Monday, October 28, 2013

The Secret to My Company's Fast-Growth: Cognitive Diversity

The Secret to My Company's Fast-Growth: Cognitive Diversity 
A brain researcher explains the team-building approach that has helped land her firm on the Inc. 5000 list three years in a row.

This marks the third straight year that my organizational development company, Emergenetics International, has landed on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America. And it's the fifth year in a row I've added a new office location. How did my company go from a desk in my basement and one phone line to this?
I can tell you about evolving products or smart investments or strategic risks that paid off. But really I believe it comes down to people. I have incredibly-smart, driven people who work at Emergenetics. But it's more than that. After all, many defunct companies were filled with plenty of brilliant people. The real distinction is that my people think differently.
When I say differently I don't mean creatively. I literally mean that I have different kinds of thinkers on my staff. I often tell people that cognitive diversity fuels an organization and I can point to my own company as proof. I see it just by taking a look at the diverse thinking and behavioral profiles that make up the people in my offices.
But it's the employment of that diversity of thought that takes Emergenetics to new levels of growth. You need to value that cognitive diversity, empower people to use it, and create an atmosphere that stokes collaboration. 
Here's how I've learned to do just that:

Communicate Openly About Cognitive Diversity
At Emergenetics, my employees proudly display their (multicolored, naturally) profiles on the walls. This helps create an atmosphere of openness. Each person can understand how conversations are likely to go with other staffers--and who to tap for a different way of thinking or action. Even without this visual anchor, you can create an open, hyper-aware atmosphere at your own company by pushing your people to be open and communicative about their unique perspectives and approaches.

Deliberately Hire All Thinking and Behavior Types
It's no accident that my management team exhibits all of the Emergenetics Profile types. In fact, the aggregate profile of all the people in all our offices, both domestically and internationally, is almost perfectly balanced between analytical, conceptual, social, and structural thinking preferences. This is in spite of the fact that many people on the team possess dominant preferences in one or two areas and mere slivers in the others.
The overall company profile also pegs the team smack in the middle of the behavior spectrums of expressiveness, assertiveness, and flexibility. This is all by design. I know that the more diverse the employees are as individuals, the more cohesive we are as a team. Fill your own team with diverse thinkers and behavior types, and let them live according to their natural preferences. If you've got a lot of one type of thinking or behavior, seek out dissenting voices.

Put Your Diversity to Work
This is what is truly fueling Emergenetics' growth. I could have an impressively diverse management team, but if I weren't taking advantage of it, it wouldn't make a difference.
If you think about the typical CFO, you might envision an analytical and conceptual, driving person, but I try to think about the bigger picture, too. My CFO is an analytical thinker, but she also exhibits a large structural preference, and behaves in a quiet, deliberate, and focused manner. She knows what projects she's best-suited for and who she can work with to get other things done best. I know how she might fit with a cross-functional team, and whether or not she prefers to host a business lunch, or be crunching data at her desk.
And that approach is pervasive. Here's what I mean:
  • The gregarious members of the management team are cultivating relationships and leading workshops
  • The "structural" office manager is also the social client services manager
  • The vice president of education has a personal profile that is nearly the same as the overall team profile, meaning she can relate to almost anyone and adapt to any situation in order to convey important messages
  • I don't have people working on strategic visioning who would be more productive and happy putting a project plan together
  • My international satellite offices employ the same approach, which means that the "conceptual" and "social" vice president of marketing in the U.S. knows he'll get different kinds of insights from his "analytical," "structural," and "conceptual" counterpart in Singapore.

Make Cognitive Diversity a Core Part of Your Culture
My team is comprised of visionaries, task-oriented folks, and individuals who possess multiple thinking preferences. Their behaviors span the gamut, too. As a group, we bring a wealth of perspectives, and each one is valuable. Everyone is empowered and, in fact, expected to contribute their uniquely valuable perspectives. Make your culture one of both valuing diversity and expecting that it will make a difference.
The truth is I strive to always have the right people doing the right work, which has allowed us to grow seamlessly as an organization and better serve clients.




By: Geil Browning



Source: Inc.



Friday, October 25, 2013

Achieve More: Replace Deadlines With Schedules

Achieve More: Replace Deadlines With Schedules


As anyone who has ever pulled an all nighter in college or basically lived at the office to get a product launched can tell you, for most of us deadlines are quite motivating. Having that big red circle on your calendar coming closer and closer is the only way to get yourself towards meeting the goals you've set for yourself, right?
Not really, suggests a thought-provoking recent post from entrepreneur James Clear. While time pressure may have a place in driving you to overcome that final hurdle to an important achievement, Clear argues that if you really want to accomplish more, you need to swap schedules for deadlines.
What he’s advocating isn’t meandering around aimlessly with no specific end date in mind, of course. Instead, Clear advises we focus less on that endpoint and more on the process to structure our time. If we fixate on where we want to get to and "don’t magically hit the arbitrary timeline that we set in the beginning,” he warns, “then we feel like a failure -; even if we are better off than we were at the start. The end result, sadly, is that we often give up if we don’t reach our goal by the initial deadline." So what does he suggest instead?
In my experience, a better way to approach your goals is to set a schedule to operate by rather than a deadline to perform by. Instead of giving yourself a deadline to accomplish a particular goal and then feeling like a failure if you don’t achieve it, you should choose a goal that is important to you and then set a schedule to work towards it consistently. That might not sound like a big shift, but it is.
The complete post walks you through what this looks like day-to-day, using diverse goals from exercise to writing. It doesn't matter what you’re trying to accomplish, the same principle applies, he writes:
Productive and successful people practice the things that are important to them on a consistent basis. The best weightlifters are in the gym at the same time every week. The best writers are sitting down at the keyboard every day. And this same principle applies to the best leaders, parents, managers, musicians, and doctors.
The strange thing is that for top performers, it’s not about the performance, it’s about the continual practice. The focus is on doing the action, not on achieving X goal by a certain date.
If Clear has convinced you that you need to spend less energy setting goals and more setting practice schedules, then the next logical question is how to get the most out of all that practice. It’s a question for which psychologists have answers, including being deliberate in how you approach practice and making sure you get plenty of rest.



By: Jessica Stillman


Source: Inc.






Monday, October 21, 2013

A Really Busy Person's Guide to Work-Life Balance

A Really Busy Person's Guide to Work-Life Balance 


When it comes to who has the toughest work-life balance challenges small business owners might plausibly make a case for a top slot, but academic scientists are right there with them. A highly competitive work environment, long hours, and frequently moves between cities and institutions are all part of the game, so how do the women who take up these sorts of careers manage to balance them with a happy home life?
And better yet, how do women who study the human brain manage their lives so that they work for their professional ambitions as well as the peculiarities of the wiring in our heads?
That’s the premise of a long round up advice from female neuroscientists on the blog of the University of Washington’s Fairhall Lab.

Some Cliches Are Correct…

… it does in fact take a village, the women agree, but our modern views of childrearing sometimes keep us from embracing help. "Throughout most of history, there were many people who played a role in the raising of each child. Mothers, fathers, grandmothers, sisters, brothers and whoever happened to be standing around. It’s the natural way of doing things, except that we live at a funny cultural moment wherein that normally collective job largely falls on the shoulders of one person: the mum," explains Anne Churchland of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories.

“When my children were first born, I drafted complicated schedules wherein my husband and I could offset our work hours to minimize the time our son would be in the care of others. This was fine, but we also minimized time with each other, and my life got much easier when I accepted the fact that, realistically, I needed a lot of help. A LOT,” she concludes and the other commentators largely agree: fighting the cultural pressure that causes mothers to feel guilty for leaving their kids in the care of others leads to happier parents and better socialized kids.

Having Money Matters

This may seem obvious, but all the talk of optimal schedules and choosing caregivers can mask the brutal truth we all know but sometimes fail to mention -- the more money you make, the easier it is to manage the juggle. "Spend money on services," recommends Ila Fiete, a professor of neurobiology at University of Texas, Austin. "Hire babysitters, house cleaners, gardeners, lawn mowing services, any logistical help you can manage to outsource... I cannot recommend this more highly."
For academics the takeaway from coming to terms with this reality is simple: advocate for yourself. "Ask for raises because childcare is expensive," says Catherine Carr, a biology professor at the University of Maryland. Leslie Vosshall of The Rockefeller University is equally blunt: "Earn enough money to make all this work. Children are expensive." For small business owners who have no one but themselves to appeal to, it may be worth taking a hard look at how you price your products and whether you can squeeze any more profit out your business -- even if that means a bit more time away from your family.

Your Kids Can Be a Help Not a Hurdle

This is a big one and comes up again and again in the women’s responses. Yes, of course, kids are demanding, but depending on how you raise them, they can also be a big asset in your struggle to fit it all in. "When time is tight, it’s so easy to just do everything for kids rather than teach them or wait for them to do it slowly. But if you don’t give them the time they need to become independent, they will stay dependent and that is much more frustrating in the long run," says Gwenn Garden, a professor of neurology at University of Washington, Seattle. "I heard the suggestion about storing plates and cups in low cabinets and drawers from an older woman scientist several years ago and immediately implemented it for my step-daughters. At age 5, my daughter already helps empty the dishwasher, gets her own cups of water and helps get everything ready for breakfast." This approach doesn’t just make parents’ lives easier, the women note, it also boosts kids’ confidence.  
"Children today are all geniuses. It’s amazing! Their parents tell you how they can count to 100 at age 4 or play symphonies at age 3 or read Shakespeare at age 5. A miracle! However, these geniuses are almost uniformly clueless about how to load the dishwasher, put away laundry or make a sandwich," observes Churchland, who notes that "parents are usually aware of this fact and frustrated by it- who wouldn’t like a little help around the house? But the parents of the geniuses devote all their parental resources to cultivating the genius and far fewer resources towards skills that would actually be of use. Cultivating useful skills does take time and thought, but the payoff is huge!"

Ignore Others’ Judgements

"Try not to waste time worrying about what your senior colleagues think," advises Garden, who came to this realization after she noticed sensible people don’t obsess over their colleagues’ arrangements: "I couldn’t remember much about my colleagues actions like whether or not the were regularly present and departmental functions or faculty meetings or did their ‘fair share’ of administrative or teaching responsibilities. The only things I remembered was the last time they presented their research or the buzz around a high impact publication. Once I realized this, it became easier to avoid, say no to and/or leave in the middle of a lot of things when what I would rather be with my husband and daughter."  
It’s also important not to judge yourself. "No matter what, be gentle with yourself.  As women, we are often our own harshest critics," says UC Berkeley’s Marla Feller.

And a Final Bit of Advice…

If your husband or partner isn’t as helpful with logistics as you want him to be, the University of Washington’s Adrienne Fairhall says you should try to be understanding. His brain is most likely to blame: "My husband’s inability to do family logistics is, I have learned, not universally but statistically significantly gender-characteristic and is not to be attributed to personal failings."

This may seem like a lot of advice but the scientists were all generous enough to provide lengthy responses, so there’s much more to read in the complete post if you’re interested.





By: Jessica Stillman




Source: Inc.


Friday, October 18, 2013

How Entrepreneurs Come Up With Great Ideas

How Entrepreneurs Come Up With Great Ideas



Where do eurekas come from?
At the heart of any successful business is a great idea. Some seem so simple we wonder why nobody thought of them before. Others are so revolutionary we wonder how anybody could've thought of them at all.


But those great ideas don't come on command. And that leaves lots of would-be entrepreneurs asking the same question: How did everybody else get inspiration to strike—and how can we work the same magic?
To find out, we turned to the experts—the startup mentors who discuss launching businesses at our Accelerators blog, as well as other investors, advisers and professors who have seen and heard countless success stories, and entrepreneurs who have written success stories of their own. They saw inspiration coming from all sorts of sources—everyday puzzles, driving passions and the subconscious mind.

Here's what they had to say.

Look at What's Bugging You
Ideas for startups often begin with a problem that needs to be solved. And they don't usually come while you're sitting around sipping coffee and contemplating life. They tend to reveal themselves while you're hard at work on something else.
For instance, one company of mine, earFeeder, came about because I wanted news on music I loved and found it hard to get. So I created a service that checks your computer for the music you have stored there, then feeds you news from the Internet about those bands, along with ticket deals and other things.

David Cohen 
Founder and CEO, TechStars
***

You're Never Too Old
Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Paul Allen and Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with Apple -- those success stories lead some people to think that coming up with big ideas is a young person's game. But the tech entrepreneurs who rose to early fame and fortune are just the outliers. The typical entrepreneur is a middle-aged professional who learns about a market need and starts a company with his own savings.
Research that my team completed in 2009 determined that the average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are aged over 50 as under 25, and twice as many over 60 as under 20.
Vivek Wadhwa 
Vice president of academics and innovation, Singularity University
***

Be Present in Life
Start your brainstorming with problems that you are personally invested in. Building a business is hard as hell and takes the kind of relentless dedication that comes from personal passion.
The next big question is "How?" Great ideas and innovations come from executing on your idea in a different way than everybody else is attacking it, if they're attacking it at all. A great way to do this is to look outside of your industry to see how others are solving problems. Approaches that they think are routine might be out of the ordinary for you—and inspire great ideas.
Also, most businesspeople tend to ignore our creative side until we really need it. Making sure that your life has a balance of the arts is a great way to stay engaged creatively.
This last tip will seem insanely obvious. However, in the world we live in, it's easier said than done: Simply be present in life.
I'm sure you can relate to how overconnected we all are. Something as simple as having a cup of coffee becomes a juggling act of replying to emails and managing schedules. It's easy to miss a potential piece to your innovation puzzle when it's right under your nose if you aren't there.
Angela Benton 
Founder and CEO, NewME Accelerator
***

Ideas Are Abundant; Drive Isn't
Perhaps the greatest factor that determines whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful isn't the business idea itself, but rather the entrepreneur's willingness to try (and keep trying) to turn the idea into reality. Great ideas are abundant, but it's what we decide to do with them that counts.
Samer Kurdi 
Chairman of the global board, Entrepreneurs' Organization
***

Let Your Subconscious Do the Work
When the mind is occupied with a monotonous task, it can stimulate the subconscious into a eureka moment. That's what happened to me. The business model for my company, ClearFit, which provides an easy way for companies to find employees and predict job fit, hatched in the back of my mind while I was driving 80 miles an hour, not thinking about work at all.
The subconscious mind runs in the background, silently affecting the outcome of many thoughts. So, take a break and smell the flowers, because while you're out doing that, your mind may very well solve the problem that you are trying to solve or spark a solution to a problem you hadn't considered before.
Ben Baldwin 
Co-founder and CEO, ClearFit
***

Attack Practical Problems
Make a note whenever you encounter a service or a customer experience that frustrates you, or wish you had a product that met your needs that you can't find anywhere. Then ask yourself, is this a problem I could solve? And how much time and money would it take to test my idea?
That last point is crucial. As my sage Stanford professor Andy Rachleff encouraged me, "Make sure you can fail fast and cheaply." In business school, I had a couple of big ideas. One was improving domestic airline service—which would have cost millions and taken years. I decided to pursue another opportunity that was a lot cheaper and would show results faster—a clothing line called Bonobos.
In the end, it took me just nine months and $15,000 of startup funds to get a little traction and market feedback.
Brian Spaly 
Founder and CEO, Trunk Club
***

Head Into the Weird Places
For entrepreneurs to stretch their brains, they should seek out the unusual.
Watch and listen to weird stuff. I enjoy watching obscure documentaries and listening to unusual podcasts. It's thrilling to find cool ideas lurking just a few clicks away.
Walk in weird places. I take walks in hidden suburban neighborhoods, department stores, community colleges. When you're walking with no purpose but walking, you see things in fresh ways, because you have the luxury of being in the present.
Talk to weird people. Striking up conversations with people who are different from you can be powerful. I still remember random conversations with strangers from decades ago, and how they shaped me.
Victor W. Hwang 
Co-founder, CEO and managing director, T2 Venture Capital
***

Search for a Better Way
As one goes about their daily life, it is useful if they routinely ask themselves, "Isn't there a better way?" You would be surprised at how frequently the answer is, "Yes." Other sources of inspiration for me are existing products. One should never feel that just because there is a product out there similar to yours that you can't execute it and market it better.
Liz Lange 
Fashion designer

***

Think Big
There are several factors an entrepreneur should consider when choosing a business idea or opportunity.
Go big or go home: There are opportunities to make money by building businesses that marginally improve on existing products or services, but the real thrill sets in when the decision is made to go after an enormous idea that seems slightly crazy.
Make the world a better place: The best kind of entrepreneur pursues a business that simplifies or improves the lives of many people. He or she repeatedly asks "what if" when thinking about how the world works and how the status quo could be dramatically improved.
Fail fast: As overall startup costs decline and markets move much more quickly, it has become easier to test ideas without devastating consequences of failure.
Pivot quickly: Many of the most successful companies exist in a form that is entirely different from how they were first envisioned. A successful entrepreneur will realize when a company is moving in the wrong direction or is missing a much larger opportunity.
Kevin Colleran 
Venture partner, General Catalyst Partners
***

Taking It to Market
It is important to look at an idea in two ways: first, to consider the initial inspiration for the business, and second, the often very different concept that ends up being executed to create the new company. We typically think of these ideas as the thing that sets these great entrepreneurs on the path of success. However, an idea is only that until you do something with it. Great entrepreneurs also discover the strategies to deliver the new innovative solution to the market.
Ellen Rudnick 
Clinical professor of entrepreneurship and executive director of the Michael P. Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
***

Listen to People Who Know
Entrepreneurs come up with great ideas in a number of ways. Here are some of the best.
Get customer feedback: Listen to customers and create products and services that give them more of what they like and/or remove what they dislike.
Listen to front-line employees: The workers who manufacture the widgets, interact with customers and so on see what takes too long to accomplish, what is too expensive, what causes problems. Talk to those workers, or even do those jobs yourself.
Reverse assumptions: Many great entrepreneurs come up with ideas by reversing assumptions. For example, the old assumption was that a bank needed to have tellers and branch locations. The ATM concept asked: How can we offer banking services without having a branch location and tellers?
Dave Lavinsky 
Co-founder and president, Growthink Inc.
***

Get Inspired by History
You often hear about the pursuit of the new new thing. But I believe entrepreneurs have a lot to gain by looking into history for inspiration.
In the mid-'90s, some beer enthusiasts and experts called us heretics for brewing beers with ingredients outside of the "traditional" water, yeast, hops and barley. So, I started researching ancient brewing cultures and learned that long ago, brewers in every corner of the world made beer with whatever was beautiful and natural and grew beneath the ground they lived on.
We now make a whole series of Ancient Ales inspired by historic and molecular evidence found in tombs and dig sites.
Sam Calagione 
Founder and president, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Inc.
***

Be Prepared to Shift Gears
Entrepreneurs need to understand two things. For one thing, their first (or second or third) idea is often not the real opportunity. In fact, it might stink. They have to be on the lookout for why it stinks and be willing to shift course.
But they also need to understand that even if their idea has problems, there's often a good opportunity buried within it. They need to talk to people and continue tweaking and transforming it. In the process, they encounter setbacks, rethink their approach, try again and redefine what they're doing.
For all that, the idea may fail—it's happened to many successful entrepreneurs. But they weren't deterred by failure. They kept at it and were better positioned to recognize and shape the next idea into something truly great.
Donna Kelley 
Associate professor of entrepreneurship and Frederic C. Hamilton chair of free enterprise, Babson College
***

You Can't Rush the Brain
I don't know where great ideas come from. I am not sure anyone does. I am not even sure how I come up with my ideas. The brain does its thing, and out pops an idea.
While you are waiting for the brain to get its act together, do what you can do. Do the doable. Meet with people, schmooze, have a laugh or two. Build mock-ups and prototypes. At the very least, collect other people's problems. That's always a guaranteed doable.
The deep idea here is that action has a creative aspect distinct from thinking. And thinking need not come first. Mostly it doesn't.
Saras D. Sarasvathy
Isidore Horween research associate professor of business administration, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business
***

What Not to Do
One thing that isn't a rich vein of entrepreneurship gold: reading a market forecast from a big-name consulting firm and deciding to create a product to serve that need.
Guy Kawasaki 
Author and former chief evangelist of Apple





By: The Wall Street Journal 



Source: Huffington Post