I’ve been putting a lot of effort into enhancing my productivity. I actually hired a coach to help me with this (more on that in another post) and have changed around a LOT of my work life in an effort to free up time. I’ll write a longer post on a handful of tools that I’ve found that have significantly increased my ability to get work done, but I thought I’d share some low hanging fruit with everyone about the 2 things I did that have most changed my life. #1 – Know Who You Want to Meet With I was going to title this “Say No More” but lots of people have written about that. And what I’ve found…
Category
General Business
Friday Afternoon Inspiration
Short post today from a portfolio company of ours and how they describe their culture and mission. I love it and thought it was a good way to end the week. We all move forward, together We understand that work is an integral part of a challenging life journey. Embracing our journey together enhances everyone’s experience and growth. Practicing empathy, as well as earning and maintaining the respect of our coworkers, are the core principles from which we all move forward together. Our attitude shapes our experience We affirm attitude is contagious. We are mindful that cultivating a positive attitude fosters a fun and energetic environment where we can all deliver our best results. Our quest for improvement is never-ending We…
What the current markets are and are not telling us
In response to a comment to my post earlier this week about the Profit Imperative, I rattled off some ideas about the current state of the markets. I thought it was worth sharing as a full post (I’ve edited and expanded on the original comment). There are clearly headwinds in the markets – I’m not at all suggesting that there aren’t. And we may be in a period of strong negative pricing pressure in both the public and private markets. As you know, markets tend to perpetuate themselves and pendulum. This cycle of overreacting is how business and market cycles seem to work. Without a doubt we’re in an environment of increasing volatility and that volatility alone may spook some investors. Price shifts…
This may not be the bubble you’re looking for
At great risk of wading into a debate where there’s no winning, I thought I’d present a few pieces of data that suggest that we’re not exactly in a market bubble right now. Massive caveat here: I’m not trying to predict the stock market. I’m just following my own advice. Plus I agree with my partner Brad, who said recently, “I think everyone will have an opinion and no one will have any real idea,” about what’s going to happen in the stock market (this in an article that appeared after just two days of a down market). But the data are important, so let’s at least pay attention to what’s actually going on. From there you can form your own…
Reputation Matters
Reputation matters. You know that and so do I. But it’s easy to forget that you’re either building or destroying that reputation in every interaction you have. Not to mention widespread reputation travels in our ridiculously connected world. I was reminded (again) of this today from an exchange on our CEO email list (which includes about 75 CEOs of Foundry portfolio companies). The email read: To: FoundryExec From: [CEO of Foundry portfolio company} Subject: Have you done business with anyone on this list I’m on my way back from [an] investor conference where we met a bunch of VC & Private Equity guys. The event was really useful. Not only did I discover a whole bunch of folks wanted to…
The best company vacation policy
Quick note here before I jump in to remind you that I’m not your lawyer (in fact I’m not a lawyer at all). I’m not offering legal advice. You have your own lawyer for that… I’ve seen all sorts of variations on vacation policies over the years (some harsh, some that famously pay you to take time off and everything in between). And I’ve come to a conclusion on the best PTO and vacation policy: none. Of course I’m not suggesting that you not let employee take time off, nor am I suggesting that you not have a formal policy. But after seeing all the variations – and importantly have had to unwind companies with various PTO policies – I…
Measuring customer satisfaction
There was a great thread this week on the Foundry CEO email list about Net Promoter Score and how companies are using it to measure the satisfaction of their customers (specifically in the case of NPS, their propensity to recommend the product or service to others). NPS can be a useful tool when used properly (which was much of the discussion on the email thread – who to measure, how often, etc.). But NPS can be cumbersome to measure, hard to understand granularly and not very helpful in letting you know what any given customer is really thinking about their interactions with your company (other than the extreme outliers). The discussion and thinking about both the benefits and limitations of…
Let’s agree to disagree
Is there much disagreement in your company? I’m not talking about where to head for lunch – I mean real, passionate, fundamental disagreement on product, marketing, operations, etc. I hope so. Even more so the earlier you are in your business. Running it is a messy business. There are tons of decisions to be made and each decision is amplified by factors such as your short runway of cash, new competitors entering the market and new team members joining your company. So a healthy amount of disagreement and discourse is not just a good thing, it’s inevitable. In fact I’d venture to say that if there’s not disagreement at your business, you’re not encouraging enough debate and people don’t feel…
2012 Planning / Working Together
It’s been way too long since my last post. I was going to jump in with a post on not blogging, but thought better of it. Better to actually do than write about whether to do or not do. So much for my resolution to write/blog more this year… Hopefully this was just a January hiccup with too much travel and work to fit in regular blogging. If you’ve read this blog you know I’m a pretty deliberate guy. I like to know where I’m headed and I like to be explicit about where that is, what’s working and what’s not. To that end, towards the end of last year I went through an exercise with each of the companies…
Efficiency
Like you, I’m a pretty busy guy. I’ve always been high energy and (I hope) high velocity. My job requires me to be in many places at one time (and at any one time have a few dozen different things spinning around in my head). It’s tiring and doesn’t always leave time for the kind of balance I look for in my life. There’s always someone else to talk with, some other conference or “it” even to attend; another great idea to look at investing in. But in the last 6 months or so I’ve really hit a different stride that’s allowed me to both feel more productive and more balanced. Given that every one I know struggles with this…