Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
There’s not a lot on TV that I like, but I used to really enjoy Shark Tank. Past tense; haven’t watched in several years. Why? Two words: lifestyle products. With very few exceptions that’s what was being presented, whether an app, a product or a service. I understand that entrepreneurs create stuff that will get funded, and while I’m not saying they are bad investments or that the entrepreneurs don’t mean well, I am saying that I don’t care about them. They won’t change the world or even improve it. Uber and Lyft are good examples; they haven’t decreased traffic, as they claimed they would, in fact, they’ve increased it. Most in the “life style” category are focused on “personal care.” (Have you noticed that sometime in the recent past “personal growth” morphed into “personal care”?) More packaging in the landfills, more time on the screen, more focus on self — so not my mindset.
Innovation isn’t nearly as mind-boggling today when compared to what startups were doing in the late Seventies/early Eighties when I started working with them.
A recent Reuters report found that the majority of Silicon Valley startup founders that receive Series A funding come from the same pedigreed cohort: either they previously worked at a large, well-known tech firm, a well-connected smaller tech company, they previously created a successful startup, or they come from one of three universities—Stanford, Harvard, or MIT.
It’s been 15 years since I first wrote about the proclivity of managers to hire people like themselves and more over the years showing it leads to homophily and the negative impact that has on a company.
It seems it’s no different for investors.
They are funding people like themselves who were raised, educated and worked along paths similar to their own who they either know or are introduced to them by a friend.
“Like a lot of the investments [Instacart] that have come our way, a friend of a friend talked to us about it, and told us about it, and encouraged the founder and the CEO to come and chat with us. One thing led to another.” –Sequoia partner Mike Moritz
When you fund from a homogenous group, no matter where they are, creativity and innovation are watered down, because those groups tend to be insular and badly interbred talking mostly to each other.
If you’re fishing from a pond of rich white guys, you’re mostly going to get ideas that address the needs of rich white guys.
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
Good, bad or silly, ideas for products are generated in response to a problem or need. It doesn’t matter if the problem/need only exists in the entrepreneur’s mind (think Jucerio), it’s still the driving force behind creating whatever. So what happens when there are no perceived problems? When the current whatever is treated as THE solution? Innovation takes a nosedive and monopolies thrive.
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry when I see ads for stuff that responds to voice command, especially when it’s for stuff like changing the TV channel. I guess that using the remote takes either too much energy or too much intelligence to work it.
Everything today is about convenience, a trend I’ve been suspicious of, although I wasn’t sure why.
However, after reading an op-ed piece by Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia and the author of “The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads,” called The Tyranny of Convenience I’m starting to understand what about it makes me itch.
In the developed nations of the 21st century, convenience — that is, more efficient and easier ways of doing personal tasks — has emerged as perhaps the most powerful force shaping our individual lives and our economies.
Granted I’m known as a digital dinosaur, but there are some conveniences — washing machines, telephones, cars, email, and Skype chat, among them — I’m all for — although I see no reason they need to be smart .
However, I have no cell phone, avoid any app, service, etc., provided by Google, clean my own house, wash my own clothes, shop for my own food, and do my own cooking just as I’ve done since I was 18.
I search using startpage.com, no ads, no tracking and my life functions just fine without always being connected. I’m not on social media and don’t suffer from FOMA; I meet friends for meals and fun and we talk on the phone in-between.
I suppose that all sounds very inconvenient these days, but I’m never bored and enjoy the feelings of accomplishment that come with doing stuff yourself, as well as figuring out better ways to do it — it’s called ingenuity.
I’ve seen many “convenient” items come to market years after I came up with a similar approach to use for myself.
Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows (emphasis mine).
Professor WU (or someone) needs to do a follow-up article entitled, “How Convenience Killed Creativity and Strangled Entrepreneurship.
I first wrote about Six Words back in 2009 (here and here) and again in 2013 (here).
Six Word was started by Larry Smith after hearing about Earnest Hemingway.
When challenged to tell a story in six words, Ernest Hemingway came up with “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”
I signed up and have since enjoyed all the varied thoughts and ideas offered in just Six Words. More than a million people have contributed their thought6s and ideas..
Last week my email had something special that isn’t online. It came from Larry’s son, Lucas.
From the email.
“I wanted to get involved, so I worked with him to have kids write their best life advice.”
The piece was print only in the special monthly [NYT] kids’ section, but you can read proud dad’s backstory here.
I read The NYT online, but have no access to the print edition. However, Lukas shared his favorites.
The authors may be young, but you could do a lot worse in life than taking their words to heart.
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
Sheesh. It seems as if most of the articles I link to and the resulting posts are all focused on fixing or avoiding negative stuff. So this week I wanted to focus on positives, whether quotes, like the ones below, or other positive news. Enjoy and, hopefully, smile.
Together, these five disparate thoughts pack enough wisdom to live from youth to old age and never go wrong.
“Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.” –Karen A. Roberto, director of the center for gerontology at Virginia Tech (I wonder if all those friends at Facebook and Twitter count?)
“Never let your ego get so close to your positions that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.” –Admiral H. G. Rickover (I call it ego merge and it’s a definite no-no.)
“That’s what keeps life moving forward, focusing on what we can do, rather than getting caught up in what we can’t.” –Trisha Meili, The Central Park Jogger (Words of wisdom from a woman who knows.)
“Small Minds Talk About Others, Mediocre Minds Talk About Themselves, Great Minds Talk About Ideas.” –Eleanor Roosevelt (Which do you have?)
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” –John Milton, Paradise Lost (True when Milton wrote it and just as true now.)
Monday was about dealing with jerks in your workplace and yesterday about managing lazy co-workers.
What about bosses? Where are they? Why is it being left to workers to deal with problem co-workers?
Over the years (decades, actually), I’ve heard all the excuses — ‘I can’t be everywhere’, ‘I’m working on it’, or the ubiquitous ‘I’m busy’.
Those are the “good” excuses; here are the bad ones — ‘they’re really good at [whatever]’, ‘they’re a friend/relative of X’, ‘they’ve been here since the beginning’, and, in some ways, the worst ‘deal with it’.
Being self-motivated and self-managing should not include having to manage your colleagues.
That’s the boss’ job and why they make the bigger bucks.
I’ve never forgotten what Terry Dial, who eventually became vice chairman of Business Banking at Wells Fargo, told me decades ago when I was a recruiter, “People are 90% of our costs as well as the key to customer service and satisfaction. The only thing that should take priority over hiring a new employee is keeping a current one.”
That hasn’t changed in all these years.
Which begs the question, what are the bosses doing?
Avoiding direct interactions by hiding behind social media and chat apps, just as they hid behind email and, before that, memos.
Sometimes it’s because they are promoted in spite of not being a “people person,” which has nothing to do with whether they are extroverts or introverts.
Good bosses know that when someone is messing up, hurting or one of the other myriad causes of less than optimum behavior, it’s their responsibility.
Yesterday we took another look at the effects of, and how to deal with, jerks in the workplace. Today’s guest post by Ariel Schur addresses a different problem, i.e., colleagues who don’t pull their weight.
Most of us have dealt with a lazy colleague at some point in our professional career. They do the bare minimum, but just enough to fly under the radar. Coworkers like these unfortunately have the capability of single-handedly undermining group work or projects with looming deadlines. Yet, somehow, they have managed to remain employed – and some even manage to get ahead! Are employees simply supposed to grin and bear it? What can we do when we’re saddled with a lazy coworker?
There are effective ways to combat this issue at work and potentially change that colleague’s behavior moving forward.
Speak to your colleague directly
Approach your colleague with your concerns, relate their performance back to how it affects you. For example, “I’ve been taking on a lot of your work assignments lately and it’s preventing me from getting my own work done”, or “I had to re-do your part of the project because it didn’t follow the requirements”. Making them realize how their shortcomings are affecting the performance of yourself or the group is the first step if you want their behavior to change. From there, talk about ways to hold each other accountable and hold up each end of the bargain for future collaborations.
It is usually best to first try approaching your colleague with your concerns before going to your manager. Not only is this proper workplace etiquette, but why take the problem to someone else if you may be able to solve it on your own?
Document all correspondence
Any e-mail, conversation transcription, group notes, etc. will be helpful. Keeping a paper trail of all written (or verbal) communication is important for two reasons; 1) so you can remind your colleague of all the times you talked to them regarding the issue, and 2) you’ll have examples to bring up to your boss or manager, in the event that you do have to talk to them about the situation. If it does need to be reported, I suggest going directly to whoever is overseeing the project or would hold you responsible if the work is not completed.
Keep a Positive Attitude to Avoid Adopting Their Work Ethic
It’s easy to let a coworker’s laziness affect your attitude at work. You may even feel tempted to think “well, if they’re not going to do it, neither am I” – but that’s a bad idea. Your reputation is directly correlated to your performance and that is not worth risking. If you talked to your colleague and/or supervisor and do not see a change, do not let it influence the work you’ve put in. Always remain professional and continue to be the conscientious worker you are!
Dealing with lazy colleagues is never easy. Talking to them about the issue is often times enough for things to improve, but in some instances you may be required to take extra steps. Try to work with them, keep track of all the problems that arise as a result of their slack, and do not let it affect your own performance. Taking these steps to combat the issue are sure to make your life at your job easier moving forward.
Ariel Schur, LCSW is the CEO and sole founder of ABS Staffing Solutions. Her high-touch, service-oriented approach has been a refreshing change to the industry. Ariel prides herself on developing highly customized relationships with clients so that they can find the right employee matches for any and all employment needs. Ariel has set a new standard for the “boutique” approach to staffing. Her work model is time-intensive, specifically tailored to her clients’ specific needs, and all-encompassing to provide the highest quality experience.
Poking through 13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
People. Whether at work or in your personal life, how you choose to respond to people is usually the make or break of any situation. That is especially true when dealing with someone’s negative actions.
I’m in love — with a man I never met, never spoke to, never followed or chatted with online.
His name is Rich Waidmann and he’s founder and CEO of Connectria Hosting.
I love him because when he started his company he consciously set out to make it a great place to work.
That means it’s a job requirement at his company that every employee treat everyone else with courtesy and respect as well as “going the extra mile” to take care of people in the community who are less fortunate
Then his company did a survey and found that
More than half (55%) of 250 IT professionals in the US. surveyed said they had been bullied by a co-worker. And 65% have said they dreaded going to work because of bad behavior of a co-worker.
Waidmann believes it shouldn’t be that way so he’s starting a No Jerks Allowed movement in an effort to encourage better cultures.
Way back in 2007 Stanford’s Bob Sutton wrote The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, but looking at the stats I’m not sure how much good it actually did.
The Talmud says, “We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.” Moreover, it’s often as we are that particular day, or even minute, and even as we change, minute to minute, so do others.
Jerks are known to lower productivity and kill innovation, so a lot of good information on identifying and dealing with jerks has been developed since Sutton’s book came out.
Contributing to that effort, here are my four favorite MAP attitudes for dealing with jerks.
Life happens, people react and act out, but that doesn’t mean you have to let their act in.
Consider the source of the comment before considering the comment, then let its effect on you be in direct proportion to your respect for that source.
Use mental imagery to defuse someone’s effect on you. This is especially useful against bullying and intimidation. Do it by having your mental image of the person be one that strips power symbols and adds amusement. (Give me a call if you want my favorite, it’s a bit rude, but has worked well for many people.)
And, finally, the one I try to keep uppermost in my mind at all times
At least some of “them” some of the time consider me a jerk—and some of the time they are probably correct.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
