“Meditate? Who, Me?” Yes, You

“Meditate? Who, Me?” Yes, You

The Beatles did it, Oprah is all over it, Lena Dunham started at age 9, Ariana Huffington swears by it, calling it the “third metric of success” along with money and power…why not you? “The #1 Health-Booster in 2015: Politicians, Children and Celebrities are Doing It – Shouldn’t You?” trumpets the cover of a popular magazine.

As a mindful meditation novice, I have been experimenting with what works best for me, having been told by many that “Er, you have the kind of personality that could benefit”. Alright, I admit I am the impatient type. But it can help anyone.

Research has shown that mindfulness can literally change your brain. It reduces stress, increases focus, and increases grey matter associated with learning, memory and compassion, decreasing the part linked to anxiety.

If you are considering adding meditation to your life, here are some pointers.

Different strokes for different folks: You may try a few different techniques or programs until you find what works for you…do not despair! I was introduced to meditation at a company leadership offsite, where a presence no less than Deepak Chopra came to show us the way. I then visited the Buddhist Center in town to participate in a few Sunday morning sessions. I finally found what works for me with the Headspace.com app, where a Britisher ordained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet came back and decided to spread the word. Find your own way.

You might not “get” the raisin thing…and that’s OK. One of the first exercises that is often suggested in mindfulness is to eat a raisin, immersing yourself in the texture, thinking about its origin as a grape in the sun, focusing on every aspect of the experience of eating the raisin, living in the “now”. I have to tell you, if you don’t quite get it, that’s OK too. Forgiveness and tolerance is a big focus of meditation, and that includes your relationship with the raisin. It’s not about success or failure to do something. Keep going.

Guided meditation versus “on your own”: Some people are able to sit in silence and meditate, focused on their breathing, minus any external help. And more power to them. The more restless among us, however, may need help to stay focused. Enter the concept of guided meditation, where someone talks you through the entire 10-20 minutes (or more), giving you the means to visualize calmness and blue sky, to focus on breathing, to ask yourself the right questions as you meditate. As my brain has a tendency to stray to the next twenty thoughts, this guidance is hugely helpful to me.

Know your limits and respect them, it’s all OK. Seven-day silent meditation retreat? I know people who have done this, but it’s certainly not me…or maybe it will be me some day in the very distant future. Or maybe not. I listen with envy to friends who successfully complete such journeys. But I know myself well enough to say that to commit to twenty minutes a day is all I can do. And when I feel like a day off, that’s OK too. I don’t flog myself into an agony of guilt. The wonder of forgiveness.

What does it get you? The interesting thing to consider is, as Headspace asks, “Who are your doing this for?” You are doing it for yourself, but also for those around you. If you are less stressed, if you can lift yourself above the clouds of everyday issues, you are probably going to be a nicer person to be around. If you can think about what to appreciate in the “now”, it will let you live more easily with what isn’t quite how you want it as well.

And all the while, it is changing your brain for the better, at the price of 10-20 minutes a day.

Sounds worth a try?

 

Originally published on LinkedIn

The Vision Thing: It’s a Must-Have

The Vision Thing: It’s a Must-Have

Every company needs a vision. And not just a lofty pie-in-the-sky, fifty thousand foot vision. Salesforce had a vision the founders wrote down on paper the first year the company came into existence as a startup in the founder’s apartment. It described the methods by which the company planned to achieve that vision. And measurable goals to define if success had been achieved.

Today, more than fifteen years later, the V2MOM: Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles and Metrics, written anew every year, is a corner-stone of the company. It starts right from the top, from the CEO and the company leadership, and acts as a unifying theme that permeates every corner, every employee in the company.

Sounds too formulaic? Some companies, especially startups, feel that this is too structured an approach, too much a “big company” thing. They feel that the vision needs to be organic, ever-evolving with the creativity of the employees. As one CEO of a tech startup told me, he felt that companies could stifle this creativity with an overly structured approach.

What they fail to see is that, especially as a company grows, the vision, shared among the first five or ten people, does not organically spread through the rest of the company; this can result in confused employees, frustration and wasted effort. As another startup CEO said, every time the company doubles, you need to rethink how communication within the company occurs; “water cooler” virality no longer works.

And when it comes to creativity and innovation, Salesforce is a stand-out…having a V2MOM clearly has not stifled the creative DNA of the company as it has gone from a single-product CRM startup to a broad solution-selling juggernaut.

Every employee has to write his or her own V2MOM, with a clear view of the company’s and the team’s V2MOM. It is a simple formula with which to guide the company, and to give employees at any level clear line of sight as to how the work they will be doing aligns with and supports the company. It’s a great way to measure accountability against goals. And a great way to give everyone a view of how their efforts are meaningful to company outcomes.

Over the years, it is clear that every next V2MOM builds on the last, while also incorporating the next “big thing” on the horizon. And the need to create the V2MOM means the leadership team has to agree on priorities in the coming year, and employees then gain clarity over the focus. In a rapidly changing environment, the V2MOM becomes a vital tool in communicating direction to employees.

As Benioff says, “the biggest secret of Salesforce is how we’ve achieved a high level of organizational alignment and communication while growing at breakneck speeds.” And he attributes this to the V2MOM.

As I advised one startup CEO, putting pen to paper on a company V2MOM can incite meaningful discussion in its creation, and enormous clarity for a fast-growth company in its execution. The vision thing works!

Originally published on LinkedIn

So You Want to Be Hired? Starting on the…

So You Want to Be Hired? Starting on the Sales Ladder

So you want to be hired as a first-time salesperson? You really want to get on the first rung of the sales career ladder. What distinguishes the great from the mediocre? How do you stand out from the crowd as a future rock-star?

Having interviewed, hired and promoted thousands of junior wanna-be salespeople who now successfully populate sales teams at most of the top technology companies in the Bay Area, my team and I spent a lot of time figuring out what to look for. What really distinguishes the great from the mediocre?

Competitive drive is critical. Competitiveness does not necessarily need to be against others, as long as you can display intense competitiveness with yourself, show you set a high bar and can demonstrate the drive to get there. A common way this is looked at is “do you play a sport?” However, someone may have no interest in sports whatsoever and still can be a great hire.

In an age where consultative selling has become increasingly important, you should show that you listen to the needs of any prospective customer, and that you are able to influence others to understand why the product meets their needs. Role-playing during interviews is a common way that companies hone in on whether these skills are present in a candidate. Make sure you know the product and practice your pitch to an imaginary customer before you get to the interview.

Risk-tolerance, comfort with change, and the ability to learn quickly can be very important in fast-growth companies where the product is evolving, the offering changes and expands, and hence “what’s important” can change too. Can you share examples that show your tolerance for ambiguity, your ability to turn on a dime, to handle new situations and environments well? What examples can you provide from your past experience?

Independence and resilience are traits that bode well for a future career in sales; being able to handle “No”, assessing how long and hard to keep trying, and knowing when to give up are all closely associated with these skills. Share examples where you have shown the ability to push through tough circumstances and approached problems creatively.

Fit with the culture of the organization and team is vital, as well as passion for the company. For the right candidate, the day-to-day interactions with the rest of the team and the learning that comes from this is invaluable. Make sure you educate yourself regarding everything about the company that you can get your hands on.

Try to meet as many employees of the company as possible so you can get a feel for the culture and whether it feels “right” for you. At the same time that you are being assessed as a potential hire, you will want to understand how the role impacts the business, and whether others in the role have had the opportunity to progress in the company. After all, you want to make sure of these things: a meaningful product to offer, an impactful role and the chance to come to work every day to learn from and to enjoy the company of those around you.

If you get an offer, congratulations, you have just made your first sale. Done right, you can gain a great career experience and a stepping stone to the next rung. Let the selling begin!

Originally published on LinkedIn

I Am Woman…Boo-hoo? Not!

I Am Woman…Boo-hoo? Not!

It could be depressing. Heck, it is depressing. Study after study showing unconscious bias against women. Data piling up on female vs male ratios and diversity, the latest from Amazon showing, like many other tech companies, that it is heavy on white males, and heavy on male managers. Join the crowd.

But I ask you, is there danger of a downward spiral here? Is there a risk that women will take all this evidence flooding in, and unconsciously use it as a reason they need not expect to succeed? Even worse, if you are a minority and a woman, are you doomed? Double whammy.

When I first started blogging on LinkedIn a few months ago, I was pleased and somewhat surprised that women really seemed to rally round and share topics relating to women’s issues. But as I thought about it, I have grown increasingly worried that there may be a “victim’s syndrome” underway. Sharing can be a sign of bonding, but it cannot be, and must not be, a huge united cry of depression and angst. How to get around that? How to impel the movement forward? Some ideas…

Take it on yourself to educate the men in your life on what the issues are: at home, at work, talk to your father, son, uncle, manager, boss. Evangelize in your company, your team. Help #HeForShe, which educates males and enlists them in the cause of gender equality, to get wider exposure with the men around you so you can do your bit to make it better for the next woman.

Many women in “assertive-aggressive” environments struggle to make themselves heard. It is vital that you find your own way to make yourself visible. Or maybe it is time to go somewhere else where your voice is audible and appreciated.

Many women do not get what they are worth, because they do not negotiate salary. Take it as a sign that you will be different…however uncomfortable the conversation, however much you don’t want to be rejected, give it a shot…you never know!

Research shows women sometimes don’t help other women succeed. Be the one who gives a helping hand.

The list of things we can do to make it better goes on and on.

Everything we are hearing doesn’t need to be a sign that you should give up because “Boo-hoo, the world is a hard, unjust place”. Instead, we need to treat it as a goal to reach for, to be successful despite everything, and to make it better by influencing those around us so they understand what needs to change, and why.

As Tim Cook CEO of Apple, wrote recently of publicly announcing he is gay, “All it does is allow me to…know that I am doing my part, however small, to help others. We pave the sunlit path towards justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.”

And as Katy Perry sings in her cliche-heavy but energy-filled hit “Roar”:

“I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath
Scared to rock the boat and make a mess
So I sat quietly, agreed politely
I guess that I forgot I had a choice.”

Originally published on LinkedIn

Teetering on the Career-Family Tightrope?

Teetering on the Career-Family Tightrope?

Have you ever felt guilty because it seems like you are shortchanging everyone and everything? Shortchanging your family, your job and even yourself? Woman or man, it can affect anyone. I certainly have felt this way at times.

Some thoughts that might help you as you navigate balancing on the tightrope:

New parent compromises are worth it: Not all of us can have a mini-nursery in our office a la Marissa Meyer. The rest of us had to figure it out as we went along. The one thing I would say is, your life changes so enormously after you have a baby that ideally, you should change other things as little as possible. You need to first figure out how your life needs to adjust to accommodate a small but very demanding person, so ideally you should not change jobs or companies soon after your new baby happens. Give yourself time to get used to it before you change other stuff; stability is key.

Get a lot of help (and don’t apologize): It really does take a village. If you can afford it, get the nanny, get the cleaning lady, and do a lot of take-out. If you can’t, then remember a messy house is not the end of the world. If your mom or mom-in-law or aunt offers to help, take them up on the offer, even if they “always know what’s best” for the baby. Remember that when they are small, your kids are looking for affection and warmth and someone to feed them and wipe their tears. It’s OK that this person isn’t you some of the time.

Your spouse and you are both doing a LOT more than you used to: In addition to dealing with the day-to-day issues of your careers, both of you will have a mountain of new everyday stuff to deal with at home with the baby. It can result in each of you feeling resentful that you are doing so much more than you used to, and often makes you feel that this must mean your spouse is not doing enough. Cut yourself and your significant other some slack, take a deep breath, talk it over…they do grow up one day, though it sometimes feels like it’s taking a very long time.

Flexibility at work becomes really important: I took some months off from work when my son was around six, and I volunteered to be “pizza mom” at his school. One of the other kids went home in great excitement, declaring, “You know, Vik really DOES have a mom!” For me, it was a big “Aha” kind of moment. Work is important, but there are other things that matter too…like getting to know his friends, and being able to watch the school play, or stay at home to hold his hand when it hurts. Look to see how you can deliver what you need in your job, but still have time during the week to meet some of these personal commitments.

Teenagers need you even more: So your baby is growing up. You think, “finally he doesn’t need me as much. Great, I can focus on my career, no more dashing to the doctor, no more waking up at night.” Sure, they don’t need you every minute like your baby did. But make no mistake, the attention your teenager needs is much more personalized; when they need help, they need YOU. Make sure you have enough emotional energy at the end of the workday to spend time with your teen so you can hear and interpret the often disguised and subconscious cry for help, for advice, for solace.

No one said it would be easy. While staying home with your kids is a wonderful alternative for those who want to do so and can afford to do so, for some of us, the frustration and sense of sacrifice in having to “give up a career” could be so strong that, in fact, you wouldn’t be the better parent for doing so, and you would be doing your child no favors.

What do you think?

Originally published on LinkedIn

Your Recruiting Machine on Steroids: Run Recruiting Like Your…

Your Recruiting Machine on Steroids: Run Recruiting Like Your Sales Pipeline

In the best companies, sales pipeline is run like a well-oiled machine. What if you ran recruiting as a mirror image of how your company manages sales pipeline?

Sales pipeline, done right, is managed with clear accountability and timelines, tight metrics to assess every stage of the funnel, and strong urgency to close the deal. Having driven sales pipeline generation for more than a few years, the parallels are clear.

Track effectiveness at every stage of the funnel: The sales funnel for B-to-B tracks opportunities closely as they move from stage to stage, with targets, forecasts and dashboards to match. The recruiting funnel, too, should be driven by systematically assessing conversion rate and elapsed time from receiving a resume (a “lead”) to first screening to interview and so on, all the way up to “close”. And then, as in Sales, you can hold people accountable for outcomes. You can see where the gaps are, and you can understand what the best practices are.

Run inbound follow-up and outbound prospecting as separate and distinct entities. All inbound leads should be reviewed, assessed for viability and followed up with promptly. In Sales, it is proven that the faster the follow-up, the better the outcome. In Recruiting too, you want your company to be viewed as responsive, and you want to get to the good candidates first. How often have you heard “I have already accepted another offer…?”

It is equally important to proactively seek out potential candidates that look like a good fit. Always be prospecting for new opportunities, versus just being satisfied with what comes to your door. It is important to have separate goals and ideally separate recruiters for inbound versus outbound efforts.

Develop assets needed to drive credibility: Sales always demands content and events to help find opportunities, and to help these opportunities progress through the pipeline. Similarly, Recruiting also needs to work with the business to create assets and events that give prospective candidates a compelling view of the culture and career opportunities in the company. In today’s media-rich, social sharing environment, assets such as “Day in the Life” videos on the website, a strong Facebook presence, and positive GlassDoor ratings are all essential.

Close with urgency: Show the love. Close with urgency. In fact, approach every stage of the process with urgency. You need to show the desired candidate that there is a great fit, and that you are eager to move ahead. As in Sales, you need to show as much energy as possible to put an offer on the table that is mutually beneficial, and demonstrate that you are eager to close the deal.

Assess why you lost: In Sales, deals are scrutinized to see where, why, and how often you lose to the competition, to be able to respond these situations to win in future. If you find many of your candidates in the engineering organization are being lost to LinkedIn or Twitter, for example, then you need a plan to position competitively against them. Why are you a better option?

Sales rock-stars are recognized for closing lots of business; make sure you recognize and reward your recruiting rock-stars too. These are invaluable resources, and are in much demand. Build a culture that celebrates them and rewards them for these successes.

Managing your sales pipeline well makes your quarter and your year…managing your recruiting pipeline well makes your future.

Originally published on LinkedIn

Don’t Ask for a Raise, Trust Karma

Don’t Ask for a Raise, Trust Karma

Do you wonder what advice CEOs would give women? Twitter was abuzz with the advice to professional women everywhere from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Nadella was addressing thousands of women at the Grace Hopper technology conference yesterday.

He suggested that women should embrace their superpowers and expect a raise to come from good Karma. “It’s not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will give you the right raise.”

It’s interesting to reflect on this advice, in an age where the data shows clearly that women consistently earn less than men for equivalent roles and experience.

In fact, what you hear most is that women tend to be less forthcoming in their requests for raises, and just “expect good things to happen”; hence they end up being disadvantaged compared to male counterparts.

What it does underline is that even the most enlightened CEOs in technology, those who commit to change and to diversity, sometimes may be unaware of the extent of inequalities and the “unconscious biases” that women encounter. Or, if they are aware, may not have considered the need for a systemic approach to leveling the playing field.

Many great CEOs are “talking the talk” on the need for diversity, especially given the data released voluntarily this year by top tech companies that demonstrate lack of ethnic and gender diversity. It’s a beautiful thing that this realization is dawning. The question is, how does this translate to “walking the walk”?

It is clear that the intentions are good. We should applaud Nadella for spending the time to deliver the keynote at a women’s tech conference; it sends a great message. And Nadella did apologize in a statement made after his speech. The question is, how do good intentions translate into measurable action?

If this is the view from the top, i.e. a wonderful but somewhat naive belief that “good things will happen to those who deserve it”, then it is hard to imagine a push from the CEO to put in place explicit programs to combat issues and encourage women.

Do these CEOs embrace job shadow programs, mentoring, events to promote networking and to coach women on what it takes to progress professionally? Do they ensure that men are engaged in these efforts as well?

Do they regularly review trends on women and diversity by group, by level of seniority in the company? Many tech companies have released data that about thirty percent of their work forces are women; few talk about what it looks like at senior levels. If sales take a downward path, the alarm is sounded loud and clear; if gender mix does the same, does it have similar visibility with the executive team?

Do these CEOs hold senior management accountable for ensuring that eligible women have been considered as candidates for open roles? For sure, no one should ever get a job because of gender or ethnicity, but sometimes a deliberate emphasis can help ensure a comprehensive view of all eligible candidates.

These are just some examples of what companies are beginning to do, ideally with support from the CEO and the senior executive team.

Increasingly, companies with enlightened CEOs are putting in place a plan, and the hope is that more will do so….and maybe one day, it will become part of the company DNA.

On behalf of women everywhere, the devout hope is that it is not just left to Karma.

Originally published on LinkedIn

Not-So-Secret Sauce for Customer Delight

Not-So-Secret Sauce for Customer Delight

How do you keep customers happy? Engaged? Successful? Delighted?

By the time a customer is deciding whether to renew your service or to buy more from you, it is too late to change their thinking. Think ahead and get ahead. And remember that it is not just the responsibility of the customer support team to drive customer delight; any part of the company that touches the customer experience drives the outcome. Product management, marketing and sales all have important roles to play.

Some themes that will get you ahead in the game:

“First Use Equals Success” should be a key objective of the product team. How easily your product is installed, learned and used has huge impact on customer happiness and subsequent adoption. Especially in a company serving individuals or small businesses, it is critical to provide the right tools to have customers self-serve installation and troubleshooting, ideally without needing human touch. Product marketing can also play a role in creating the tools (eg videos) to enable understanding of the product and how to integrate/install. Enterprise companies can benefit as well; providing good online help/FAQs, building and supporting strong customer communities where customers can help each other is invaluable.

Adoption is king (a.k.a. renewal happens looong before renewal happens). If you are lucky enough to offer a cloud-based product, the wonder of SaaS is that you can usually get real-time adoption information. You learn who and how many people are using your product, how often they use it, and what functions they use most. These early warning signals provide valuable insights for customer support. It also provides great feature/functionality feedback for product teams. Communicate with customers often; share best practices and trouble-shooting tips. “Show them the money”: by telling them how your product is helping them; quantify whenever you can. Renewal decisions never really happen at the time of renewal; its about the customer experience and perceptions of price-to-value developed right from the start of the relationship.

Sales is NOT a dirty word, even if you work in customer success. Many customer support reps feel that identifying opportunities to sell the customer more “stuff” is in direct opposition to their primary mission of problem solving and helping the customer to be successful. Far from it…if the customer support rep is able to identify a need during conversations with the customer, and this need can be met with a product the company offers, it is a win-win for both. It is not often that a company gets to interact directly with a customer after the initial sale; a customer support interaction is a prime avenue to learn more about needs and then satisfy them.

Customer evangelism is the goal. It is not just about engaged customers, it is about customers ready to proclaim the wonderfulness of your product to everyone around them. Always true, it has become even more important in today’s socially connected world. “Net promoter scores” have become important for a good reason; you need your customers to be wildly excited about what you do for them; the payback in brand awareness and referral business is invaluable. It is about finding those people at your customers who are innovators and promoters for you and giving them recognition as superstar evangelists. It is about learning from them when you need feedback. If you can develop a culture that promotes customer evangelism, you have hit gold.As Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, says “The future of communicating with customers rests in engaging with them through every possible channel….Customers are discussing a company’s products and brand in real time. Companies need to join the conversation.” 

Originally published on LinkedIn

You Say Tomato: Leading a Global Team (and Still…

You Say Tomato: Leading a Global Team (and Still Sleeping at Night)

You always hear “think global, act local”, but how do you translate this into action? And how do you make sure the guy in Singapore doesn’t always get stuck with the 11 pm conference call? What do you need to consider when you are leading a global team spread across many countries?

I started out thinking consistency was critical. One thing I learned as I grew a team of customer-facing reps to 4x its size in seven countries is how important it can be to adjust for regional differences, whether they are cultural, market-driven or scale-driven. Sensitivity to these nuances can drive the difference between success and failure. One big takeaway? Listen hard.

“You say tomato…”: Cultural differences, both in how people like to do business, and in how team dynamics work, are vivid. Communication norms vary widely. For example, in Japan, as I learned, an inside sales rep calling a prospective customer on the phone will often bow when speaking to a senior person, no matter that the customer cannot see him. This same approach also governs how someone prospects for new business; a hard sell is not the best approach anywhere, but even less so in Japan. It also impacts the degree to which you will hear someone flatly disagree with someone else in Japan; listening for nuances is important, or you may miss critical unspoken issues.

Another aspect of communication relates to group dynamics. When I hosted an Asia Pacific video conference call for team members from both Singapore and Sydney, the call was typically dominated by questions and comments from the Aussies. I learned over the years that in Singapore, the best way to get feedback and perspectives from team members is through skip-level one-on-one calls or even better, meetings in person when I visited.

Hiring practices and cycles can differ widely. In Europe, notice periods when hiring are long, and employee-friendly regulations can make parting company with any employee an extended process. In Japan, hiring tends to happen right after the biannual bonus cycles. Direct hiring in Japan is in its infancy, and while this is changing, most hiring occurs through an agency, even at relatively junior levels. It is important to be aware of these factors, as it affects the rapidity with which one can hire or promote to meet demand, both key aspects to manage in growth companies.

Size matters…and so do market differences: You can, and should, design processes based on the common functions performed across all teams, irrespective of country. Clearly it is optimal to take best-in-class learning from all teams and share across regions. There are, however, certain elements that you will need to modify based on the market, either due to sub-scale team size or due to market differences. For example, a team of five people in a market that is new to the company may need a very different compensation structure than a team of a hundred people in an established market where the brand and the sales trends are better known.

Uncertainty in emerging markets due to unknown market dynamics could drive a different approach to everything from segmentation to marketing to messaging. In a load-balancing experiment, we had a top Aussie sales rep follow up on sales leads from Singapore and India. It became rapidly evident that the different level of awareness of each market (and of the prospective buyers) made the experiment a failure, as the “pitch” needed to be very different.

Some things ARE the same everywhere: People are people, and at the most fundamental level, what motivates them and drives excellence is the same everywhere. We instituted Top Performer lunches in the US, with top performers being taken to lunch every month by a senior executive. The European management team was very doubtful that this approach would work in their region. The sentiment was that this was “too American” an approach. We decided to give it a try, and, lo and behold, these lunches soon became a very popular and sought-after institution. The desire for recognition is universal.

I also learned that the passion and energy, and the core competencies required to be successful in the same job function are fundamentally the same everywhere, though the way this passion is displayed may manifest itself differently based on cultural norms. In every market, I was energized by the enthusiasm and commitment of top performers, no matter where I was.

Time-zone travails: How do you create unity with a team in diverse geographies without a common time-zone when they are all working? How to even survive the urgent issues that arise in time zones that span from 8 hours ahead to 12 hours ahead of one’s own time zone? I cannot pretend to have discovered an easy solution to this one. I managed it by clearing out email at 9 pm (to pick up urgent issues from Asia Pacific) and 7 am (to cover most of Europe’s daytime email), and doing calls from home when urgently needed.

It is important for the whole management team to feel that discussion and decision-making is shared across geographies. However, practically and humanely speaking, there is no way to have Japan, India, Singapore, Australia, Europe and the US on the same call at the same time. We handled it by having two staff meetings. Not the most efficient, but the most inclusive for sure, with outcomes that were more reflective of the needs across regions, with more buy-in and hence better adoption.

Bringing people together: As the leader of a global team, it is vital that every member of the team gets to hear your leadership message and how their work is impacting the company. While you cannot be everywhere at once, hosting regular calls with the full team to share performance, innovation and to celebrate is instrumental in creating cohesion and a mission-driven approach across the globe.

For a global team to truly feel like One Team, it is critical to bring the members together at some level to network, share and spark the team spirit. We found that, at a minimum, an annual management offsite created the personal and professional relationships necessary for the managers to get to know each other. Based on that foundation, they started to share, posting pictures of new babies and of new ideas and experiments alike. Virtual online and phone/video-conference calls created the continuity and frequency needed to cement the bonds established in person.

Sometimes it is cost-prohibitive to bring individual employees together in person. The creation of mentoring relationships and best-practice sharing calls between people in different markets can also work to drive relationships and networking across regions. For example, we found that Latin America and parts of Asia were similar in terms of market awareness of our product, hence sharing of success tactics between reps was very beneficial. Similarly, the roll-out of spiffs and contests across regions or countries built a shared focus and awareness.

Globalization is a tricky business; there is always tension between universal consistency and the need to reflect regional differences. Each functional role will vary, as will different markets, depending on the life-stage of the company and the product. One thing that I do know: despite the travel and the occasional dinner-time calls, the learning I gained from leading a rapidly growing global team is invaluable, and I would not have missed it for anything.

Originally published on LinkedIn

Five Steps to a Happy Boss…and a Happy You

Five Steps to a Happy Boss…and a Happy You

So, how much time do you spend thinking about your manager and how their day is going? Ever think about the fact that a happy boss is a wonderful thing? And, done right, is a direct path to a happy you? Managing upward, i.e. learning how to deliver the greatest value to your own manager, is as important as managing down to ultimately progress in one’s career and to deliver maximum value to the company.

Five tips to manage up successfully:

What are your boss’s priorities? Hopefully he already knows yours. You should have already agreed on your own priorities with your manager, and should regularly revisit them together (If you haven’t, it would be a good idea). But how many of us are clear about our manager’s priorities, and what they need to deliver to be successful? It is critical to have this perspective, as your priorities can and should be affected by the bigger picture of what your manager wants to achieve. Going above and beyond on an initiative that has far-reaching impact for one’s manager and the broader team is a great thing to do and a great way to make oneself valued.

Can you make her life easier? One of my employees marched into my office early in her tenure and announced, “I am here to make your life easier. How can I help?” The simplicity and wonderfulness of the offer is something I still remember ten years later. Sometimes, a manager hesitates to delegate the more tedious tasks to her team members, and just does it herself. Sometimes, this is not the optimal use of the manager’s time. A carte blanche offer to help with “whatever needs doing” can be invaluable.

How does he like to communicate? Take the time to understand how your manager likes to work. Speak with others who have worked for him in the past, to understand what type and frequency of communication is optimal. Communication styles vary widely. Some people prefer that you share only the final conclusion, others want to dive into the details. Does your manager prefer an organized presentation of a proposed solution, or does he want to brainstorm with you and the team to come to conclusion? Does he like “drive-by” drop-ins or does he find this distracting? Learn how he likes to receive and absorb information, and work to deliver on it. Your interactions will be much more mutually rewarding.

Know when, and how, to say no: There are times when the workload is just too heavy, and that next project, that next request, just cannot happen. Make sure you bring it up as soon as you realize it is an issue, the sooner the better. Think hard, maybe there is something else on your to-do list that can slip to make room for this initiative. List your projects in order of priority. When your manager sees the rack-and-stack of all your impending projects, she may decide that this one can wait, or she may place it higher and postpone or eliminate something else. Either way, this transparency will help everyone to gain clarity on current and future efforts and priorities.

Build a relationship: Bosses are people too. Remember they have bad days and good days, and what happens in their personal life inevitably colors their professional lives as well, as it does for us all. New baby? Sleepless nights? Difficult teenager (is there any other kind)? Think about how that might impact their day-to-day life in the office. Ideally, get to know your manager as a person. What excites her? What keeps him up at night on the personal or professional front? Given that most of us come in to work everyday not just for a paycheck, but for the work we do, and, equally important, the people we work with, it is important to get to know those you work with as real people.

It is important that you respect and learn from your boss, and that you can see the value your boss delivers to you and to the company. Sometimes, however, you may find that, try as you might, your style and your manager’s style are so divergent that it is hard to work together. Even if you ultimately choose to find another role, another boss, know that you will gain skills from trying to adapt to a different style of working and communication than your own. And think carefully who you work for next, so that you can learn and benefit from your prior experience. Look for a good fit not only in the skills needed for the role, but also for the optimal match of manager for you and your work-style. A new job is not just about the job, it’s equally about the new boss.

And then, at the end of the day, remember it is “on you” to make it work, and it’s so worth it. Because a happy boss means a happy and successful you too.

Originally published on LinkedIn