts, so even as managers, we’re hoping to pay more. This goes back to my point about cheap morale tricks — it’s one thing to say “we’re all in this together,” but so much more impactful when you actually are.

I like to say that the incentive dashboards are like virtual managers. I sincerely believe that the dashboards (and the incentive plans behind them) provide half of our oversight and are equally as important as our interpersonal management touches, and I think we’re more successful, as a company, because we were forced to lean into this. We grow faster and retain people better than we would if we were in-person and using traditional management techniques.

I would suggest not using email for this. If you wouldn’t use email for this purpose in an in-person environment, it’s probably not a good choice for remote, either.

There are definitely ways to do it well over email, but the risks of getting it wrong are too high — for every time you get it right, you’re likely to get it wrong at least once as well, and it’s too important to take that risk. This is even more important when you take this to scale — if you have a management culture that regularly delivers feedback over email, you’re going to have some real trouble spots in a hurry. Even if 90% of your org is exceptionally talented at it, the 10% who fail will cost you dearly.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Wow, what a thoughtful and unexpected question!

I would love to see US politics and government take on precisely that theme: “how do we get the most good for the most people?” We’re fundamentally just so much stronger together than divided. The evidence for this is everywhere. A 50-pound bobcat views a lone human as easy prey, but twenty humans with pointy sticks were such a force that the wooly mammoth went extinct.

I look at posters produced by the US government in the first half of the 20th century and I see an understanding of this. The “propaganda” of the day was often things like “make sure to get your children’s vision checked.” We used to get it. We used to at least partially understand that a country is nothing more than the sum of its people working together. Now it’s more like a sport, with teams that we root for, red and blue, without any critical thought or discussion of pragmatic policy.

Fundamentally, your neighbor might root for the other team, but your actual interests are 99% aligned as human beings. And if your neighbor is not doing well — health-wise, jobwise, whatever — that absolutely comes back to cost you in some subtle but important ways.

I could actually write quite a bit more about this, but by default I’ll stop now. If I wrote more, it would tie in themes I’ve mentioned elsewhere — even when thinking like an MBA, you need to remember the people. Incentives (which are ALL broken in our country right now). How an attitude of “we win when you win” doesn’t just work for companies, but for countries as well.

If I weren’t so focused on my work right now, I would be writing about precisely this, and doing my small part to shift mindset, on a daily basis.

Can you please give us your favorite life lesson/quote? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I’ve stolen lessons and wisdom from so many people, and it’s hard to choose a single favorite. I’ve mentioned the Charlie Munger incentives thing already, so let’s go with the only valuable thing I learned in college, which is the fundamental attribution error:

“the tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others’ behavior. Because of the fundamental attribution error, we tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people. We’re inclined to ignore situational factors that might have played a role.”

Once you understand this and learn to start resisting it, it actually gives you a lot of flexibility. More room to operate. More options to deal with problems. When you’re not locked into a rigid, binary view of people as good or bad, you have more potential pathways to get them to cooperate, which is another way of saying “getting what you want.” What could be more valuable than increasing the chances of getting what you want? And that applies to your personal and professional life.

Thank you for these great insights!

Rob Collie of P3: Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Beth Doane of Main & Rose: Why Brands Should Focus On Social Good

Focus on social good: Today, as our society is coming to terms with issues of racial and health injustice, viable brands must focus on goals beyond themselves. Since we launched our firm, we have made a commitment to help all of our clients pursue and share work in the social good space. When you show what you care about and how you are making the world better, you’ll establish yourself as a values-driven brand, consumers will respond and you and your employees will feel good while doing it.

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Beth Doane, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Main & Rose, a global creative agency. With nearly a decade of experience creating, growing, and selling several companies by the age of 30, today Beth serves as a trusted advisor for some of the world’s most innovative CEOs, nonprofits, and governments. Previous to founding Main & Rose, Beth established one of the first sustainably and ethically produced fashion brands on the market, as well as founded and later led the private acquisition of Parlor, the first open marketplace for freelancers in a diverse set of industries. Beth also speaks frequently about branding, social impact and the importance of mental health initiatives in the workplace.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I have always had a passion for how products and companies can create a positive impact on a global scale, and I founded my first company when I was 22 years old. It was one of the first fashion lines that was manufactured sustainably and launched at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Los Angeles. The success of the line led me to consult for several brands on how to make their lines more sustainable. My love for consulting and creative thinking eventually led me to start advising more on branding, marketing and design, and I launched an agency. I eventually met Kelly Gibbons, my business partner a few years later and we created Main & Rose together.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

While it’s nice to be able to learn (and survive) from past mistakes, rather than being funny memories, my mistakes have helped guide my decision-making. They continually serve as powerful reminders of how much I’ve learned as a business owner and leader. Among the mistakes, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars from failing to do enough market research. Today, this lesson helps me see where my clients may take a wrong turn, and steer them away from the same mistake I had once made. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that when people have an idea, they go full-steam ahead and invest too much money into something without testing the idea or investing in a GTM strategy. It’s too easy to think something may work, and then lose everything along the way. My advice is market test, A/B test, get advisors, hire experts, and don’t invest a fortune. Leaving room and capital for mistakes is key to success.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

At Main & Rose, we believe that we are the design firm of the future. What sets us apart is that we’re intention-oriented and committed to working with impact-driven brands that truly make a difference in the world. We believe that commitment to diversity, inclusion and change starts internally, and we take great pride in being women-founded and women-led, with communities of color and LGBTQ people represented at our highest ranks. With offices around the globe, including in the Middle East where we have a strong female presence, we’re dedicated to building a team that is strengthened by our strong workplace culture, top management, and values-based brand.

I’m proud to say that Main & Rose is an award-winning global creative marketing agency that works with some of the leading brands and non-profits around the world, from the United Nations to YouTube and Disney. We run multinational branding, design and marketing campaigns that are values-based and evidence-driven, striking the balance between cutting-edge and time-tested, to harness the power of data and beauty of storytelling to shape and share a narrative that always puts our clients above the competition.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We’re working on several exciting projects. Recently, our team was hired to design and launch a rebrand for Oceana, a stunning luxury hotel in California and the first Hilton LXR property in the United States. As a company, one of the industries we specialize in is the travel, real estate, and hospitality sector and we’re proud to take the lead on campaigns and initiatives that will help drive the evolution of the industry forward.

We also focus on governments and emerging global markets, and have a strong presence across the MENA region. We recently partnered with the United Nations to raise awareness around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in support of the UN Agenda 2030. As we work to mobilize a new force of activists that’s largely focused on GenZ, we’re creating shareable grassroots campaigns to drive unprecedented change and measurable impact in the world.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Brand marketing tells us the story, the mission, the underlying values of a brand, while product marketing should tell us what something is. Think about Nike, and its tagline “Just Do It.”and the iconic swoosh symbol. It’s brand marketing enables us to instantly recognize all Nike products because it’s constant. What makes it impactful is that the swoosh and tagline have remained the same, while promoting the company’s underlying mission around innovation and inspiration.

Yet, every year we see Nike release new products. Advertising and marketing enable Nike to continually change and evolve its products without having to change its original branding and mission.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Building a brand doesn’t happen overnight. If done right, it can take years and may involve a large amount of investment in advertising, marketing, and design. While people often hear about a start-up company that “took off” over night or went viral, it’s important to know that that’s usually a one-in-a-million story. To establish a recognizable brand, it’s going to take time and investment. The reality is that any brand is going to have to compete with competitors that can spend millions of dollars more on marketing and advertising. To stand out, you’re going to have to realize the importance of strategically planning, building, and launching a campaign that helps you tell your story and sustain your brand.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

1. Tell Your Brand Story Well: Most agencies and companies make a fatal mistake by focusing on new products and services, rather than the story behind the person making those products or services. My philosophy is based on the truth that humans have a natural urge to connect with people and want to share powerful stories. To build a trusted and authentic brand, focus on having a strong, relatable identity and brand story that resonates.

2. Focus on social good: Today, as our society is coming to terms with issues of racial and health injustice, viable brands must focus on goals beyond themselves. Since we launched our firm, we have made a commitment to help all of our clients pursue and share work in the social good space. When you show what you care about and how you are making the world better, you’ll establish yourself as a values-driven brand, consumers will respond and you and your employees will feel good while doing it.

3. Balance Timeless & Trendy: One of the toughest challenges for both new and old brands is figuring out how to offer a service or product that is trendy and current, but also feels classic and enduring. I advise my clients to study trends without copying them, which risks coming off as inauthentic, and is the quickest way to cause issues. I urge clients to find a balance between timeless values (reliability, creativity, honesty, service, e.g.) and more modern methods of branding (social media, video content, earned media, e.g.).

4. Create Communities: Brands are strengthened by having many enduring ties across customers and audiences. I encourage my clients to not only foster traditional relationships with their target audiences, but to also create communities centered around their personal brand, and a shared ethos or lifestyle. Create social media environments where your followers can interact and share their stories, or go offline and organize hikes, dinners, or retreats for your customers and your team. The point is to offer something more than just a product or a service — and in doing so, you can gain a major marketing advantage.

5. Be inclusive: For years, we have been saying that inclusion is the new golden rule of branding. Gender equality, diversity, and inclusion are not only morally important, they are also absolutely imperative to your brand if you want to succeed. Modern customers prize these values: regardless of what industry or market you’re in, any business leader who wants their company to be able to compete and thrive in the modern era needs to embrace the values of equality and inclusion. 21st-century clients and customers overwhelmingly consider these to be non-negotiables, particularly millennials, who grew up with a greater appreciation for diversity and tolerance. Inclusive brands will help your company tap into new markets and tend to financially outperform their less diverse counterparts, especially because they lead to better, faster, and more innovative thinking.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

There are so many unique brands that I have fallen in love with over the years. Some are smaller brands like Ila products, Aromatherapy Associates, TKEES, and Opal + Sage who I think have all done a beautiful job with their products, brand story, and more and have a loyal customer base which really speaks to their success.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

Advertising and branding go hand-in-hand, and sales also capture the success of branding. Like advertising, with any branding campaign, we can measure impressions, and base measurable impact on how a person views a branded campaign. Perception plays a huge role in the success of branding campaigns, and can impact loyalty, trust, and ultimately, the survival of a company.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Social media plays a massive role in our branding efforts and understanding its value is key to our clients’ success. Many agencies today don’t understand how to use social media or how true creativity plays such a role for it to really “work.” The key is not simply consistency or even posting nice images, but rather, knowing your audience, it’s interests, and how to engage them. At Main & Rose, our clients count on us to advise and execute their social media and digital marketing strategies. Whether that means creating plans or posting daily, just as we do with creating a branded campaign, we prioritize strategic and creative thinking in order to truly understand a brand and its target.

What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?

Thriving and burnout go hand-in-hand with mental health, which is something that’s personally close to my heart. Discussing my own experiences with mental health and the support systems I created has helped my team and business relationships grow. A challenge with working remotely that many organizations are facing today is identifying and managing the balance between work and home life. It can be very easy for the lines between personal/professional lives to blur and to create an expectation of being “always on” for your team, which leads to burnout quickly. As a leader, you set the tone for the rest of the team — so it’s important to be intentional about 1) setting appropriate expectations among the team that they aren’t expected to be dedicated their lives to working around the clock and 2) walking the talk and leading by example. If I am intentional about prioritizing my mental health and that of my team, they’ll follow that lead.

At Main & Rose, as a fully distributed and remote team due to the nature of our work, we’ve cultivated a transparent, open, and communicative culture that helps team members be seen and heard during challenging times — whether it’s about a personal or business matter. Several of our team members, including me, cite meditation as a key practice for success when it comes to taking a break. This break allows us to “turn-off” the noise, and thrive in our own controlled environment. In fact, many studies have proven meditation can increase productivity and even empathy. Taking time to practice wellness that can help relieve burnout can be as simple as taking a 20 minute walk every afternoon, or making time for an evening run or virtual yoga class. You’ll be happier, healthier, and have an easier time filtering out the chaos and finding the spark of inspiration you need to succeed during this challenging time.

Luckily, the work I do each day involves building movements. Our clients are some of the most recognizable and impactful brands in the world. We’re honored to work with brands like The United Nations and TED and help build movements that drive monumental change, help spread innovative ideas, and inspire and impact millions of people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that because what the world needs are people who have come alive.” — Howard Thurman

There are so many people I would love to meet and who greatly inspire me. I’d love to sit down with Michelle Obama, Marc Benioff, and Rose Marcario, former CEO of Patagonia.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I encourage you to follow everything Main & Rose is doing by visiting our website and our Twitter page.

https://www.main-rose.com/

https://twitter.com/mainandrose

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethdoane/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Beth Doane of Main & Rose: Why Brands Should Focus On Social Good was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A First Responder Tracking Map” With Andy Bozzo of Tablet…

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A First Responder Tracking Map” With Andy Bozzo of Tablet Command

The “Big Idea” is called Tablet Command. As working firefighters in the field, we’ve worked hard to create a digital platform for real-time emergency incident management. Think about the games of “Risk” or “Battleship,” which are modeled after military battle simulators. Tablet Command resembles these simulators, but in real-time with real-life assets, existing on a platform where the incident commander can deploy and redeploy resources to handle the emergency.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Andy Bozzo Co-Founder of Tablet Command.

Andy has 22 years of experience in fire service in California and Washington State. He is currently a Captain in Contra Costa County, CA. Andy has a visionary mind and has provided many of the conceptual aspects that are foundational to Tablet Command. Andy is passionate about continuing to improve the Tablet Command solution by using it in the field, learning from other users’ experiences, and sharing his experiences as part of the training team. Andy has a BA in Biology from Middlebury College, and prior to working in the fire service Andy was a science teacher.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

With firefighting, there was just an allure that had been present since childhood. When I was about four or five, growing up in Central California, the simple preschool visits to the fire station were enough to hook me. But one specific event really drew me in: I spent part of my childhood growing up on the back side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and one summer, the mountains surrounding our house went up in flames! I was on my front porch all day and night, watching the feverish but deliberate battle; retardant drops by large bomber-like airplanes and helicopters dipping in to make precision strikes, so that the hand crews below could march in to cut swaths of fire line and make forward progress on stopping the fire. This was all very seductive to me. I was a war movie nut with my dad, so to me this was like war without having to kill anyone. Years later, I was doing pretty well in the sciences in school and sort of talked myself out of becoming a firefighter. But ultimately, I needed to make money for graduate school, so I fought summer fires to sort of “get my fix and get it out of my system.” But, of course, I ended up falling deeply in love with the profession and dedicated myself to becoming a professional firefighter.

What does this have to do with Tablet Command software? Flash forward 20 years later, and to me, as a career firefighter in the field — or “on the floor” as they say in some parts of the country — I was keenly aware that there wasn’t really a modern tool capable of tracking our whereabouts and progress during an emergency. A horribly tragic event that happened about eight years into the job, sort of thrust this problem to the foreground. But, when I look back, I’d been dreaming up this idea in some form since the day I got hired.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Anytime you’re dealing with people in need of emergency assistance, it’s all pretty interesting. I’d say one of the most interesting times in my career was during the Wine Country Fires in Napa, which is not too far away from where I’m based. That fire, along with several others in that five-year span from about 2013–2018, were mind-blowingly big, erratic, and seemed to take on lives of their own. When a division supervisor (the boss on a particular slice of the fire) tells you, “Don’t let any sparks or embers across this road or we’ll lose another town today.” it gets your attention. Again, the massive coordination of resources — equipment, people, aircraft, food, tools, fuel — we’ve been doing it for so long on paper, and there isn’t really a modern way to see live-action intelligence or situational status. But now that’s coming into view with Tablet Command’s technology. Several members of our company have been at the tip of the spear as working firefighters, and see how information (or lack thereof) can make situations better or worse. We’re making something practical for all of those ground-pounders out there who are fighting fires and dealing with emergencies everyday.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

I think you gotta be real and honest with yourself. It’s not easy becoming a firefighter, but even still, once you become one you can hide in a station on the quieter side of town and still call yourself a firefighter. You can still have the tee-shirt, and you can still impress plenty of people with the title. However, that’s not enough for most, and that mindset can be dangerous.

I’ve always done my very best to work in environments that really represent our society. I’m turned off by the high-rent areas. To me, that’s not real, and it’s pretty homogeneous, although you don’t tear your body up as much. The real people are in the tougher parts of town; the tough neighborhoods where lots of things happen. I’m attracted to those environments where you’re going to get the most amount of reps on the job. It will expose your weaknesses pretty quickly, and it’s REALLY important to acknowledge them.

The type of person who becomes a firefighter is sometimes averse to being vulnerable, but it’s really important to say, “I suck at this particular part of the job,” or even more daring, “I’m afraid of this part of the job”. But then you fling yourself into it and challenge yourself to get really good at it, because it’s going to happen: that thing you feared or resisted or hid is going to lay itself right at your feet someday. You don’t like emergencies in long dark tunnels? You’re going to get that exact call someday. We can’t pretend to know everything, and we rely on those closest to us who know us the best to every now and again show us a mirror and challenge us to get better.

I think this is true when you’re building a business from nothing. You can’t strut around and pretend you know everything, and you also can’t be afraid of falling on your face and looking vulnerable. The type of people with false bravado don’t belong in the fire service, frankly, and they don’t belong in leadership positions of business. You have to be brave enough to surround yourself with smart people, and then trust them — that’s how a team really soars.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

The “Big Idea” is called Tablet Command. As working firefighters in the field, we’ve worked hard to create a digital platform for real-time emergency incident management. Think about the games of “Risk” or “Battleship,” which are modeled after military battle simulators. Tablet Command resembles these simulators, but in real-time with real-life assets, existing on a platform where the incident commander can deploy and redeploy resources to handle the emergency. The perimeter of the emergency is like a battle map, and the resources (firefighters, fire engines, helicopters, ambulances, police cars, etc.) are like game pieces. Tablet Command is a real-time intelligence tool with access to the most accurate map overlays, helping the incident manager to deploy their resources in the safest and most efficient manner.

How do you think this will change the world?

We are proud to say that Tablet Command has already changed lives by saving lives. Because of Tablet Command, four firefighters were able to escape being burned up during a “blow-up” (when fire behavior becomes explosive and erratic) in the massive 2018 Carr Fire that scorched Northern California.

We’ve been successful in enhancing situational awareness and creating a shared common operating picture with real-time incident viewing ability for our first responders in North America. And we’ve created access to information that has never been available to responders in the field before; every rank can participate in the information stream, and that’s a big change from just a few years ago. Combine this with faster notifications and alerting for emergencies where first responders are getting out the door quicker, and with a clearer mental picture of what’s going on.

We’re responding to every type of emergency faster, with better information, and making a tangible difference in people’s lives. And that’s a BIG DEAL.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

Tablet Command is a first responder tracking system in that it tracks assignments, time on task, and location of apparatus. At some point we’ll track individual personnel, too. We also have the potential to aggregate live drone footage, which could conjure up fears about “Big Brother,” surveillance, and the militarization of civil services.

In addition, we provide access to information and data that could be considered sensitive and personal, although we’ve taken stringent measures with regard to data and user security to ensure that this information will never fall into the wrong hands.

Today we have the ability to consume and display map data from multiple sources, including predictive fire behavior modeling. And we also have the potential to aggregate sensor data from multiple sources, including humans. So again, fears of us adding to a society governed by AI where the human factor is further removed from the decision loop, could raise fears. Currently, Tablet Command allows for all members of a fire department to view an incident being managed by an individual or team of people. That kind of real-time scrutiny has raised concerns about too much information being available to onlookers.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

I’ve been a firefighter since 1998, and as I stated earlier I’ve always tried to work in the busiest areas that my department covered. I had personally been to several fires and had a couple of close calls leading up to 2007. In July of that year, my department lost two of our own in what was thought to be a standard or “bread and butter” house fire. Shortly after this tragedy I began working on that Engine Company where our firefighters had lost their lives. Every day I came to the station, I thought about that accident — it haunted all of us like a ghost. During that time, our fire department was doing a deep dive on operations as well, and I was tapped by one of my department’s chiefs to gather info on a firefighting tracking system that I had used in my previous department. Spoiler alert: It was totally analog.

On my days off I began digging out the materials for this tracking system, and it was spurring a lot of thoughts about the tragedy our department had suffered and how we could do things better. I distinctly remember taking a break from thinking about that incident and this tracking system, and picked up my NEW iPhone 2 and started playing a game called “Words with Friends.”

The game is essentially digital Scrabble where tiles populate 7 at a time (coincidentally, about the same number of emergency apparatus that show up to a fire). I realized I was playing with someone from somewhere else in the world, and it hit me that I was essentially exchanging information in a certain arrangement (specifically, arranged tiles) with that person. To me, the tiles looked like the same tokens we used on white boards to represent fire engines or fire crews on our analog makeshift command boards: think World War 2 battle maps where personnel with wooden wands push tokens around a battle map.

It was at that moment I realized that if we could keep the interface recognizable for the old fire commanders out there, and build some timers behind each action, we might be able to easily convert the fire service from analog to digital when commanding fires and tracking resources. We’d have a more accurate account of the emergency with respect to strategic and tactical movements of crews. After a few storyboard drawings, the concept of Tablet Command was born!

There had been a lot of talk about larger tablets coming out in the future, which essentially meant that this command map could happen on a larger scale that was shareable. This idea needed to live in the world.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

We need more forums for our currently successful users to evangelize and refer prospective users toward our product. The idea of implementing new technologies in public safety still has obstacles, and these are mainly psychological with some physical barriers. We perceive ourselves as “blue-collar” technophobes when we’re wearing the uniform, yet we’ll book plane tickets on Kayak, find a restaurant on Yelp, and navigate with Waze. It’s a tricky paradox, but our current customers really help us get the word out. We just need more of that more often.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Be really clear about what you want the technology to look like, and how you want it to act. We made assumptions about what we saw in our imaginations versus what others heard and produced. It took us a while to find a dev group who “got” us (ie understood the workflows of public safety).
Don’t get “big leagued” by big money. We knew we were developing this concept in a small but reliable market. Money people would nod their heads but wanted quick turnarounds on money. Because that component was missing and this was a longer term play with lower returns (than Twitter), they would cast doubt on the idea. “Screw that, screw them, and move on to a believer,” is what we told ourselves. We stopped wasting time with VCs and went for smaller, more agile investors.
0% Churn is a very important statistic: As we continue to build a customer base, we have 0% churn and positive income. That should be worth a lot to a potential investor. We had investors that would poo-poo us because we sell to the government, but what they failed to see, and what we failed to tell them emphatically, is that once we were installed it was going to be a tough prospect to get us out. To this day we’ve had 100% contract renewals and growth within current accounts, year after year.
You don’t need an MBA. Our domain expertise was all the education we needed, even if we were initiating this in a small market. If we own the market, then we win. We’re on that path now.
Clearly define milestones early in the process: As brand new co-founders in a tough market, we kept our heads down and worked pretty hard for the first few years. We weren’t necessarily pausing to celebrate some of the early wins: The first enterprise customer, the first integration with 9–1–1 software, the first contract renewal. That was probably a function of being “in the weeds” while we built a company. As we’ve matured, we’re able to look back at our tremendous accomplishment — we built a company from a blank piece of paper and put something new in the world. We didn’t do this alone, however. The growth of our team has been proportionate to the growth and success of our product, and we’re proud of that. Early on it felt like ancient mariners fearful of sailing off the edge of the world, but eventually we found a new world across a vast unknown, and have been building momentum ever since.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

One word comes to mind when I think about this question: Perseverance. Starting something on a blank piece of paper, even when it’s right in your domain, takes lots of time and effort. And there’s no exact recipe for success. The edges will be very ragged and the road is really really bumpy with lots of turns and switchbacks and detours. You will not be perfect and you will lose some battles — just be in it to win the war.

And it’s ok to spend purposeful, thoughtful time figuring out the product market fit, as well as experiment with which strategies will work best. Then you’ve got to make pivotal decisions and have confidence that your product will stick, without trying to “boil the ocean” and be something you’re not. As we began to narrow our mission, deepen our understanding of our market, and focus on customer success, we really began to see solid momentum. It’s ok to stay on this tack for a while, if not for the lifespan of the company, if growth is continual.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Tablet Command is the most highly-recognized and best end to end emergency response and incident command platform being deployed in North America today. LIke never before, Tablet Command brings faster notification, enhanced mapping and navigation, and accurate and timely incident tracking to firefighters and other emergency workers around the continent. Tablet Command has successfully disrupted legacy incident notification and emergency response data systems from around the country, and replaced it with faster and more streamlined technology that better represents a modern, intuitive, and recognizable interface.

Our customizable platform can easily be adapted for non-emergency events in other vertical markets with expansion of our team, and would result in larger opportunities in nearby markets. Tablet Command has been deployed in non-emergency events like Superbowl 50, The Rock and Roll San Diego Marathon, and the Mavericks Surf Contest.

With a team of domain experts and industry veterans, Tablet Command has successfully positioned itself to become the largest and most intuitive response, mapping, and management platform in the world.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram and Twitter: @TabletCommand

Facebook: @TabletCommandICS

Linked In: Tablet Command

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A First Responder Tracking Map” With Andy Bozzo of Tablet… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “AI-Powered Content Generation” with Robert Weissgraeber of…

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “AI-Powered Content Generation” with Robert Weissgraeber of AX Semantics

We’re bringing the ability to scale writing to everyone at a time when content generation tools are a must for businesses that seek to succeed with perpetual business and cultural shifts. Everyone creating fact-based content can use AX Semantics to generate content. Our software is 100% SaaS-based. Everything is accessible via a desk or web browser with no programming or IT departments required. Imagine never having to update a product description, website or financial report just because the numbers may change. We’re really a solution for the digital age, and we’re giving companies ‘superpowers’ so they can effortlessly publish quality content and grow.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing CTO and Managing Director, Robert Weissgraeber, at AX Semantics.

Robert Weissgraeber is the Managing Director and CTO of AX Semantics, where he heads up product development and engineering. Robert is an in-demand speaker and an author on topics including agile software development and Natural Language Generation (NLG) technologies and a member of the Forbes Technology Council. He was previously Chief Product Officer at aexea and studied Chemistry at the Johannes Gutenberg University and did a research stint at Cornell University.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve always looked for ways to solve really difficult challenges through the power of innovation and technology. Writing — and the way it has traditionally been executed — has not seen significant innovation since the advent of the typewriter 200 years ago. I knew this was one area I could bring about change and Natural Language Generation (NLG) was the key.

As companies increasingly embraced the digital age, they found there was no way to create the amount of content they needed in order to ensure they had a robust online presence. I wanted to help companies gain access to NLG tools so they can scale content in more than 110 languages. My work at AX Semantics fits that bill perfectly.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Written content is a big part of our everyday lives and interactions. Take Alexa, for example. Below Alexa’s voice output, there is text. One of our biggest challenges with NLG technology is that it can be used everywhere and across multiple verticals. So, the question became “Where to start?” It’s just not possible to dive into everything and ‘boil the ocean’ when you have limited resources.

We decided to take on the challenge by removing ourselves from making that choice. Instead, we opted to educate our users on why natural language generation is necessary, how it works and let them decide on the ‘what,”- essentially letting them tell us their needs, and then acting accordingly upon them. The approach worked well: we’ve already seen the creation of at least three new verticals from our product without us doing the innovation.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

I believe that decentralized acting leads to innovation. Every single person on a team should be responsible for innovative thinking, not just one centralized person. Every single suggestion or micro-decision should be considered to bring about new ideas and areas for growth. This kind of thinking can increase innovation by a factor of 10x instead of the usual consensus-based 2x increase. In our case, it’s our customers as well who are enabling innovation by suggesting forward-thinking use cases for NLG and areas for possible expansion.

Ok. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

We’re bringing the ability to scale writing to everyone at a time when content generation tools are a must for businesses that seek to succeed with perpetual business and cultural shifts. Everyone creating fact-based content can use AX Semantics to generate content.

Our NLG software powered by AI and natural language processing (NLP) effortlessly creates content that can populate an entire website, fill a news section with earnings reports, generate product descriptions for e-commerce, expertly manage financial services and regulatory reporting, automate the writing of clinical study reports in the pharmaceutical sector and more. Our NLG software can do this in more than 110 languages, in a manner of minutes — with a streamlined translation process that makes it easy to enter new markets.

Our software is 100% SaaS-based. Everything is accessible via a desk or web browser with no programming or IT departments required. Imagine never having to update a product description, website or financial report just because the numbers may change. We’re really a solution for the digital age, and we’re giving companies ‘superpowers’ so they can effortlessly publish quality content and grow.

How do you think this will change the world?

The rapid expansion and adoption of the internet has changed everything and content generation is the latest seismic shift in the printed word. Where once companies had to hire writers and editors to manually create and edit content, NLG tools offer a real alternative where ‘hybrid’ content is born from a partnership between man and machine.

Journalists, for example, will be able to focus more on actual insights, background stories, investigations etc., instead of just creating mind-numbing, manual, repetitive content in existing structures. They’ll be able to focus on being more creative. Really this is the first innovation that’s happened to the written word since the Gutenberg printing press, typewriter and word processor. It’s exciting!

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

You have to use NLG technology to create precise, hyper-personalized communications; otherwise you just create more content with no real depth that just gets ignored. Content generation is not just about quantity: quality matters equally. On the other hand, mass-influence like propaganda and deliberate fact distortion is a thing, so we conduct screening of our users and use cases to avoid political or violent content.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

This question actually goes back to my point on decentralization and how having ‘many minds’ on a project leads to innovation. There was a tipping point. A colleague was asked to write 1200 stories and 300 articles, for summer and winter each. He needed to write them in English and German, and it would be a monumental task. That was our main business at that time. In order to find a better way, he started writing a little code to help create that amount of content, which led us to the infinite possibilities and use of NLG and NLP technology.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

We need greater awareness among people that NLG and NLP offer real solutions to generating the written word. Five-hundred customers strong — and growing- we are a market leader with four other vendors in our space, e.g. Arria, Narrative Science, Yseop and Automated Insights. That’s still five to six levels of magnitude, however, below what’s possible. Most writers and analysts are still only looking no further than Word and Excel, when they could be doing so much more, faster, easier and with better results.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Don’t expect to be an overnight business sensation. Things will take longer than you think. We’re now in year four, and we’re still not Google.
Remember after every big challenge there is another one waiting, so don’t promise yourself that after you solve a big issue everything is all ‘green.’ Make sure to also build structures and processes that last and act as a foundation to solve the next big problem that comes along.
Hard problems make for hard pitches. If you don’t want to promise the typical magic, black box AI, you have to introduce transformational changes to your customers, which takes a lot of effort.
Products are much harder to create and validate than services are. You miss the early validation of a signed project contract while building and your assumptions can work against you.
You don’t have to check every box or fill every list. Work within the parameters set before you. Be agile and adapt when necessary.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Daily communication with your team is vital to success. No team can bring your vision forward or to fruition if you’re hiding in your office thinking and defining stuff by yourself.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

“We are already successfully changing the world for our hundreds of customers in e-commerce, media, financial services and pharma, so let’s get AX Semantics out to more of them!”

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I love connecting with new people and thought leaders. You can follow me on Linkedin or on Twitter — though be aware you’re bound to see lots of cooking and #food coma pictures.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “AI-Powered Content Generation” with Robert Weissgraeber of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “AI To Help You Buy An Engagement Ring” with Michael Pollak of Hyde Park…

The Future Is Now: “AI To Help You Buy An Engagement Ring” with Michael Pollak of Hyde Park Jewelers

We have disrupted an underwhelming, legacy business model with AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Visioning to reset the consumer experience and facilitate more personalized choices, dynamic pricing and customization. It is designed to help people navigate their purchase journey with data based insights and personalization that has never before been available under one cohesive platform.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Engage Founder, Michael Pollak, Chairman of Hyde Park Jewelers.

ENGAGE App Founder + CEO, Michael Pollak, has served as the Founder and Chairman of Hyde Park for the last several decades, with over 44 years in the jewelry business.

Michael started his career by selling turquoise and Indian Jewelry after class on the lawn of Denver University in 1973, where he graduated with a BSBA. Michael has spent extensive time in New York, Geneva, Vicenza, Tel Aviv and Hong Kong cultivating his skills, knowledge and expertise in the field of gemology, fine jewelry and Swiss timepieces.

With over 44 years in retail management, developing 10 regional, luxury jewelry and watch stores, Michael Pollak became Chief Executive Officer of Hyde Park Jewelers in 2007. Michael has received numerous industry awards including an induction into the National Jeweler Retailer Hall of Fame 2008, Ernst & Young, Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999. Michael has served on the Board of Directors for Diamond Empowerment Fund, Jewelers of America, Natural Color Diamond Association, Denver Health Foundation Board Chairman, and the Mizel Institute. Michael has also served in the past as a board member of the Anti-Defamation League, Co-Trustee of YouthBiz, and President of Luxury Jewelers Resource Group.

Michael founded Diamonds in the Rough, a non-profit organization to support the efforts of youth based non-profits and local charities in their quest to reach their goals. The Diamonds in the Rough Foundation has raised close to $4 million for more than 50 charitable organizations. In 2016, Michael and his wife of 38 years, Shereen, were honored by the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States Regional Office at their 75th Anniversary Gala with the Community Impact Award. In 2017 Michael was honored by the Women’s Jewelry Association receiving the Ben Kaiser Award. Michael received the 2018 Wellington E. Webb Award for his Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare Philanthropy.

Michael has transitioned to a strategic advisor as Chairman with Hyde Park as the award-winning company by focusing on quality, value, selection and customer service. Michael has been essential in driving the expansion of Hyde Park into targeted markets by creating the presence of a full-service luxury jeweler, offering exclusive designers and timepieces. He has focused most of his resources on a combination of business strategy and vision, philanthropy and the omni-channel future of a disrupted retail marketplace. His greatest passion is his family and the heritage of the Jewish people.

Engage is Michael’s latest endeavor, officially launching for August 2020. The AI technology based App is sure to revolutionize the jewelry market, namely the engagement ring buying process. The innovation provided by the App changes the entire experience of ring shopping, bringing the experience to you.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

It was 1973 and I was a student at the University of Denver. I was presented with an opportunity to get into the Turquoise and American Indian Jewelry business. I started from the ground up, literally! My first retailing venue was the main lawn outside of the largest classroom building.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I don’t know precisely why but a story from 35 year ago stands out the most. My Wife, Shereen was going into labor with our daughter Jennifer and about to give birth while across town at our first retail store we were being robbed. I guess in hindsight gave us a great perspective about work / life balance and reminded me to always put an emphasis on family first.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

We have disrupted an underwhelming, legacy business model with AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Visioning to reset the consumer experience and facilitate more personalized choices, dynamic pricing and customization. It is designed to help people navigate their purchase journey with data based insights and personalization that has never before been available under one cohesive platform.

How do you think this might change the world?

I believe that we have the ability to modernize the Engagement Ring buying experience by turning the process upside down and delivering fundamentally better outcomes along the consumer journey. One area that we have been largely focused on which has plagued our industry is the notion of sustainability. To achieve leadership in this category we have embraced Lab Grown diamond alternatives and built the subset into our platform.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Quite the opposite! Our “Mirror” creates Transparency, Ethical Standards and Empowers the user in their quest to purchase the perfect ring.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

After 45 years in the industry, I became tired of the overt salesmanship fueled by half truths in the Diamond business. Consumers are making highly emotional decisions based on branding elements or where they thought they could find the best deal. I routinely experience first hand people getting hustled under the cloak of buying from a “wholesaler” only to be sold at a lousy quality and a mediocre price point.Today’s consumer have created online profiles which each tell a one of a kind story. Our technology recognizes the defining characteristics which make us all unique and presents options based on those preferences.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

We are taking advantage of modern communications channels and have a robust digital and PR push to spread awareness and educate consumers but nothing sells like word of mouth and our best marketing efforts always lead us to direct consumer referrals or testimonials.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

Engage is currently leaning into the at-home consumption trend and fully optimized for mobile on-the-go transactions. With the majority of bricks and mortar establishments on hold or facing limited operations its actually a very timely opportunity for us to communicate the platform and give consumers a new option in their consideration set.

I must admit I’m a diehard listener of Scott Galloway, he’s an NYU professor who hosts a few podcasts and newsletters and just someone who I think really understands how technology has and will continue to disrupt and improve our modern lives. Additionally, I would be remiss not to mention Elon Musk. The way he has successfully challenged major industries from FinTech, Automotive, Solar and Space is beyond comparison and I really appreciate his devotion to human exploration and invention.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I founded a charitable organization called The Diamond in the Rough Foundation that has raised and donated millions of dollars to organizations working in a variety of fields including children’s well-being and growth, health and human services, the environment and other civic organizations.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

I have three gems that would always want to pass on to future generations, the first and most importantly is to never compromise your integrity or ethics regardless of the situation, the second is to always stay ahead of the power curve and finally to preserve capital and ensure you’re always in the game no matter what.

I am deeply devoted to an ancient biblical concept of Tikkun Olam, which calls on humanity to do their part to leave the world in a better place than the one they inherited. I think it has so many applications and is a guiding philosophy in both my work and my relationships.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Listen to others who have achieved success in their lives regardless of their personal endeavors, but above all believe in your intuition. You have to feel right in your gut and be willing to commit to the outcomes you’re seeking in order to achieve them.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Engage has reinvented the diamond engagement ring purchase experience for a modern consumer leveraging state of the art technology to redefine the entire sales process.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@EngageJeweler

The Future Is Now: “AI To Help You Buy An Engagement Ring” with Michael Pollak of Hyde Park… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “A Tech Tool That Can Help Identify Hidden Talents” with Nancy Parsons of CDR…

The Future Is Now: “A Tech Tool That Can Help Identify Hidden Talents” with Nancy Parsons of CDR Assessment Group

My hope is that it will change the world by helping individuals who are working age, including college students and veterans assimilating back to civilian life, to fully understand their own gifts, innate capabilities, talent, intrinsic motivators and inherent risk factors that can undermine their success. CDR-U Coach is also ideal for helping people find hidden talents and strengths that have been underutilized that can be developed to make positive career changes. What we have found too often, is that many people are unclear about the best career or education path for themselves, so frequently they pursue the wrong type of jobs and majors. This is not only frustrating for them, but it is costly. We can prevent these career and college major missteps by helping people gain a keen sense of self-awareness to make sure they are steering their careers onto the best path congruent with their inherent strengths, gifts and motivational needs. Also, when people are in the best-fit job roles, they are highly productive, successful and happy.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy Parsons.

Nancy Parsons is one of today’s foremost experts in combining the science of assessments with the art of developing people. She is the CEO/President of CDR Assessment Group, Inc. that she co-founded with Kimberly R. Leveridge, Ph.D. In 1998, together they authored the break-through CDR 3-Dimensional Assessment Suite® an ideal coaching tool translated to five languages for global clients. With over 33 years of experience, Nancy has published two books and more than 70 articles on leadership and development. She works with global leaders to accelerate success by helping them identify and develop their true talent at the launching point of a coaching engagement.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Absolutely, thank you for taking the time to chat with me. Once I moved into HR in the energy sector as a generalist that also handled labor relations, I started to gravitate more to leadership development and talent development. By the late 80s, I was designing 360 performance feedback instruments for an energy pipeline company where I was the HR director. I figured out that the best way to solve “people” problems in the workforce was to get ahead of them by helping leaders to be more effective. I grew weary of the fire fighting in HR, and shifted my focus to leadership development. In the ’90s, I moved into training leaders in coaching skills, and then became an executive coach. Once I was introduced to personality and motivational measures, I was hooked and saw this as the best way to revolutionize leader performance and development. In 1998, my business partner and I started CDR Assessment Group, Inc. and haven’t deviated from that vision since.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Years ago, we did a large redeployment project for an energy company. They were laying off employees on one side of the business yet had a few openings, and one was for systems analysts. We were hired to find, through our assessment, those who had the innate capabilities for these jobs that could be successfully trained.

Candidates who applied for these opportunities were screened solely based upon their CDR assessment test scores. Less than 20% of applicants made it past these test score hurdles. Keep in mind, our assessments are objective, diversity neutral with no adverse impact. Interviews of the screened through candidates were then conducted and whether candidates were successful or not, all were afforded coaching with their own assessment results.

Becky Warberg was one of the chosen candidates. I interviewed her about a year after being hired and she said: “This was personally the best thing I have ever done… The most impressive part of the redeploy selection process itself was the coaching feedback I received with my assessment results. It is something I recommend to everyone. I feel extremely fortunate that I was part of this initial group.”

Curious to see how she was doing 16 years later, I checked Becky’s LinkedIn profile and was thrilled to see how her career had soared within the technology field and in leadership. I sent her a message and she replied: “The value of your work has impacted my life tremendously in such a positive way. When I applied for the program, I was thrilled at the prospect but honestly questioned whether I would be a good match, and then your assessments boosted my confidence so much. Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU!”

It is so rewarding and encouraging to see these stories unfold from the hard work we have put into building and growing our business, and to be able to see how our work has positively impacted the lives of our clients over the years.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

CDR-U Coach is a revolutionary product in the learning and development technology space combining existing technologies and creative technical programming while using personalized assessment data in a different way. CDR-U Coach provides an online, personalized avatar debrief to individuals based on the full results of the CDR 3-D Suite assessments. Because of the rich data source and complex algorithms, no two users have the same feedback. It is that personalized! CDR-U Coach offers a more comprehensive assessment that is completely personalized and connects results across three modules. CDR-U Coach gives users clear and candid language, providing examples and developmental suggestions along the way. It provides an AI-type experience for users because of the analytics involved. CDR-U Coach is completely virtual which is especially ideal today with so many employees working at home. This means it is available 24/7 to users. This is the first of its kind!

How do you think this might change the world?

My hope is that it will change the world by helping individuals who are working age, including college students and veterans assimilating back to civilian life, to fully understand their own gifts, innate capabilities, talent, intrinsic motivators and inherent risk factors that can undermine their success. CDR-U Coach is also ideal for helping people find hidden talents and strengths that have been underutilized that can be developed to make positive career changes. What we have found too often, is that many people are unclear about the best career or education path for themselves, so frequently they pursue the wrong type of jobs and majors. This is not only frustrating for them, but it is costly. We can prevent these career and college major missteps by helping people gain a keen sense of self-awareness to make sure they are steering their careers onto the best path congruent with their inherent strengths, gifts and motivational needs. Also, when people are in the best-fit job roles, they are highly productive, successful and happy.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Of course, there are aspects of this that could pose drawbacks that we are constantly testing, making improvements, and continuing to think about. Over the last 3 months, we have completed beta testing to gather specific feedback from users. Keep in mind, our assessments go very deep and are extremely comprehensive. They are nothing like the popular Myers Briggs or DiSC, which are tests that match you to a particular set of types. Our CDR 3-D Suite is more serious and far more personally insightful and useful. The virtual CDR-U Coach provides a debrief in three modules: CDR Character Assessment (40 minutes), CDR Risk Assessment (20 minutes); and, CDR Drivers & Rewards (20 minutes.). At the front end, it also takes the user about 45 minutes to complete the assessments. So, the first drawback is the time involved by the participant. We know from research that most people’s attention span for e-learning is about 5 minutes or so. However, our hypothesis was that users would stay engaged because it was “all about them.” Thankfully, our hypothesis has been proven true in our pilot testing phase.

The other potential drawback can be based on someone’s scoring configuration on the assessments used by CDR-U Coach. Without having a live coach to conduct the initial debrief, we wanted to be sure that there are language safeguards or reassurances for those prone to negative reactions. For example, if an individual has a very low “Adjustment” score, this means that they lack self-confidence, are hard on themselves and others, and are not resilient to stress. On the positive side, they often push themselves quite hard and are intense about getting things done. However, this individual tends to look at all their personal flaws and negatives rather than focusing on their strengths and gifts. So, our challenge is for CDR-U Coach to help them really get clear on their strengths and accomplishments, and to stop beating themselves up. They will always be tough on themselves, but often it is to their own detriment. So, we try to help them appreciate the positives and to find ways to look at these each day, rather than only seeing the negatives.

There are a number of personality-based CDR Risks that we identify that also need careful coaching and developmental analysis and suggestions that we provide or facilitate through CDR-U Coach. Last, we are providing a safety net option of three, one-hour “live” coaching sessions at a discounted fee so that those who might need it can talk to a live CDR Certified Executive or Career Coach. Longer term live coaching packages and team development are available too.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

Clients regularly tell us that the CDR 3-D Suite accelerates success, drills deeper, uses candid language, and offers more relevant insights than other instruments. The problem has been, however, that delivery or coaching is very manpower intensive, expensive and not scalable. This meant that only the top executives and leaders were afforded their assessments with a coaching debrief, which made our sales and marketing limited within the tight, highly competitive assessment space. The tipping point happened a few years ago after some eye-opening client feedback from The US Army Civilian University’s CLO. She mentioned how wonderful, though not feasible, it would be for the organization’s 10,0000 employees to take the assessments and receive in-depth feedback. She wanted to know if we could come up with some kind of online multimedia debrief. I said, “Yes, I think we can.” So here we are today, thrilled to present the solution to this dilemma. Now, with CDR-U Coach, all levels of an organization can share in assessment and coaching feedback previously reserved exclusively for executives. The data can then be used for succession planning, custom training, capability analysis and more. It is great for both the employees and the enterprise.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

We need more visibility in the marketplace. We need our new sales representatives to sell to prospective clients. We have hired two marketing firms, one for strategy and one for digital marketing and our website. We have also retained the services of a PR firm to publicize our launch and CDR-U Coach. We need articles, media interviews, and, mostly, opportunities to showcase CDR-U Coach and the benefits for both employees and their organizations. We need every opportunity for positive exposure that we can get.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We are working with a PR firm to execute a thoughtful and strategic media and social media plan for the launch of CDR-U Coach in a way that will both highlight the features and advantages of the product. In addition to widespread distribution of our press release announcing the launch, our PR team will be focusing on trade publications so that HR directors, employers and other leadership can be made aware of CDR-U Coach for their employees and staff. While strategic social media use is not typical for an assessment product such as this, we have planned a very social media-forward launch campaign that we hope will make CDR-U Coach more accessible to the new generation of leaders and innovators.

Goodness, I’ve had many great managers and mentors on my journey. I think it is a blessing that early in my career in Human Resources and Labor Relations, hiring managers seemed willing to take a risk on me. I originally believed that I was an unconventional candidate, as it took me 10 years to earn my college degree. When I was first promoted into HR from a purchasing administrative role, I was selected over nearly a dozen college graduates at the time.

I had several bosses along the way who trusted me and helped me develop (Bob Howey, Rick Taylor, and Joe Swift) and I am thankful for their guidance. On psychological and motivational assessments, I was personally mentored in the mid 90s by Bob Hogan, Ph.D. and even assisted him on coaching projects. Last, my husband has been my rock and supporter too and no matter the ups and downs of my entrepreneurial challenges, he’s been nothing but supportive. Even with CDR-U Coach, where I invested heavily from our personal funds to form a new LLC, he has been all in with support. I am very lucky for my past bosses, mentors, and Bill, my husband. There are others, of course, but I save that for a book!

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

What I get to do by working in the leadership field is help people see what makes them shine. For 22 years, it has been so exciting to help clients realize and truly understand what is so good about themselves. We’ve helped a lot of coaches, nonprofits and churches to build strong leadership and workplace foundations. One of my favorite projects, that brought me joy, is our work with veterans to get their careers back on track. Through “Vets Coaching Vets,” which I founded, we’ve trained veterans to become successful coaches to other veterans looking to re-enter the workforce. What we do is help people find their own riches. Even before CDR, when I was in HR, I would always fight for fairness. Through my success with CDR Assessment Group, we were able to create CDR-U Coach, which makes it possible for us to reach and help all, not just the top of companies. That is by far the most exciting and rewarding part of it.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Since I have been an entrepreneur for more than 22 years, I have developed “business sea legs.” Fortunately, I took many classes on running a small business as I ventured away from corporate HR roles.

Going into business is hard, takes a lot of work, and is not for everybody. You have to be flexible enough that when you get knocked down, you are able to get right back up and try again. Coming from a corporate workplace, my first business venture on my own was jarring, as I was used to being provided with all of the resources I needed, but now was having to play every role and anticipate all business needs.
The second thing I wished someone had warned me of is starting your own company can oftentimes be lonely. Because it was just me, I found that I had to constantly reach out to stay connected — this was before social media days. I missed being part of a team and large organization
The third, is that marketing your business requires a multitude of ongoing efforts, not just one, and you must be persistent.
Fourth, you must protect intellectual property by filing for certified trademarks, copyrights, and patents as appropriate. In 1999 to 2000, CDR had to protect our copyrights in Federal Court. A couple of consultants used our copyrighted materials in their published book without permission, claiming rights to them. We prevailed in court because I had registered the certified copyrights with the government. If you do not formally register your copyrights, you cannot protect your intellectual property in court and receive damages. Had I not done this, I would not be here today, and CDR-U Coach would not exist.
Fifth, purchase good business insurance.

If I could inspire a movement, I would it to be centered around making sure that others were keenly self-aware of their strengths, capabilities and talent. I want them to be clear about what they enjoy and love to do. Last, I want them to know their personality-based risk factors so that these traits that show up under stress and adversity do not undermine their success. I want people to find careers that tap into what is best about them and to do the kind of work they are passionate about and are happy to do. In 1998 when we founded CDR, we used this quote and it is still why we do what we do:

“ The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches,

but to reveal to him, or her, their own.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

(edited 2017 by CDR for gender notation)

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The question isn’t who is going to let me;

it is who is going to stop me?”

Ayn Rand

Early in my career, I always sought to stand up for what I believed in and to speak with candor. I remember once holding a position that was many levels below the president of the company when we wanted to fire someone. These terminations had to be approved by the president. We had completed a full investigation on this employee and the president questioned whether it was the right decision. To the shock of my bosses and colleagues, I pushed back and was confidently assertive about the matter with the president. I always thought, “I’ll just do the right thing and if they fire me, I’ll get a job somewhere else tomorrow.” Turned out that after standing up for what we found were the facts at hand, the president respected me more for speaking my mind and standing up for the truth.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

We are shaking up the world of talent development. On July 15th, 2020, we launched the first of its kind — an online approach to transform how organizations develop talent, top to bottom. This virtual approach is ideal for post-COVID work flexibility. In addition, we’re proud of how this solution can accelerate diversity and inclusion efforts by getting past human biases and systems that too often do not let true talent shine through.

In-depth assessments and coaching are provided to top executives in organizations, leaving mid and lower levels without because it is considered too time and cost prohibitive. This means that more than two-thirds of an organization’s talent is left with only generic training resources that do not individualize learning or develop talent effectively. Our new scalable product, CDR-U Coach, offers personalized, always available, coaching feedback based on the results of the most in-depth assessments available on the market today. Driven by complex algorithms leveraging rich data and delivering predictive results, CDR-U Coach provides an A/I type experience for users with no two individuals receiving the same feedback — it is that personalized. CDR-U Coach is backed by 22 years of data history through CDR Assessment Group, Inc., who provides assessments and personal coaching feedback to the leaders of some of America’s best companies.

CDR has hired two marketing firms: one to develop the marketing strategy, pitch decks, and tactics; and the other to handle digital media and the website. We have also hired a publicity firm to support the launch, press events, articles and social media. We have hired one inside sales representative and two outside sales representatives with strong books of business in our industry.

Our five-year revenue projections are (confidential but terrific) and the market potential for CDR-U Coach is in the billions of dollars. Currently, companies are spending between two and four billion dollars per year on assessments globally. The talent development and leadership development dollars spent are 169 billion in the US and 370 billion dollars globally. Our target market companies spend $1,544 per employee annually. CDR-U Coach is priced at $650 per user with extra fees of $50 each for the action planning modules. The margins are exceptional on this scalable digital in-depth assessment and coaching feedback solution.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

My linked in profile is at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyeparsons/

Our company website is: www.cdr-u.com and www.cdrassessmentgroup.com and my speaker website is www.nancyparsonsspeaks.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cdruassessmentgroup

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cdrugroup/

The Future Is Now: “A Tech Tool That Can Help Identify Hidden Talents” with Nancy Parsons of CDR… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Heroes Of The Addiction Crisis: How Dr Jean LaCour of NET Institute Center for Addiction and Recove

Heroes Of The Addiction Crisis: How Dr. Jean LaCour of NET Institute Center for Addiction and Recovery Education Is Helping The Workforce To Avert The Clutches of Addiction

I am inspired by the people who find us and enroll in our training and certification programs. Currently we have online students from 28 nations in our Professional Recovery Coach program. Most have a deep desire, even a calling, to serve people and families facing addiction. They are “addiction aware” and “recovery minded”. Collectively these people are a force multiplier in treatment services and make great Workforce Recovery Champions in businesses, schools, universities, healthcare, impaired professional programs, etc.

As a part of my series about “Heroes Of The Addiction Crisis” I had the pleasure of interviewing International thought leader, Dr. Jean LaCour, co-founded NET Institute Center for Addiction and Recovery Education in 1996 to train professional addiction counselors and in 2014 launched a program to train and certify professional recovery coaches. Passionate about building bridges, she has led a coalition of 1,000+ people in 100+ nations, trained 1,000s of people in 35 nations and inspired change in Russia, Pakistan, Bermuda and Egypt. This fall, she and her team are introducing a new program to address Addiction in the Workforce, which has been dramatically exacerbated by the current pandemic. https://www.recoverycoachtraining.com/

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a bit of your backstory?

My backstory : In 1989, I had recently sold my successful Montessori school and was trying to ignore my husband’s escalating drinking and clinical depression. A dear friend gave me a copy of Codependent No More and said, this is what WE are. The book nailed me. I needed help if we were going to make it. I found that help at a local treatment center that had a support group for family members even if their loved one was not in treatment. By the end of the year my husband lost his CEO job of 14 years due to his drinking and we lost our home and everything else. It took a few years to move from crises to stable recovery.

Is there a particular story or incident that inspired you to get involved in your work with Substance Misuse and Addiction?

One gloomy evening in July 1992, I arrived in Moscow, to assist a group of Russian professors for three months. Seated alone in an old taxi, I made my way across the vast grey Soviet landscape of that great city. Everywhere I looked my eyes locked onto massive public drunkenness, scenes of violence, and misery. I was struck to my core knowing this level of addiction was the future of my own country and those I love, if we ignored the heartbreak of addiction.

But how could one person respond to such suffering? In that moment, I made the decision, based on my own family’s struggles, to share everything I knew about addiction with anyone who would listen. That decision has led me to 35 nations.

In 1996, my husband and I opened a nonprofit Institute in Florida to equip everyday people with Addiction Counseling and Recovery Support skills that meet professional standards. This led me into the deserts of Egypt to establish a training program for thousands of people and today 60 NEW addiction programs treat people of all faiths across that region. The Institute has trained over 40,000 people worldwide and is part of a global addiction network in 100 nations, which I led for many years.

Can you explain what brought us to this place? Where did this epidemic come from?

Covid-19 induced stress levels are at an all-time high as more people are descending into the self-destructive world of addiction to cope with the unknown. I call it a pandemic within the pandemic. Overnight the US workforce has been redefined and redeployed into three main employee categories: 1) remote or working from home 2) working onsite with a reduced team and 3) essential workers such as healthcare, emergency services, food distribution, etc.

Individuals in these three major categories have been impacted in their roles, responsibilities, work product, use of technology, plus team support and dynamics within fluctuating routines, structures, and timetables.

Each one of us has different levels of resiliency, relationships, or resources to weather the intense storms and upheavals of life. It is not uncommon for someone to begin to use or increase use of substances like alcohol, marijuana, prescription medications, or engage in behaviors like overeating, online pornography, gaming, or shopping to relieve the pressures of the unknown. From experience we know these substances and actions are effective to quickly “medicate” and numb the pain.

The current ongoing anxiety is very real and growing as we worry about getting sick, wearing masks, and adapting to the ‘new normal’ of working remotely, managing home schooling for our kids, facing loss of income and loss of social contact while the media amplifies political hostilities and civil unrest.

Statistics abound about alcohol sales being 55% higher in the first weeks after Covid-19 hit, and this stat is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that liquor stores were considered essential and therefore allowed to stay open during lock-down is a staggering commentary on our addicted society. Amid such circumstances it can be a quick progression from normal social use of these substances or behaviors to increased misuse to manage stress. This is when a person is most at risk for becoming addicted.

Can you describe how your work is making an impact battling this epidemic?

This fall my organization, NET Training Institute, is launching the International Center for Addiction and Recovery Education (I-CARE). This new program will address employee performance issues based on the concept of Emotional Sobriety and personal resilience. This approach will avert the hidden costs of employee misuse and addiction. It will be available for businesses intent on proactively addressing the needs and issues of remote workers, onsite workers, and essential workers. The Institute will train and certify workforce facilitators to support positive change and mitigate risk and healthcare costs through nonclinical services. We are currently attracting Wellness and Human Resource Professionals, Executive and Corporate Coaches, Counselors, and others who appreciate the power of proactive, preventive measures to help colleagues, companies, and communities recognize and avert the clutches of addiction.

Wow! Without sharing real names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted by your Workforce initiative?

Our interest in partnering with the business community began in 2008 when I was invited to a regional business networking breakfast meeting. I was told that many network members were planning to mentor or adopt a local nonprofit or social impact organization. To my surprise, the CEO of the network asked me to be the guest speaker at their next meeting. I tried to decline the invitation, assuming they would not be interested in one of my addiction lectures. I struggled with topics and settled on what has become my keynote talk called, “The Cost of Doing Business in a ‘High’ Society.” Everyone had on their public ‘game face’ and listened politely. I thought I had bombed big time with my brain scans and workplace stats, but then, one by one, people came up to shake my hand and privately tell me about their alcoholic father or daughter or their own recovery. I was floored! And the grinning CEO hugged me and booked me to speak immediately at four upcoming venues!

Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?

Besides my ongoing work in training addiction workers in developing nations, there is one incident I’d like to share with your readers from 2008. Our board hosted an open house to invite people from the business networks I mentioned earlier. We went to great effort to set up displays and photos at different places in our offices so we could tell our story and cultivate new donors.

After the short tour, we gathered everyone together for coffee and to ask for support. To our amazement people were quietly telling each other and some of our staff about their personal and family addiction problems. I quickly assessed we needed to intervene so these precious people could share and debrief years of feeling alone with their private pain. I divided them up and assigned our trained staff to facilitate each group — people raised in alcoholic homes, others struggling family members, and even a men’s group. It filled my team with gratitude and joy to see these business people who appeared so successful, responding to the safety and warm acceptance we offered. Addiction touches all of us regardless of our age, race, gender, economic, social, educational status. This is why we talk about the miracle of recovery.

Can you share three things that the community and society can do to help you address the root of this problem? Can you give some examples?

Prior to Covid-19 the major public health catastrophe facing the US was clearly the opioid crises.

From 1999–2018 approximately 450,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids.
In 2018, 67,000 people died from a drug overdose, 70% of these people were involved with opioids. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html

The CDC is the US federal agency dealing with public health; its full title is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. I am an Internationally Certified Prevention Professional (CPP) and value the principles and guidelines of the prevention profession. I began with the CDC to align our efforts to have the greatest impact.

Prevention strategies include assessing risk factors versus resilience factors in the context of an individual, a family, a neighborhood, a company, a community, etc. Our nonprofit organization has pivoted to provide targeted effective adult prevention strategies to a company or industry that complements clinical services offered through Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs).

Major prevention funding for substance misuse is dedicated to protecting our youth and college age young people or to dealing with one issue such as opioids or alcohol or tobacco. There is very little available for adult prevention, We are energized by creating a business centric program that moves beyond factual information to a deeper personal understanding of an employee’s context and desire for behavior change in the midst of a ‘new normal’.

That said, I encourage each person reading this to step back and think in terms of your own personal risk in how you are coping with the incredible stress of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Make two columns for risk/ resilience. Consider a few risk factors such as lack of sleep, technology issues, stressful relationships, your increased responsibility load at work and at home, how much alcohol, marijuana, are you using etc. Resilience factors may be your network of friends, your faith or spiritual roots, a few easy physical activities from walking to yoga, to pushups, etc.

Journal — Personal: Answer these three questions honestly.

How am I doing since March 2020?
What am I pretending NOT to know?
What small change/s can I make now in my awareness or activities that will support the stability and future growth I desire in my life?

If you had the power to influence legislation, which three laws would you like to see introduced that might help you in your work?

Legislators at all levels must wait two years before engaging in lobbying, self-dealing, and conflicts of interest in general and specifically related to contributions from industries callously fueling addiction for profit for shareholders. Manufacturers and distributers of pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana recklessly contribute to addiction and to the river of suffering flooding our homes, schools, social services, prisons, and healthcare.
By mandate and social pressure, media of all kinds, will cease to reinforce stigma and stereotypes about addicted people by dramatizing, publicizing, or finding humor in their failures. Instead, the new media standard will present addiction as a multi-faceted brain disorder requiring medical or professional care and support like other chronic diseases such as diabetes. Media will showcase stories that reframe and portray people in recovery as survivors who have often misused substances to cope with traumatic events. Active addiction itself can be a harrowing life and death experience, but the process of recovery often results in changed lives marked by service, courage, tenacity, altruism, and humility. Note: The media does not ridicule cancer survivors, disabled people or returning military veterans. This shift in perception and media portrayal can quickly reverse stigma and shame that keeps people fearful about seeking help.
Drug courts, due to their successful outcomes, especially for juveniles, must be well funded and set up in multiple jurisdictions nationwide to provide a practical and cost saving diversion from prison, which is known for trauma and lifelong consequences instead of rehabilitation.

I know that this is not easy work. What keeps you going?

I am inspired by the people who find us and enroll in our training and certification programs. Currently we have online students from 28 nations in our Professional Recovery Coach program. Most have a deep desire, even a calling, to serve people and families facing addiction. They are “addiction aware” and “recovery minded”. Collectively these people are a force multiplier in treatment services and make great Workforce Recovery Champions in businesses, schools, universities, healthcare, impaired professional programs, etc.

Do you have hope that one day this leading cause of death can be defeated?

Yes. I believe people change behaviors based on self-interest, prosocial attitudes, personal values, and correct information. Think about people now using seatbelts, practicing safe sex, putting babies in car seats, ID theft practices, better food choices, recycling, reducing consumption to reduce landfills and save the planet initiatives, etc. When people get an accurate understanding about the who, what, when, and how of addition and recovery, then our society will begin to heal in this area of senseless death.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

There are many gifted people speaking about this topic as we move away from the traditional ‘command and control’ model. Today’s leaders need the ability to build teams, listen well, encourage/ motivate, risk being vulnerable, etc. All important.

My contribution to this conversation is about three qualities or concepts that are character based and stem from a few paragraphs penned by Stephen Covey. He observed that prior to World War II most Americans understood that success was based on integrity, honesty, making good on your commitments, hard work, sense of fairness, striving for excellence, and so on. But times have changed. Madison Avenue, marketing, and mass media, etc. have shifted our culture to accepting that the illusion of these qualities is acceptable. Social media has only intensified the pressure and demand for this type of superficiality and airbrushed identity.

My understanding of leadership has been forged in the fire of international addiction recovery initiatives that are led by men serving addicted men. These programs often operate outside of traditional government sponsored social services because prison or labor camps are the go-to solution historically.

Respect: either you have it, or you don’t, or you automatically reserve it for people in your social class, profession, etc. It is deeper than nondiscrimination based on gender, race, religion, disability, etc. Either you see the person in front of you in terms of a means to an end or in terms of their inherent human dignity.

Trust me, respect is not automatic in recovery work when people you serve have lost any resemblance to their past humanity. As a woman (with long blond hair), I triggered many leaders in many different cultural contexts as a person able to provide them with something of value. I was not what they were looking for and their disrespect was triggered. But time after time, it was my respect for them and their startling efforts in saving lives with so few resources that opened the door to possibilities.

Ethics: what does this mean to you in a world that is less right/wrong and mostly gray or relative. I read a surprising article in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago about a business professor reaching out to their business school graduates who were in prison for white collar crimes, think Enron. Basically, most of his graduates were in two categories. Some grads said they were not intending to break the law, but everything was so grey and vague. Other individuals were incarcerated for pressing the ethical/legal limits by making short term gains demanded by shareholders versus long term best strategies for growth and public safety. These people assumed their companies could protect them in some way before reality set in.

Personal Activity: Journal honestly if you have ever used an ethical plum line in your work. Does your industry have an ethical code? Is there an ethical line you have dealt with in the past? What was the situation? Did you experience internal conflict or distressing emotions that alerted you to ethical issues? Is there a line you will not cross, what stand are you willing to take? Write out some situations related to your industry or career that may arise.

Power Differential: This is a concept clearly discussed in certain professions such as legal, medical, human experimentation, counseling/ psychology, education, etc. It simply means that by virtue of your position of expertise or authority your clients, patients, customers attribute certain power and ability to you and will trust you and your advice, your product, etc. People who come to you for your services are automatically in a top down position and they are vulnerable due to some need.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

Stigma and stereotypes are deadly and prevent people from seeking help for themselves or a loved one. I come from three generations of well-educated women who, unbeknownst to each of us, married affluent men whose drinking progressed into the depths of alcoholism with all its tragic pain and losses. I call addiction a “sickness of silence” because it is shrouded in secrets and shame. Neither my dear grandmother nor mother ever shared their stories or struggles with me or the wisdom they gained.
I wish I’d understood that ‘high functioning’ alcoholics are just as addicted as people who have less control over their behavior. It was a mystery how my husband could drink so much and still be standing! But a time came when he spiraled out of control and experienced ‘rock bottom.’
Neuroscience has brought important knowledge to the addiction field that has removed some of the shame and fear that surrounds addiction. Just this aspect has changed the way we perceive the problems people are facing. People can Google any aspect of addiction to gain understanding and research possible options for help.
In the early 1990s I could never have imagined the extent of the potential risk or danger of the pharmaceutical industry aggressively marketing pain medication through the healthcare industry and the immense suffering it’s caused to individuals, families, and communities.
I wish I had permission in the 1990s when I began to train addiction counselors and recovery support staff to really focus my approach and content on the concept of Emotional Sobriety. Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, used this term in a private letter to a friend concerning his hopes for the future wave of recovery efforts. I have made Emotional Sobriety my theme and core premise in training professional recovery coaches and will bring it into all of my future work.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Wanted:

People who stop using plastic straws & bags to save the oceans and wildlife.

People who buy items made by indigenous people to support their rise out of poverty.

People who boycott chicken or beef products to protest cruelty to animals.

People who will spread the word that our appetites are fueling unspeakable abuse of innocent people.

Real people. I’ve met UN workgroups Iike the Colombian woman forced to transport drugs as a ‘mule’ for the cartels. Many are arrested and languish in jail and abused by authorities. Or the handsome young man from West Africa, coming in desperation to plead for UN help to rid his country of vicious drug traffickers who have taken over villages for drug labs for product that will be sold in Europe.

Fact: The US is approximately 4.4% of the world’s population yet we have consumed up to 66% of the world’s supply of these illicit substances: heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, illegal marijuana, counterfeit fentanyl and prescription pills made in dirty labs.

Fact: Our personal demand to use illegal substances is not a victimless crime. https://trafficlawguys.com/what-is-victimless-crime/

Fact:

The US is a land of Entitled Consumers with Voracious Appetites.
Supply and demand drive drug traffickers in Mexico to increase supply by cruel and violent means that harm and terrorize women, children, and men and keep them in poverty and servitude to Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs).
TCOs also run lucrative sex trafficking routes that supply children across our border.
A large percentage of US deaths from fentanyl poisoning or heroin overdose are caused by illegal substances that originate in Mexico or the Dominican Republic.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life? — Martin Luther King Jr.

“We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. came to my hometown of St. Augustine, Florida, in May 1964, the month I turned 15. King observed that St. Augustine’s (Negro community) had been made to “bear the cross,” suffering (extreme) violence and brutality that helped prompt the US Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Local police did not protect the marchers from bloody attacks by segregationists and the Ku Klux Klan. One day I found myself in the center of town about 30 yards from a black man leading a group of young people peacefully trying to enter a local store with a lunch counter. It was a terrible scene with whites releasing dogs on them, shoving, and hitting some with bats. I had never witnessed such actions. Neither had I been in the presence of real courage. I was forever changed.

In 2011, I was training in Madurai, India, where Dr. King spent time in 1959 at the Gandhi Memorial Museum, which depicted the story of India’s struggle for freedom. Dr. King said this, “… nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. Gandhi embodied certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”

Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

Janice Bryant Howroyd https://www.actonegroup.com/about.aspx

I believe Mrs. Howroyd would be an excellent mentor and wise guide for our nonprofit organization at this time as we launch our Addiction Awareness Workforce Solutions program.

She is the first African American woman to start and run a billion-dollar business. She’s founder and CEO of ActOne Group, a global enterprise that provides employment, workforce management, and procurement solutions to a wide range of industries, Fortune 500 organizations, local and mid-market companies, and government agencies.

ActOne Group operates in 19 countries across the world and has over 17,000 clients and 2,600 employees worldwide. It is the largest privately-held, woman and minority owned workforce management company in the US.

ActOne Group provides flexible, comprehensive solutions under three distinct business verticals: Staffing, Workforce Solutions, and Business Services.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanlacour/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/net-institute-center-for-addiction-and-recovery-education/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/recovery-coach-training/

https://www.facebook.com/RecoveryCoachTrainingIAPRC/

https://www.facebook.com/JeanLaCour

Heroes Of The Addiction Crisis: How Dr Jean LaCour of NET Institute Center for Addiction and Recove was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Simon Slade of Affilorama: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

If you’re concerned about how your feedback might come off to an employee, I suggest using a video recording system like Loom to just record a quick video explaining your constructive criticism. Not only will this give you the opportunity to share facial expressions and body language that might comfort the employee, but they will also hear the intonation in your voice — something that is arguably the most important factor when trying to express a difficult message with tact.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Simon Slade.

Simon Slade is CEO and co-founder of Affilorama, SaleHoo and co-founder of Smtp2Go. Through these companies, Simon provides education and resources for ecommerce professionals to start their own drop shipping business, build an affiliate marketing business and achieve occupational independence. Simon can be followed on LinkedIn and regularly comments for Forbes, Fortune, SMH and NZ Business.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I was born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand. I graduated from Griffith University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Business Management and a degree in marketing. As an online seller on TradeMe, New Zealand’s local auction site, I received many inquiries about where I found my suppliers. I saw the opportunity to help others jumpstart their online sales gigs and developed the concept for SaleHoo, an online directory of verified wholesale suppliers. When SaleHoo amassed 10,000 members in just eight months, we used that momentum to launch Mark’s business idea, Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal. From there, we built the parent company, Doubledot Media. I’m also a co-founder of Smtp2Go, an email delivery service.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

One surprising “learning moment” that we had a few years back was in the early days of our company Affilorama. Affilorama started as a paid-only service, but we were disappointed by its early financial results. So we took a risk and changed our pricing structure to include two options for access to Affilorama: a base option that made some features available for free, and a premium option that came with a monthly fee. Within the first month of implementing our new pricing strategy, our revenue and customer base tripled! The free plan has not negatively impacted our revenue, and our customer base continues to grow. It seemed counterintuitive that offering a free plan actually improved our profit, but it generated interest in our product and proved its value to customers, which worked out well for us in the long run.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It’s funny upon reflection because it was so long ago, but it certainly wasn’t funny at the time. In the early stages of SaleHoo, my co-founder and I contracted a web design agency that charged us $35,000 and ultimately presented us with a product we couldn’t use. That money was basically wasted, much to our dismay. But we picked ourselves up and brought in a freelance designer who charged a third of the price, had a greater understanding of the project and presented us with an excellent final product. Based on this experience and other ones like it, I learned that most of the time, startups should spend a little more time researching and hiring a freelancer rather than paying exorbitant agency prices. Paying more does not always mean you’ll receive the best product, and in the early phases of your business, every penny counts.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I think there are two keys to avoiding employee burnout: flexibility and culture. (And I suppose these could go hand-in-hand by making flexibility a distinct part of your company culture.) A fruitful remote company culture will offer plenty of opportunities for social engagement and fun — for instance, my remote employees gather for an annual vacation where they get to relax and spend some time in-person. Social experiences like this will help employees avoid work burnout. A company that truly values flexibility will allow employees to organize their work around their life rather than organizing their life around their work. This is another key piece to ensuring your employees thrive.

The majority of our staff have been remote for about 10 years.

The five main challenges for managing a remote team are: onboarding, communication, culture, assessment, and connectivity (both personal and professional). Onboarding can be a unique challenge because you have to create a detailed, functional, and completely hands-off way to train new employees. Communication is obviously a challenge because it has to be far more intentional with a remote team — there’s no chit-chatting around the water cooler. This is the same reason that culture becomes a challenge: the social element isn’t built-in for a remote team, so it has to be constructed more intentionally. Assessment is difficult on a remote level because we are so conditioned to using visual and in-person cues to identify productivity. When those cues are taken away, we have to find a new way to assess our employees. Perhaps the overarching theme for all of these challenges is the issue of connectivity. Remote employees need to feel connected — to each other, to the company, to their work and supervisors and bosses. Creating a sense of connectivity among your remote team is the ultimate challenge.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Some of these problems go hand-in-hand and can be solved with the same strategy or tool. For example, communication, culture and connectivity can all be solved by having a project management system where employees can share information with each other directly on projects. When an employee can apply their input or complete their task on a project directly rather than having to communicate on an additional channel, such as email or phone, things are streamlined and simplified. Everyone is on the same page, communicating well and feeling connected to one another. This alone will create a better company culture, but there also has to be a fun and playful outlet of the same nature — a chat room or virtual space where your employees can gather to communicate about non-work things and build personal relationships. This is the core of a good company culture — a communicative, well-connected team. Similarly, the challenge of onboarding a remote team member is dramatically simplified by these project management systems and detailed outlines of projects and tasks. If your social media manager has been providing details about their techniques and tasks over the last year, this essentially provides a pre-made handbook for a newly-hired manager in the same position.

I also think this ties into effective assessment. A remote team benefits enormously from a peer-to-peer review system, where managers and supervisors can get feedback from teammates about everyone’s performance, as well as self-assessment, where employees can reflect on their individual progress and productivity. Managers and owners aren’t going to be able to assess employees effectively if they don’t see them regularly or work with them on an individual basis, so remote assessment has to rely more heavily on direct co-workers and the employees’ themselves. This is not to say peer assessment should replace a manager’s evaluation of an employees’ performance, but that the two can work together as an effective remote assessment system.

If you’re concerned about how your feedback might come off to an employee, I suggest using a video recording system like Loom to just record a quick video explaining your constructive criticism. Not only will this give you the opportunity to share facial expressions and body language that might comfort the employee, but they will also hear the intonation in your voice — something that is arguably the most important factor when trying to express a difficult message with tact.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Again, I would always recommend recording a super-fast video if the feedback is really sensitive or complex. But another thing to consider is that someone who is hyper-sensitive to feedback, or struggles with constructive criticism in the written form, might not be best-suited to a remote team. Effective remote hiring is the first step in effective remote management. You should be able to trust your team members to embrace your communication style as a manager without taking things too personally. That said, emoticons are always a great way to soften a message that might otherwise sound tough. 🙂 Furthermore, constructive criticism is always softened by a sense of empathy: phrases like “I’ve struggled with this before, too…” or “When I first started here, I didn’t realize [xyz].” This kind of commiseration can make an employee’s shortcomings seem more universal and less dramatic.

Newly remote teams are going to realize very quickly that email is a clunky and ineffective way for teams to communicate on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis. If a team has gone remote without the proper technology, there are going to be setbacks and delays. Hosting a zoom meeting in place of every in-person meeting is also not an effective solution. It’s important that leaders and executives provide a newly-remote team with the technology and infrastructure they need to work effectively in a remote setting. Until this is made possible, employees need to be patient with themselves and each other.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

I’ve always advised that managers and executives, while maintaining their decision-making power and independence, include team members in structural decisions about the company. Open lines of communication and solicit ideas from all levels of the company when trying to make large-scale decision about the company’s future. This creates a sense of camaraderie among the team and helps everyone to feel like they are part of an inclusive mission.

I want more people to have a healthy work/life balance. I think when people have a more flexible schedule, they are more productive at work, happier and healthier. I think if we can start centralizing work/life balance as a cultural value, we’ll all be better off.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Steve Jobs said, ‘The only way to do great work is to love what you do.’ This advice gave me the courage to pursue a career as an entrepreneur. Three businesses later, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. Being my own boss is a significant factor in my love for my job, and I love that my businesses, Affilorama, SaleHoo and Doubledot Media Limited, help others to also become their own bosses through e-commerce pursuits. It is my hope that our companies help others achieve occupational freedom so that our customers, too, love what they do.

Thank you for these great insights!

Simon Slade of Affilorama: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thomas Aronica of Biller Genie: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS

Agile Development — A development team is a requirement for any successful SaaS company since the development they will turn the vision into a tangible outcome. You have to find the right leader and the right developers in order to build a quality product. With agile development, we have found the most success. We work in sprints, constantly improving upon and building the software. Our development team is very collaborative. Together, they work to make sure that we have the best product on the market.

As part of my series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Aronica.

Thomas Aronica has more than 12 years of experience building successful organizations in the payment processing and fintech industries. Shortly after graduating from the University of Miami, where he earned a B.S. in computer science, Tom founded his first company, PCI Professionals. In less than three years, he built PCI into a viable acquisition target and in 2011, Tom spearheaded the merger of PCI Professionals with SkyBank Financial, ultimately taking over as chief executive officer. During this time, Tom also founded PrestigePay, a prepaid card issuer providing financial inclusion to subprime consumers in the United States.

Tom’s natural ability to foresee emerging trends and creatively use technology in new ways led to him founding Biller Genie, an innovative cloud-based solution that automates accounts receivable from bill presentment, follow up, collection, and reconciliation — without changing a business’ current process. In its first year alone, Biller Genie was named to the 2019 Money20/20 Start-Up Academy, was an Electronic Payment Association’s NexTen Participant, and received the 2019 CPA Practice Advisor’s Technology Innovation Award.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

After college, I was working in the hospitality industry, attempting to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with my life. An opportunity presented itself to work as a sales associate for a credit card processing company. This was really the first time I had been exposed to the payment processing industry, and with an academic background in computer science, the technology made sense to me.

I went on to work for other employers, and after a few bad experiences, I decided to start my own business venture in the payments world. I launched my first company in 2007, PCI Professionals, and gained invaluable insight into the industry and the technology behind it. This led me to take on other projects as I realized the potential of the technology.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led you to think of the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

During my tenure at SkyBank Financial, I spent the better part of 5 years helping to build payment integrations for other software companies. That evolved into adding business logic to encourage best practices. Then workflow optimization. Then automated reconciliation. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was building the concept for what was to be Biller Genie. Then in late 2017, I was at dinner with a colleague who was having issues collecting payments from his tenants at his apartment complex, and we started comparing his current capabilities with those we had created for other industries. I barely slept that night. The next morning, while stepping out of the shower, it hit me. Design the tools as a standalone system that can easily connect to any software and supercharge it! The next day I put an ad out to hire our first developer.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Early in my career, I was working long hours, 20 hour days were common. I kept this routine going for several years. My first home office was actually the closet of my bedroom. My routine consisted of selling for most of the day, and then in the evening, I would continue to create policies, protocols, and basically build the infrastructure of my business. During this time, the bank foreclosed my home. I was paying employee salaries, yet I couldn’t pay myself. I couldn’t afford to buy food or to even travel to see my family. My family made many sacrifices coming to this country and honoring that sacrifice has always been one of my greatest driving factors.

Regardless, despite all my efforts, it was Thanksgiving 2009 when I told my mom that I was ready to throw in the towel. She convinced me otherwise, and with her help, I returned revitalized and was able to grow the company further. Those were some of the hardest years of my life, but I was able to learn valuable lessons about myself, and business, in the process.

So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Things are going great, and we’re busier than ever! While the economic crisis caused by the pandemic has been unsettling to say the least, we have been fortunate to continue to experience positive growth. We are currently on the eve of two major national partnerships, both of which will rapidly expand Biller Genie’s subscriber base.

We have revamped our marketing and operations, with a unified focus on ensuring our product functions perfectly. I can proudly say I am fortunate to be surrounded by an excellent team of hardworking individuals, who share the same drive and work ethic. We have grown our team during the pandemic and employee productivity and happiness is at an all-time high.

If I had to describe a quality that allowed me to grow a successful business, it would without a doubt be: uncompromised work ethic. These days, I am driven by a stubborn belief that we can play a small role in the inevitable shift towards automation in the accounting profession. As the cliché goes, no one is an overnight success, and that is definitely true in my case. As doors closed, I just continued to push to find the open ones. Success is built on many smaller victories, so as long as you’re moving forward in the right direction, anything is possible.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

Chasing too big of an account? When I was first starting out, I had the opportunity to bid on a deal that was processing over $36 million per month in payments. Considering my average deal at the time was around $36 thousand, I thought I was going to retire off just this one. After about a year of (professionally persistent) phone calls, I got my chance. Only they were so big that they had better pricing than I did! Talk about a waste of time. I learned an important lesson that day — it’s the bottom line that counts, not the top.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We have an excellent product that is complemented by our extreme focus on our subscribers’ happiness. Biller Genie not only shortens the invoice to cash cycle, but we optimize the accounts receivable process by using automation technology, without changing a business’s existing workflow. We have gotten real results and add real value to our subscribers. As a company, Biller Genie is rated 5 stars on all review sites. Our subscribers get paid on average 15 days faster, see a reduction of overdue invoices by 40%, and save 10–20 hours of administrative work per week. We are a young company full of hardworking individuals, with the same drive and passion for our product.

I have so many stories about how Biller Genie really stands out from the crowd. One of my favorites to tell is the story of an accountant in Miami, where we are headquartered. With every subscriber, we go through a quick setup call where we set up their custom reminder schedule, ensuring customers are notified of upcoming due dates or late invoices. During the first sync, we give our subscribers the option to send a new invoice alert for all invoices, even if they had already sent the invoice to their customer. I always recommend them sending it because what is the worst that can happen, you still don’t get paid?

As I am on the phone with the subscriber, she pulls up a customer and tells me that she has been trying to get this customer to pay her for months — sending emails, mailing payment overdue letters, and making phone calls — but never getting paid. I wish I had this on video, right as she tells me this story, the invoice goes from past due to paid, right in front of her eyes. I could hear her jaw hit the floor over the phone. Turns out, the customer didn’t even know he had an invoice that was past due. He wasn’t trying to avoid it, he just didn’t know about it nor did he have an easy way to pay for it, like the online customer portal we give our subscribers.

That is the power of Biller Genie. We really make a difference in helping small and medium sized businesses get paid for the products or services they provide.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

I personally believe that it is absolutely essential you disconnect at times. Even if you are working 20 hours a day, like I was early on in my career, you have to take a day to yourself every so often. Sundays are great for this. Turn off your email, step away from the computer. Physically separate yourself with a change of scenery. I’m lucky enough to live in Miami, so even when I couldn’t afford to go to Italy and lay on my favorite beach, I could easily be at the next best one in minutes.

It is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to build a company on your own. I can guarantee that the business will fail if you burn out. Having great people in your life can help make a big difference. As Jim Collins says “great vision without great people is irrelevant.” If you are thinking about throwing in the towel, take that day off and enjoy it. Do something for yourself. I promise those problems will still be there the next day. They aren’t going anywhere, and you won’t solve them in one day. You will come back refreshed and ready to tackle the world. Take care of yourself — you only have one body.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Aside from the obvious “my parents” answer, who I’m eternally grateful to, I was fortunate to have the mentorship and guidance of two incredible entrepreneurs early on in my career who believed in me when everything was bad. We were losing money, behind on liabilities to our vendors, an unhappy staff, an absent business partner…times were tough. But “TP” (let’s call them) saw something in me, took a bet, and 12 months later none of those problems existed anymore. I wouldn’t be where I am today without TP.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. Approximately how many users or subscribers does your app or software currently have? Can you share with our readers three of the main steps you’ve taken to build such a large community?

Biller Genie currently has approximately 4,000 users since we launched, and with our new partnerships, we expect this number to increase rapidly in a short period of time. Building a community requires several components.

Defined Operating System/Strong Leadership Team — It is crucial to have the right infrastructure for your business to grow. This means having the right talent in the right roles, especially during the earlier stages of your operation. It’s a team effort and the individuals around you will play a crucial role in the success of your business. Recruiting in South Florida can be difficult. It has taken me a long time to find my senior leadership team, but early on this year, it all came together. Their insight is invaluable to the company. Listen to them and be willing to accept you aren’t always right. Every week we have a 90-minute huddle where we discuss important issues. Together, as a group, we make decisions that affect not only the future of the company, but the actual development of our software. Having this weekly meeting has positively changed Biller Genie and made us a stronger company.

Partnerships — Establishing partnerships early on in my career was vital to being able to build a team to help drive the business forward. Starting a business always requires capital, and access to capital, more possibilities open up. Early on, most of my partners had more experience than I did, which proved to be extremely valuable when it came to making the correct decisions. In terms of Biller Genie, partnerships with financial institutions and payment providers has proven successful in growing our subscriber base. These partners have hundreds of thousands of customers and being able to tap into and market to that base has been very beneficial.

Focus — Focus is perhaps the key component to ensuring productive growth. Setting a roadmap is necessary to execute your strategy yet focus is what allows your team to be committed. It is necessary that this flows from the bottom down, in other words from the CEO all the way down the chain. This applies when you’re creating a customer-centric product or business. Focusing on the customer will affect the way your company evolves, allowing you to create long-lasting relationships and affecting the longevity of your business.

What is your monetization model? How do you monetize your community of users? Have you considered other monetization options? Why did you not use those?

Our goal is to make enterprise level accounts receivable software accessible to small and medium sized businesses for a fraction of the cost. Our pricing is based on three tiers. Each tier has a monthly price range, with the two lower tiered plans including a percentage taken on each invoice that we collect upon. The pricing model is based on a monthly recurring cycle, and we have premium add ons such as the ability to send out paper mail and ACH processing.

Initially, the idea for the pricing model was to limit access based on the different features, but we decided we wanted all subscribers to have access to the same great tools, so we changed the model to be performanced based where we only get paid if we help our clients get paid. It is the combination of this and our advanced features that make our product so successful. Given that the average published cost to manage invoices manually is $22 each, Biller Genie saves its subscribers on average over 80% of the cost of processing invoices manually.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful app or a SaaS? Please share a story or an example for each.

Agile Development — A development team is a requirement for any successful SaaS company since the development they will turn the vision into a tangible outcome. You have to find the right leader and the right developers in order to build a quality product. With agile development, we have found the most success. We work in sprints, constantly improving upon and building the software. Our development team is very collaborative. Together, they work to make sure that we have the best product on the market.

A Roadmap / Vision — Having a clear and concise plan for your software will make sure you are hitting your goals and progressing efficiently. Breaking down the roadmap into sections and parts, allowed our team to tackle the right projects within the right time frame. This also allowed a space for innovation since we were able to review our product from a microlevel and adjust accordingly.

Not only does this apply to the software, but also to the actual company. Let’s be frank — Biller Genie is a startup. We are building the plane as it is flying. There are a lot of processes, procedures, training, documentation, and employee culture that can easily be thrown to the wayside, because we are moving at the speed of light. It’s important to not forget these things. You cannot have a successful company without a proper structure that sets your employees up for success.

For example, now that we are working full remote due to COVID-19, it became tough to maintain employee culture. We started having weekly kickoff calls on Monday mornings, where everyone gets on camera, we talk to each other, we learn things, we play games — just an half hour a week where we all get together and “hang out.” We even did a fun “Biller Genie in a Bottle” parody to Christina Aguilera “Genie in a Bottle” and everyone sang and danced on video. Check out our YouTube channel — it’s hilarious and was a run project that involved everyone.

An Innovative idea — Technology advances along with consumer behavior. As a SaaS business it is vital to stay on the cutting edge to know what your customers need before they even know it. I realized early on that the payments industry placed a strong focus on accounts payable yet I noticed that business owners were having difficulty with their accounts receivable. I had this innovative concept that is disrupting the A/R space.

Creative Marketing — A great product or idea means nothing if you’re not able to get your story out. Focusing an effort on marketing has been a fundamental part of growing my business. I knew I had an excellent product that carried with it a great story and having the right team to convey that story became an important asset. Properly positioning a software product requires a lot of strategy, from product launches, to new partnerships, to press releases. Being able to tell your story properly can make all the difference.

Leadership — As a leader, one of the most important things you will do is to find other leaders to help guide your vision forward. Like I said, I recently completed building out Biller Genie’s executive team and having the right assets in the right positions has allowed us to rapidly advance our product and our company in the past 8 months. A team’s commitment is only as strong as the leader’s commitment to the team; therefore, it is important to bring the best you have every day, and your team will do the same.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would make children’s apps to teach the fundamentals of software development and application design. Sounds crazy? It is widely accepted by the scientific community that children are able to learn and understand languages more easily than adults because the brains and neurons fire faster in their young brains. The skills needed to learn a natural or programming language are the same, but programming language also promotes logical thinking, resilience, determination, problem solving and creativity. If I could find a way to make it easy to teach kids how to think like a computer, I’d be excited about what the next generation creates.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomaronica

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Thomas Aronica of Biller Genie: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rebecca Page: 5 Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Getting the right cultural fit — when we started Rebecca Page we operated on a good ‘gut-feel’ and this has, for the most part, worked well in a small team environment. Team members who have come from a design room notice and enjoy the absence of stereotypical ‘divas’ and office politics. We are mindful that as we scale, we will need to move away from gut-feel as the primary method for getting the right cultural fit.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rebecca Page.

Rebecca Page is the co-founder and CEO of Rebecca Page, a hugely popular global sewing brand with a community of over 500,000. She has spent over 30 years sewing and is the creator of the leading Sewing Pattern Subscription & The Sewing Summit, and is a published author. Rebecca has been featured in The Times, on BBC Radio 4 and in numerous industry publications. An entrepreneur by heart, Rebecca has run multiple businesses. She is a huge advocate for moving away from fast fashion to beautifully fitting hand-made clothes.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Rebecca Page Ltd was registered in March 2018, so it’s been over two years now.

Managing time and productivity — the added complexity in managing remote teams needs to be balanced by sharing the responsibility between management and the team. In return for flexibility, the team understand that there needs to be the means of having technical oversight around time and productivity. Before we implemented a technical solution, it took time to manually prepare timesheets and accuracy and tracking of time was an issue.
Managing communications — finding the right technology to enable quick and effective communication across many different time zones. Email can be appropriate between two people, but we found that when there were more than two people there was that inevitable lag due to people working in different time zones.
Getting the right cultural fit — when we started Rebecca Page we operated on a good ‘gut-feel’ and this has, for the most part, worked well in a small team environment. Team members who have come from a design room notice and enjoy the absence of stereotypical ‘divas’ and office politics. We are mindful that as we scale, we will need to move away from gut-feel as the primary method for getting the right cultural fit.
Establishing an organizational structure that aligns to scaling a remote team — as a start-up scales, it is inevitable that more and more of the team report into the CEO. It can be tricky dismantling a flat structure and implementing something that supports natural workflow.
The fun ‘human’ stuff — the team is growing rapidly, which means it is important to quickly integrate new people and make them feel welcome. We are pretty much all creative people at heart, so we identified that our team fun needed to be centred round our creativity.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Managing time and productivity — we use Time Doctor, a web-based solution that provides time tracking, computer work session monitoring, reminders and screenshot recording for remote teams. It is very easy for our flexible team to capture the time they spend on different tasks and it’s also easy for us to monitor and report time accurately.
Technology to manage communications — we use Slack, Zoom and WhatsApp for team communications. We’ve found that this combination quickly solves any miscommunications that may pop up in written form, and we don’t believe this is less effective than being in a face-to-face environment. As Bronwyn in our marketing team says ‘being able to work from anywhere is fun and opens up so many possibilities — I can work from a friend’s kitchen, from another country if I travel, or from the couch’.
Employing for the right cultural fit — we have been lucky because we have found most of our team directly from our customer base and these positions are highly sought after. Everyone involved in the pattern making process enjoys sewing, and we think this authentic love of the patterns that we produce shines through. As a global company, we are overwhelmingly fortunate to serve a customer base made up of all different races, religions, ethnicity, and creeds. Diversity in all ways is integral to the makeup and culture of Rebecca Page, and we are welcoming and proud of the various backgrounds, beliefs, and incredible individuals that make up our ‘team’.
Organizational structure that aligns to scaling a remote team — I liken our organizational structure to a beehive, but without a queen bee! We work cooperatively towards our larger goal, but operate on a day-to-day basis within smaller teams. Jo in our pattern team say that ‘just like a beehive there is no close of business, no 5 pm out the door and that’s it, job done until the next day…everything keeps turning with each time zone, the process never stops!’.
The fun ‘human’ stuff — we have built comradery through creative sharing on our Monday afternoon team Zoom call. We also have a ‘random’ channel on Slack where we can post anything and everything we want to about what we are up to in our lives. There’s lots of pictures of everyone’s kids, dogs, dinners and road trips!

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

We have a team call at 5pm on a Monday and everyone from all around the world logs in — often with kids and pets in the background! I have a quick round-up of what we are focusing on in the coming week and then each team member shares a creative project they have been working on and answers a fun weekly question. This has helped the team get to know each other better, which has resulted in friendships developing. Because we all come from all over the world, and use language differently, we learn to look at things from different perspectives and this helps us to avoid misunderstanding or miscommunication. Bronwyn from our marketing team sums up the team culture — ‘one of my absolute favorite things about Rebecca Page and the global nature of the team is “meeting” people from countries and cultures I may not have had a chance to otherwise’.

Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Thank you for these great insights!

Rebecca Page: 5 Things You Need to Know to Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Elizabeth Eiss of ResultsResourcing: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Be the spark that inspires your team to problem solve and perform. Go beyond what seems possible and be innovative and resourceful, even within the protocols of a corporation. Create the environment for possibility and imagination.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a large team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Eiss.

Elizabeth Eiss is a results guru who helps others get work done well. Elizabeth is a sought after expert on the future of work, the gig economy and has redefined staffing models based on virtual and freelance talent trends.

She is the founder and CEO of ResultsResourcing®, THE freelance platform that comes with your own recruiter. ResultsResourcing® helps organizations scale by leveraging virtual freelancers who are vetted and hand-curated using proprietary technology Elizabeth designed and co-developed.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I’m delighted to be doing this interview with Authority Magazine! Thank you.

My backstory, well, I’ve always had a passion for people and have effectively led many remote teams beginning back in the day when the only remote collaboration options were the phone and conference calls! Throughout my corporate career, I was also an early adopter of technology and how systems and process can enhance and scale value delivery. After a successful career as a C-suite executive, I decided to trade it all in for the world of entrepreneurship and joined my first start up — which was focused on creating cloud-based expertise networks.

That’s continued to be my focus ultimately leading me to start my own company as a “tech-preneur” focused on matching small businesses with vetted, virtual freelancers. We empower small to medium size businesses to scale, leveraging quality fractional talent we curate for them.

While there are plenty of freelance platforms out there, we were designed from the ground-up for small business. What’s unique is that I created a way to integrate technology with humans and their insights, to curate custom contract talent cost effectively. We’re THE freelance platform that comes with your own recruiter. Our platform and services are high tech/high touch at a rational price point, in terms of absolute dollars and return on time (opportunity cost) for SMB.

Talent is online today and the drawback to most job platforms is that “do it yourself” recruiting is time-intensive and, unless you’re skilled in recruiting and remote work practices, it’s an uncertain value proposition. I believe Thomas L. Friedman articulated it well: “While there is growing AI (artificial intelligence) there is a faster growing need for IA (intelligent assistance) to help people use technology for their benefit. And IA can only be provided by human beings.” SMB needs tech augmented by human help to find and utilize the best virtual workers.

That’s what I focus on today: human beings… leveraging technology… to find great talent to empower SMB to scale.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

My whole career has been extraordinarily interesting and has been an ever-expanding platform for thinking about what’s possible. So, this is not a story per say, but an observation.

I’ve come to learn that scarcity is one of the best drivers of innovation.

Whenever I’ve been resource constrained (such as time, funding, staff, systems, professional contacts), it’s caused me to re-think the problem and develop new approaches. Scarcity of resources when confronted by big goals, forces me to question assumptions and invent new ways to achieve objectives — while remaining true to my purpose and principles.

This philosophy drove my intrapreneurial thinking in the corporate world and has blossomed in my entrepreneurship and inventions. It’s a mindset and iterative method, driven by the customer, supported by agile technology development.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’ve told this story many times since I learned so much from it. When I was interviewing for my first job as a manager, I was quite ‘young’ for the role, and would also be switching companies. I was sure I was the top candidate and was asked how much I wanted to be paid in the final interview. I said ‘Well, at least the minimum” — having no idea what it was except that I knew it was more than I was currently making. Of course, I got the job and my wish — the minimum salary for the job.

This all happened before the days of data ubiquity, but I learned to:

Always do my homework to gain context and know what I want to achieve.
Constructively assert my worth in the context of project objectives.
For a win/win relationship, compensation should reflect value brought to the table.

I’ve followed those lessons ever since, even as an entrepreneur.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Be the spark that inspires your team to problem solve and perform. Go beyond what seems possible and be innovative and resourceful, even within the protocols of a corporation. Create the environment for possibility and imagination.

Make sure you’ve set your team up for success by setting clear goals, establishing leading measures of success, fostering team alignment followed by 360 communication and performance processes. Then get out of the way — except to run interference for your team.

Be a mentor, not a master (except when events require this). Lead by example. Create the strongest, most versatile team you can, based on what needs to be accomplished. Diversity in every sense of the word will result in better, broader thinking and solutions that fit today’s and tomorrow’s world.

I’ve found these approaches enable teams to deliver the result you need to deliver — and go beyond what you may have deemed possible.

Decades. I’ve been on and managed virtual teams for nearly my whole career — in corporate, as a consultant and as a business owner.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of these challenges.

There are many stories that resulted in this list of top 5 challenges and the solutions that consistently worked with my remote teams:

Leadership to build successful team dynamics:

The fact that a group of people assemble together in a location does not make a team. Building a team takes leadership, communication, common goals, and collaboration — all things leaders do naturally when on location. So, think about the same techniques you’d use onsite and find ways to replicate that virtually. Don’t focus on remote being a barrier, just embrace it and apply common sense to choose leadership and team building approaches that fit the situation. Most people don’t even consider collaborating with another group in another office as remote teaming — but that is remote teaming that has existed for years. Working with an outsource partner is remote teaming too. We do know how to do this.

For sure, what makes a remote team harder is missing casual, social interaction, which can impact team morale. There can also be collaboration challenges if tools are limited or people need training to use technology. And, mass working from home has new challenges with kids, space, lack of equipment and the general stir-craziness we all feel. These are each human factors that need to be acknowledged and addressed in the leadership approach to remote teaming. Be human, use common sense, don’t try to lead alone — embrace your team.

2.) Set clear goals or results to be achieved:

If you haven’t defined your goals, you won’t know if you ‘get there’ and your team won’t have the proper context for decision-making. Choose to measure progress using both leading and lagging indicators — the leading measures (e.g. # of customer touch points) will keep you on the right track and increase the likelihood you meet the lagging (end) goal (e.g. customer purchases and revenue or profit).

3.) Provide clear structure & process to achieve results:

Establishing structure and processes will ensure your team is efficient and work is done consistently the way you need it to be done. This will also help surface issues where there are gaps in process or structure. Often gaps are masked when people are on site and there can be significant productivity loss. Gaps in process jump out when working remote. Embrace the team to identify and help solve these and you’ll end up with a better process that will optimize results and value delivery.

4.) Manage results, and resist the urge to micromanage:

Since you can’t ‘manage by walking around’ the temptation is micromanage the how. Resist — for your sake and for your team’s. “How” should be addressed by establishing clear process and creating — upfront — regularly scheduled checkpoints on leading indicators and for quality control. Don’t just meet when something’s off. Check points can double as motivating, rapport building one-on-one interactions or to challenge the team to problem solve.

5.) Communicate regularly:

Communicate both ups and downs, and continually frame the communication in terms of the success measures and engage the team to solve issues early. Again, create upfront schedules and methods for the team to meet and for you to meet with team members. The team should feel this is part of the business process and best practice and not something that only happens when there is a performance issue.

The foundation for constructive communication is regular communication that builds rapport and enables the “manager” and the “staff” to know one another. Communication should be steady and consistently focused on the objectives to be achieved. If regular group and one-on-one communications are occurring, delivering performance news should not be significantly different when it’s in person versus remote. The assumption is people do a good job handling conflict in person, (the giver and the receiver) which I don’t think is always the case. In person or remote, building rapport and regular communications is key so performance correction doesn’t come out of left field, is taken wrong or the staff says, “I only hear from management when something is a problem.”

As mentioned earlier, I believe in setting goals and focusing on leading and lagging indicators. These indicators exist for not only key performance indicators but also how a result should be achieved by an individual performer. This means you have tools to get out ahead of performance issues and course correct with staff when issues are still small adjustments. Don’t let things slide.

I also like to frame performance issues in the context of the “what and how” of results achievement. I often pose questions to get the staff to self-recognize and get involved for lasting change. Examples might be: “Here’s what I see in this report and it’s not where we all agreed we need to be. What do you see? What can we do to accomplish a different result?” Engage the staff in problem recognition and resolution — early and regularly in the process.

When constructive criticism is warranted, hopefully you have a track record of communication to lean on as mentioned earlier. Here are practical suggestions that have worked well:

1) Find a mutually good time to meet when you both have time. Avoid sandwiching it into a 15-minute slot before your next Zoom call.

2) Put yourself in the staff person’s shoes (e.g. are there kids at home or no privacy?).

3) Get your remote environment right — good lighting, minimize distractions, prepare and then, when you’re in the session, look the individual in the eye and focus on the matter at hand. Watch for the same human signals — maybe they won’t be as clear as in person, but they will be there.

4) Have a conversation about the result that needs to change, sharing your concerns constructively, authentically, in a way that fosters engagement and offer to help.

4) Come away with an agreement on resolution that the staff puts into writing. You’ll sense then the buy-in and how the conversation landed — and whether additional conversation is needed.

5) Make performance discussions iterative and ongoing, not a special event. Performance reviews in my mind, in person or remote, are not once-and-done, it’s a nurturing process to advance lasting performance and results of the business and the person.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Again, when constructive criticism is warranted, hopefully you have a track record of communication — both verbal and written as the foundation for rapport and a relationship.

First, I would not use email for constructive feedback on any serious issue. There is too much chance for miscommunication and misunderstanding, and email provides no immediate feedback that seeing someone in person or over the web will reveal.

I will use email for smaller, less serious course correction or editing. In writing these kinds of emails I like to phase them in terms of “this is how this landed on me, it this what you meant?” Or, “what you wrote in your email caused me to think about the matter in new ways, how about doing it this way?” Or, “I don’t think we’re on the same page, so here are some thoughts. Would you get back to me or can we hop on a call to discuss.”

Draft the email and send it to yourself. Wait a bit and then review it as a receiver. Often, I will see what I wrote in fresh light and that helps me make it clearer or more constructive (and fix grammar/typos!). It helps surface emotion or preconceived notions or conclusions I need to address differently or omit so I don’t blame or personalize. I may do this repeatedly until I get message right. Depending on the nature of the issue, I may also have a trusted colleague review my email for feedback/edits before I send it to its intended recipient.

Again, performance improvement is not checking a box by delivering an email message and then it’s once and done. The purpose of the communication is to foster a lasting change in behavior that the staff member embraces, which improves future execution without requiring intervention. That email is one milestone along the journey of jointly achieving performance standards.

I think there is a lot that is different about working remotely than working together on location — and some are obstacles to effective teamwork — from each worker’s home environment to how prepared a business was to have staff work from home (e.g. formal process, collaboration tools).

No matter the situation, leadership is needed to pave the way to working together in new ways — to create new structures, new and more regular team communication processes, figuring out what tools you have that will best foster teamwork (or investing in new ones).

To some extent this also is a mindset issue — people are social, coming together on location is probably one of the things people like best about working, based on studies I’ve seen. So, leadership’s job is also to foster a new mindset and help plan and foster a work environment that enables the social aspects of teamwork, plus clears a path to getting work done well so customer value is consistent delivered.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

In our conversation, I’ve spoken about a number of ways to create a healthy and empowering work culture for a remote team. At the core is leadership that sets the tone for new ways to work, sets structure, process, and tools and articulates goals and expectations. A consistent and regular communication framework is vital to a healthy team as it sets the foundation for rapport and working relationships. Leaders should focus on results, using leading and lagging indicators, which establishes guardrails for performance management. Trust and verify.

Embrace change — have some FUN working in a new way.

A couple years ago, a study by Babson College and Goldman Sachs/10k Small Businesses stated, “Small businesses have the power to transform America…Everyday, small business owners apply their extraordinary potential to spark competition, drive innovation, build communities, and better the quality of life for its citizens.” This inspires me.

Most businesses in the US are solopreneurs, or non-employee firms. Of the small businesses with employees, 96% have fewer than 50 employees.

Our mission is to empower these small businesses to scale by matching them with curated virtual talent who can add value and accelerate their timeline to mission success. My purpose is to empower their purpose.

I also hope I can inspire other women to believe that they ‘can do it’ — whatever their “it” is. Great ideas come at every age — be curious, commit to making the most every opportunity before you, one day at a time.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My current life lesson quote ties to my passion for ResultsResourcing®. It’s a quote from Peter Drucker who said (over 50 years ago): “Do what you do best, and outsource the rest.”

We help businesses focus on what they do best, by finding the best freelance talent suited for the work those businesses can outsource. In doing so, our clients achieve more, deliver more value to their clients and spend their time doing what they are passionate about.

I am a purpose-driven entrepreneur. I connect dots; I help people believe they can and then provide them the talent to help them do it.

Thank you for these great insights!

Elizabeth Eiss of ResultsResourcing: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Rosemary Keevil: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient

I believe resilience is perseverance under adversity and it has to be earned. There is no need for perseverance if there is no adversity. Adversity can take many forms, but any form it takes creates tumultuous stress and is powerful enough to take you down and keep you down. People who are resilient are able to rise about their trauma. Having done that, they have created confidence, creativity, resourcefulness, humility and a positive, but realistic, attitude.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases, it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Rosemary Keevil.

Rosemary Keevil has been a TV news reporter, a current affairs radio show host, and the managing editor of a professional women’s magazine. She has a master’s degree in journalism, a sophisticated knowledge of alcoholism, addiction, and associated treatments and therapies, and two grown daughters with successful careers.

Her memoir: The Art of Losing It: A Memoir of Grief and Addiction will be published in October, 2020. Keevil lives with her partner and her sheep-a-doodle in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. She has been clean and sober since 2002.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?

I grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and have lived in Switzerland (for school) and Tahiti (as a travel destination representative) and Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada (as a can-can dancer). I have lived in Vancouver, BC, Canada, most of my life. I recently moved to Whistler. It was once a funky ski-town, but is now a year-round resort destination with summer sports such as golfing, hiking and biking. Whistler Blackcomb is one of the Vail Resorts.

I have a Bachelor of Journalism and a Master of Journalism. I have had a number of jobs in the media, including:

– News reporting for CFTO-CTV in Toronto
– News reporting for The Globe and Mail national newspaper, Vancouver
– Co-launched and produced “The Michael Morgan Show”; also envisioned, co-launched, and hosted “The Rosemary Keevil Show” (Original, I know!) for CFUN Radio (CHUM National Radio Network), a live, drive-time, current affairs talk show in Vancouver
– Contributed to the critical success of Scarlett magazine for the professional woman (unfortunately, now defunct) after being brought on board at nascent stage of the publication
– Adjudicator for the Leo Awards for Excellence in British Columbia Film
– Public Relations for the Vancouver International Film Festival

When my children were two and five years old my husband died of cancer and my brother died of AIDS within six months of one another. I was able to keep it together (somewhat!) for six years while working as a journalist. While still high-functioning, I became an alcoholic and drug addict. Six years later, in 2002, I went into rehab and have been clean and sober ever since. I now work as an addictions’ journalist.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

There are many stories I can’t tell as they are X-rated, but one clear takeaway is: “Don’t ever swear or make weird faces near a microphone or a camera that you assume is not live.”

Within the first two weeks of starting to work at CFTO-TV, I was assigned to cover an internationally-reported story: an accident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario. Fuel rods cracked releasing a deluge of radioactive water under the floor of the reactor building. The situation was brought under control, nobody was injured, and no radiation leaked into the environment.

My reputation did, however, undergo some damage. I was doing ‘Take One’ (This was not live.) of my stand-up, talking to the camera in front of the power plant. My voluminous, 80s-style, shoulder-length hair was bobbing in the wind as I stumbled over some words and then said, “Blaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!”

Well, as it turned out, the editor of the story used ‘Take One’ instead of ‘Take Two’, so my “Blaaaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” went on air!

Within the week I was called to the upstairs office of one of the top brass of the station. Ted Delaney did not have much hair and had one crossed eye. He told me to sit down, tried to look right at me, and said: “Rosemary, you’re going to be a good reporter, but you got too much hair!”

Finally, I also remember an interesting ‘circumstance’ in the newsroom. There were two available reporters to cover the Dr. Henry Morgentaler court cases. Morgentaler conducted a high-profile campaign to secure legalized abortion in Canada and was at the center of the legal cases that brought this to fruition.

The News Director called the two us into his office and said: “Which one of you would like to cover this landmark story?” Well … we were both very pregnant at the time. I just jumped at the opportunity!

What do you think makes your work stand out? Can you share a story?

What stands out is that my work exists at all despite personal tragedy and addiction. I was a media personality with a loving husband and two adorable, little daughters when my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and my brother was diagnosed with AIDS in the days when that was a death sentence. Their subsequent deaths had a profound effect my life, not the least of which was being swallowed by the grips of alcoholism and addiction.

I am living proof that one can be high-functioning — I was working fulltime as a current affairs, radio show host — and self-destructing simultaneously.

I am also living proof that there can be a very fulfilling and productive life after addiction.

I went back to work as the editor of a magazine, received my Master of Journalism and wrote my memoir. I must say that all that trauma provided much of the fodder for The Art of Losing It: A Memoir of Grief and Addiction.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There is not one iconic mentor, but there have been gems of wisdom shared with me along the way.

– Patrick Brethour: British Columbia Editor for The Globe and Mail newspaper: Don’t ever lose that hint of insecurity. It gives you that invaluable, competitive edge.

– Fictional or nonfictional storytelling is an intrinsic human characteristic, which has taken various shapes and forms over time: visual stories such as cave drawings; the oral traditions of passing down stories by word of mouth from generation to generation; written, printed and typed stories; and today’s explosion of storytelling with everybody serving as a verbal, audio and visual documenter of our times. Advice on how to tell a good nonfiction story:

– Ted Steubing, former Vice-President of News and Public Affairs, CFTO-TV: “Tell ’em what you are going to tell ’em. Tell ’em and tell ’em what you told ‘em.”

– Derwyn Smith, former News Director, CFTO-TV: “If in doubt check it out. If still in doubt leave it out.”

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

I believe resilience is perseverance under adversity and it has to be earned. There is no need for perseverance if there is no adversity. Adversity can take many forms, but any form it takes creates tumultuous stress and is powerful enough to take you down and keep you down. People who are resilient are able to rise about their trauma. Having done that, they have created confidence, creativity, resourcefulness, humility and a positive, but realistic, attitude.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

This is not original, but the first person who comes to mind is my dear mother, Helen Parrett. What a survivor! She ran a household of four kids and four pets, all with an alcoholic/workaholic husband and only a few pennies to rub together. Despite all the challenges inherent in her circumstances, not the least of which was my emotionally abusive father, she was resilient. One of Mom’s forms of resilience materialized in creativity at 3:00 in the morning. Mom would get up in the middle of the night to write, a habit I have inherited.

She wrote a syndicated column for “The Tely,” as the The Toronto Telegram was popularly known at the time. The column was called “Suzanna’s Family Fare.” Readers would write in with household hints, such as how to rid your prized cherrywood coffee table of that unsightly white ring created by a wet glass or coffee mug. Answer? Toothpaste. The kicker is that Mom was not the least bit domestic, another trait I have inherited!

I would get up with her and study. I still remember the sound of the clickety clack of her Underwood typewriter, and the taste of hot tea and warm toast topped with melted butter and a layer of brown sugar. I also still remember cramming for my history exam about the coureur des bois. What I don’t remember is exactly what they were. Wikipedia clarified it for me: the coureur des bois were entrepreneurial French Canadians who travelled the interior of North America and traded, usually with the First Nations peoples, for furs such as beaver. This marked the beginning of the North American fur trade.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

I am my own worst enemy. I never thought I would survive the onslaught that life doled out to me in 1991.

I also never thought I could quit Ativan, Zopiclone, cocaine and fine, white buttery wines such as Bâtard-Montrachet and Rosemount Chardonnay.

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

My biggest setbacks are documented in a 309-page story, which is my memoir: The Art of Losing It: A Memoir of Grief and Addiction

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?

I grew up in Toronto, the youngest of four children (boy, girl, boy, girl: only five years between all four of us) in a chaotic household with an alcoholic dad, an enabler mother, two cats and two St. Bernards.

I was bullied, probably because I had buckteeth, which gave me a notable lisp. Paw, paw Wothemawee Pawwett (translation: poor, poor Rosemary Parrett) could not say her r’s or her s’s. I went to speech therapy sessions every Wednesday afternoon from kindergarten through grade three to fix the lisp. Then, in grade seven, I got braces to fix the buckteeth. (Thanks Mom!) When I think back, I was not aware of my speech impediment being related to my being bullied. In fact, I went into broadcasting as a career. Go figure.

What’s more, my Mom insisted I talk to everyone about themselves. I grew up asking people questions — my friends sometimes call it “interrogating.” My mother used to always tell me to “draw people out” whenever I had the opportunity. This would mean that if I ran into somebody I knew on the bus ride home from school, like our neighbor Mr. Lynch, who was a University of Toronto professor, I couldn’t just be shy and daydream. This nagging voice inside my head would urge me to go over and “get him talking.” When I was a bit older and feeling awkward going to teenage parties, Mom suggested I approach the most boring looking boy and start a conversation by “getting him talking about himself.” Hence, I have always been the one to ask the questions. Everybody has a story. And I became a reporter.

What I learned from this is that doing what you should do and not just what you want to do builds confidence which, in turn, helps provide a solid base for resiliency. I also understood early on that people like talking about themselves. If you want someone to like you, get ’em talkin’ about themselves.

Dad was a taskmaster — using my siblings and me as his workforce. He owned properties which he rented out and he always made us kids do the fixing up and the redecorating, such as painting and wallpapering. We did the cleaning too. Bathrooms became my specialty. I learned from this experience that a reliable roll-up-the-sleeves work ethic builds confidence in oneself and in those around you. Dad used to say, “Shoulders back and don’t mumble,” which at first blush may seem trite, but it’s true. My career as a journalist has reiterated how a strong stature and clear diction breeds self-confidence.

Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.

1) Take small steps. If a goal seems too overwhelming, consider tackling smaller challenges first:

I had a goal to run the New York Marathon, but it felt daunting. I had read a tiny blurb in The Globe and Mail about the Malta Marathon in Three Days, which entails three shorter runs to equal a 42 kilometer (26 miles) marathon over three days.

I rounded up a film crew (producer and shooter) and headed off to the tiny and very historical, Mediterranean island of Malta. Not only did I complete my first marathon, but I had a blast with the film crew and shot the first part of the pilot episode of “Body & Soul: Spiritual Awareness Through Physical Challenge.” This show explored the human spirit’s remarkable ability to overcome adversity — using the body to boost the mind.

The next year I ran the New York Marathon and it turned out to be one of the highlights of my life. My goal was to finish it in under four hours. My time? 3:56:11!

2) Learn from mistakes:

A year after my husband and brother died, I accepted an invitation from two colleagues to become a partner in a video production company. I contributed financially and worked hard as the executive producer for two years only to have my two partners call it quits. My money went down the drain. I felt taken advantage of and ripped off.

What I learned from this was that I should have given the initial investment more thought and been more assertive when my colleagues informed me of their decision to fold the company. I could have been more forceful and pursued running the company without them.

3) Keep your side of the street clean or accept your role in negative circumstances:

Scarlett magazine for the professional woman was a wild critical success. It was not a financial one. I was the managing editor and my colleague was in charge of sales. As near as I could tell, I was doing a stellar job and he was not, as it was not making money. I let the magazine fold and blamed my colleague.

What I realized, after the fact, with this experience was that I played a role in the financial failure of the publication. I could have taken off my editorial cap and tried on a sales’ one. I could have pursued ad revenue as well instead of thinking I was simply editorial and above all the messy dollars and cents stuff.

4) Accept and move on:

As it turned out, one of my teenage daughters was going through an extremely difficult time at this point, so it was important that I had the time to focus on her.

5) Build up your social support systems:

Research studies have shown that social support, or a significant caring other, are the best predictors of resilience. This is according to Dr. Jill Hayhurst from the University of Otago, New Zealand, who found in her research that encouraging feelings of self-efficacy “encouraged feelings of resilience.”

I have been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous since 2002 and believe that one of the reasons for its success is the resilience that the support group of similar suffering (and then thriving) individuals builds.

In AA meetings I often hear the same reaction from newcomers when they do their first set of steps: “Everybody should do these steps, not just alcoholics.” The 12 Steps are grounding, have a profound effect on one’s outlook on life and keep your side of the street clean. They also rid one of nasty resentments, which are the root of much negativity. The world would be a kinder, gentler place if every adult would tackle these steps every few years. I have chosen to illustrate steps four to ten:

Step 4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves:

When I was working at the radio station hosting the early morning drive-time current affair show, I was also addicted to cocaine. I was a high-functioning alcoholic and drug addict. I only once snorted a line while at the station (in the bathroom). This was a huge source of shame and guilt. I wrote this down as one of my “wrongdoings.”

On a personal level I was consumed with shame and guilt for being an alcoholic and addicted mother for six years of my daughters’ upbringings.

These are just two examples of the lengthy list of wrongdoings in my fearless moral inventory.

Step 5) Admitted to God [or whatever higher power one believes in], to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs:

This is tough and terrifying, but when I released my demons in front of my sponsor I felt like John Coffey in The Green Mile when he lifts his head, opens his mouth and a torrent of tiny black insects fly out.

As a result, I felt light and liberated and truly understood, “and the truth shall set you free.” (Bible: John 8:31–32)

Steps 6 and 7) Were entirely ready to have God [or whatever higher power one believes in] remove all these defects of character [that were revealed in Steps 4 and 5], and humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Step 8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step 9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others:

I set up a meeting with my former boss at CFUN Radio and apologized that “I was not in harmony with myself when I worked here.” He just looked confused and said, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You were great.” But I felt relieved and grateful that I had addressed, and therefore released, my guilt and shame.

I apologized to my children for my stoned and drunken behavior of six years of their lives and continued (and continue to this day) making living amends by being a clean, sober and present mother.

Step 10) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it:

This can be as simple as being crabby with the cashier at the checkout counter at the grocery store because there is a big lineup and you’re in a hurry. Before you leave the store, pause, think about what you’re going to say, turn to her/him and say, “I’m sorry I was rude. I know this is not your fault.”

This type of inventory taken on a regular basis clears the detritus from the brain and makes room for grace.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

Comedian, actor, author and former heroin addict Russell Brand of Take Him to the Greek (former husband of Katy Perry). Brand has channeled his considerable talents, brains and energy into advocating for mental health and drug rehabilitation. I absolutely love his cause, his personality, and particularly his irreverence (i.e., See Brand’s version of the 12 Steps of AA below), and I would love to ask him to read The Art of Losing It.

Day 1: Are You A Bit F*d?

Day 2: Could You Not Be F*d?

Day 3: Are you, on your own, going to ‘unf*’ yourself?

Day 4: Write down all the things that are f*ing you up or have ever f*d you up and don’t lie or leave anything out.

Day 5: Honestly tell someone trustworthy about how f*d you are.

Day 6: Well that’s revealed a lot of f*k up patterns. Do you want to stop it? Seriously?

Day 7: Are you willing to live in a new way that’s not all about you and your previous f*d up stuff? You have to.

Day 8: Prepare to apologize to everyone for everything affected by your being so f*d up.

Day 9: Now apologize, unless that would make things worse.

Day 10: Watch out for f*d up thinking and behavior and be honest when it happens.

Day 11: Stay connected to your new perspective.

Day 12: Look at life less selfishly, be nice to everyone, help people if you can.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

– www.rosemarykeevil.com

– Facebook: The Art of Losing It: A Memoir of Grief and Addiction

– LinkedIn: Rosemary Keevil

– Twitter: @RosemaryKeevil

– Instagram: rosemarykeevil

– Pinterest: rosemarykeevil

Author Rosemary Keevil: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wendy Barlin of About Profit: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More…

Wendy Barlin of About Profit: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient

Set goals for your life and keep those goals front of mind. For me, this helps me get up when I am down. After leaving my six figure prestigious job, I knew I needed to rebuild my business in order to create a work life balance that would allow me to spend more time with my daughter.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy Barlin, founder and CEO of About Profit.

As an author, professional speaker and business owner, Wendy Barlin is so much more than an accountant. Her expertise is advising people to better manage their money with easy to understand and implement financial strategies.

Wendy is committed to her clients’ success. Whether analyzing cash flow or projecting income taxes, she ensures that all financial decisions lead to achieving her client’s life goals.

A native of Cape Town, South Africa, Wendy fell in love with the sparkle of the City of Angels while backpacking around the world in her 20s, in search of her dreams.

Wendy is a frequent speaker at conferences and association meetings, is a member of the California Society of CPA’s and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and can also often be seen as an expert on ABC7 News, CBSN Los Angeles and in many written publications across the United States.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. I was the first in my family to finish college. After getting my Chartered Accounting license, I packed a bag and went backpacking around the world for a year. I landed in Los Angeles and fell in love with the excitement and possibilities in this city that I grew up seeing only on TV. Walking down Rodeo Drive felt surreal. As luck would have it, a friend in Sydney, Australia had given me a letter to deliver to her friend in Los Angeles. I called her and after chatting for a while, I said how lucky she was to live in this city. She asked what work I did and I said I was an accountant. Well imagine my surprise when she kindly made a few calls for me and I had 3 interviews in 3 days. I took a bus to Ross Dress for Less to buy myself appropriate interview clothes. Within a week I was offered a job. I called home and told my parents I was staying in Los Angeles. Can you imagine their reaction? All they knew about LA was what they had seen on TV, not always flattering news.

So I found a furnished room to rent and set about LA living! Today, twenty three years later, I have been married and divorced, bought and sold property and businesses and learned to navigate the American financial and tax systems. I still feel very blessed to be here!

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

In 2010, I had been running my own tax business for three years, I was a single mom with a 3 year old toddler and I was tired and burnt out. I decided to sell my business and take a job with regular hours, a regular paycheck and benefits. I was actually pretty excited as the company I was going to work for was a prestigious business management firm in Beverly Hills. So every day I got all dressed up, dropped my daughter at pre school and headed into traffic for the better part of an hour. After two weeks, the novelty of the security of a job had worn off and I was miserable. I did not like having a boss, being told what to do and when to do it and the worst part was working with clients who I did not like or respect. Two weeks! I stuck it out for a whole year (I am not a quitter) before leaving to restart my business. I learned several things from this experience that I often share with my clients who reach a burnout point. One, take care of yourself first. Two, we are not all built to be employees just as we are not all built to be business owners. Know who you are, what you want and stick to that. Don’t get fooled into following the shiny object.

What do you think makes your company/brand stand out? Can you share a story?

We are a subscription based blend of coach, consultant and tax preparers. Our focus is not just preparing a tax return once a year. Instead, we focus on meeting with clients throughout the year, working closely with them to create profitable and responsible businesses that give them joy and support their lifestyle choices. Clients come to us for tax help and then are thrilled when they realize we help with so much more. One of my favorite clients is a digital production company based in Virginia that came to us for tax advice. At the time they were at break even and loaded up with bank and credit card debt. Now, two years later, we have helped them extinguish their debt and turn profitable. This is our “why” as now their children enjoy time with parents who are not constantly stressed and emotionally unavailable.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful to who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

At the first accounting firm I worked at in Los Angeles, I met a couple who had moved to California from Canada. I worked with them to build their US based business and manage the cross border issues. When I left that firm and took another job, they came with me because of the trusted relationship we had built. They are still clients today but more than that, they became my family. I had no family here in Los Angeles. Harold and Erica supported me through my career choices, my divorce, raising my children and now reviewing my books before I publish them. I am ever grateful for their guidance and support.

Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience?

Resilience for me is getting up when you are down. Never giving up.

What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

I believe resilient people are optimists. We can see the sunshine through the clouds. We are also tenacious and do not give up. We believe we can.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

Nelson Mandela. I grew up in South Africa during Apartheid and then when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and became President. He showed us real resilience. He spent 25 years in prison and came out positive and optimistic and took the helm and never looked back.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

Yes! When I was in college in Cape Town, I used to dream about coming to live in America and my friends would laugh at me. During those times South Africa was closed off from the rest of the world, especially from the US. I never gave up. It was my dream.

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

In 2005, my husband and I sold everything. My business, our home, our cars and we packed up and moved to his small home town in southwestern Michigan near the Indiana border. We bought a blue collar bar and a home on the lake. I was excited for this new start. Sadly, after nine months, it all fell apart. The bar owner’s life was much harder than we imagined. I felt very alone. The final straw for me was when I found out that my husband had an affair with a bar patron. I packed my things and headed back to Los Angeles. I had to start all over again and rebuild my life. And rebuild my life I did. I rebuilt my business, I remarried and now have a wonderful husband, two healthy children and a dog.

Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.

My top 5 steps for being more resilient are:

Set goals for your life and keep those goals front of mind. For me, this helps me get up when I am down. After leaving my six figure prestigious job, I knew I needed to rebuild my business in order to create a work life balance that would allow me to spend more time with my daughter.
Have a strong support team. Making the tough choices is much harder alone. My husband and I had to terminate a 20 week pregnancy. This was one of the hardest things I have ever done and with his support, I was able to get back up and be there for our daughter and my clients who all needed me.
Have an outlet for negative feelings and experiences. My outlet used to be food, especially ice cream but as I have gotten older, I have learned to use healthier coping strategies and stress relievers. Now I use my Peloton Tread and spend thirty minutes journaling every day. When I first heard about how to journal as stress relief I thought it sounded quite silly but I decided to give it a try. It works! Writing it down all the negative and nasty thoughts in my head gets them out of my mind and my life. Then I rip the pages into tiny tiny pieces and bye bye negativity.
Ask for help. This one is very difficult for me personally. I have always been very self sufficient and I used to think that asking for help is a weakness. Being a single mom was how I learned to ask for help. It was essential for me to reach out for help when I needed it. Now asking for help has become easier in both my professional and personal life. This is definitely a muscle that gets stronger the more we work at it.
Take Action. I have found that just getting up and doing something changes my mood and helps me be resilient in a stressful situation. When my landlord threatened to double my office rent, I started making calls. Rather than sit at my desk in horror, I made phone calls to leasing agents, to colleagues and friends to understand the marketplace and what my choices may be. This action led me to resilience and back to optimism. Action changes up the stress dynamic for me.

I would teach and inspire young people to embrace their financial futures. To understand the role of money in their lives. Not to fear money or see money as a weapon. To create abundance and attract the money to their world that supports their life goals.

Yes, Suze Orman! I have followed and read Suze’s work for many years and I have always respected her no nonsense approach to money. Telling people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. I use the same approach with my clients. Some tough love but always honest answers.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aboutprofitconsultant/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/about_profit/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wendybaboutprofitcom8-378683252763167/?__tn__=%2Cd-k-R&eid=ARCvZRqv371Ca_u3v-kEM8WuzLAK4x-KE5cOufK9SaYF2JnjIzDrm733_2TyccBPWrhg5jsv-w8Tx4Vx

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Wendy Barlin of About Profit: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dan Cook of To the Point Collaborative: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand

Find out what your brand truly is. Sounds simple, right? But far too many companies confuse advertising with brand, sales with brand, profits with brand. Your brand is that chorus of all the voices talking about you in the marketplace. There are so many case studies of major companies that for years stumbled along not understanding how the public perceived their products. Then, they did the exhaustive research required to find that out. The winners course corrected. The losers can be found in bankruptcy court.

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Dan Cook.

Dan Cook is a longtime journalist, with stops along his circuitous route at BusinessWeek, Knight Ridder, Newhouse Publications, American Lawyer Media, Reuters, Time, and various other journalistic weigh stations. For the past six years he has been a regular contributor to BenefitsPro.com, an online news service dedicated to the healthcare and insurance industries. He has written more than 2,000 articles for BenefitsPro and has an insanely detailed understanding of health insurance and healthcare reform. A Cleveland native and diehard Indians fan, he lives in Portland, OR.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My serendipitous introduction to the world of Wikipedia editing came when I was doing marcom work for a Portland tech startup, Pixetell. The founder desperately wanted to be included in Wikipedia and charged me with making it happen. I had no idea how to proceed. But I did have a friend, Pete Forsyth, who was among Wikipedia’s earliest volunteer editors. He had just started training people to edit Wikipedfia, and he took me on as a paying client. Together, we got the article up there. Even though the company is long gone, Pixetell remains on Wikipedia! Subsequently, Pete and I started working together as Wikipedia consultants.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I made so many mistakes as I learned the ropes of Wikipedia editing! It is a very precise discipline, practiced by very precise people. My first big mistake that got outside the office was telling a couple of people I shared space with that I’d “get them on Wikipedia.” (Ha-ha! That’s not how it works, folks.) These were two pretty good friends of mine, and when I went to post the articles, they both got shot down by the volunteer community post haste.

This was years ago. But what I learned from that was I better memorize the guidelines for adding new articles to Wikipedia and get a solid understanding of Wikipedia’s definition of notability — the very thing that qualifies a subject for an article. Boiled down, the lesson was: Do you homework before you promise something you can’t deliver.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

What makes us stand out is our knowledge of the rules of Wikipedia editing, and the culture of this open source space. We know how to work with volunteers so they will review our edit requests objectively but with an eye to helping us improve articles. The public relations person of a major metropoiitan public school system asked for help in editing the new superintendent’s article in Wikipedia. We spent time seeking out thoughtful editors who specialized in improving public school articles and found a match for our client. She was able to effectively update and improve the superintendent’s article with the help of the volunteer, who still maintains that article and keeps it up to date.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We recently launched a free webinar series designed to educate public relations, branding, and marketing professionals in how to offer Wikipedia article editing services to their clients. In the current uncertain economy, article editing is a great way to add a new revenue stream for these firms while positioning their clients better in the marketplace. We had so much fun planning and scripting the webinar and promoting it mainly through LinkedIn video ads! It helps us because p.r. firms are our ideal clients, and it helps the firms because they add revenue and can basically white label our services as their own.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Advertising content is completely within your control. Branding elements can range all over the map, and it’s up to you the brand manager to manage them so the messages are consistent.

Wikipedia is a great example of branding vs. advertising. Wikipedia rules prohibit any hint of advertising speak in an article, and any p.r. or marketing person who tries to add blatant marketing language to an article may well be banned from editing forever.

BUT, a paid editor who understands Wikipedia’s rules of engagement can manage an article for a client. The article will never be under your control. But you can influence what is in there by working effectively with the volunteer community. And because people trust what they read on Wikipedia, a well-done article that is honest, accurate, well sourced, and up to date has more influence that most advertising vehicles.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Your brand is a collaboration between you, the brand manager, and everyone else who touches the company. That includes customers, employees and ex-employees, leadership, the media, your business partners. And anyone who visits or edits your Wikipedia article — even competitors.

Your brand is the chatter these parties create about you in the marketplace. You can create the messaging you prefer, but you can only manage, not control, your brand once it leaves your advertising/marketing platforms.

Brands must be cultivated, nurtured, monitored, discussed. Advertising is easy compared to managing social media chatter, Wikipedia content, Yelp! Reviews, and what competitors and critics say about you. But advertising is seen as the company’s viewpoint only. No one is fooled that it is the whole story. That’s why non-advertising elements, like Wikipedia, are so vital to success in the marketplace. These other voices outside of the advertising world, form a chorus that adds up to credibility in the minds of your potential customers, clients, employees, potential investors, and partners.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

Find out what your brand truly is. Sounds simple, right? But far too many companies confuse advertising with brand, sales with brand, profits with brand. Your brand is that chorus of all the voices talking about you in the marketplace. There are so many case studies of major companies that for years stumbled along not understanding how the public perceived their products. Then, they did the exhaustive research required to find that out. The winners course corrected. The losers can be found in bankruptcy court.
I’ll give you an example of discovering your brand. My company was promoting Wikipedia consulting with LinkedIn video ads. But we were not yet getting our ideal clients. The ads were getting plenty of views and we were getting inquiries. Just not the right ones. So, we started a 6-month campaign of dueling video ads. We would use two ads with essentilly the same message, one targeing one specific LinkedIn audience, the second another. We tested positively phrased (you can enhance your client’s brand) and negatively phrased (have you tried and failed at Wikipedia editing?) messages against one another. We kept the same spokesperson, only varied the length a bit, and tested other variables. Finally, we found the sweet spot — public relations agencies with multiple clients who already had Wikipedia pages, rather than fairly unknown folks who wanted an article of their own. But we had to suspend our original beliefs about the type of clients our messaging would attract. Now, we are getting those ideal client inquiries.
Understand the difference between managing and controlling your brand. If you are a small business, you should probably spend 80% of your time managing your brand, and the other 20% on advertising and messaging that you create. Too many small-to-mid-sized businesses agonize over the content on their website, their blog posts, their newsletters, and don’t pay enough attention to their perception in the chatter world. Craft your key messages, choose your key words, create your ads (wherever you are placing them), get them out there and leave them alone. Turn your attention to where your brand is being discussed, join the discussion, and start managing, listening, and course correcting. Once you have a consistent strategy for identifying your brand and being part of it, you can go back to your ads and revise them accordingly.
Wikipedia is perhaps the best example of a lost opportunity for those who have an article. (Don’t try to write a new one without an expert’s help! That’s a rabbit hole with a dead end if you aren’t an expert.) People think they can’t control what’s in an article about themselves or their company. If you know the rules of Wikipedia editing, you know that you can influence what’s there. The telecommunications giant Vonage is among the companies we have worked with to manage their Wikipedia article. Over a period of about a year, a staff person was trained by us and went on to update all the information on the page, have old stuff removed, and correct negative information about Vonage that simply was not substantiated. But she knew the rules of engagement and, by following them, improved the company’s brand messaging, and added a powerful new skill to her already impressive skill set.
Never argue with the chatter world about your brand. Ignore, or listen and learn. When managing your brand, it never pays to get into a fight with a critic. You cannot control what they are saying about you. But you can amplify the negativity by arguing with them.

Critics fall into 3 categories:

‘The Haters’ — Unhappy customers, ex-employees, or clients: They don’t like you and/or your products and will NEVER change their minds about you. They want to hurt you and engaging with them accomplishes that. It makes you look small and petty and, generally, wrong.
‘The Trolls’ –attention seekers: These are critics who just like attention or want to stir up trouble. They don’t care about you or your product. They just want to get a reaction. If you’ve raised children, you are familiar with this tactic. How well did it work out to fight with your kids?
‘The Lovable Critics’ who want to help you: These are people who truly have your best interest at heart, and are expressing it by saying, “Hey, you are getting this thing over here wrong. Please fix it!” These are the folks you listen to, learn from, and send coupons, free products, and holiday boxes of sweets to. Then, immediately put them on your priority email list.

Lesson: When someone attacks you — justifiably or not — listen, and either respond positively, or let it go. If you can’t learn from your critics, don’t fight with them.

Restaurateurs who battle with authors of poor reviews are a prime example of poor brand management. One Mexican themed restaurant in town became so fixated on negative reviews on Yelp! that they overlooked two key points: 1) Many of the critics had received either poor service or food and were noting an inconsistently in the delivery of the product; 2) their loyal customer base was so strong that they were able to open two new locations that were thriving during COVID. The owner complained to me bitterly about the negative reviews, thus amplifying them. She also complained that satisfied customers were not writing positive reviews. Who care?? Pay attention to what the critics are saying, and fix that. And don’t hassle your loyal customers to stop what they’re doing — enjoying your food — and write something on Yelp!

Manage the elements that matter most to your brand. As noted above, I would focus most of my resources on managing those brand elements that cannot be directly controlled. But know where the discussion about your brand is worth managing, and where you are wasting too many resources on too few influencers. When small-to-mid-sized companies “discover” branding, they tend to launch into a frenzied assault across all platforms. OMG — what are we saying on Twitter? Are we on Instagram yet? Has that new landing page on the website been finished? When do we launch our first webinar? Generally, these companies have not tested ANY of those platforms except randomly. Platform response varies greatly depending upon the product or service you offer. For instance, if you are offering content management services, there’s only so much Instagram can do to help boost sales. You need to be where eyeballs searching for content creators lurk — and nowhere else. Unless you have unlimited marketing resources, you need to thoughtfully choose the platforms you will monitor and engage in. Would you continue to spend advertising dollars on a medium that was producing no conversions? No. Apply the same test to platforms where you manage the discussion rather than control the content. If your target audiences are not there, don’t waste resources on it.
Early on in our Wikipedia consulting, we test marketed several industries, included the health care and credit union industries. We were getting nowhere, even with companies whose Wikipedia articles were in terrible shape. Finally, a credit union executive flipped on the light switch for us. “Credit unions are essentially locally based with local customers. We would rather spend our marketig dollars on billboards, radio, TV, and online ads, and local sponsorships, than Wikipedia.” The same was true of most healthcare systems: They were essentially local, often without a lot of competition, and a well-done Wikipedia article was not going to drive a lot of business their way.
Make sure your advertising messaging accurately reflects your brand reputation in the marketplace. You can totally control your advertising content, so make sure you revise it based on what you learn about your brand from the chatter world. For example, if your advertising campaign is based on being the low-cost solution when people in the chatter world are praising your quality, it’s time to switch that message — and raise prices. If Millennials online are embracing you but your ads target Baby Boomers, it’s time to revise the message. Never stick with an advertising campaign that is out of synch with what people are actually saying about you. Even ongoing strong sales can be misleading. Especially if your direct competitor makes the shift first.
The U.S. auto makers were woefully bad at doing that during the 1980s when the Japanese and German car builders ate their lunch. U.S. auto makers were still promoting big, sleek cars with lots of comfort features. The Japanese and Germans talked about economy, quality, durability, performance. The U.S. makers were still selling planned obsolescence. The foreign car makers knew from research that consumers wanted vehicles that lasted and spent little time in the shop.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Oregon Humane Society (OHS) is my all-time favorite. Under the long-time direction of Sharon Harmon, her assembled marketing team has consistently striven to anticipate what folks wanted and expected of the organization. I served on the board of trustees for four years and got an inside look at how the entire team stays focused on its goal: 100% of all animals adopted out. It seemed like an impossible goal, but each year they get closer. Dogs are already at 100%, cats around 80%.

What impresses me is the way they don’t just come up with campaign slogans, they develop campaigns with themes that evolve one to the next. They never rest on their past triumphs, always pushing for higher goals. When they were unhappy because pit bulls had to be put down, they launched a campaign to build an animal retraining center. Now, pit bulls are adopted out regularly.

OHS combines active listening with actionable strategies to build community and consensus as they redefine what it means to be an animal shelter. Their brand is “We love animals and we want them all to have good homes.” And that guides everything they do.

Duplicating such an awesome organization requires:

Strong, innovative leadership
Experienced and driven marketing team
Clearly defined mission and goals
Deep ties to the community and a commitment to meeting community expectations.

It can be done. You just don’t see that kind of commitment to excellence very often (or maybe not often enough).

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

Lots of folks have attempted to quantify branding. You have social media metrics, website metrics, funds raised, or volunteers recruited. The list of metrics that we are told will justify our brand spending is a long and changing one.

But a branding campaign, vs. an advertising campaign cannot be evaluated in 3,6,9 or 12-month segments. If you chart where key numbers are at the start of a new branding initiative, you should be able to see a shift taking place over time in sales, profits, new client acquisitions, online conversions, employee retention, employee satisfaction survey results, visits to the pages you want people to visit on your website, and so on. But managing a brand’s reputation so that it moves in a certain direction takes time, patience, persistence, and a willingness to change direction based on the chorus in the chatter world about you.

An ad campaign may help sell more cars or attract more clients. But when you are creating a reputation for your company, you are selling your organization. If the brand is strong, you should be able to release completely new product lines or offer new services, and the strength of your brand will ensure that they succeed. The purchaser is buying your good name, not responding to an ad.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

That depends on the line of business. Fot Wikipedia consuiting, we are all LinkedIn, all the time. That’s where our ideal clients (p.r. agencies) live. And by joining targeted LinkedIn groups, we can reach a much broader audience than the other platforms. We do not want Facebook or Twitter traffic; too random and individual. For our design/communications services, we use all available platforms. Social media’s role in our promotion is growing as we focus our services and better define our ideal clients. While LinkedIn is still a good platform, many nonprofits are active on Twitter, Facebook and, more increasingly Instagram. So, we need to be active there.

What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?

Two key pieces:

Identify your ideal client, then go after only that client. And do the work that feeds you, that challenges you, that brings you into daily contact with the kind of people you love. You will never be burned out if you follow those rules. (Note: Easy to say, harder to follow!)

The movement would require our healthcare system to guarantee equal access to preventative medical care services for everyone in the country, whether they can afford it or not, or are here legally or not. Right now, Obamacare says basic services must be offered at no cost to Americans. But, due to lack of true access to healthcare, millions go without the care that would ensure a much healthier life in the future. This would not only benefit those individuals that cannot access health services, but it would create a stronger, healthier, more vibrant U.S. Such a movement would threaten many in the healthcare industry, from insurers to Big Pharma to specialists to developers of new medical products. They all benefit from an unhealthy population. But it is morally and ethically wrong for that to be the case.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Easy one: Soar with your strengths. From the book of the same title by Don Clifton and Paula Nelson. I learned this one at an American City Business Journal editors retreat. Changed my management style and my life. At the time, I was spending more time trying to fix struggling employees than encouraging my stars to be all-stars. Once I realized the flaw in that behavior, our newsroom production truly did soar. And I stopped spending so much time working on my personal flaws and more time building out my personal strengths.

So many. But if I had to choose one, I would choose one couple. I would love to cook up a big brunch for the Obamas and just listen to their life stories.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You’ll find me mostly on LinkedIn but also Notfedupdan on Instagram and #notfedup on Twitter. Dan Cook on Facebook.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Dan Cook of To the Point Collaborative: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “The Next-Level of Inter-Device Connectivity” with Coy Christmas of Fasetto

Our core technology is called Gravity. It’s a software architecture that adds intelligence to any network. It enables hyper-connectivity capabilities to the devices it’s installed within and enhances the way they work together — Gravity devices require no router or internet to communicate. So within this self-aware, localized network, devices can share resources like cameras, displays, and even processing power!

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Coy Christmas.

Coy is co-founder and CEO of Fasetto. Getting his start as a serial entrepreneur in the gaming industry, Coy grew successful companies that created sought-after products that sold at Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop. Coy’s passionate commitment to creating seamless connectivity between people, their content, and their devices — led to the creation of Fasetto in 2013. Currently, Fasetto’s core technology is Gravity, a software architecture that adds intelligence to networks, which will usher in an unprecedented standard in how devices will work together. When Coy’s not busy orchestrating a seismic change — he can be found in Scottsdale, AZ spending time with friends and family or racing cars at professional tracks around the country.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve been entrepreneurial for about as long as I can remember. I was in the gaming industry for most of my younger life and had built and sold a few successful companies. I love the rush of discovering something new, and to watch how ideas evolve and grow.

I didn’t start out with any intention of having a company like Fasetto, but we started with a really viable platform idea for the education industry, which then led us to focus our business efforts within the cloud storage space. As much larger companies dominated the market like Dropbox, Box, Apple, etc, we made the conscious decision to start looking at storage and communication solutions between devices from a local level. And that’s where we are today. All of us at Fasetto — and especially me — get a great joy out of the challenge of achieving something no one else has made.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One time I had a meeting with a series of potential investors in the Netherlands. I met with one investor who was really, really wealthy. And his office was located above a public zoo. His specific office was exactly above the gorilla exhibit that had a few insanely huge silverback gorillas. There was a huge treasure chest in the middle of his office and when you opened it up and looked down, you could see them down there and you could throw some food down to them via a tube. It was like something right out of a 007 movie. And it smelled… like the zoo. The places you find looking for funding can lead you to some really interesting situations. So, my advice is to just keep your eyes and ears open.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Our core technology is called Gravity. It’s a software architecture that adds intelligence to any network. It enables hyper-connectivity capabilities to the devices it’s installed within and enhances the way they work together — Gravity devices require no router or internet to communicate. So within this self-aware, localized network, devices can share resources like cameras, displays, and even processing power! With our APIs one can then create amazing ways for devices to work within the same connected experience. Gravity is going to lead the way for the next-level of inter-device connectivity.

How do you think this might change the world?

I believe we are bringing the clearest idea of IoT to the world — but removing the lag, security risk, and dependency of the internet to operate. By creating an ad-hoc, localized network of devices that can share resources, you can leverage all the resources of the device network in new ways you never could before. You can give smart processing power to simple, connectivity devices that don’t currently have it. You can take a video call on your TV and your phone can act as the microphone. And Gravity doesn’t stop by connecting only two devices, it can enable 3–4 or more devices to work together simultaneously. Developers will create things they could have never dreamed of because they’ve never had genius-like devices that could do this.

Smarter travel, cars, homes, manufacturing — Gravity enables all that in ways we have yet to imagine, but we can do it in a more secure way without the internet and with so much more flexibility than what’s emerging today.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

With every new influential technology that gains mass adoption, there will always be someone that will find ways to use it in an unethical way. Gravity can move content around between devices so freely, that we’ll have to work very closely with manufacturers and developers to find those privacy safeguards and mechanisms to keep data private for those who want to.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

It was a really simple use case that made me arrive at the Gravity solution, and I think it’s a use case that frustrates anyone that has multiple devices. I was riding in a cab with one of my partners at the time, and we had no internet, no LTE or 4G. We were speeding to a meeting and I needed to get a file from my phone to his laptop. We were only sitting one-foot away from each other. And I didn’t have a thumb drive, either. And it struck me — between the two of us, we have two devices that both have antennas and receivers, they both have connection capabilities, but here we were unable to share a file. We simply wanted to move my content from one machine to another. Shouldn’t be that hard should it?

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

We want to get Gravity into as many devices as we can. The best device form factor to do this is the smartphone. The smartphone is the device everyone owns and is the lead device that has birthed so many other solutions like apps and ancillary devices like Bluetooth speakers, smart thermostats, etc.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We’re finding that creating our own use-cases for Gravity works best to help illustrate the capabilities. We’ve created three unique software engines that are intended to work at the native-level of a device OS — a data-sharing engine code-named Zodiac; Aquarius — a unique video engine that allows one to access another device’s camera and add it to their own video to create multi-angled videos; and Gemini — a video-sharing engine that allows you to share videos with others without the internet. We have more coming out that I’m really excited about, too.

We also maintain a big annual presence at CES every year and also leak things out gorilla style on Reddit and other social channels.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful to who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

It’s not just one person, but many people. You can’t achieve success unless you have help. You can put in the long hours and the dedication, but you need someone to confide in. This road can be stressful and expensive. I’d have to say if it wasn’t for every single one of my investors, we wouldn’t be here. They’ve given me the freedom to let me run the company, execute the vision, support us and not put incredibly restrictive terms on what we’re doing. It’s a great relationship to have. If the investment terms are too restrictive that you might get from VC, even-though the funding is awesome, you can lose the initial vision of the company. We’re really fortunate to have the investors we have.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Yes, of course. As a CEO, I believe I have responsibility to my employees and their families. I want to bring a culture of caring to our business and want my employees to feel if they need something, they can ask the company for help. I also care a lot about education, so we offer our Forum product to schools for free, which works great in older-aged classrooms.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Here are my five:

It will take longer. Nothing works the way you put it down on paper. It always takes longer than you want it to. Always.
It will cost you double. Whatever you think your budget is, it will cost you double or more. There are so many unknown costs along the way. Or something doesn’t come out right and you have to do it again, etc.
Try to balance and prioritize. This is not always a sprint, you have to have ebbs and flows in your business so you can take time to reflect and know how to move ahead.
Read the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. Amazing book.
Don’t be afraid to say no. Don’t cut your nose to spite your face. If you think you’ll always have to say yes, you might get something in the short term, but it could be sacrificing the long-term vision.

I would create a movement to bring coding as part of the core curriculum to schools. It’s a new language and is fundamental to the future. It should be taught like Spanish or a second language. And every child should have the opportunity to learn it. With the hardware and software capabilities we have today, I really believe our only limit is our imagination.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I have two sayings that guide me in life. The first one is, always treat others the way you want to be treated. I even have it tattooed on my arm as a reminder. It’s not because you’re expecting something in return, it’s just the moral thing to do. Always take the high road. It’s difficult in business, because morality doesn’t always work in business, but I’ve found it’s worked for me over and over. The other is don’t ever quit. It always gets tough, but those tough times build character and so you keep pushing. It’s not always the most talented that win, but those with the most tenacity.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

The electronics industry is stale. No one is lining up to buy new devices like years ago. Phones are just making incremental improvements in camera, battery, and resolution. There are no seismic changes. But Gravity is that change. Gravity adds intelligence to Wi-Fi between devices so they can do more together than ever before. TVs will interact with phones like never before. Devices will interact with your car like never before. Gravity adds intelligence before and after the transmission. Gravity is the future and I’m excited to get there.

The Future Is Now: “The Next-Level of Inter-Device Connectivity” with Coy Christmas of Fasetto was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “Wearable tech that reminds you to maintain Social Distancing” with Rob Hruskoci

The Future Is Now: “Wearable tech that reminds you to maintain Social Distancing” with Rob Hruskoci of Advanced Industrial Marketing

In the short-term future, there is no vaccine for COVID-19, so it is emphasized with urgency every day that the best course of action is social distancing. Our product is a reminder, allowing you to maintain social distancing status at all times. The EGOpro Active Tag uses UWB technology to maintain CDC recommended guidelines to send a vibration to alert both tags, and the people wearing them, of a breach in social distancing. Ideal for factories, warehouses and construction sites where it is difficult to measure the minimum distance between employees, it has everyday applications for retail and is even being used in a museum setting.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Hruskoci.

Rob Hruskoci is the owner and CEO of Advanced Industrial Marketing (AIM). With more than 22 years of experience in the industry and an educational background in engineering from Purdue University, he understands the needs of his clients’ business and brings unique technology solutions to market.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I founded Advanced Industrial Marketing because I identified a need to bring professional sales and expertise into the industrial environment. We specialize in higher tech products, and by utilizing my engineering degree from my undergraduate education, I was able to help bring these high tech products into the industrial space. Over time we have transformed into material handling specialists. We have a suite of products that we offer to improve the safety and efficiency of material handling operations and proximity detection. Up until March, no one considered the need for human-to-human protective technology. We’ve since evolved our traditional product and morphed into a people-to-people detection system in this new world of social distancing.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One of the most interesting things that has happened to me in my career was discovering the need for my expertise across the pond. I never really set out to do sales and marketing of unique technology from Europe like AME; however, when we started getting into the international market, I discovered a huge need. It can be difficult to bring European products to the US market, but I am always up for a challenge. The expertise and knowledge that I have has directly translated into solutions of the problems my clients face. Expanding AIM’s horizons led to working with innovative partners with unique technologies. With my business located in Indiana, I never expected to be working with people across the world.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

In the short-term future, there is no vaccine for COVID-19, so it is emphasized with urgency every day that the best course of action is social distancing. Our product is a reminder, allowing you to maintain social distancing status at all times. The EGOpro Active Tag uses UWB technology to maintain CDC recommended guidelines to send a vibration to alert both tags, and the people wearing them, of a breach in social distancing. Ideal for factories, warehouses and construction sites where it is difficult to measure the minimum distance between employees, it has everyday applications for retail and is even being used in a museum setting. We can contribute to keeping the numbers down. If everyone were to have a product like this, it would ensure that people adhere to social distancing guidelines and therefore keep people safe.

How do you think this might change the world?

In the new era of social distancing, this could be a long-term solution in order to reopen the country and ensure safety.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

This is best of class technology. It uses a UWB frequency band that allows for very fast and very precise positioning as well as secure communication. Even with a full suite of contact-tracing products, the data that is being transmitted is private and extremely secure. The frequency that we are transmitting it on is hard to crack and is not like WiFi or Bluetooth. Our people-counting device, LASE PeCo, counts the number of people simply by calculating the height of people, but there are no other identifying factors. The device can distinguish between an adult, child and a shopping cart by inputting the suggested height of an adult and a suggested height of a child. It is not a security camera or system, but a people counter.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

We were already in the business of proximity detection, protecting people from machinery in the workplace. Heavy machinery is often one of the leading causes of injury/death in a work setting. Now, there is a new danger. The virus has changed the way we operate in our daily lives. We were already experts in proximity detection and with social distancing in full swing, a safe distance between individuals is key to preventing the spread of the virus. This unexpected circumstance led us to reconfigure the system to do people-to-people detection as well. We are using the same core technology, and by innovating with the current times, have been able to come up with a solution to this new problem.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

What we need is the acceptance of the market to invest in this technology. The virus is not going away, and social distancing is part of our future. Relying on people to always maintain social distancing is not going to suffice. The acceptable, reliable measures are low-cost solutions. Our technology can protect people from transmitting the virus and therefore keep numbers down. We need acceptance and willingness to adhere to social distancing.

When I started this business, I had a partner along the way who really had bigger ambitions. At the time, he was talking about using our expertise to find partners in Europe and across the world and bring their technology to the USA even though I didn’t think we were ready for it. He was always confident this was the direction we should take the company. He was the motivator behind the turning point for the company. He is no longer with the organization anymore but we are still good friends and I talk frequently about the journey and how his guidance has transformed the company and helped me to see the bigger picture.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Our technology is being deployed in mostly industrial situations. The material handling in these areas are very dangerous. As we know, it is one of the leading causes of fatalities in most industries. It is always in the top 10 of OSHA violations. Material handling in the industry is a dangerous thing. We are helping companies realize that with the adoption of this technology we can improve the safety and therefore keep employees safe. We have taken our expertise and knowledge from proximity detection and transformed it into social distancing. Following guidelines from the CDC and World Health Organization, we are trying to keep people at a safe distance. We are alerting them that social distancing has been violated. We are taking the key safety message and adapting it into this new COVID world.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. It is ok to say no. Instead of forcing our solutions into applications that aren’t a fit, we have tried to “make” things work just to satisfy a customer. These never turn out well and often lead to unhappy customers. As hard as it is, it’s much easier to tell a customer no, we can’t offer a solution to you at this time.

2. Leadership styles matter. Different people in your organization need different things. How you lead them is key to your company’s success. One needs to recognize the individual’s needs and adjust accordingly.

3. Hire experts to help build your company. I am not an expert at everything. It’s perfectly fine to hire people to do work for you. In the long run, it ends up saving time, money and your company can grow from the input that these experts can provide.

4. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Most things that I worry about never happen. Don’t waste time and energy on them!

5. Learn to delegate. I have hired people in my organization who are talented. I need to rely on their talents more and give them key positions in projects across the company.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Lewis and Clark were lost most of the time; If your idea of exploration is to always know where you are going, and staying inside your zone of competence, you don’t do wild new shit. You have to be confused, upset, think you’re stupid. If you’re not willing to do that, you can’t go outside of the box” Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Our social distancing technology was developed by engineers who have been doing proximity detection for the last 20 years. Keeping people safely away from objects is nothing new to us. Using that expertise we have developed a technology that is incredibly reliable, extremely fast and precise. Most importantly, it is secure from a data perspective. This technology is unmatched across the world as far as what we can offer in our light and our contact tracing which can lead to people counting, managing people in areas and alerting authorities to violations. I think the key thing to remember is that our technology can apply to several aspects. We can use that same technology to do people-to-machine, man-to-machine and now people-to-people. We are one of the only companies in the world that has the technology to adapt for an advanced feature down the road.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.advindmktg.com/

The Future Is Now: “Wearable tech that reminds you to maintain Social Distancing” with Rob Hruskoci was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Candace Nicolls of Snagajob: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Collaboration challenges. How often have you stood with your team around a white board, or had a stand up by your desks? These things can be replicated with online tools, but getting the hang of moving to online collaboration, especially when one person might have internet issues, another is wrangling a toddler, and another is trying to keep their dog from barking, can be tricky.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Candace Nicolls, Senior Vice President of People and Workplace at Snagajob, where she leads talent acquisition, human resources, HR compliance, training and development, employee engagement, community support and facilities management. With more than 20 years of experience in talent management and acquisition, Candace is passionate about providing an awesome candidate experience. Candace is active with many of Snagajob’s community partners, including Rebuilding Together Richmond, Junior Achievement, Special Olympics Virginia, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Richmond, where she sits on the Board of Directors. A graduate of the College of William and Mary, Candace holds SPHR, SRHM and SCP certifications.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Candace! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I sort of fell into this field, not unlike a lot of people I know in recruiting or HR. Shortly after graduating college, I moved to a new city where positions in my somewhat obscure degree field were non-existent. I registered with a temporary service, and my second assignment was in their office… and I didn’t leave for 6 ½ years. I was able to move from a receptionist to a recruiter, and as my career progressed with other companies, I was able to concentrate on technical recruiting and management, which eventually brought me to Snagajob. An entire company dedicated to helping people find their right fit position sounded like the perfect place for me! A couple of years after I started here, I had the opportunity to move into a hybrid HR/recruiting management role, and as we grew, so did my responsibilities and our team. I joined Snagajob’s executive team in November of 2018, and here we are!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Many, many years ago, a leader at the company I was with introduced me to the concept of “raving fans”- creating incredible experiences so you don’t just build customers, you build advocates. That was a real light bulb moment for me, and I’ve tried to approach a career that’s based on interactions with others this same way- you really have to differentiate yourself in today’s competitive talent world and relationship-building is a fantastic way to do so. This concept is really what makes great employer brands stand apart, too. I’m constantly amazed at how small the world is- you meet so many people in this industry, and I’ll still bump into people I met 15 years ago who remember me. It really emphasizes the importance of making sure you treat people not just with kindness, but that they really feel like you’ve done your best for them.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It’s been a long time since I was first starting! Most of the mistakes I can think of were more cringe-worthy than funny, and typically involved sending someone with the wrong skill set or attire to a customer site when I was in staffing.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

As the leader in your organization, remember that your actions set the tone for everyone below you. You need to project the right balance of realism, optimism, empathy, and inspiration, especially in times of crisis. You need to clearly communicate what you’re seeing that impacts the organization and how you’re making decisions. You need to embrace flexibility, push leaders to embrace flexibility, and recognize the work that people are doing while they’ve got unprecedented macro impacts weighing on them. This is also the time when focus and prioritization are more important than ever. You’ll probably need to pivot what your organization is doing, so making sure people understand what you have to accomplish, and by when, matters immensely so they aren’t doing throwaway work. You need to encourage people to step away, or even better, understand the pressure people may be under and look at new opportunities to implement innovative solutions, like giving the entire company the day off. Take the time to really understand where people are and where they’re coming from, and adapt your message if needed.

I’ve had at least one person on my team in a geographically different location than me off and on for about sixteen years.

There are definitely some traps that managers can fall into if they’re not careful when they first start managing a remote team:

If I can’t see you, how do I know you’re working? This is probably the most important one to squash. If companies aren’t used to working remotely, and especially if there’s not a relationship of trust that’s been built between manager and employee, a dynamic of micro-management can quickly evolve.
Access to information. When we’re in offices, we pass each other in the halls and share information. We linger after meetings and have carry over conversations. We swing by someone’s desk to see if they can help with something. When everyone’s remote, these things aren’t possible, so information must be intentionally shared.
Assignments may not be clear. Everyone needs to understand what they’re supposed to be doing, and that’s even more critical when working from home. If someone is used to standing up and asking a colleague a clarifying question, the lack of ability to do that might leave someone in limbo if they’re not sure how to do something.
Lack of connectedness. Generally, people have friends at work, and getting to work with them is a big part of why people enjoy their jobs. Personal conversations and connection are a big part of what makes people productive, and missing out on that together time can lead to feelings of isolation or loss (on top of everything else remote workers are dealing with right now).
Collaboration challenges. How often have you stood with your team around a white board, or had a stand up by your desks? These things can be replicated with online tools, but getting the hang of moving to online collaboration, especially when one person might have internet issues, another is wrangling a toddler, and another is trying to keep their dog from barking, can be tricky.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Fortunately, there are LOTS of things you can do to make sure you’re leading your remote teams successfully:

Overcommunicate: When in doubt, assume more is more. Context is really important, so make sure you’re talking about what you’re seeing, why you’re making decisions, and share REAL data. Use the right tool for the right job, especially if you’ve got lots of communication channels where people can find info- make it easy for people to find the answers they’re looking for.

Establish clear objectives: Priorities matter more than ever before, so make sure your remote teams know that they need to accomplish. Tie the work they’re doing into the overarching objectives of the organization, and make sure everyone knows what success looks like. Now is not the time to be vague- make sure deadlines are clear, and that everyone knows where and who to go to if they need help.

Celebrate wins and give recognition: We get it- there’s a lot going on, and there’s a lot that has people on edge. That’s why now is the perfect time to make sure you’re celebrating success. If someone is working hard, and is knocking it out of the park, let everyone know that! Make it real, make it specific, and tailor it to the individual. No win is too small!

Check in: Take the time to check in on your people as, well, people. Schedule virtual coffee with them, or make sure you’re taking time during each of their 1:1s to talk about how they actually are. Make sure you’re still talking about individual development, and how you can help someone achieve that next level of success (maybe even while letting them know it’s fine when their toddler joins your team meetings).

Help your team connect: Find ways to make sure your team- whether that’s your specific team or your whole company- are staying in touch. It doesn’t need to be a virtual happy hour- maybe it’s a QBR where everyone gets to show off what they did the previous quarter. Maybe it’s an open virtual meeting where anyone can pop in and say hello or ask for help on something. Maybe it’s a personalized Slack channel where only talking in gifs is allowed. Get creative, and ask your team! There’s probably a way for people to stay connected and successful that you’ve not even thought of.

There are so many great options for video conferencing that it’s easier than ever to give someone meaningful feedback, regardless as to whether or not they’re in the same room as you. I’m a big proponent of avoiding the “feedback sandwich”, where you hide constructive feedback within two pieces of praise. Instead, there are a couple of key things to keep in mind- first, make it timely. When you see an opportunity to give feedback, do it. Waiting a couple of weeks until your next check in makes it really difficult to be impactful. Second, make sure you’re focusing on what happened and the impact it had, NOT why you think someone did it. We’re big fans of Kim Scott’s approach outlined in Radical Candor. This way, the person understands how the action was interpreted and the resulting outcomes- it doesn’t get perceived as a judgement call against the person that you’re trying to give this feedback to. Ultimately, feedback is a gift, and you want to make sure you’re delivering it in a way that ensures the person on the receiving end understands this is to help them improve.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

If possible, don’t! Feedback is almost always better delivered by an actual conversation. If this is the first time you’re giving someone feedback on a particular area, you really have to give that “in person”, so ideally on video chat, but at least by phone call. Sharing it over email doesn’t guarantee that the right sentiment or context will come through, so it could come across as discipline instead of feedback. If you need to give feedback on something that you’ve already discussed, and an in person conversation isn’t possible to have quickly, sharing the situation by email, referencing the conversations you’ve already had about that topic, can be a bridge until your next conversation.

It’s really important to remember that we’ve not all just shifted to working remotely- we’ve all shifted to working from our homes because there’s a global pandemic that’s forced us to. Normal expectations around finding a quiet space away from your kids or pets are no longer realistic, so we all have to reset our expectations of what work looks like right now. If you’re not willing to be flexible on hours, or dress codes, or having kids sometimes crash your meetings, you’re not enabling your employees to be productive. That being said, establishing SOME norms is important. You want to make sure people know where to go for certain types of resources or communications. Do you prefer everyone have their camera on during video calls? Say so! Setting those guidelines as early as possible will help ensure you’re putting the right level of structure into your work.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

If you don’t already have a culture that’s healthy and empowering, it’s not going to suddenly manifest when everyone is remote. If you’ve got a culture that’s thriving, it’s more important than ever to really lean into your mission and core values. Think about the norms that are important to your company, and how you can modify them to everyone being remote. Rituals matter- don’t let them get forgotten just because you’re not all together. If you have a company meeting every Thursday, for example, don’t stop doing those! It’s also a great time to think about how to transfer some of the in person things you’d normally do to a virtual format. Grabbing “coffee” with a colleague, having a team meeting- all can be done online to keep that cadence of communication and connectedness up!

I have so many thoughts on this, and my family and I talk often about ideas we have around this very thing. If I had to pick one thing, it would be figuring out a way to instill more empathy into everyone. It’s a core component of emotional intelligence, of course, which in my opinion is the most important skill a leader can have. Beyond that, though, I’d hope it could help everyone gain a little more perspective on where other people are coming from, particularly right now when things often feel more divided than together.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” It was attributed to John Wesley when I learned it, and while I don’t think he actually said it, this is the approach I’ve tried to take to everything in my life. I think this is more important than ever, as people are facing challenges we never could have dreamed of, all within an incredibly polarized political climate. It’s a good reminder to take a step back and make sure you’re contributing to the inclusion, not the divide.

Thank you for these great insights!

Candace Nicolls of Snagajob: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Erica Volini of Deloitte: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Trust: Managing remote teams requires leaders to trust employees to get good work done. To support this relationship of trust, employees need to demonstrate accountability and self-management of workflows.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Erica Volini.

Erica, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, is Deloitte’s Global Human Capital leader. In this role, she is focused on helping leaders solve their most complex and pressing human capital issues. In today’s world of constant disruption, those issues include everything from navigating the future of work to enabling the digital organization — all centered around how to optimize the intersection of the workforce and business performance. Throughout her 20+ year career, Erica has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations and is a frequent speaker on how market trends are impacting the HR organization and profession as a whole. Within Deloitte, she has served as a member of Deloitte Consulting’s Management Committee and Board of Directors. She has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial & Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

My background from school is in Industrial & Labor Relations — that’s really where I started to gain an appreciation of the organization-worker relationship. From there, I had an internship where I was able to work with the Administration of Children’s Services to help them develop a training program for their employees and I really saw the power of what could be done when we appropriately invest in ‘human capital’. I joined Deloitte shortly thereafter and, as they say, the rest is history. It’s now been 22 years at Deloitte and throughout every role I’ve played, a focus on human capital has always been at the center. Today, I’m the global leader for our practice and still love getting to work directly with clients helping them optimize the potential of their workforce. In today’s constant world of disruption, I don’t think there is anything more important for an organization to do.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Wow, that’s a tough one. I think the most interesting moment of my career has been my transition back from maternity leave. I was a lifetime consultant who had never taken more than three weeks off and all of a sudden, I’m returning having been away for 6+ months. What was interesting about it was how much personal and professional growth I had through that experience — not just about becoming a mother, but becoming a different type of leader, teammate and advisor. Everything needed to change, but as I look back two years later, all of those changes helped me to become a better professional overall.

What advice would you give to leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

At the moment, the only way out is through. We’ve made a mass transformation to a new way of working in the context of an economic, public health and sociopolitical crisis. On top of that, many families are dealing with unreliable childcare options, taking care of elderly family members, and uncertainty about school openings. First, we need to acknowledge that it’s normal to be struggling, and to help our team members recognize struggle in themselves and in their teams. How do we thrive in a crisis? Resiliency and great leadership. We need our managers and leaders to lead authentically and transparently. Leaders don’t need to have all of the answers, but they do need to bring their teams along in the process. We also need our leaders to model healthy work habits that address some of the core challenges teams are facing in a virtual environment. Healthy boundaries, connectedness with our teams, communities and families, taking vacation, giving our teams clear directions on desired outcomes and creating the space for them to get good work done.

I have been managing remote teams for a decade at least. As we have made our delivery centers, both on-shore and off-shore, a bigger and bigger part of our strategy, managing remote teams has simply been the way we get our work done. It takes more discipline and focus to maintain connections, but the outcomes can be just as good, if not better, when you look past the remote nature and just find different ways to connect, inspire and lead.

Keeping teams informed: Information can no longer make its way through the halls; we need to actively make information accessible on digital platforms so that our teams know what they’re looking for, fast.
Keeping teams on track: It used to be that a manger could walk into a room and see whether their employees are working or not; that’s no longer the case. Instead, managers need to shift directions to provide clarity on the outcomes that matter and be in a position to observe team progress in a digital format, such as dropping into a collaboratively-edited work-in-progress presentation to see how things are coming along, or viewing task progress in a digital task management platform.
Keeping teams connected: In a remote environment, teams are spending more time working on direct workflows and less time interacting with casual work colleagues; individual networks are contracting. Teams need to build new strategies to stay engaged with one another.
Managing performance: Performance management protocols were designed to measure performance in an in office environment — at a time when facetime is no longer the norm, we need to consider how old ways of thinking are influencing performance management in a remote environment.
Trust: Managing remote teams requires leaders to trust employees to get good work done. To support this relationship of trust, employees need to demonstrate accountability and self-management of workflows.

It’s important to match our message to the medium. If it’s a sensitive feedback conversation, it’s important to get on a video call and give our teammates the benefit of our eye contact, facial expressions and undivided attention. That said, our transformation to a remote environment has helped accelerate an existing trend of continuous feedback: a commitment to provide feedback in the moment when challenges and learning opportunities arise. Nudging new behaviors in the right direction with a chat or text help ensure that small issues are addressed promptly as we collectively create new boundaries and norms.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

It’s absolutely possible to build meaningful relationships online. We can adapt to this new mode of relationship as long as we’re intentional: considering our tone and how it appears in an online format, using video with cameras on to establish new relationships but not requiring video all the time, making sure we continue the casual banter outside of our immediate workflows and tasks, and really taking time to check in on one another. It’s important to remember that there are five generations in the workforce and for some members of the population, building relationships in an online format is a seamless experience. Others can’t fathom it. This is a time to embrace reverse mentorship, and also to have empathy for and directly support those who are struggling to adapt.

Erica Volini of Deloitte: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “Parent education for every parent as soon as their baby is…

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “Parent education for every parent as soon as their baby is born” With Author Dr. Sally Goldberg

…Parent education for every parent as soon as their baby is born and even before. There are eight stages from birth to age three, and there is information available about how to promote development during each of them by natural, fun and worthwhile parent-child interactions.

As a part of my series about Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years I had the pleasure of interviewing Sally Goldberg.

Sally Goldberg, Ph.D., professor of education, author, magazine writer, and the first parenting expert on FOX TV’s “Parent to Parent,” has changed her focus! Meet Dr. Sally now on “Parenting with Dr. Sally” www.earlychildhoodnews.net for up-to-date parenting information and answers to many questions.

With seven out of eight parenting books behind her, Dr. Sally is now writing for children. Eight manuscripts are almost ready for publication. These range from board and toddler ones to those in the the four to eight-year-old age range.

Sally worked for many years as an instructor of early childhood education on the adjunct faculties of Nova Southeastern University, Barry University, and the University of Phoenix. Well-known for her tools and strategies for self-esteem development, she was a national conference presenter and a frequent guest on TV and radio. Sally, who grew up in While Plains, NY, has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of Miami.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Cynthia!!! Oh what a surprise. After nine months of waiting and watching and wondering and preparing for the birth of the most perfect, gorgeous, bright and high-achieving baby in the whole world, along came Cynthia — perfect, gorgeous, bright and born with a developmental delay. What?!!! That was not in the plans. Not only would she not be the most high-achieving baby in the world, she was actually going to function on the lower end. “Oh no. Oh dear. Oh no. Oh … and many more! In reality there were all kinds of outbursts along the way including tears. It took many months to adjust to the new situation, but I finally did, and eventually the new focus became much more positive.

My love of teaching was a big factor, and my desire to create educational materials helped also. Combining the two, I developed a mission to find anything and everything possible that would help Cynthia. The first step was to read all there was to read about the subject. Next came buying all there was to buy. Eventually came making all there was to make. The goal became to get her from behind the starting line in every area to catching up and eventually moving ahead.

“Impossible, stop, you are wasting your time” is all I heard from everyone around. However, I just kept going. Then one day I met Dr. Morton Schwartzman, the dedicated optimistic, forward thinking and very popular pediatrician in the area. Right up front I asked him, “What won’t Cynthia be able to do?” Then straight from the heart he said, “I don’t know.” That was it, all I needed to hear. “If he doesn’t know, then I don’t know; and I will shoot for the moon,” and then I did.

Slowly but surely the original heartbreak began to disappear, and love, passion and excitement started to take hold. The more I taught Cynthia the more she learned, and then the more she learned, the more I taught her. We continued on that same path for a very long time and are still on it today. However, now it has a new addition — the more Cynthia teaches me the more I learn, and then the more I learn, the more she teaches me. Who would have ever dreamed of that!

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

There was a very poorly behaved boy with his parents in a photography studio waiting to have his picture taken. I was in the waiting room outside and could hear a little bit of his disruptions. It seemed his mother kept trying to get him under control but that he kept carrying on. Then eventually all the chaos and ruckus stopped. “What happened?” I wondered. Just then the studio owner, who I had been working with on a project, walked out and said to me, “You would not believe this, but that little boy, about ten-years-old, picked up a copy of your book Constructive Parenting and started reading the section on discipline. He told his parents, “Look … positive attention. You need to pay that to me.” They must have taken his advice right away because they all walked out happily together.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

The credit on this one goes to singer Barbara Streisand for her song Never give up.” The successes were plentiful but few happened as the crow flies. In addition, people everywhere were still giving me advice like, “Stop knocking yourself out? Don’t you know what she has? She will never learn. You are living in denial” and more. However, those words from her song kept ringing in my ears and spurring me on. Just when an effort looked hopeless, a reward of progress would come, and that gave me the motivation to keep on going!

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your Big Idea That Might Change The World

Parent education for every parent as soon as their baby is born and even before. There are eight stages from birth to age three, and there is information available about how to promote development during each of them by natural, fun and worthwhile parent-child interactions.

In addition, there are five areas that need optimal attention during this time — cognitive, motor, social, language and self-esteem, and there are wonderful activities known for each age and stage in all five areas. Providing a balanced program for little ones from birth to age three lays a positive foundation for all future development. Not having appropriate activities in all areas throughout the ages and stages could leave a baby, toddler and two-year-old impaired or delayed in one or more areas. Health routines are all part of this kind of programming too. Nutrition, moving, sleep and even breathing all need proper attention.

Here is the best part. Many studies are available to show that brain development is directly related to experiences during these early years. 90% of brain growth takes place between birth and age five. High quality and quantity language in particular play the biggest role in both brain development and all future functioning. Much other important input is involved too.

Other studies show that a lack of a solid positive parent-child relationship in these formative years causes major problems later in life. Crime and violence and even our rash of mass murders have been tied to very bad conditions during early childhood. With strong evidence about what to do and also what happens when certain kinds of interactions are missing, this kind of age/stage and areas of development parent education is an absolute must.

How do you think this will change the world?

Oh my! Child abuse will be on its way out, discipline problems in our schools decreased, and crime and violence reduced substantially. I can’t think of anything that will change the world more in a positive way. It will take three years for this kind of programming to show significant results; but if done right, they will be guaranteed. The societal changes will start to show right after that. The Carnegie Commission did a multi-million dollar study in 1994 to find out why we had so much crime and violence in our country at the time, and much to their surprise they found out that it was because of what happens to children in the first three years. According to the study, vital to adult success is “nurturing love, guidance, support, protection and educational stimulation.”

Keeping a Black Mirror and the Law of Unintended Consequences in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

The only problem is that people are used to thinking about these three years in just the opposite way — as unimportant and just a block of time with no particular purpose. They consider this time just a precursor to age three when very simple rudiments of education are meant to begin. While three-year-olds can walk, talk, eat, sleep, run and learn in much the same way as adults, how they do all those things is totally dependent on their beginning years from birth to age three. Perseverance and persistence will be needed to keep this three-year preparation time moving in the most optimal way. That is the fixed time-span needed to produce measurable results. The real fruits of the labors will not show up and be able to be measured until after age three when a true foundation has been formed.

Was there a tipping point that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

By the time Cynthia was two she started to attract her own attention, and by three she did even more. By the end of the first two years she showed that she knew all the colors, letters, numbers and shapes and that she was reading over 100 words. Neighbors began to ask, “How come your daughter understands all those things and our children, who are older and don’t have any difficulties or delays, don’t know half of what she does?” How did you teach her? I had to think about that and pull my thoughts together.

Then one day a mother asked me, “If I get a group of us together, can you give some workshops about what you did?” Honored by the request, I very quickly said, “Yes.” She got the mothers together, and I prepared materials for six lessons. The parents loved having the information, and I enjoyed teaching it.

After that I thought, “If these people like the ideas so much, maybe others would too, and maybe I could write a book; and then I did.” I took all my notes and turned them into Teaching with Toys: Making Your Own Educational Toys. After that pre-schools, churches and Temples began asking me to teach parent-child classes there, and the local community college contacted me to found a program for them. Next came a doctoral degree in early childhood education, more books and more programs.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

Recognition by the public that this is an absolute necessity. Funding, of course, is the other part of the picture.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

That this passion would increase difficulties at home. Having so much energy flowing in a direction away from my main relationship created an untenable situation. I was pulled apart by caring for a husband, a house, two children, one child with a disability, and an aging parent with many difficulties of her own. Something had to give, and it ended up being my marriage. That was very sad.
That creating a business was a major undertaking. While I was professionally trained, I had no idea about the business world and how all that worked. One stumbling block led to another. The amount of time, money and energy needed took me by surprise.
That it is always okay to follow your heart. I faced constant conflict all the time because I kept in my mind focused how I thought my life was supposed to be instead of on how it really was. The further it kept veering from that the worse the strain became.
That I had a powerful inner self that could be discovered through meditation. I went without it for a very long time. Eventually it gave me the power to look inside myself for answers and guided me not to be dependent on others.
That even after finding out what I wish I had known that I would be so glad I did what I did every step of the way. I discovered that I became “me” from all the trials and tribulations and that they were all worth it to become my newly empowered self.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important success habits or success mindsets?

Yes, turning to your own inner strength for answers. That is foolproof. You have the best insights about you. You will never let yourself down. You will always figure out the right thing to do.

Included in in this idea is how important it is to take care of yourself. Your body is your best friend, and you need first and foremost to keep your attention on it with optimal nutrition, moving during the day as much as possible and having an impeccable sleep routine. Breathing strongly, breathing as part of meditation, and deep breathing to reduce stress are all part of healthy living too. You can do your best work only if your body is happily at peace.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Begin at the beginning. It is always better to spend time instilling optimal habits than to have to do remedial or reparative work. Following that thinking, what better way could there be than to start early. “Every child is entitled to having the finest experiences, and every parent should know how to provide them right from the start” That is the theme on my website “Parenting with Dr. Sally” www.earlychildhoodnews.net. Since every person is a product of their experiences, it is best to make them as good as possible. There is not a moment to waste!

I was recently on a trip and stayed in a Marriott Renaissance Hotel. It was lovely, and this was a sign they had: “There is no elevator to success. You have to take the steps.” All of ours begin at birth, even before, and each one lays the groundwork for the next ones to come

How can our readers follow you on social media? https://www.linkedin.com

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “Parent education for every parent as soon as their baby is… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Kuba Jewgieniew of Realty ONE Group: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote…

Kuba Jewgieniew of Realty ONE Group: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Don’t lose touch. You should have effective communication platforms and strategies in place to stay connected. We use a variety of communication channels including email, Slack, and of course, lots of video. We find that our teams need a certain level of face-to-face communication, and video calls seem to work.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kuba Jewgieniew.

Kuba Jewgieniew is the CEO And Founder of Realty ONE Group, one of the more rapidly growing real estate franchisors. The company was created with a 100% commission model, an emphasis on culture and unique branding, and a system of partnered and proprietary tools and technologies for franchise owners and real estate professionals.

Jewgieniew is from Polish-born parents who immigrated to the United States. He became the first in his family to graduate from college and earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree from the University of California San Diego (UCSD). After college, Jewgieniew had a lucrative career as a financial adviser and portfolio manager, while building computer hardware and software programs in his spare time. He then changed his focus to real estate. In his first year as an agent, he closed 111 transactions and more than $30 million in sales before deciding to start his own brokerage.

He launched Realty ONE Group in 2005. The brokerage was based in Las Vegas, NV, and had 250 agents and $102 million in sales by the end of its first year.

Jewgieniew continues to lead the company as CEO and Founder, and is involved in everyday operations, as well as every aspect of growth and development including branding, marketing, franchising, training and operations.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

When I put my mind to something, I’m all in, which is why I became a top producer in my first year in real estate. The problem was, I gave away a large portion of my commission and I remember literally thinking, “don’t mess with my check!”

This was the idea that drove me to start Realty ONE Group, and you’ll still see that messaging throughout our marketing. It wasn’t necessarily about the money, it was about giving real estate professionals every opportunity to advance their careers.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the first managers I hired in Las Vegas always showed up polished in a suit and tie. Once I was looking for a pen and couldn’t find one, so I quickly opened his desk drawer and a bunch of candy bars came flying out, scaring the heck out of me! That reminds me to this day to not to take yourself too seriously.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Every morning, we choose the right mindset that sets the tone for the rest of our day. I recommend avoiding the news, especially right now, and even checking emails first thing in the morning. Every new day starts with a mindset to win! I begin each morning practicing gratitude with my family, and that sets the tone for everything we do that day.

And, I know a lot of people often say it, but I really do encourage spending lots of time with family and friends, doing the things you love. It gives you a fresh perspective on the job, and reminds you why you do what you do, and what matters most.

Work hard. Stay humble. Treat each other well, and the rest will come.

Realty ONE Group real estate offices are set up to support busy real estate professionals who are always on the move. We provide a lot of systems and services that help them do a lot of their business virtually and on mobile devices. So, it makes sense that our headquarters staff and teams have the same capability.

For me, it’s always been about finding the right people and building the right teams to keep this company growing and thriving. In the last few years, we’ve built an incredible Executive team with several key professionals who live remotely. Now, the leadership team is basically all remote, living in different cities across the country.

№1: Don’t lose touch. You should have effective communication platforms and strategies in place to stay connected. We use a variety of communication channels including email, Slack, and of course, lots of video. We find that our teams need a certain level of face-to-face communication, and video calls seem to work.

№2: Don’t work too hard. We constantly emphasize a nice, healthy work-life balance with our employees. We know that some of our employees tend to work harder at home since it can be more difficult to “unplug,” and there’s less in-office, casual communication. So, it’s even more important for them to take breaks, get outside and even make plans to socialize with family and friends (when appropriate, given the current pandemic).

№3: Prioritize and manage your time wisely. We also make sure that we help our teammates, however we can, with prioritizing work and managing their time, keeping tabs on them through project management platforms, and with regularly scheduled meetings. But working from home allows a certain amount of flexibility that we want our employees to enjoy. Some of our teammates work better in the late evenings, while others are early risers.

№4: Challenge of email/text/Slack communication. Working remotely means we depend even more on emails, text and messaging which can be widely misinterpreted. We encourage our team members to call if they should need to clarify messages. A quick phone call can do the job.

№5: Maintain good habits like regular exercise, drinking plenty of water and eating well to keep you motivated and energized.

I think it’s important to set a precedent with your employees that honest, constructive feedback is valued. With that, leaders must be ready to listen and understand the varying personalities of people on their teams. But it’s true that constructive feedback can be even more difficult when you can’t meet in person. Again, we try and use video as often as possible, and at minimum, conduct phone calls for this. We follow up any conversation with written emails that allow us to give greater details and be objective. We’re finding this to be very effective.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

We recommend starting with positive feedback — the things that the team member has been doing well and any recent wins, and then follow with constructive feedback. Again, this must be constructive, giving them direction on the ways they can improve and meet expectations. Before wrapping up, we recommend asking for their feedback in turn, clarifying any questions and then ending on a positive note.

Working remotely as a team, at times, means you need to overcommunicate. Our teams check in at least once, if not more, every week on an all-team video call. We rely more heavily on our project management systems to make sure we’re hitting deadlines and meeting milestones. And, we encourage team members to ask questions immediately to help them move forward. If it feels like a more complicated subject, question, or even response, it’s best to just pick up the phone and have the conversation.

Again, because our Realty ONE Group offices were set up to support busy real estate professionals on the go, we’ve had a very smooth transition to being fully remote during the pandemic.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

We created our company to have a very dynamic Coolture (Cool + culture) so that it could withstand any fluctuations in the market or economy, and we’ve only seen it strengthen during this time. Not only are we all still working, but we’ve focused in on ‘seeing’ each other and our entire network of real estate professionals through daily and then weekly Town Halls and special events. Our intimate teams host happy hours as a way to still get ‘together,’ share, and enjoy each other personally.

To stay closer connected in the communities where we live, work and serve. To be better brothers and sisters to our neighbors, and make a positive impact in people’s lives. We’re able to achieve that across 44 states with Realty ONE Group

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Avoid the drift. No lazy river!

Thank you for these great insights!

Kuba Jewgieniew of Realty ONE Group: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Matt Zilli of Clarizen: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS

Make sure you understand your customer’s business. Painfully obvious, I know. But I’ve seen too many SaaS solutions that effectively solve some pain point, but don’t really connect to a customer’s overall strategy. If you’ve identified a pain and you think you have a solution, I recommend starting from the top down. See if you can find out that customer’s business strategy and priorities, and then see if you can pitch your solution as not just solving a pain point, but as accelerating their strategy. If the answer is yes, you’re on to something.

As part of my series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Zilli.

Matt Zilli is the Chief Executive Officer for Clarizen, the global leader in enterprise collaborative work management. He drives the company’s strategic vision to help enterprise customers become more agile. Previously, Mr. Zilli held executive positions at Adobe and Marketo (acquired by Adobe in 2018). He previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Marketo, overseeing Customer Success, Consulting and Global Enablement. He supported Marketo’s growth from ~$60M in revenue for seven years through the $4.75B acquisition by Adobe.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

My career started with Texas Instruments, working with customers on their semiconductor needs. It didn’t take long for me to realize that if I was going to convince someone to invest years of their time building a product with TI chips, we better be a great partner with them to make sure they were successful. That thinking carried over when I moved into enterprise software, where I’ve spent my career in sales, marketing and customer success. Nobody wants to work with a “vendor” so I always emphasize the importance of truly being a good partner to my teams.

The biggest challenges I ever faced involved going through acquisitions. It is one of those unique events where you’ve been so focused on building a great company, working with customers, partners and team members on a strategy, and it all changes overnight. All of the sudden, those same customers, partners and team members are looking to you for answers you likely don’t have. But I’ve always been an optimist, and I’m always driven by the value we’re delivering to customers. Nothing gets me as motivated as hearing from a customer about how we’ve changed their reality for the better. So, in times of great change, I usually focus there — because if your customers will stand behind you, everything else is easy.

I started as CEO with Clarizen on March 31, 2020. As you’ll recall, by then state shutdown and stay-at-home orders were widespread. The vast majority of Clarizen employees were already working remotely so I didn’t get to experience the typical “first day” at a new company where you shake hands with colleagues and associate names with smiling faces. I was in the office for only a few minutes to pick up my laptop and then it was back to my living room which has served as my personal headquarters for the last five months. Throughout that time, I’ve had to adapt to running a company and building customer relationships virtually and as hard as it was for me, I knew it was something that many of our customers were experiencing for the first time so I wanted to do everything I could for them.

So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Embracing uncertainty is something we’ve found ourselves talking about a lot lately. When I took the reins at Clarizen, it was fight or flight. Between the time of accepting the position in February and officially starting as CEO, the world changed. If I didn’t embrace the uncertainty with a steady hand, we would be in a very different spot as a company than we are right now.

I had many similar conversations with our customers and found that they focused on three main areas to navigate that uncertainty and be able to come out on the other side. First is visibility. Companies that have perfect visibility to how work gets done in their organizations have a lot more confidence in navigating this pandemic. Second is productivity. I don’t mean just the productivity of their team members, but how they maintain and increase productivity across the entire ecosystem of their employees, customers, partners and vendors, especially when everyone is working virtually. Lastly, and most importantly, is adaptability. The leaders I speak to demonstrate their grit every day when they talk about being adaptable, committing to changing as the circumstances around them change.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I remember one project early in my career that was massive — I was tasked with analyzing the global available market for one of our products. I spent weeks collecting data and building what I thought was the perfect analysis. I got to the end and presented it to a group of people. They fired question after question at me about my approach and methodology, about my calculations, about my conclusions. It was clear they weren’t buying into what I was selling. My boss at the time was in the room and after the meeting he asked me two questions: “Do you think your conclusions were correct?” I, of course, said yes. Then he asked, “does it really matter if they’re correct if no one believes you?” That was an eye-opener for me. The lesson here was really about the way I delivered this project — working incredibly hard, but in a vacuum, and completely certain that having the perfect answer would be enough to convince people. As I learned that day and many times since, the power is never in delivering the “right” answer to someone, but instead, it’s in how you bring people along to your point of view, even if it takes hours upon hours of work along the way to do so.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I’m always positively surprised when I hear customers characterize Clarizen as a system of record for their work and how work gets done. It has emerged as a common theme in many of my early conversations and I think that is what sets us apart. Many software and work management companies offer products that help people manage a project. But being able to provide a solution that works for them — from major Fortune 500 companies to small businesses or individual departments — is something that we take a lot of pride in at Clarizen. And that pride goes one step further when we hear from those customers of instances when being able to access that “system of record” has made a positive impact on the people within the organization.

I recently spoke with a customer in the spring who was on the verge of reducing its workforce due to the pandemic’s economic blow. It was a common story — they faced an uncertain future and asked every department to make headcount cuts. But our customer was able to perfectly quantify the work their team was doing and its financial impact on the business. That info was shared with the company’s executives and the team did not have to eliminate a single position. The value of having a system of record for the work being done at a company, by departments, and by individual teams is incredibly valuable. It unlocks new processes and depths of understanding that they never had before. Companies need that now, more than ever.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

2020 has turned all of our lives upside down from both the professional and personal perspectives but I think there is one thing in particular that sets this year apart. It has proven that work can happen anywhere and at any time. That has certainly been true for me. It can happen during the 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. window; it can start at 7:00 a.m. when I get back from walking my dog; it can happen after I put my kids to bed. And because work can happen anywhere and anytime, making sure we help each other and are understanding of everyone’s home situation is even more critical. To that end, I have three tips to share.

First, be collaborative in scheduling meetings as well as setting and agreeing to deadlines. Work shouldn’t stop, but be open to the fact that your weekly status meeting may need to change when personal obligations pop up for a team member.

Second, set boundaries and stick to them. Working remotely takes some getting used to. There is no question about it. In a sense, it can be harder to change gears from “work life” to “home life” when you’re working remotely because the physical barrier is far less than if you were going to an actual office building. But it is still important to distinguish between the two and arguably it is more important to do that in today’s climate because we all need to take care of our mental and emotional well-being.

Third, roll with the punches. I had an instance last week when my video conference call was dropped because my preschooler logged into his video conference class. Pre-pandemic, a situation like that would’ve put many of us, myself included, into a negative, stressed mindset. In 2020, it is just life. I logged back in and made a joke while the rest of the participants empathized, and then we got back to work as if nothing happened.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

The unequivocal answer here is my wife, Corey (and not just because she’s looking at me right now as we’re sharing our home office). She’s been my amazing partner for the better part of a decade and I wouldn’t have accomplished much of anything professionally without her help. But professionally, there’s one more person I must mention: Chandar Pattabhiram (CMO, Coupa). I often tell people that the two hardest transitions people make professionally are moving into their first role managing people and then moving into their first role managing managers. Learning how to lead people directly requires a thick skin and an open mind. Learning how to lead people who you don’t manage directly takes that to the extreme. Chandar believed in me when I was making that second transition. He personally helped me grow through his coaching and that of the people he introduced me to. He gave me plenty of opportunities to succeed (even after a couple of failures). Without him, I may never have learned how to really lead a team through the good times and the bad. I owe him a lot!

Clarizen has 1,000 customers currently utilizing its products as their work management solution of choice. Clarizen One is an adaptive and effective work management solution that provides a comprehensive look at all work streams within an organization. Clarizen Go, which launched last year, is a robust task management solution that is the easiest way to drive agile adoption within an organization. Here are the three main steps we’ve taken to achieve this success and grow our customer base.

Step 1: We listen to our customers. Our customer relationships are incredibly important to us because we understand the trust they put in us to manage all of the work being done by their entire organization. We proactively solicit their feedback to find out what’s working, what’s not working, and how we can make Clarizen solutions better in helping them achieve their business goals.

Step 2: We pivot without ego. The feedback we gain from customers isn’t put in a virtual filing cabinet and forgotten. Over the years, Clarizen has updated the features within our portfolio of products as a result of direct customer input on what would be better for them. I speak with customers every day, and the insights they provide have a direct impact on our product roadmap.

Step 3: We regularly step outside of our comfort zone. We talk a lot about agile methodology at Clarizen because that is where our roots are. Clarizen One was created to help software developers adopt the Agile methodology of project management. Over the years, we’ve found that being agile isn’t just akin to the software industry. It is a concept that has weight in other industries. We’ve adapted our solutions to help companies in other verticals transform to realize the benefits of becoming more agile.

What is your monetization model? How do you monetize your community of users? Have you considered other monetization options? Why did you not use those?

We understand that adopting a work management solution isn’t an overnight process, nor is it a one-size-fits-all approach. Our goal is always to align our goals with our customer’s goals, and that goes for our monetization strategy, as we want to make sure customers pay for the areas where they receive the most value. Our customers pay a subscription fee that varies based on the components they use most and on the number of users leveraging those components. We’ve toyed with other models over the years, but always with the goal of aligning our monetization to real customer value.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful app or a SaaS-based solution? Please share a brief explanation or story for each.

I’ve spent my career in business-to-business solutions, for the past decade in SaaS, so I’ll give you my take from that perspective. The five most important things people should know are obvious, but let me explain where I’ve seen them go wrong:

1. Make sure you understand your customer’s business. Painfully obvious, I know. But I’ve seen too many SaaS solutions that effectively solve some pain point, but don’t really connect to a customer’s overall strategy. If you’ve identified a pain and you think you have a solution, I recommend starting from the top down. See if you can find out that customer’s business strategy and priorities, and then see if you can pitch your solution as not just solving a pain point, but as accelerating their strategy. If the answer is yes, you’re on to something.

2. Small improvements aren’t good enough. A lot of SaaS providers underestimate the cost of change. Improving something by 5, 10, or 15% usually isn’t good enough because the time and cost of change management isn’t worth the upside. I still get SPAM emails to this day offering SaaS solutions to improve my customer satisfaction by 10% or reduce my OPEX by 5%. Truth be told, I can do 100 things to improve by 10%, and most of them will be easier than adopting a new SaaS solution. If you can help me improve something I care about by 30% or more, then we’ll talk.

3. It takes more than just a great product. We have to provide solutions that people are willing to pay for, which means we have to translate a customer’s pain into dollars — increased revenue or saving costs. The road is littered with apps that were a great or a novel idea, but don’t really solve a significant pain or wouldn’t ever have a big enough impact to get the blessing of a CFO. For B2B SaaS, a good test is to speak with CFOs early and often. If you can’t convince a CFO of the value of your SaaS solution, then don’t bother building the product.

4. Don’t dismiss sales and marketing. Yes, it still happens. There are founders who believe their SaaS product will sell itself. In the B2B world, it turns out most employees don’t know how to buy software. So, you might win over a user with a free trial, but is that worth anything to your business? It’s critical to view your revenue engine as a system: Product to Marketing to Sales. Once you have a great product, there’s real magic in marketing it to the right audience and more magic still in a sales team that can translate a product into a business solution companies are willing to pay for. The Product/Sales/Marketing engine powers high growth SaaS companies.

5. Constantly revisit #1. As businesses grow and bring on more customers, it’s easy to let those customers dictate your roadmap. Many SaaS companies fall into the trap of prioritizing the wrong items because “customers asked for them.” I’m all for listening to customers, but we have to make sure we never lose sight of their overall business priorities. Fixing a feature here or there may improve customer satisfaction in the short term, but far too often, those features didn’t really improve the business value you were providing. The most successful SaaS companies solve this by constantly innovating, clearly communicating a vision of where you’re taking your solution so that your customers can buy in for the long haul.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I’m a big news consumer — can’t get enough. I would love to start the movement to bring back investigative journalism, harkening back to the days of Woodward and Bernstein. The constant firehose of information most people have access to across news media, editorial media and social media means we all have access to individual tidbits, but it’s too hard for most people to really capture the complete, fact-based picture on any issue. I dream of the good that would come from healthy debate of key issues in the world, which starts and ends with journalists who are empowered to investigate and publish truth.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can always follow me personally on LinkedIn or check me out on Twitter at @mattzilli. For Clarizen, check out our website (www.Clarizen.com) or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Matt Zilli of Clarizen: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.