Employees who work too hard are less productive and more unhappy.

Sacrifice and hard work: The theme of every entrepreneur’s success story. The sleepless nights, lack of free time, and financial commitments are all worth it to see your company come to life. In fact, in the business world, these sacrifices have become somewhat of a bragging right.

Your drive got you to where you are, and now you have a profitable company to show for all your hard work. To continue that momentum, you need to make sure you expand your team with the right employees. We all want our employees to be as dedicated to our companies as we are; to care not only about their quality of work but also about the future of the business. An ideal employee would be willing to take on additional responsibilities, put in long hours, and happily meet tight deadlines without being asked.

This, however, is problematic. In our culture, there’s a belief that success is tied to the amount of work you do—or, how much you “grind.” But there’s a thin line that separates going above and beyond from being overworked—one that you must be aware of.

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Your employees should be working smarter, not harder

You’ve heard the “work smarter, not harder” adage before. Contrary to what some leaders believe, it’s not just a cutesy saying; it’s actually sound business advice. Your employees are under immense pressure to push themselves as far as they can, frequently flirting with their own breaking points, for the promise of a promotion or salary increase. But these perks no longer come as steadily, even in larger corporations.

So, not only are many work cultures more intense then they’ve ever been, employees aren’t even being compensated for the work they are doing. As you can imagine, that’s not good for your employees or your business. As it turns out, overworked employees are actually less efficient than their counterparts. A study by Stanford University found that when employees work more than 40 to 50 hours in a given week, they are two-thirds less productive. This is not only detrimental to their quality of work, but it’s also dangerous to their mental health.

Protecting your team from employee brownout

our employees will understand that there are certain days and weeks throughout the year when they will be required to work longer hours—like during month-end closings or leading up to a company event. If they work like this every day, and towards no significant incentive, it’s going to cause what Michael Kibler refers to as employee brownout.

Sound familiar? This may sound similar to employee burnout, but Kibler explains why the two are different. When employees are afflicted by brownout, they are not yet in a critical situation. Instead, they “seem to be performing fine: putting in massive hours, grinding out work while contributing to teams, and saying all the right things in meetings. However, they are operating in a silent state of continual overwhelm, and the predictable consequence is disengagement.” In other words: if you place all the burden on your team, it’s going to be difficult for you to retain your top talent.

Leaders don’t always intend for their employees to shoulder this burden. When you have a lot on your plate, it’s easy to want to delegate tasks and responsibilities that are otherwise preventing you from staying on top of your department or focusing on the broader goals of your business. While this may seem like the solution to your workload, it could very quickly turn into someone else’s hardship.

Expectations should come from the top down

Don’t assume your staff will tell you if they’re feeling overworked because they most likely won’t. To them, doing what they’re told without asking questions is their way of showing you they are dedicated, enthusiastic, and ready for the next opportunity that opens up at the company. If you aren’t looking for these red flags, you’re putting the future of your company at risk.

Employees look to their leaders to set an example of work ethic and also to set the culture of the company. If you lead from a distance—otherwise known as the “invisible” CEO—and employees see themselves and their colleagues doing all of the hard work, that will be the perception of your company, whether it’s true or not.

In a recent study, 52 percent of employees reported that they believed their leaders cared about the productivity of the company over them. If you expect your employees to remain committed to your business, you need to prove that you don’t value efficiency over their well-being.

Your company may be your life, but to your employees, it’s a career. You may have built a robust enough foundation within your company where you can delegate more tasks and step back from the day-to-day routine a bit more, but make sure you pay attention to both the expectations and work you’re putting on your team. They shouldn’t be grinding away more than you are.

Someone once said, “The richest place in the world is the graveyard.” While this may be true, the statement has a macabre overtone. To rephrase more positively: “The richest place in the world is the human mind.” 

The two maxims make the same point — we all dream up great ideas that have the potential to earn us commercial success, but most times we never get beyond the “gee-whiz” stage. Some do go beyond this initial excitement stage and attempt to put their dreams into action. Yet, a significantly short time after launching, they end up faltering and eventually shut down completely.

This scenario is a sad but regularly occurring one. If fact, most businesses fail in their first 12 months of launch. Does it mean that the idea wasn’t worth pursuing in the first place? Far from that! Most ideas, even the seemingly crazy ones, have good potential for monetary returns if early conditions are favorable.

Most startups die young for three key reasons. Avoiding them will keep you from making the same mistakes.

1. Poor planning

Most startups fail due to poor planning. After the entrepreneurs dream up an amazing business idea and are full of passion and enthusiasm, they believe they now have the answer to all their problems. They begin daydreaming, already seeing themselves as a top executive, rubbing shoulders with successful business leaders and living the luxurious life. They even begin to think about leaving their current job. At this daydream phase, their mind conceives all kinds of unreasonable expectations. It’s clouded by uncontainable excitement.

Next, they begin to share their idea with the people close to them. At first hearing, their confidants instantly point out loopholes in their plans, which they simply rebuff, considering them dream killers. (Some could be, though. Beware!) The budding entrepreneurs promise themselves that they won’t disclose the plan to anyone else until it kicks off fully. They tell themselves, “I don’t want detractors around me.”

Passionate and dedicated to the new course, they get down to work, drawing up their plans, all the while sticking resolutely to its unrealistic aspects. (Note that these are usually the parts that make things so unique and exciting.)

Even in the planning stage, most will become aware of the flaws, but they’re too sentimentally attached to their idea to make the necessary adjustments. They tend to believe that somehow things will work out. They don’t want to entertain any thoughts that might dilute the allure of this new course.

This sort of approach to a business idea is a sure recipe for future failure. Sadly, most of us fall victim, as we often approach new ideas in this way. 

So, how should we approach ideas and prepare our business plans to ensure success?

First, consider the question: Have you ever wondered why big corporations hardly fail when they try new ventures? True, they have the resources in terms of finances, experts and public trust, but most of their success comes down to effective planning. WhatsApp and Instagram became great social media platforms once Zuckerberg bought them from their original owners. They’ve been transformed into much better social network websites. The difference is that Zuckerberg had a better plan. 

The good news is that you don’t need to be a trained strategist to be able to work out a solid, practical plan for your prospective business venture. You only have to give it sufficient thought and put serious preparation into the planning process. Ask and answer these questions as honestly as possible — without emotions or half-truths: 

• Does this idea already exist? (Chances are that yes, it is.)
• In what ways can I be different?
• Who are my competitors? 
• What advantages do they have over me?
• What advantages do I have over them?
• What’s the demand level of my new product/service?
• Who is my target audience?
• Why would they choose me instead of my competitors?
• How diverse is my target audience? (Diversity of target audience could be age, gender, geographic location, race, lifestyle, etc.)
• In what ways can I reach them?
• What resources do I need?
• What resources do I have, and what resources don’t I have?
• What are my short- and long-term goals?

To succeed, entrepreneurs must have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and how to go about it. The planning stage is a vital one, as this is the foundation of future success (or failure).

 

2. Lack of discipline

To ensure success, entrepreneurs must adopt the basic attributes of industriousness, dedication and discipline. They must have such great focus and resolve that they allow nothing to impede or undermine their efforts.

One of the greatest enemies to success is procrastination. It should be avoided at all costs. Entrepreneurs must apply themselves to what they’ve set out to do, and do it, in order to get through the very critical first 1-3 years of their new venture. This launch stage involves loses and pains; only focus and discipline can get entrepreneurs past this stage. 

Becoming an entrepreneur means assuming the position of a leader, and to be a leader requires mastering one’s self first — exercising great control over one’s emotions and actions. For example, serving customers is not an easy task, and at the startup stage, this will even be harder. Customer satisfaction must achieve 100 percent, meaning keeping emotions in check when dealing with angry or dissatisfied customers, even when they’re in the wrong. Such customers can be a cause of business failure, as they can spread bad impressions of the business or product — something no business wants. 

Trust is an offshoot of discipline. In their emerging business, entrepreneurs should make building customer trust a priority. The problem with most startups is that, over time, they lose some focus and discipline, forgetting the promises made in their mission statements. How can they build and maintain trust? Delivering on promises is one, and this takes a tremendous amount of discipline. 

3. Low motivation

Most entrepreneurs enter into business with a great deal of enthusiasm and high expectations. However, over-expectation is a real problem as it sets unrealistic targets. After launching the business, reality slowly begins to set in. The entrepreneur realizes things aren’t panning out as envisioned. Soon, motivation tapers off, which can have a direct effect on the business. Lack of motivation triggers a lack of discipline, which in turn leads to business failure. 

Besides over-expectation, attributes like inexperience, impatience and lack of focus can lead to a loss of motivation. When the business venture isn’t achieving the results expected, motivation dwindles.

Motivation is the wind that constantly fans the embers of entrepreneurial fires. To remain steadfast in your goals, find ways to keep your vision and passion as stoked as it was at the start.

To accomplish this, carry out these three key actions:

• Revise your mission and vision statements.Doing this has a way of taking you back to the “gee-whiz” stage. You need that burning enthusiasm.
• Impose a measure of patience.If there’s anything you need at the early stage of any venture in life, it’s patience. Nothing good comes easily. Many people were on the verge of success when they became impatient and quit. 
• Set short-term/long-term goals.Your long-term goals are for the future, while the short-term goals are small tasks that you complete in working toward broader long-term goals. Achieving your short-term goals step by step helps keep you highly motivated. When you achieve each goal, your resolve grows stronger.

A host of factors, separately or together, can make or break a new business. However, overcoming the three most notorious destroyers of new businesses will give you more guarantees that your new business will survive past the first 12 months and counting.

To success!

Akon’s Blockchain Endeavor For Social Impact, Akoin, Announces the Launch of the Akoin Foundation and Issuance of Cryptocurrency “Tokens of Appreciation (TOA)” For Donors In Partnership With The SDG Impact Fund

When Lynn Liss, COO of Akoin reached out to Dr. Bryan Doreian, Chief Development Magus of the SDG Impact Fund, they both knew something special in the impact realms was emerging.  Leveraging Akon’s groundswell of charitable work in Africa and their emerging blockchain endeavor, Akoin, aligned with the incredible ability of the non-profit structuring of the SDG Impact Fund platform, they have partnered to launch the Akoin Foundation.  This combination of blockchain, impact-mindedness, a high profile celebrity like Akon, and the Donor Advised Fund (DAF) platform is launching what they foresee as a next evolution of the cryptocurrency realm.  

The Akoin Foundation will be performing a first in cryptocurrency – giving initial donors to the foundation a literal cryptocurrency Token of Appreciation (TOA) as a way to say thank you to those who believe in the missional purpose of the foundation, supporting regenerative endeavors in Africa and focused on entrepreneurial empowerment; from blockchain, financial and business tools to healthcare, education, renewable energy and governance.  The token, which carries no present value, commemorates donors early involvement with the Akoin Foundation and their support of this impact mindset, which will be pioneered through Akon’s championing of the Akoin Project in Africa. To join the Akoin Token of Appreciation campaign, go to www.akointoa.org. For more information on the token and its release, visit www.akoin.io.

“I’m excited for our team to launch the Akoin Foundation and our first Token of Appreciation campaign. This is what we’re all about at Akoin — coming up with innovative solutions, appreciating the fans, and empowering the people to take charge of their finances,” said Akon. “I’ve said before: blockchain and crypto bring the power back to the people and has the potential to transform Africa’s economies. We’re giving people the chance to get involved early and show their support of that transformation.”

Through this incredible alignment, together the Akoin Foundation and the SDG Impact Fund amplify their mission and social impact results even further – rapidly opening up the opportunity for donors, and other leaders in impact to access this new platform to attain the 17 SDGs across all 53 countries in Africa.

What is the SDG Impact Fund? On the International Day of Peace, September 21, 2018 – the SDG Impact Fund was announced at the United Nations in New York City.  This fully independent 501(c)3 recognized non-profit Donor Advised Fund (DAF) is quantum leaping the well-proven DAF model by uniting and marshaling the exponential power of the digital and impact frontiers to transform what is possible for humanity, prosperity, and the planet. The SDG Impact Fund is the first to accept and deploy traditional assets as well as all forms of crypto, token, and digital assets with a singular goal: attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) before 2030.

What are the SDGs? The UN’s SDGs are 17 sustainable development goals, ranging from gender equality to no hunger and quality education agreed upon by 193 countries to realize a more sustainable and prosperous humanity and planet by 2030.  Through the Akoin Foundation, entertainment, blockchain, philanthropy, all align and showcase to the world a way forward in attaining the 17 SDGs.

“There is this perception that “non-profit” and “business” don’t go together,” says Bryan Doreian of the SDG Impact Fund. “I feel that if we redefine what non-profit and business is and means, those endeavors that harness both, in a mutually regenerative manner, will usher forth a new paradigm of what work is, and what it means to be a “business” or “non-profit” altogether.  In fact, the more individuals, brands, and companies realize that the return of investment on actually making a difference in the world, instead of being siloed into making money at the EXPENSE of others and the world, is easily 10/1. Akoin is one of the endeavors pioneering in the impact realms and we’re honored to co-create this new blockchain and business paradigm with them.”

As the philanthropic arm of Akoin.io, and part of Akon’s vision for a better world, The Akoin Foundation exists to activate, educate and fuel young entrepreneurs in Africa and other rising economies to start and build businesses and create sustainable communities. We believe that developing young entrepreneurs is the best way to promote innovation, economic stability, and growth across Africa, and, ultimately, the world. We have set ourselves a goal to educate, inspire and activate 2 million new CEOs in Africa and beyond by 2030.

For more information: Lynn Liss  lynn@akoin.io

www.akoin.io

The SDG Impact Fund is one of the most innovative, forward-thinking, and knowledgeable donor advised fund (DAF) leaders on charitable giving in the nation. Our donor advised fund clients gain access to the highest level of strategic thinking on ways to meet social challenges around the world. By partnering with the SDG Impact Fund, donors receive the simplicity and tax advantages of a public charity combined with the personal recognition, involvement and flexibility of a private foundation.

For more information: Bryan W. Doreian bdoreian@sdgimpactfund.org

www.sdgimpactfund.org/

As a leader, you may be tempted to stoke people’s fear when they aren’t getting things done. Maybe this was the approach your bosses used on you. But if you aim to build people’s courage—to rise to the occasion, conquer new tasks, and embrace challenges—you won’t get there by putting fear inside them.

You’ll get there by filling workers with enough courage to dominate their fears. And the rewards are worth it. Workers who are courage-led are more engaged, committed, optimistic, loyal, and change-embracing.

Why wouldn’t they be?

Imagine working for a boss whose vision was so bold that it actually excited you. Imagine working for a manager who valued mistake-making as a natural and necessary part of your professional development. Imagine working for a manager who saw ass-kissing as a repulsive, manipulative, and dishonest thing.

Then go a step further and imagine what the whole company might look like if all the managers led by putting courage into their workers. It would be a workplace where you could implicitly trust the motives and intentions of everyone around you, where you could speak the unvarnished truth without fear, and where you would make more forward-falling mistakes in order to better serve the company (and clients).

It’s easier to do courageous things when you know that other people are doing them, too. When I was a high diver, for example, there was a strong feeling that we were all in it together. These days, I get the same sense of communal support with my whitewater kayaking buddies here in Asheville.

When paddling through treacherous whitewater, having the encouragement of your fellow river rats is more important than having a good boat. It makes it much easier to face an intimidating rapid when you know your buddies are there to save you if you get into a hairy situation. Similarly, when courage goes to work with each and every worker, the capacity of the entire organization to take on greater challenges is enlarged. Like ever-expanding concentric circles, every single act of courage at work has the potential to transform the business in unexpected ways. All it takes is someone to start the first ripple.

 

Courage-Building in Four Steps

People won’t start being courageous just because you tell them to. You’ve got to create an environment that encourages people to extend themselves and take chances. There are four core actions you need to take before expecting people to be more courageous. They constitute the Courage Foundation Model, and they follow a specific order:

 

1. Jump First. Why on earth would you expect people to be courageous if you yourself are wimpy? Before nudging workers to be more courageous, you need to be the role model. Jumping in first allows you to gain firsthand experience with the challenges you’re asking workers to face, and it’s the best way to build credibility with your direct reports. By understanding the risks you’re asking people to take, you’ll be able to anticipate how much courage they’ll need to muster and which aspects of the challenge they’ll be more likely to balk at.
2. Create Safety. Workers play it safe when it isn’t safe to not play it safe. Therefore, to get them to do more courageous things, you’ll need to weave safety nets that give them a sense of security as they work. Give people permission to be courageous by providing a safe space to express fears without embarrassment. Point out how they’re already doing that very thing they’re afraid of. Put stock in forward-falling mistakes—the “good” mistakes that key your team into something previously unknown—particularly if the lessons gleaned from those mistakes advance the team’s goals. And show people you have their backs by going to bat for them, consistently and courageously, with higher-ups.
3. Harness Fear. Fear in the workplace is inevitable. Your job is to make fear useful by putting it to work for you, not by threatening workers, but by building up their capacity to be courageous. Sweaty-palms moments are a normal part of the work experience. By helping workers see their doubts and fears as natural occurrences, they can refocus their energy on the job at hand. They can use fear as fuel to do challenging and courageous things.
4. Modulate Comfort. When it comes to career development, too much comfort can be a dangerous thing. As a manager, you’ll need to provide comfortable workers with work challenges that make them uncomfortable and keep them motivated. At the same time, if they become too uncomfortable, you’ll need to let them settle in long enough to gain confidence with their newfound skills.

 

When your behaviors are directed by courageous impulses, you are operating out of your best and braver self. When other people witness your newfound behaviors and the positive results the behaviors cause, they gradually step into their own courage, too. As they do, the energy level of your team lifts—and a can-do spirit takes hold.

 

Welcome to the world of the purpose economy, where employees and consumers alike search for relationships that are meaningful beyond a paycheck or a purchase.

In today’s world, companies of all sizes are being asked to proactively “do good.” They aren’t being forced to this end by the government or lawyers. No, companies are being pushed to create public benefit by consumers and employees, two powerful audiences that are exerting newfound control over businesses large and small. Perhaps as telling, investors are adding a new lens of social responsibility in their funding criteria.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

As a leader, you have an opportunity to inject your business with a sense of meaning that resonates with your audiences and extends beyond product, paycheck, and profit. It will help you attract, retain, and motivate employees, position and differentiate your company in the minds of your customers, and open doors to new relationships with other businesses.

If your heart’s not in it, this will be a tough transformation to make. Even if your heart is in it, it won’t be easy—you will still have to be sharp, perhaps even sharper, in the way you run your business.

Moving Forward By Embracing Change

There are some fundamental leadership changes you’ll need to make to the company and its culture.

You’ll need to move from the world of a corporate mission to that of organizational purpose. In place of mission (about “me” and inwardly focused on the company), you’ll shift to purpose (about “we” and the broader community).

You’ll craft and live by a credo of values, bringing them to life through intentional actions rather than hanging them on the walls in faux-inspirational posters.

You’ll reconsider existing governance and implement new rules and policies. This includes exploring re-structuring as a public benefit corporation with higher standards of purpose, accountability, and transparency, and also certifying your performance through an independent third-party such as B Corporation.

The Business Case of Purpose

I’d like to interrupt this feel-good message with a reality check I hope will dissuade you from thinking this is purely a Kumbaya-singing, Birkenstock-wearing, tie-dyed movement.

Social enterprise is all about the business—and there are cold, hard, pragmatic benefits to this approach. I’ll share a just a few of them with you here.

Companies With Shared Values Are Magnetic

We’ve talked about how purpose can provide new opportunities with a new and growing class of consumers looking to align their purchasing with businesses who share their values. This results in a more-efficient customer acquisition and retention strategy.

What’s often overlooked, however, is the same attraction occurring in the business-to-business (B2B) market. Businesses looking to maximize their social impact are intentionally trading with other businesses that share the same goal.

 Boosting Environmental Savings

A key area for savings involves your business’ environmental impact. Among others, you’ll measure inputs (such as energy and raw materials) and outputs (think waste), and you’ll analyze your practices surrounding the use of resources.

You’ll also shape environmental policies, such as minimizing business travel to reduce fuel consumption. You’d be surprised how quickly thousands of dollars in savings can add up when you aren’t spending them on airfare, hotels, rental cars, and restaurants. Plus, you create a significant environmental benefit.

Enhancing Your Recruitment and Retention Efforts

 I have, on average, about one person a day approach me, usually via email, about working at Oliver Russell. It usually goes something like this: “I’m inspired by the company you’re building and want to work there.” It’s never a garden-variety inquiry about an available position, but rather they express that Oliver Russell is the type of company they want to work for (and, by the way, when a job opens up, I’d love to be considered). Instead of searching for talent, it finds us. The same compelling benefit of purpose is a powerful tool for retention in your workplace.

Ignore This Trend at Your Own Risk

Social enterprise isn’t a fad—it’s a trend, and a powerful one at that. This philosophy, put into practice, flows into profit, which really is an amalgam of the way you run your business: creating intentional public benefit for your stakeholders, which delivers financial profit for you and your shareholders.

Truth be told, I think this for-profit, purpose-driven orientation is more challenging than others. But I also believe the rigor and discipline it requires makes you a better businessperson and creates a company that outcompetes today and outperforms in the long run.

You just have to be up for the challenge, willing to evolve, and embrace a different definition of profit.

 

No doubt Walt Disney left an indelible stamp on his company. But after his death, a succession of great and capable leaders kept the organization moving forward. Among them is recently departed Ron Miller, who may not have been the flashiest CEO, but carried the Disney company into the future by taking his own approach.

The leadership of the post-Walt Disney CEOs — from Miller to Michael Eisner — offers invaluable lessons in ensuring a company heads in the right direction without losing its original mission. From looking outside the company for new expertise to carefully tending the transition, following in the footsteps of a legend is a combination of strategy and balance. Here, leadership expert Michael G. Goldsby breaks down the five essential ways Disney’s leadership enabled the company to keep growing without losing its original magic.  

In February this year, Ron Miller, president and then CEO of the Walt Disney Company (1978-1984), as well as Walt Disney’s son-in-law, passed away. He is often overlooked in studies of the company, but Miller and the other executives who led between Walt Disney and Michael Eisner deserve another look. Anyone who followed in Disney’s foorsteps faced an immense challenge to keep the company moving forward. Miller’s stewardship, while often seen as a quiet era for the company, was marked by many efforts and accomplishments.

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During Walt Disney’s reign, all creative projects started and ended with him. After he died in 1966, the company was still filled with world-class animators and directors, but their leader — the consummate story man — was gone. Few movies were released that could be considered classics. There were no new Snow Whites or Mary Poppins. Not surprisingly, the theme parks — whose new attractions were often based on the studio’s new stories and characters — also struggled.

But the company wasn’t as stagnant as many contend. Keeping it going required new processes and infrastructure that were missing when Walt was alive. Although publicly traded during Walt’s reign, it was still a family-run business: Walt managed the creative side on the third floor, while brother Roy worked with his financial team on the first floor. As families sometimes do, they fought over which projects to pursue. Most of the time, Walt got banks and investors on board, mainly due to his reputation as a creative genius and business legend. But Roy’s death in 1971 meant there were no big names left inside the company. That’s when executives Donn Tatum, Card Walker, and Ron Miller took over. They couldn’t create instant classics through sheer willpower and creative flurry — their approach could not be based on name alone.  

Just how Walt’s successors ushered the company through the tough transition between Walt Disney and Michael Eisner is a story that holds valuable lessons for anyone following in the footsteps of an iconic entrepreneur and leader:

1: Take a New Approach

Running the business after the retirement or death of a company’s founder often requires a different approach. Employees, investors, and banks will not be willing to do what they did for the founder. Don’t try to be a clone of a legend. No one will buy it. Even Roy made a point of renaming Disney World Walt Disney World. Key stakeholders will appreciate someone who improves areas of the company that the founder overlooked or wasn’t good at.  Help the company grow by adding to its foundation.

2: Consider Outside Talent 

Following a creative founder may require finding outside talent who have led their own big projects. Walt had a small army of very talented people to implement his ideas. He didn’t mind if someone suggested a different approach, but he didn’t like anyone questioning his decisions. Once he made his mind up to do a project, that was it. The method left a huge void in the creative pipeline after his death. Tatum, Walker, and Miller improved the business operations, but they probably could have hired some new creative leadership inside the studio to pick up the slack and generate new ideas for the team Walt left behind.

3: Don’t Get Overly Comfortable

Familiarity breeds comfort: Tatum, Walker, and Miller were all respected executives who had worked closely with Walt and Roy. These relationships provided stability for employees after Walt’s death, but also locked in place the company’s direction. Decision-making in the 1970s was marked by the common question, “What would Walt do?” Today’s Disney executives ask a better question: “Would Walt approve?” The world was already changing in 1966, and no doubt Walt would have changed with the times too, but no one knows exactly how. All they knew was the Walt of 1966. Eisner, coming from Paramount, could make riskier decisions than Walt’s immediate successors had.

4. Bridge the Generations

It’s important to respect the traditions and work of the founders and leaders who came before.  Many of the talented and influential people who worked with Walt were still on the payroll when Eisner arrived. Eisner encouraged the living legends of animation and theme parks to develop and coach a new generation of Disney talent. Combining the wisdom and experience of the older generation with the ambitions of the new talent Eisner brought on board resulted in a new wave of Disney classics, like The Lion King and The Little Mermaid. The company continues to bridge generations today: Many hired by Eisner in the 1980s are now leading the next wave of Disney talent, and are still advised by some of Walt’s original people.

5: Tend the Transition with Care

Sometimes the primary job of the successor is to transition the company from a family business into a modern corporation. If the company’s founders are still alive, it may continue to resemble a family business. Despite being a publicly traded company when Walt died, it took nearly twenty more years for it to fully transition into a standalone corporation. The Walt Disney Company is fortunate in that it had loyal executives who stuck by Walt’s principles and philosophies as they shepherded the company through this change.

Tatum, Walker, and Miller many not be as well-known as Disney, Eisner, or Iger, but they deserve recognition for facing one of the toughest challenges in business history: following in the footsteps of the company’s legendary founder. Miller, for instance, started ambitious projects like EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland. Tatum, Walker, and Miller developed leaders who established the employee engagement programs, guest service approaches, and human resource practices still shaping the company’s culture and infrastructure today. So while Eisner brought story expertise and big-budget movie production experience to his new Disney role, the company was primed for his arrival. To Eisner’s credit, his many good decisions helped Disney recover its status as a media empire.

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The population in developed nations is aging, while the world’s overall population continues to increase at an unsustainable pace. Between climate change and rising income inequality, most people are understandably concerned about how or even whether much of society will be able to provide for itself.

Complexity breeds uncertainty, and life on Earth has never been more complex. Startlingly rapid technological advances in areas like artificial intelligence and robotics may hold the keys to solutions—or the seeds of even greater challenges.

Extrapolating from today’s obstacles, it would be easy to get depressed about the future of humanity, and the future of work specifically. The problem with predicting the future, however, is not only that it’s impossible, but that a pessimistic prediction encourages fear and helplessness. We shouldn’t be asking what the future holds but, instead, what would we like the future to be?

The road ahead isn’t a problem to solve; it’s an invitation to create. This simple shift in mindset challenges every single one of us to become part of the solution. Indeed, building a future of work that serves us under these challenging conditions will require nearly everyone’s contribution.

I believe we’re up to the challenge.

Success means different things from person to person, and the path for achieving that success can take many routes. I have seen firsthand how powerful a person’s psychology can be, whether it’s propelling a person forward or holding them back. Twenty years in the Air Force taught me that with the right training and environment, almost anyone can do almost anything. Moving into an uncertain future, I believe technology has the potential to help us tap into this human potential in new ways.

For almost two hundred years, wages tracked with productivity. Intuition suggests that a rising tide of technical progress would lift all boats by making workers more productive and therefore more valuable. However, despite staggering technological advances, wages have stagnated for decades, suggesting a decoupling of wages and productivity. According to the April 2017 World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund, the share of national income paid to workers has been falling since the 1980s across advanced economies.

Despite early predictions that technology would enable society to work less, causing fears of a “leisure crisis,” just the opposite has happened. According to Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor, Americans were working five more weeks per year in 2000 than they did in 1967. In my recent study, most participants agreed that the most urgent work was to start changing the narrative around the future of work. A cultural change of this magnitude requires a large number of advocates, creators and storytellers.

Some of the most exciting innovations come from merely asking new and interesting questions, such as: How might we regenerate civil society for the benefit of the collective good so that we can feed, shelter, and care for 9 billion people on earth? What if our economy was driven by resources that were more valuable when shared? What if care, not growth, were at the center of work?  On a more radical note: What if media narratives shifted to imagine a healthy future of zero growth? 

What I am advocating is not easy or straightforward. Creating the future of work will require discussion, debate, experimentation, and collaboration among stakeholders. Machines are unlikely to make humans obsolete in the workplace, and instead of framing technology as a threat to human usefulness, we should see this as an opportunity to elevate human capacity and free individuals to engage with more exciting and complex tasks.    

www.WorkForHumanity.com

 

Who are the leaders and changemakers in your organization? You may think it’s the research and development team or engineering. Maybe a dedicated innovation team or a C-level executive? Amazingly, the people best positioned to drive transformation and innovation at your company are those most often maligned for their lack of vision, creativity and support – middle managers.

It’s true that most transformational innovation requires buy-in and support from top leadership, but for a company to be genuinely innovative, it must nurture a culture of employee-led innovation that is embodied by staff at all levels. For that to happen, you need the support of middle management.

Why Middle Management?

Almost all companies talk about innovation, but regretfully most of them have no idea what it entails. Innovation is not about inventing new technologies and developing disruptive products – it’s about people. Innovation is a mindset; an entrepreneurial spirit that must be embraced by every employee. Unlike the Dilbert cartoon character, middle managers can play a vital role in innovation. They can serve as the bridge between the bold strategy and tangible solutions made possible by their employees. So, if you’re a middle manager, how can you help lead greater innovation at your organization? Here are a few tips:

 

1. Encourage Cross-functional Collaboration

Ditch corrosive company politics and adopt a win-together mindset. Make sure your employees understand that innovation can come from anyone, anytime, anywhere. It’s not limited to your team. Urge your employees to think outside their job function and across the ranks throughout the company. Encourage rotations, stretch assignments and cross-pollination of ideas, and work to make sure that employees of diverse backgrounds are comfortable speaking up and sharing their ideas. While some often find comfort in being surrounded by people who think, act and look the same, radical, innovative ideas rarely emerge from teams where everyone is from the same background or have the same experiences and points of view. 

 

2. Secure Executive Commitment to Innovative Ideas

Employees need to know that innovation is a priority and not merely something to which the company pays lip-service. Middle managers are uniquely positioned to serve as the connective tissue between the upper and lower levels of the organization, spotting the best ideas from employees in various roles and highlighting them to the executive team to secure buy-in and support. Too often, innovative ideas go unnoticed or are not acted upon because employees don’t know how to elevate their ideas to the upper echelons of the organization or turn a creative idea into reality. Often, they think the leaders don’t walk the talk and are merely performing innovation theatrics rather than substance. As a middle manager, it’s important to make sure your employees have a voice and can bring their perspectives to the table. You are the one who needs to hold the C-suite accountable. Keep your leadership honest by advocating and securing executive buy-in for the ideas you think most promising. Be bold and demonstrate how this disruptive new idea can positively impact the company – not only for revenue but for improved business processes, increased efficiency or enhancing customer experience.

3. Provide Resources And Support to Bring Ideas to Fruition

Creative employees with an entrepreneurial mindset will always have sparks of innovation – those moments when lightning strikes with a brilliant new idea – but they may not be skilled at executing all the steps needed to turn those ideas into real business solutions. There are no born innovators; innovation must be learned. This is where middle managers can shine, by helping their teams with coaching, planning and time management, as well as securing the resources and support needed to execute on their ideas. Connect employees with mentors both inside and outside the organization who can help develop their ideas. Allow them to set aside time from daily responsibilities to focus on innovation and work on ideas. Help them secure budgets, technologies, space or other resources needed to develop their ideas. Lastly, encourage them to experiment and learn from their failures. Remind them that it took Thomas Edison 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before he invented the light bulb.

 

4. Help Employees Connect Their Creative Ideas to Company Strategy

When it comes to innovation, some creative new ideas may not initially seem great, and people can be too quick to write them off or discard them. Middle managers can help creative employees iterate and improve upon their ideas – in part, by assisting them to connect their ideas to the company’s strategic objectives, even if executing on them is outside of your team’s role. You probably aren’t surprised to learn that in most organizations, the majority of employees aren’t familiar with their company’s strategic objectives and goals. Middle managers can help prioritize, simplify and clarify the company’s top strategies, and help employees tie their innovative ideas to those strategies and key performance indicators. This raises the chances of securing executive support and producing tangible outcomes.

 

5. Here’s How Those Above Can Help

The responsibility to innovate doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of middle management. Those in more senior positions also play an important role, helping empower middle managers to become more innovative and giving them the support they need to lead their teams.

In many organizations, middle managers are unfortunately viewed as roadblocks to creativity or resistant to innovation. Often, this is because they are only incentivized by top executives to reach specific targets every quarter. Their bonuses, promotions and performance reviews all depend on their ability to steadily deliver on those goals, not to take risks to bring innovative breakthroughs or processes to the company, which can take time, trial and error. This must change. To develop a culture of innovation and remain competitive in the fast-changing, disruptive, digital economy, organizations must reward and incentivize innovation among their middle managers and tie at least some of their KPIs and compensation to innovation.

Ultimately, innovation is about people, not technology, and as the ones who are positioned squarely on the front lines of the organization, middle managers have the unique opportunity to be drivers of transformation. By empowering their employees with the tools and support needed to develop their creative ideas, while coordinating with and securing buy-in from executive leadership, middle managers can be the real change-makers and leaders of innovation.

 

Cancer is a disease we are all aware of. One in two of us will develop cancer at some point in our lifetime. In response, tremendous efforts are being plowed into raising public awareness, fundraising, research and treatments.

The UK’s biggest charity, for example, is Cancer Research UK, with an income of £680 million, which dwarfs the second-place organization by more than £350 million.

Cancer-like behaviors occur not only in our bodies though. Our economy has become increasingly cancerous, and this affects not just one in two, but every one of us. And yet the story of this economic disease and how we might tackle it is not told enough. I am aware that for many of us, this story has painfully personal resonances, but I believe it is worth mentioning nevertheless.

Join me for a thought-experiment: Imagine your body was an economy. The cells in your body are the organizations producing services and products that the body needs to be healthy. Your blood flow pumps raw materials, information, and money to and from these organizations in the forms of proteins, sugars, fats and hormones. And, like the real economy, your body is powered by food, water and sunlight that nature provides.

When healthy, every cell contributes to the overall wellbeing of the body. Every cell contains the blueprint, roughly 20,000 genes, for the entire body, i.e., the whole system. Cell activity, and especially growth, is regulated by a complex exchange of chemicals between cells and with the environment – essentially an intricate web of feedback loops.

Cancer can develop if changes to our genes happen to disrupt this delicate set of feedback loops and uncouple a cell from its regulatory constraints. The cell’s purpose changes from contributing to the health of the overall body to growing itself as fast as possible. Further mutations can turn this growing and dividing cell from a benign to a malignant tumor, one that infects neighboring healthy cells. The tumor sucks in disproportionate resources to fuel its growth, literally starving other parts of the body, and many tumors will spread throughout the body. If this process continues for too long, the disease becomes irreversible.

The analogies to our economy are obvious: organizations that grow for growth’s sake; the sucking in of resources by ever more prominent organizations and wealthier individuals; the spreading of the underlying values to all parts of our economic, public and private lives. The outcomes of these cancerous behaviors are serious: inequality, disempowerment and the destruction of the planet upon which we all depend, to name just a few. And as the root cause of human cancer is gene mutation, so it is the mutation of our shared societal values over centuries that has brought forth today’s economy.

There is, however, also good news. We can learn from new scientific approaches that are helping to tackle complex problems like cancer. And amongst these is systems thinking, first developed in the middle of the 20th Century. Systems thinking is used across all kinds of disciplines, from engineering to ethnography. As the field has evolved, we have learned that there are specific universal characteristics of healthy systems. This is hugely important as systems, both man-made and natural, are all around us. Our bodies and the bacteria within them are systems. So are our laptops and the internet. Importantly, the organizations that make up our economy and the economy itself are also prime examples of complex systems.

What then are these universal characteristics of healthy systems? Unsurprisingly, they make common sense: For example, healthy systems circulate resources to all parts of themselves – your body connects every last cell with its own blood supply. Healthy systems re-use their resources multiple times – the circular economy movement has already understood this one. And healthy systems balance efficiency with resilience – systems with more diverse, smaller actors are more resilient than systems with fewer, larger ones, which are more efficient.

These characteristics provide us with a goal for what the systems that we live and work in – organizations, communities, the economy – should look like. They don’t tell us though, how to get there.

And this is where we can return to what we learned about cancer. Cancer develops because the body’s blueprint, the genes that encode how we work are mutated. The disruption of feedback loops enables it to take hold, and as cells become cancerous, their purpose is shifted from being in service to a healthy body to growing for their own sake.

I believe that if we want to bring about a healthy economy, one in which everyone can live a dignified and fulfilling life within the limits of our planet, we need to learn three things:
The purpose of any organization is to contribute to the health of the systems it is part of, be that the industry it operates in, the economy and society in which it is embedded or nature from which it ultimately derives the value it creates.

Feedback loops are critical, and we need dramatically to increase our awareness, understanding and ability to influence them. Some loops need reinstating, others need breaking, and some new ones need to be evolved.

Most importantly though: The economy we need will only emerge if we evolve some of the most fundamental values on which our society is built.

We don’t know what feedback loops we need, what values are necessary and what organizations will be present in an economy that genuinely works for all. But happily millions of experiments are going on around the world at this very moment that can help us figure this out. Feedback loops are being short-circuited, organizations that conform to different values are being built, and debates on what our economy is all about are breaking into the mainstream.

Our task collectively is to recognize these efforts for what they are: the emerging story for a better future. Your job is to tell this story to as many people as you can.