What do “Call of Duty” and Gandhi have in common?

I’m not a gamer, but when I hear the phrase “call of duty,” the popular video game immediately comes to mind. In fact, I’ve heard it so much that when I hear the phrase outside of the gaming context, I sit up and take notice. Just what does call of duty mean in the real world? It sounds like a summoning, urging me to take a stand.

Embodying the call of duty
There are so many people who exemplify following that call, but Mahatma Gandhi immediately comes to mind for me. Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa. His call of duty was in representing the resident Indian community’s struggle for civil rights. We all know the rest of the story.

Applied in our everyday lives
I asked some of my compatriots in the Lead Change Group what the phrase “call of duty,” meant to them.

• “A devotion to a Higher Power, principle or value that calls us to step up… The term in its usual context implies both service and a battle.” ~ Page Cole, leadership blogger and self-described student of life
• “In my community, where most members work collaboratively and the hierarchy is pretty minimal, the “call of duty” is each member’s responsibility to step forward first and more often … easing the burden of others.” ~ Deb Costello, author, teacher and passionate about leadership
• There “is the internal call of duty. That is where a great leader adopts and personalizes the calling, truly making it and the mission theirs. The sense of duty becomes bigger, with more depth of scope, and seeing a more broad vision and impact. This type of “calling” will persevere longer in the face of adversity and inspire more to follow and succeed beyond the obligation to merely carry it out.” ~ Paul LaRue, author, writer, blogger, speaker, and encourager of people

What about you?
I’m reminded of the post I wrote a few months ago about behaviors being contagious. On one hand, you find yourself annoyed at someone’s carelessness and in turn, strike out at the next person who crosses your path. Or you observe a good deed, and within minutes find yourself holding the door for another. But the call of duty requires something else. You must initiate the desired behavior first. You must be the role model, the leader. Or, in the words often attributed to Gandhi, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

What is your call of duty? Are you allowing yourself to follow the call?


Mary C. Schaefer is a coach, trainer and consultant specializing in creating manager-employee interaction breakthroughs and work cultures where both organizations and human beings thrive. Connect with her via her EmpoweredManagers blog or on Twitter @MarySchaefer.

How To Be a Leader Without Faking It!

859
iWhat makes it important to understand and stay connected with the core of who you are as a human being? How do you become an authentic leader? How do you know when your actions are less than genuine?

These are some intriguing and deep questions that you may not have thought about. I have — for the simple reason that I believe the answers are important if leaders are to sustain the energy and dedication necessary to to inspire themselves and others.

Inspiring others is part of what you must do, because doing so keeps people engaged and interested in the work at hand. You can’t fake it. You have to feel it. Recent studies in human interaction and brain science have shown us that emotions are contagious, and this goes both ways; any dissonance you have gets picked up by others no matter how hard you might “try” to be genuine.

This is why it makes sense to know yourself well, and it may be some of the hardest work you do. Learning about who you are is also a good way to develop self-confidence, stay resilient in difficult times and to develop the kind of relationships that will support organizational health.

Self-knowledge is a journey, not a destination. Too often, I see executives in the C-suite avoiding the kind of development that will help them remain true to themselves and be honest and genuine to stakeholders. That’s where trouble begins. So no matter whether you are the CEO or the project leader for a small initiative, it pays to:

Learn about yourself: Much of your self-knowledge will come from observing your behaviors and reflecting on them. Since we learn by accumulating a variety of experiences, this learning takes time. Being present enough in your interactions and decisions to observe yourself is a great start. Taking well-vetted self-assessments (Myers-Briggs, DiSC) to learn about your strengths and foibles are helpful if you notice and observe how your results play out in your behaviors.

Know what you value: It’s important for you to have a shortlist of values to refer to when making decisions, interacting, and influencing others. A list of your top three to five values are like the foundation to a building. If they aren’t there, the building won’t stand. Likewise, if you don’t know what you value, your actions may not be consistent and anchored, causing others confusion and doubting your motives. Trust can erode, undermining your leadership. Make your values explicit and keep them accessible.

Be aware of what others' perceptions are of you: One of the most honest ways to understand how others perceive you is through 360-degree instruments, where those who respond to the questionnaire remain anonymous. If your organization doesn’t have one they use, find an external consultant or coach who does. Alternatively, asking for feedback directly from stakeholders is another way to get this information, although it may be less than honest. This can give you information about what others observe in your behaviors which sometimes may not sync up with your own perceptions.

Reflect: For many action-oriented leaders, taking time to reflect is the hardest part of getting to know themselves, but think of it as the beginning of becoming a better leader (an action in itself!). A few minutes each day to reflect back on whether you showed up in harmony with who you and what you value will serve your intentions to be authentic. Ask yourself: What did I do today that was a genuine outward expression of who I am? Did I make decisions and act with my values in mind? Where did I stray?

It’s important to know who you in order to lead others with inspiration. Where will you begin to learn more about you?

Mary Jo Asmus is an executive coach and a recovering corporate executive who has spent the past 12 years as president of Aspire Collaborative Services, an executive-coaching firm that manages Fortune 500 corporate-coaching initiatives and coaches leaders to prepare them for bigger and better things.

16 New Rules of Business

Entrepreneurs are nothing if not a trailblazing bunch, and they know firsthand that many rules were made to be broken. From hiring to time management, email etiquette to funding, today's business owners are tossing the guidebooks. More and more businesses these days are even breaking the (former) cardinal rule of business — don't start a venture with friends — and seeing success.

We spoke with a handful of entrepreneurs about their approach to business — and the rules they broke along the way.

1. Hire outside the box

"I have learned over the past eight years that it is better not to hire someone with 'industry experience,' particularly when your product and business model is a disruptor. People with industry experience have been trained to approach growing a brand, going to market, and selling in the same way that all big incumbents have. When you are a disruptor, you purposefully need to think and act differently — to see the opportunity where others haven't looked. It is true in how you talk with your consumer, how you make your product and how you go to market. I have found that people from the industry have a very difficult time thinking another way." — Kara Goldin, founder and CEO, Hint

2. Timeshift your team

"Of a Kind HQ doesn't officially open for business until 10:30 a.m., and we made the decision to have a late start-time in order to protect our mornings. We realized quickly when launching the company that our nights were almost always packed with commitments (drinks meetings! events! dinners!), and that if we didn't do things like exercise and drop-off dry-cleaning in the morning, we would never have that personal time. This way you can come into the office feeling like you've got your sh*t together, which sets the tone for the day ahead." — Erica Cerulo, cofounder, Of a Kind

3. Do a little bit of everything — even the dirty jobs

"In the very early days we did everything ourselves to save cash (cleaning toilets is not below us!). But this was really instrumental in helping us understand how to operate the most efficiently, and it has generated enormous respect from our employees. When they see us doing everything and working our butts off, it helps motivate them to do the same." — Chelsea Kocis, cofounder and COO, Swerve Fitness

4. Tune out

"Disconnect and take time away from your 'baby.' When first starting a business, you most likely play the role of the CEO, COO, CFO, CMO and Director of HR. This leads to long hours and very little separation between work and home. Set aside time to shut off your phone and take time to disconnect. You will be a better entrepreneur and a better human being by doing so." — Tracey Noonan, owner, Wicked Good Cupcakes

5. Be transparent — even in HR

"Every new employee joins us on a 45-day trial. At the end of that trial, the entire company gets to have input on whether that person should join the team — kind of like Survivor, where the person can be voted off if there isn't a fit. Cultural fit is so key to an early-stage company that spending this extra time in hiring is key — about 60% of candidates successfully make it through the trial. We also don't have many of the traditional recruiting levers at our disposal. With all salaries banded and transparent to the rest of the organization, it isn't possible just to get a potential employee to sign up by slipping a few extra thousand dollars. Negotiation really doesn't exist in the salary component, which changes a lot from the normal process.” — Dane Atkinson, CEO, SumAll

6. Enforce a hard stop

"My company is distributed, with most of us working from home most of the time in different time zones. Our rule: No email on weekends or after 7 p.m. in whatever time zone you're in. You can work any hours you want, but you have to use Boomerang for overnight email. (We make exemptions for urgent business and in the time before a big event.) It helps everyone stay conscious about working too long and ensures that we have meaningful breaks from each other. Plus general sanity." — Sarah Milstein, CEO and cofounder, Lean Startup Productions

7. Don't think in annual terms

"It took the experience of running five companies before I was able to slap some sense into myself and convince myself I could bootstrap it out of cash flow and sales. Many times it's not until you begin to lose money in business that you cut back on marketing and customer service, which is a vicious cycle. It's foolish to cut costs in the business to the detriment of the delivery of your product or service. Simply getting rid of staff or resources that adversely affect great customer service or quality of your product will only serve to end up costing you more in the long run. [In the beginning, you should] seek better supply chain deals to reduce cost of goods and bonus staff on performance so your salary and wage costs reflect a sales result or improvement of revenue in the business. [Also], monitor your P&L monthly, not annually — a business is typically going broke 12 months before it does, so an annual review is too little too late. Spend time managing the money you've made, not just on making more money. — Troy Hazard, former global president of the Entrepreneurs' Organization, founder and owner of 11 businesses and author of Future-Proofing Your Business

8. Splurge on things that are often overlooked

Image: Stitch Fix

"Many ecommerce companies make the mistake of only thinking about the customer experience in relation to the website experience. There are a series of touchpoints that customers will have with your brand, and

the shipping experience is a huge opportunity to improve your customer’s overall brand experience

the shipping experience is a huge opportunity to improve your customer’s overall brand experience. Many companies only think about how to make shipping as cheap as possible, and as a result, the items you spent your hard-earned money on arrive in plain, dirty packaging. We made a point not to skimp on shipping, instead investing in beautiful branded boxes, tape and tissue paper. Our warehouse team puts an incredible amount of care into packaging each Fix so when it arrives, it's an exciting and engaging experience for our clients, like opening a gift. As a result it's one of the most inherently sharable parts of our service, and beautiful packaging has become synonymous with the Stitch Fix experience." — Katrina Lake, founder and CEO, Stitch Fix

9. Toss out the projections — your business is you

"The new rules of business say that a voluminous business plan is no longer necessary to get in the game. Friends and family, angel investors and VCs care deeply about who you are as a business owner, what you bring to the table, your experience, your likability, your drive, your horse sense. Everyone knows your financial projections for a startup are best used to wrap fish. There’s no formula based on silly projections — you have to show you know your offering and your market in a way you never did before. While you don't need a big fancy business plan anymore, you need even more clarity and direction than you'd find in that plan. Under the new rules of business, no longer is your business something you do, it’s something you are." — Emily Chase Smith, Esq., attorney and author of the new book, The Financially Savvy Entrepreneur: Navigate the Money Maze of Running a Business

10. Embrace a hybrid model

"We started our menswear brand on Kickstarter last year to test our market affordably, and since launching we've adopted a hybrid model. Half of our line is direct to consumer and exclusive to our online store. The other half, we do the traditional wholesale/retail way. We also make a point of keeping our prices affordable and our items eco-friendly while still manufacturing small-batch goods in the U.S.A. Our hybrid business model straddles the traditional and direct to consumer pricing strategies. By offering online exclusives, we're able to sell some items at a lower (D2C) price point while still expanding the brand's reach through retail accounts. It doesn't pigeonhole us into only using one method. It allows us to test things out and we can pivot at any time." — Josey Orr, cofounder, Dyer and Jenkins

11. Ditch the HQ, go BYOD

"Formerly a part of a large agency, we're working to provide the same quality of service with much lower overhead expenses. We have reduced real estate overhead through telecommuting, allowing our employees to work wherever they are most effective, while bringing each other together for necessary meetings. Along with this, we have implemented a BYOD (bring your own device) to work policy, again cutting down on infrastructure costs. We use cloud-based networking and CRM and CMS tools in cost-saving ways. Additionally, there are many free and freemium tools that we use to further cut down on overhead." — Katie Mayberry, principal, Spyglass Digital

12. Nix ineffective meetings

"We don't like meetings. We have weekly staff meetings that last 30 minutes or less, but otherwise we do not schedule and plan lengthy or otherwise repetitive meeting dates. Meetings don't accomplish what we want and often waste the time of the parties involved. [Similarly,] we don't feel the need to involve every single person in all our tasks; we prefer getting things done versus just talking about getting things done." — Luke Knowles, CEO, Kinoli Inc.

13. Use CC to replace your old "status update" meeting

"Claire and I are CC superfans. We CC each other on most everything — we ask our employees to do the same — and it gives us peace of mind. Yes, it means you have a ton of emails in your inbox, but you don't have to actually read them all: They're there for reference when you wake up in the middle of the night and think, "Dear god, did so-and-so ever do that thing?" And, because Claire and I have a general sense of what the other's working on, we can spend our meetings together thinking about bigger-picture projects and can be better brainstorm partners — it eliminates the need for the endless stream of status meetings." — Erica Cerulo, cofounder, Of a Kind

14. Go on and ask for things

"Don't be shy to ask for favors. When you're building something valuable, you'll be amazed by how many people are genuinely excited to pitch in and help." — Trina Chiasson, CEO and cofounder, Infoactive

15. Don't charge for status — price your goods fairly

"We evaluated the retail landscape and saw the majority of brands abiding by antiquated norms. Businesses that incur massive distribution costs and rely on high-priced marketing campaigns have less to invest in their product. At American Giant, we decided to forego those norms in order to build a business we believe resonates with consumers. By selling direct-to-consumer, online only, we avoid the costly practice of opening, maintaining and marketing brick-and-mortar retail stores. Represent something your customers care about by focusing on building quality product and selling it at a fair price. We believe this is what resonates with consumers and what ultimately drives word-of-mouth marketing and brand awareness, as opposed to spending on expensive traditional marketing campaigns and materials." — Bayard Winthrop, founder and CEO, American Giant

16. Be the human face of your company

"You are your brand and your company. Social media has changed everything! People expect transparency and — to a certain extent — an element of publicity. Be aware that everything you do and say on the Internet can and will be connected to your company. Use this to your advantage! Share your personal story. When people feel attached to you, they feel attached to your company. Tweet about your company from your personal social media accounts. Include pictures of you and your team in your company blog posts. You and your brand and your company are one." — Jody Porowski, CEO and founder, Avelist

By Lauren Drell

All the Marketing in the World Won’t Make a Bad Product Good

Here’s the scenario. You’re heads down. Trying to build a business from scratch. Is marketing your first priority? Let me tell you why it shouldn’t be.

It seems counterintuitive. And believe me, there’s no shortage of advice out there on the best ways to market your product or business. I mean, just Google it. But don’t be tempted to take a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, take a step back and size up your product. Is it innovative, game changing? Is it something that people will tell their friends about?

Prioritize nailing the product before you put too much focus on marketing. This is an alternative approach to what we currently see from many startups.

Silver Bullets Are Rare: Don’t get me wrong your startup needs a strategic marketing plan. Even with the best product or service, if customers don’t know you exist or understand the value proposition, then you can’t build much of a business.  But everyone thinks there’s a silver bullet. Believe me, silver bullets are rare. When it comes to marketing, the expectations around what it can deliver are often way out of line. Marketing is a long-term play and very much a “what have you done for me lately game”. Very rarely do you hit a home run. It’s much more about hitting lots of solid base hits.

Follow good advice.

Product first: Let your product speak loudest. Whether you’re building a product or a service it must be innovative, disruptive and indispensible. Qualtrics didn’t have a dedicated marketing team for the first 10 years. Instead, we focused on product development. We tore down our systems time and time again until we knew that it was the best it could be. You have to nail it before you scale it. How did we know it was good? Because our customers would share it with their friends, and a strong recommendation from one customer to another is the best marketing. Period.

 Market Focus Matters: Be laser focused on one specific industry. The shotgun approach does not work. You can’t spray and pray. Goal setting is super important to making this strategy work. So set goals and be relentless in achieving them. For Qualtrics it was all about academia. The target: Secure 200 leading universities as Qualtrics customers. Nothing else mattered. Professors were the early adopters, essentially crowdsourcing our product and providing great insight into feature development.

Never Underestimate Word-of-Mouth: Single market focus taught us a great lesson: Word-of-mouth is the most powerful form of marketing. Whether you’re a startup or an established brand, harness the power of WOM, but use it wisely. With a solid product and concentration on a slice of the market, your startup can more readily build customer advocacy.

Be Bold: Now, when it comes time to scale your business and really amp up the marketing machine, don’t be afraid to do it your way. Be unconventional, wild or just different. Or as we say in Utah, “Don’t be afraid to lean out over your skis a little”. There’s no standard playbook.

Qualtrics has grown up a lot since our young startup days, while we currently have a full marketing team, our biggest goal is to stay lean and scrappy no matter how big we get.  And, we haven’t forgotten the core values that ultimately took our company from a crowded basement to almost 500 employees.

This lesson is one that we won’t soon forget: Stellar products that deliver ultimate value are the foundation from which all marketing efforts will either succeed or fail. Let’s face it; you can put lipstick on a pig, but all the marketing in the world won’t make a bad product good.

Mr. Smith is CEO and co-founder at Qualtrics, a private research software company.

6 Ways to Make Your Content More Likely to Succeed

It’s no secret that viral content is a hot topic — and ongoing debate — in the marketing world. What content catches on and what doesn’t? Can a campaign go viral without major ad dollars supporting it? Is there a “formula” to increase reach?

While there’s no five-step process for creating a marketing campaign that catches like wildfire, there are a few things that brands of any size can do to increase the chances of their campaign achieving massive success:

Leverage “trend jacking”
Want people to talk about your campaign? Tie it back to something they’re already talking about. For example, the word “selfie” was mentioned 28.8 million times on Twitter last year, and it’s no surprise why. Give someone a camera, a mirror and near frictionless sharing with friends, and voila: You have a compelling experience that millions of people repeat every day. You also have the foundation for a successful user-generated photo campaign. When we wanted to expose SXSW attendees to our platform earlier this year, selfies were the answer. We created a campaign where participants simply had to upload their best “SxSelfies” to a website, then people voted for their favorites. By turning selfies into a social game, our hashtag reached 833,000 people and generated 1 million impressions – far exceeding our participation goal.

Think “and” not “or”
Once we wrapped SxSelfie, we used Google Analytics to see which devices people used to access the campaign. As we suspected, more than half of the people who visited the website did so through their phones. What surprised us, however, was that one-third of visitors used their desktop to access the site instead. Lesson learned: Had our campaign been mobile- or Web-only, we would have lost a good chunk of participants.

Eliminate participation barriers
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but the easier it is for someone to participate in a campaign, the more likely they will. If you want your campaign to go viral, tell people exactly what they need to do to join. Even better, give them the tools they need to do it. The Kind Campaign leveraged the 10th anniversary of “Mean Girls” earlier this year to launch an effort to end girl-against-girl bullying. To participate, people simply had to share a pre-created image with the campaign hashtag – both of which Kind Campaign provided. In one week, the hashtag was mentioned 10,000+ times on Instagram alone.

Fire up your fans’ passions
If you know people love their cats and dogs, why not create a campaign around them? That’s what we did with Calendars.com – and it worked. We asked participants to upload photos of their dogs and cats to a campaign website, and then asked community members to vote for their favorites. The top 13 photos in each category were then used in 2014 calendars. In six weeks, Calendars.com collected 1,400+ photos – 11 times the total amount they had captured in the past six years.

Make it count
Social media has changed the way brands manage social good campaigns. Suddenly, anyone can support a cause simply by tweeting, tagging or sharing a photo. So, adding an “online giving” aspect to social campaigns can help increase both participation and social reach. Earlier this year, we partnered with Boston’s Frost Ice Bar to raise money for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. The Frost Ice Bar hosted the “Froston Marathon” pub crawl, encouraging participants to take photos along the way to show their Boston spirit in support of the marathon. The contest simultaneously drove brand awareness for the Frost Ice Bar while raising funds for a fantastic cause. Sounds like a win-win, right?

Build in social sharing
Each of the campaigns we’ve mentioned so far has one more thing in common: They were also easily shareable. With Calendars.com, each photo was shared three times on average. As a result, 45 people viewed or voted on a photo for each one submitted and 360,000+ votes were ultimately cast, helping Calendars.com drive brand awareness. The same could be said for Froston Marathon: With each photo shared four times on average, social sharing drove more than half of participants to the campaign website and helped Frost Ice Bar add more emails to its database.
How have you increased virality of your social contests and campaigns? Let’s discuss in the comments.

Mike Svatek is the cofounder and CEO of Together – a mobile-first marketing campaigns platform.

Cultivating The Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur doesn’t need an MBA to be successful but there is a certain mindset an entrepreneur must cultivate to grow, understand and lead their business.Business leaders who attain this mindset are the ones who ultimately succeed. This mindset has four, intertwining aspects.

Anticipate failure.  In a study conducted by Duke University and the University of Southern California, 549 successful company founders said the most important reason for their success was their ability to learn from mistakes. Learning from failure is how we succeed.

An entrepreneur who makes it big on the first try is a rare story. The path to success is not straight. The road is full of potholes, the journey has many detours. No matter how meticulously you plan, you’re going to make a mistake. Maybe more than one.  Some entrepreneurs, fixated on the idea that they’ll succeed on the first try, give up without a second try. By not anticipating failure, they failed.

Let go and delegate. Richard Branson, one of the world’s best known entrepreneurs, relies on a team of top managers to keep his businesses on track. He encourages them to pursue their ideas and provides the tools to succeed. He attributes Virgin’s growth during the early days to his ability to delegate and let go.

Your business won’t grow as much as it could before you admit to yourself that, no matter how hard you work, you can’t run it on your own. A great idea can turn into a great business only when you find and trust the right people to help make it happen. Entrepreneurs need help accomplishing their goals. Hire great people to work in the business so you have the time to work on the business.

Stay curious, learn new skills. Studies of  Stanford alumni have shown that people with a greater variety of roles in in previous jobs are more likely to become entrepreneurs. Not all entrepreneurs are experts, but successful entrepreneurs always have a broad skill set.

A successful entrepreneur thirsts for knowledge and enjoys learning. That keeps an entrepreneur effective and efficient. Entrepreneurs benefit from learning new skills and ideas they incorporate into their business. The smallest lesson learned can make a big difference in business.

Follow your instincts. A survey by the Kauffman Foundation found 98% of company founders said the willingness to take risks is the usual stepping stone to entrepreneurial success.  Successful entrepreneurs relied on their “gut-feeling” when it came to hiring people for their business. As an entrepreneur, you will face new challenges every day. You will find yourself on uncharted territory where there is very little research or data for you to make a sound decision. This is where the gut feeling comes in. In risky business, entrepreneurs learn to follow their instincts.

Murray Newlands is an entrepreneur, business advisor and online-marketing professional. In 2013 Murray founded TheMail.com. 

Turn PowerPoint into Performance Art!

A big challenge when presenting in PowerPoint is the dual task of creating content and delivering authenticity simultaneously.

While the slide may contain information, it is not your whole message: the total message is what you say and how you say it. This balancing act creates a dilemma that pulls at two distinct disciplines: creativity and delivery.

You can simplify this dual challenge by preparing not only your message but also your delivery in advance. Sharpen your message as you do your slides and the presentation will come more naturally. You will be ready to engage your audience.

By John Baldoni 

The Best Work Advice I Ever Received – Reader Top 10 List

I recently asked readers to share the best advice they’ve ever received about how to succeed at work. Here are my favorite tips from readers about doing well at your job and getting along well with your manager and coworkers.

1. When you’re the expert, talk like one

“When you are the expert, talk like you are the expert. Don’t be overly deferential or modify your statements with things like “I think” or “Maybe…” when you are talking to people who are in peers or are ranked higher in the organization.

This advice was from my boss in my first corporate job after years in publishing, to encourage me to be more assertive. I’m a woman, I was younger than everyone else on the team, and I was often in a position of having to tell our IT team — all older than me and 95% male — how I wanted things on our website. They wouldn’t always follow my directions exactly or in a timely fashion; instead they would follow their own opinions and regard my instructions as advice. When I started sounding more direct and assertive, they had more respect for my experience and my projects were done to my specifications and timeline.”

2. Praise publicly and criticize privately

“Praise publicly, criticize privately. You will need, at some point, to get cooperation and work out of someone who does not report to you, whose boss does not take an interest in your work, whose department does not give a rat’s butt about your department. If you cannot get people who do not report to you to work with you, you will be dead in the water.”

3. You’re the average of the people you spend time with

“Someone once told me, ‘You are the average of the 6 people you spend the most time with.’ Professionally, I took this to heart and made a point of networking with not only people who are generally successful, but also people who exhibit the kind of work habits I know I need to emulate.”

4. Never be good at anything you don’t want to do

“Never be good at anything you don’t want to do. Tongue somewhat in cheek — of course, as a junior person you have to get good at the grunt work before you’ll be given more interesting tasks. But as a general rule — the better you get at something, the more you’ll be asked to do it. The way to make sure your niche is what you want it to be is to make sure you’re best at those things!”

5. Don’t present problems without solutions

“When you present your boss with a problem, also come in with as much knowledge as possible and potential solutions. If I’m talking to a superior about a case, I need to have read the entire file – even stuff that may not seem completely germane to my question – so that I can answer his questions and have an informed discussion about the issues of the case. (Sometimes doing this will resolve what you saw as a potential problem anyway.) If I do have a problem, I explain the problem and the potential solutions - i.e., I can do A, B, or C with this. Doing this saves your boss time and helps you get a better result, because often they were thinking about/working on something else or don’t know/remember the specifics of your project. I’ve used this strategy in multiple workplaces and found that it helps both me and my bosses.”

6. Find things interesting

“If you don’t find something interesting, it’s your job to find something about it that interests you. My mom gave me this advice when I was in university (and bored by required courses). But, it became excellent career advice for me down the road, and opened a lot of doors.”

7. Own your mistakes and then move on

“If you make a mistake, own it and move on. Don’t try to hide it or its impact.  Don’t blame others.  Take responsibility.  Then stop obsessing over it. It happened, you learned from it, and you’re past it.”

8. Align your emotional energy with your priorities in life

“The best advice I ever got was: Force rank the activities and people in your life. For example, maybe your kids are 1, parents 2, friends 3, employees 4 … boss 10. Then, work to ensure that your time and emotional energy expenditure are aligned with that ranking. If my boss ranks a 10 and I react to something with a very high emotional energy level (high stress, etc.), then I’m using emotional energy that I should be expending on my kids on my boss. My mentor told me that I’m essentially ‘stealing’ emotional energy from the important people in my life by overreacting to my boss.

This structure helps me keep my emotional energy and time expenditure in alignment with my priorities. So when I start to react to something, I ask myself if it makes sense or am I overreacting based upon my priorities. As a part of this structure, I found myself reducing the number of hours at work and increasing the amount of time with my kids.

Amazingly enough, this exercise helped me succeed far more at work because I’m more consistent and steady at work. I get more done and I’m more trusted because I don’t overreact very often. I’m also happier and comfortable with where I am with my job. It was very hard to implement, but very worth it!”

9. Be responsive

“My former boss’s very successful father once told me 90% of professional success is returning all your calls and emails. He was exaggerating a bit, but it was good advice because it can be easy to ignore certain requests, emails, or calls from people. And if you make the effort to respond to everything, you’re way ahead of most professionals who tend to ignore a lot.”

10. Work will still be here tomorrow

“‘It will all still be here tomorrow,’ said by a former boss (a big deal VP at a big company), looking at a giant pile of work I was frantically attacking on a Friday night. It was good advice because it was a dose of reality from an extremely hardworking person, that there is no such place as ‘done.’ Her point at the time was that I should get some rest because the world won’t end if I don’t finish XYZ tonight. But what I learned from it was perspective, focus, and strategy. You can wear yourself out trying to cross an ever-retreating finish line, or you can figure out how to approach your work in a meaningful way that addresses what you’re really trying to do.”

Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. She's also the co-author of Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Manager's Guide to Getting Results and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.

4 Tips to Go Further, Faster with Strategic Partnerships

While some entrepreneurs may be hesitant to partner with other companies due to fear of misalignment, not a balanced relationship or a branding disaster, it can actually be quite beneficial if done correctly. Forming the right strategic partnership can increase your efforts in two essential areas of the business -- credibility and distribution.

Less than a year ago today, the company I co-founded Porch.com -- a home-improvement network -- had only touched the hands of a small group of our earliest employees, as we worked away from the basement of my rental home. Now, that same little website has touched millions of hands and this growth helped us form a strategic partnership with Lowe's Home Improvement stores. The Lowe’s partnership spring-boarded Porch into the public spotlight, aligning brands and establishing us as a tech-savvy innovator in the space. It also gave us distribution to quickly deliver our product.

For those thinking of forming a partnership, here are a few pieces of advice:

1. Identify opportunities. Any company can come up with a list of the top 100 partners they would love to work with in an under an hour. The trick is to identify what you can offer and align these incentives with a company that fills one of your needs. Look for companies that might be able to bring in valuable customers, credibility or links, among other resources. The key is looking for a partner with a matched vision and wants more than just a transactional relationship. Chances are you are going to be working closely with these companies for extended periods of time, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure the spirit, vision and culture are all aligned.

2. Use partnerships to build momentum. Whether you are talking to customers, investors or other potential partners, you need credibility to gain leverage. Latching on to a bigger, well-known brand through a mutually beneficial partnership is a way to quickly build your own brand and credibility. Plus, your company can use the momentum gained from one partnership or deal to leverage another.

3. Make sure you have the required resources. Like any major function of your business, you need to allocate first-class resources to your partnerships. This means that both sides need to have the capital, people power and leadership in place to be able to devote time, energy and money into the partnership. Make sure your company fulfills these obligations. That said, be aware that a majority of partnerships won’t exactly pan out the way you want them too.  Needs change, company’s pivot -- it just happens.

4. Negotiate your terms and stay the course. Often with young startups in relationships with larger, more established companies, the bigger business uses its weight to get what it want. This leaves the smaller company in an uncomfortable position where they can lose track of their own growth. Don't let this happen to you. It is essential to make sure the deal is structured in a way that lets you maintain control of your company.

As a general rule, it’s best to stay away from granting exclusivity to one company or another. You don’t want to paint yourself into a corner that you can’t escape in the long run. I always evaluate partnerships pragmatically, taking them on a case-by-case basis. If the partnership fits, incentives are aligned and the cultures match, you might be on the cusp of securing the big partnership that takes your company out of the basement and into the world.

Matt Ehrlichman is co-founder and CEO of Seattle-based Porch.com, the home improvement network.

Ten Tips for Knowing When to Stay Quiet and Just Listen

It is a balancing act for leaders to know when they should talk and when they should just listen. Extroverted leaders have a particular challenge because they talk to think. For them, talking is an important part of processing information and ideas. They risk grabbing too much airtime and shutting others down.

Conversely, introverted leaders think to talk . They are often challenged to communicate information at a frequency that is conducive to their followers’ needs. I do not advocate that leaders should be “seen and not heard.” It is fair to say, though, that leaders should be heard less and seen more. People believe and listen to the actions of leaders more than to their words.

 It’s remarkable how much you learn when you stop talking and begins listening. The vast majority of communication between people is non-verbal, making it important to learn how to pick up cues and clues to lead appropriately for the specific situation.

It’s not an accident that the ratio of “listening” body parts to “speaking” body parts is 4:1 — two ears and two eyes, versus one mouth. In fact, we listen with our whole body — we also listen with our brain, our heart and our gut.

Leaders make fewer wrong assumptions and better decisions when they ask more than they tell and when they listen more than talk. Of course, leaders need to speak, share their vision, engage others, brainstorm ideas and make decisions. It’s about balance, and it’s about the quality of the conversations.

The wisest and most successful leaders pay attention, learn to “read the room,” and sense when it’s time for them to listen and when it’s time for them to talk. The first step in getting this right is to stop doing anything else when you are having a conversation with someone, and then make sure you pay attention and balance your airtime with others.

Here are 10 tips to help you know when you should stay quiet.

1. It’s an emotional conversation — people need to believe they are being heard. Ask how you can help rather than assuming you know.
2. You come in during the middle of a story. There is no need to embarrass yourself!
3. You are wondering if what you’ll say will be seen as offensive. If you have to wonder, then it probably is.
4. You are tempted to “fix” the person’s problem.
5. Someone asks you a question that you should not or cannot answer fully or accurately.
6. You think your idea is the best thing since shelled walnuts.
7. You ask a question. It is a good idea to wait and listen for the answer.
8. You feel yourself jumping to conclusions without much information.
9. You’ve been drinking or partying and someone from work calls you.
10. You are angry or upset. Take enough time to figure out why you feel the way you do and then determine the best course of action to resolve the problem.

Roxi Hewertson is the CEO of Highland Consulting Group Inc. and AskRoxi.com. For over 20 years she has helped hundreds of leaders learn to lead effectively. She is an expert in organizational development, organizational effectiveness, and talent management, and she has served as an adjunct faculty at Cornell University. Her no-nonsense, practical insights have been featured by Forbes, Inc. magazine, Entrepreneur magazine, Fox News, and Chief Learning Officer magazine.