It all started more than 10 years ago. In 2006, VoipNow Platform had just landed on the Unified Communications market. Dutch cloud communication service provider Belcentrale was a new telephony operator from Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
What seemed to be a simple crush grew into a long-term relationship built on respect, professionalism, and mutual trust. This article describes how this partnership unfolded across a decade, in the hope that you will put these insights to good use in your business.
Meetings are about to die. Particularly since collaborative work has become the staple of modern office life, they are about to die. And after they die, they will move somewhere better, virtual. Somewhere in the cloud, or in a special bundle of apps. But don’t get your hopes up high yet.
After all, there have been attempts to put new life into meetings. Some preach against inherent inefficacies. “Make meetings purposeful”, they say. Others are deluding themselves that theater methods will do. So “treat your meetings like an improv session”, they say. Seems like everyone thinks that “The Office” is a documentary. That we should all turn Michael Scott and do some improv.
Team collaboration is what makes a team. Without it, you don’t have a team. Instead, you have a bunch of people working at the same time. However, true teams do more. They use collaboration to synergize.
Be that as it may, collaboration is not an intrinsic human need or priority. In fact, we learn to collaborate. And it’s a difficult process. This process has helped us achieve a lot. Most modern achievements are the result of collaboration.
Sure, you can cultivate greatness without collaboration. While writing poetry as a team might be fun, this is a one-person job. Also, a lot of other activities are not team activities. And that’s fine.
Team collaboration can be a metric on which you benchmark productivity. Yet, we should not confuse regular productivity with synergized productivity. In synergized productivity, the overall result is greater than the sum of inputs. Work has a final result of a value superior to the elements of work. For example, a Tesla S is greater than the sum of its parts. Yet, people could be very productive producing the parts. In this case, there is no added value, no synergy.
Onboarding done right. Surprise, it’s a challenge! In fact, a quick peek at employer review websites can tell you a lot about the value of onboarding. Dating is similar. First impressions matter. But that’s the interview. The love affair starts with onboarding.
Onboarding done right leaks when measuring quality of hire. If you’re not HR, quality of hire is a trendy metric to track. While tough to calculate, it does provide valuable insight. It is also a gateway into building a system of metrics on which to plan improvement goals. Quality of hire factors in various items. Indicators such as job performance, ramp-up time, enthusiasm, cultural fit and more. Fear not, we won’t attempt to do a math model of quality of hire.
Goals, productivity, and teams. What could be the secret ingredient that binds these three? We admire those that inspire. And nothing inspires us more than the pursuit of greatness. Tenacity. Resilience. The ability to keep going, no matter what. And it is people like these that we want to lead us. It’s no surprise that we tend to follow those who persevere.
We all have these items on our to do list. We all want to be in tune with our work, harmonize with our team, and love what we do. Conversely, we need the resources to experience the adventures modernity has to offer. Traveling, city breaks, amazing escapes, meeting people, reinventing, and rediscovering oneself. Hence, our bucket list.
Yet, there is one key element that affects our existence. Our most valuable resource: time. And for some reason, most of us spend almost 1/3 of our lives sleeping. And those that don’t, should. Balance work and life through better sleep to be productive, stay passionate, and get into focus.
Training is a key component of personnel and personal development. In some cases, it may be the reason people choose to work for your business. Trainings are crucial to the development of new teams, and the elixir for the rejuvenation of old ones. Yet, trainings should take into account the way adults learn.
Leaders or managers, this is the problem. While managers can be leaders, the reverse is not a must. In fact, these two roles are often separate. After all, modern businesses seem to prefer it this way. While leaders lead, managers manage.
On the other hand, every organization strives for success. Hence, any team wants to achieve, above and beyond. However, most often, management does not have a leadership role. In fact, management often deals with quality control and compliance. Also, they exercise control and offer accountability. Modern managers do all sorts of things, yet effective leadership seems to not be on the list.
There’s no question that our culture values work, and even more so, success at work. Most of us spend an average of 40+ hours at the office every week, and for a lot of employees, those hours are anything but enjoyable.
According to a recent study
Micro-goals are a novel concept in strategy. They allow a tactical segmentation of organizational plans. In a sense, it’s like re-creating your organization at a micro-scale.
Micro-goals are a way for your organization to learn. You use them to determine what outcomes are achievable by a small, very special, task force. Then you measure the progress of such a team and learn as much as you can.
