Weekly Business Insights from Top Ten Business Magazines – Week 255

Extractive summaries of and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Week 255 | July 29-August4, 2022

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Shaping Section : Ideas and forces shaping economies and industries

The silver linings of a recession

The Economist | July 27, 2022

Predicting a global recession usually means standing out from the crowd. Today it is those saying the world economy will avoid a downturn who are sticking their necks out. America’s Federal Reserve is leading a broad charge to tighten monetary policy, and has raised interest rates by 2¼ percentage points since March. It is expected to impose another point of tightening by December. Europe is short of natural gas because of falling supplies from Russia. Chinese growth has slowed sharply as a result of the lockdowns that stem from its zero-covid policy, and worries are mounting over its fragile property markets.

So gloomy is the mood that many investors are asking whether a recession has already arrived. It is a hard question to answer. The pandemic has played havoc with economic indicators. Inflation has caused consumer confidence to plunge, but when asked about their personal finances rather than the whole economy, people are much cheerier. America’s disappointing GDP figures do not tally with other measures of output or employers’ growing payrolls. Manufacturing surveys register their weakest results since the early days of the pandemic, but that may be because consumers are still rebalancing their spending after the worst phase of the pandemic (there is less buying of home-gym equipment, but more queuing in airports). Even China’s slowdown could help Europe narrowly, by reducing global demand for liquefied natural gas.  

Regardless of whether economies are already shrinking, it is hard to see how they can avoid a recession over the next year as monetary tightening bites and Europe heads into a bleak winter. The silver lining is that both higher interest rates and the energy shock will bring gains that should strengthen the world economy in the long run.  Yet in the same way that a downturn should purge the American economy of its inflation problem, so Europe could emerge from recession having overcome its complacency about the supply of energy.  

Around the world, investment in renewable energy is surging and governments that were previously sceptical about nuclear power—an essential part of a low-carbon energy grid—are reconsidering their opposition to it.   If the world emerges from the coming downturn with inflation under control and on the path to greener, more secure energy supplies, the pain will not have been for nothing.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Global economic mood is so gloomy that many investors are asking whether a recession has already arrived. It is a hard question to answer. The pandemic has played havoc with economic indicators.
2. America’s Federal Reserve is leading a broad charge to tighten monetary policy, and has raised interest rates by 2¼ percentage points since March. It is expected to impose another point of tightening by December. Europe is short of natural gas because of falling supplies from Russia. Chinese growth has slowed sharply as a result of the lockdowns that stem from its zero-covid policy, and worries are mounting over its fragile property markets.
3. Yet in the same way that a downturn should purge the American economy of its inflation problem, so Europe could emerge from recession having overcome its complacency about the supply of energy.

Full Article

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Topics:  Global Economy, Inflation, Recession

Leading & Managing Section

A Simple Way to Introduce Yourself

By Andrea Wojnicki | Harvard Business Review | August 02, 2022

The stress associated with introducing yourself is common and not without a warrant. Everyone’s eyes and ears are on you. It’s easy to mess up. On the other hand, self-introductions are the most direct way to reinforce your desired personal brand. And they can be easy to do.  The secret is using a simple framework: Present, past, and future.

Present.  Start with a present-tense statement to introduce yourself:  Hi, I’m Ashley and I’m a software engineer. My current focus is optimizing the customer experience.  Of course, what you share will depend on the situation and on the audience. If you are not sure what to share, your name and job title is a great place to start. If there’s an opportunity to elaborate, you can also share other details such as a current project, your expertise, or your geographical location.

Past.  The second part of your introduction is past tense. This is where you can add two or three points that will provide people with relevant details about your background. It is also your opportunity to establish credibility. Consider your education and other credentials, past projects, employers, and accomplishments.  My background is in computer science. Before joining this team, I worked with big data to identify insights for our clients in the health care industry.

Future.  The third and last part in this framework is future-oriented. This is your opportunity to demonstrate enthusiasm for what’s ahead. If you’re in a job interview, you could share your eagerness about opportunities at the firm. If you’re in a meeting, you could express interest in the meeting topic. If you’re kicking off a project with a new team, you could talk about how excited you are, or share your goals for the project.

The next time you’re in a meeting and someone says, “Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves,” you know what to do. Take a slow, deep breath, and think, “Present, past, future.” Then smile and listen to everyone else until it’s your turn. You got this!

2 key takeaways from the article

1. The stress associated with introducing yourself is common and not without a warrant.  On the other hand, self-introductions are the most direct way to reinforce your desired personal brand. And they can be easy to do.
2. The secret is using a simple framework: Present, past, and future.  Start with a present-tense statement to introduce yourself.  If you are not sure what to share, your name and job title is a great place to start.  The second part of your introduction is past tense. This is where you can add two or three points that will provide people with relevant details about your background. It is also your opportunity to establish credibility.  The third and last part of this framework is future-oriented. This is your opportunity to demonstrate enthusiasm for what’s ahead.

Full Article

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Topics:  Personal Development, Branding, Presentation

Mission not meetings: How government leaders could avoid self-sabotage

By Sarah Kleinman et al., | McKinsey & Company | June 30, 2022

When thinking about your organization, do any of these bureaucratic habits sound familiar?  For instance, insisting on doing everything through “channels”; never permitting shortcuts; referring all matters to committees for “further study and consideration” and making the committees as large as possible—and never less than five members.  If you’re like many of the government leaders, these habits will sound painful, but not new. And indeed, they aren’t. This list, entitled “General Interference with Organizations and Production,” was published by the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services, in its 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual.

If these are not new then why are so many of today’s government leaders living with pain points that were recommended nearly 80 years ago to would-be saboteurs. And how have some organizations overcome this self-sabotage?

The authors do not believe that public-sector organizations are inherently or intrinsically self-sabotaging. 

Rather,  there are a few root causes that are consistent across many public-sector organizations that struggle with unproductive behaviors.  For example, many competing strategic priorities, without transparency into which are most important and how to measure progress.  Together, such root problems often create a system of incentives that encourage and reward the sabotaging behaviors of individuals within the system—and which, at scale, could result in self-sabotaging government organizations.

Based on their experience, the authors have seen five common elements that have helped some organizations move beyond self-sabotage and thrive. Referred as a “modern enterprise,” these five levers are:

1. Strategy.  Do less, sequence more. Successful organizations are aligned on a handful of priorities, how resources work toward them, and how progress is measured.
2. Structure.  Modern enterprises organize around value creation. Small, cross-functional teams working toward outcomes can unlock progress.
3. People.  Modern enterprises find ways to “get the best and reskill the rest” to ensure that the best minds are working with the skills they need to deliver.
4. Process.  Organizations making progress replace moribund processes and resource-intensive management with a culture of accountability, collaboration, and excellence.
5. Technology.  Modern enterprises move from legacy technology units bottlenecking progress to a less centralized, more responsive model.

What will it take to begin fighting self-sabotage? To address the system, then, leaders may wish to start from the future and work back, instead of falling into the trap of immediately fighting what feel like the worst fires of today.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. When thinking about your organization, do any of these bureaucratic habits sound familiar?  For instance, referring all matters to committees for “further study and consideration” and making the committees as large as possible.  These habits will sound painful, but not new.
2. If these are not new then why are so many of today’s government leaders living with pain points that were recommended nearly 80 years ago to would-be saboteurs. And how have some organizations overcome this self-sabotage?
3. Five common elements that have helped some organizations move beyond self-sabotage and thrive. Referred as a “modern enterprise,” these five levers—strategy, structure, people, process, and technology unlocks—offer a view of what may be possible for government.

Full Article

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Topics:  Public Organizations,  Strategy, Performance

What Makes A Great Leader? 12 Executives Weigh In

By Forbes Expert Panel | Forbes Magazine | August 4, 2022

12 members of Forbes Human Resources Council discuss the leadership skills that hiring managers should be seeking during their recruitment process for executive-level positions and suggest the followings:

1. Well-Roundedness.  Just as leadership skills rank high, so do vision, confidence, the courage of conviction, integrity, transparency, emotional intelligence, adaptability, communication, and in the new normal, empathy.
2. Agility.  Ones that truly scaled, they had an innate ability to show agility when dealing with operational issues, organizational challenges or external forces often times out of their control. This was all while maintaining an engaging and collaborative approach with team members.
3. The Ability To Develop People.  Look at how many employees they have promoted or enabled to be promoted. This is a great indicator that they are a people-focused leader who truly understands how to develop a team. 
4. Empathy.  It is critical that executives relate to employees with compassion. Part of being an executive is being a cheerleader. We need to encourage and inspire others so that they show up and deliver their best every day.
5. Self-Awareness.  Leaders who truly understand their strengths and take an honest view of their development areas tend to be more successful in the long run. Similarly, those with a hunger to continue their growth are ironically the most effective.
6. Resiliency.  With the barrage of challenges that executives face today, resilience equips them to be flexible and adaptable in the face of challenges and change. Add optimism to the equation as a byproduct of being resilient and the sum will support instilling trust and confidence in the leader from the executive’s peers and reporting line.
7. Clear Vision And Communication.  The ability to think with clarity and communicate the same across a wide global audience with simplistic language that is easy to understand and moves people to action should be there.
8. Confidence In Decision Making.  Leaders don’t always have to make the right decisions, but they do make them quickly and confidently, even in uncomfortable environments.
9. Ability To Empower Others
10. Culture Champion
11. Emotional Intelligence.  Executives need to make tough decisions and must have control over their emotions. EI will affect interactions with employees and decisions being made that can change the trajectory of the company.
12. Flexibility.

2 key takeaways from the article

1. When you are searching for the best candidate to lead your team, they don’t always need to be the most knowledgeable but they do need to possess the ability to make complex decisions with the clarity and confidence to move the company and its people forward.  
2. 12 members of Forbes Human Resources Council discuss the leadership skills that hiring managers should be seeking during their recruitment process for executive-level positions and suggest the followings:  well-roundedness, agility, the ability to develop people, empathy, self-awareness, resilience, clear vision and communication, confidence in decision making, ability to empower others, culture champion, emotional intelligence, and flexibility.

Full Article

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Topics:  Leadership, Agility, Flexibility

The Four-Step Process for Redesigning Work

By Lynda Gratton | MIT Sloan Management Review | August 04, 2022

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve expanded our workplace skills, workplace assumptions, and workplace habits. But after the initial excitement of discovering new ways of working, deep fears are emerging.  There’s a growing worry as well that hybrid schedules will result in a fall in productivity, particularly employees’ levels of cooperation and creativity.

There is a widespread feeling that the way organizations work is in need of a structural overhaul, and that the task of moving forward needs to be worked out by more people than just an organization’s top leadership. Leaders who have confronted their fears and set about this task of overhaul have done it by moving through the following four crucial steps:

1. Understand what matters. One fear of leaders is that changing work practices, like working from home, will reduce productivity. Will people work less hard at home? Will they suffer from a lack of in-person collaboration?  To confront this fear, a leader needs to understand with precision what matters: for example, where and how productive work takes place, what people want, and how knowledge flows. For example, the author in a study found that in many crucial tasks, what drove productivity was employees’ capacity to focus, in terms of individual thinking, analyzing, and writing. There are productivity losses when people are in the office with colleagues coming by their desk every two minutes.  But because work, people, and knowledge flow differ across companies, it is no surprise that there are no one-size-fits-all answers. 
2. Reimagine new ways of operating.
3. Model and test new ways of working. A real fear for leaders is that new models of work might be misaligned to the company’s purpose or business strategy. Those who have confronted this fear have explicitly defined their guiding principles and pressure-tested new ideas against them. 
4. Act and create. One legitimate concern many employees could have is that new models of work may end up becoming fads that are never really embedded into the culture of the company or they’ll be discarded at the first sign of a recession or cost cutting. It has been discovered that new ways of working are strengthened by a leader’s role modeling; supported by the pivotal role of managers; and launched through a process of co-creation that engages employees in making design choices and defining accountabilities.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve expanded our workplace skills, workplace assumptions, and workplace habits. But after the initial excitement of discovering new ways of working, deep fears are emerging.  There’s a growing worry as well that hybrid schedules will result in a fall in productivity, particularly employees’ levels of cooperation and creativity.
2. There is a widespread feeling that the way organizations work is in need of a structural overhaul.
3. Leaders who have confronted their fears and set about this task of overhaul have done it by moving through four crucial steps: understanding people, networks, and jobs; reimagining how work gets done; modeling and testing redesign ideas against core principles; and ensuring the overhaul sticks by taking action widely.

Full Article

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Topics:  Job Design, Performance, Productivity

Enterpreneurship Section

Improving Yourself Takes 9.6 Minutes of Work Each Day

By Bradley Hook | Entrepreneur Magazine | July 29, 2022

We live in a time of hyperconnectivity, complexity and fragmented attention.  How can future leaders navigate a world of habituated busyness and micronized attention? Sustained focus is difficult. Left untethered, our minds seek out novelty and relief. Quick video clips, for example, require minimal commitment with the promise of a dopamine hit.  Is order crumbling into chaos? Can we ever again enjoy slow travel, deep work or a lengthy novel?

In fragmentation lies the potential for creation — an opportunity to reassemble the parts into a more coherent whole.  How can we deliberately reassemble the building blocks of our lives into a formation that is coherent, stable, resilient to external stressors, and maybe even anti-fragile, relishing life’s intrinsic volatility?

Micro-habits and macro-change.  In his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear explains how implementing small positive habits leads to dramatic results and sustained change. Professor BJ Fogg of Stanford concurs in his book Tiny Habits.  The premise of both approaches is to identify who you want to become and then deconstruct that identity into micro-habits that can be incrementally scaled up as you gain momentum. Remember, change creates an imbalance. Whether you want to transform yourself or your organization, you’ll encounter resistance.

The power of starting small.  By activating micro-habits, you covertly bypass resistance to change. Instead of going for a half-hour jog when you want to get fit, start by simply putting on your running shoes. Once this habit is as reliable as brushing your teeth, you progress to level two, which might be walking to your front door. Prepare your environment by leaving cues and triggers. Attach new micro-habits to habits that are already robust and reliable.

Can you allocate 9.6 minutes to your growth today and every day of your life? If not, something needs to change. If yes, what will you do?

Here are some ideas to fill 9.6 minutes:

2-minute stretch after waking up

2-minute breathing exercise to establish a baseline of calm

1 minute identifying three things that have gone well (gratitude practice)

2-minute high intensity work out, such as skipping

2.6 minutes for a deliberate micro-break mid-afternoon (go outside if possible)

3 key takeaways from the article

1. We live in a time of hyperconnectivity, complexity, and fragmented attention.  How can future leaders navigate a world of habituated busyness and micronized attention?
2. In fragmentation lies the potential for creation — an opportunity to reassemble the parts into a more coherent whole.  How can we deliberately reassemble the building blocks of our lives into a formation that is coherent, stable, resilient to external stressors, and maybe even anti-fragile, relishing life’s intrinsic volatility?
3. A few suggestions are: identify who you want to become and then deconstruct that identity into micro-habits that can be incrementally scaled up; activate micro-habits, you covertly bypass resistance to change; allocate 9.6 minutes to your growth every day to stretch, breathe, to recall 3 things went well,  to work with high intensity; and for a mid-day mini break.

Full Article

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Topics:  Self Development, Leadership

4 Strategies to Get the Most From Your Sales Team 

By Corey Weiner | Inc Magazine | July 30, 2022

It’s a well-known fact that all CEOs are sellers at heart. You have to be — as CEO, it’s your job to continually sell your product or services, both to your clients and to your own employees. But being a seller and managing a sales team are completely different skills.   Your company’s sales team is your growth engine. Manage it well, and you’ll consistently pull in new business for your bottom line. Manage it incorrectly, and you’ll squander your main driver of growth. 

1. Clarify what your success metrics are and stick to them.  Your success metrics need to be as closely tied to outcomes as possible. Yes, it’s important to track weekly email outreach and weekly meetings (in-person and virtual), but make sure you’re also laying out clear quarterly revenue goals for the team as a whole and each individual seller. Remember, emails and meetings are only as productive as the revenue they generate. Clarify with your team from the start how their performance will be measured and what meeting (or not meeting) these metrics will result in.
2. Track everything, early and often.  Whichever CRM you’re using should be your main source of truth. Log everything. Every email, every meeting, every RFP — even notes on client conversations should make their way into your CRM of choice. Once you have all this data in one place, it’ll be far easier for you to use that data to compare salespeople and make recommendations on how to optimize performance. 
3. Incentivize your team.  No, it doesn’t need to be a car or a set of steak knives. Tap into the competitive nature of your sales team by being transparent: send weekly seller leaderboards showing which people have had the most meetings in the last week, or pulled in the most new business. When it comes to compensation, stick to a rigid, transparent and simple sales compensation structure. Ideally, compensate your salespeople based on net revenue.
4. Not all sellers are created equal.  Like any other specialty, there isn’t one type of personality that is successful in sales, and the best sales managers understand that every personality requires a different management style. Understand that it’s not always the most sociable, outgoing person who makes the best seller, and a diversity of approach and personality is a boon to any sales team. Sales is about offering prospective clients a solution to an important problem — and as long as a salesperson works hard, listens actively, and is an active problem solver, they can be successful. 

3 key takeaways from the article

1. It’s a well-known fact that all CEOs are sellers at heart. You have to be — as CEO, it’s your job to continually sell your product or services, both to your clients and to your own employees. But being a seller and managing a sales team are completely different skills.   
2. Your company’s sales team is your growth engine. Manage it well, and you’ll consistently pull in new business for your bottom line. Manage it incorrectly, and you’ll squander your main driver of growth. 
3. Consider the following as proven sales management lessons: clarify what your success metrics are and stick to them; track everything, early and often; incentivize your team; and not all sellers are created equal.

Full Article

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Topics:  Entrepreneurship, Sales, Selling