Category Archives: Business Tips

Using Wi-Fi Analytics to Improve Your Customer Experience

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Using Wi-Fi Analytics to Improve Your Customer Experience

Offering your customers free Wi-Fi is one way to make your customers’ experiences more comfortable and convenient. It’s also a gateway to a data goldmine you can use to drive repeat visits and improve your location’s offerings. With Wi-Fi analytics, your business can create highly targeted email campaigns, optimize staff scheduling, and gather in-store behavioral insights.

Capturing customer behaviors through your guest Wi-Fi allows you to see real-time data, something that many businesses are already doing. A Harvard Business Review study found that 58% of businesses used customer analytics to increase retention and loyalty. Real-time analytics were viewed as extremely important to improving the customer experience by 60% of companies.

Real-time data can reveal how much time customers are spending in your location(s) and how long they’re lingering in various areas. You can track who’s visiting your storefront for the first time and what percentage of first-time visitors come back. Wi-Fi analytics has the power to show heavy and slow traffic times and which customers are churn risks. As highlighted below, this type of data can pivot your customer experience from average to exemplary.  

Adjust Your Staffing Levels

It’s happened to just about everyone. You go to a restaurant with the expectation you’ll be in and out within an hour or so. But when you arrive, it’s obvious the staff is overwhelmed and can’t keep up. You can either deal with the long wait times and poor experience or leave and find another place to eat.

Wi-Fi analytics can help your business avoid these types of scenarios by syncing foot traffic data with your scheduling software. By seeing how many customers log into your guest network during different times, you can adjust your employees’ schedules accordingly. If the data shows peak traffic times are between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., more staff can be scheduled then to meet demand. Your clients will be less likely to experience substandard service and delays.

If you operate more than one location, real-time data can reveal similarities and differences between them. Say your hair salon on the west side of town is constantly busy in the evenings. Your east side location tapers off during this time, but both locations experience high volume in the mornings. To help improve customers’ experiences, you could shift some employees from the east to the west location in the evenings.

Segment Customer Personas

Public Wi-Fi portal agreements are an opportunity to learn more about your customers’ demographics. These agreements are also an effective way to gather email addresses and build databases for digital marketing campaigns. Although some businesses simply let visitors accept terms and conditions to sign in, they’re missing out on valuable information.

By asking for some personal information during the sign-in process, you can learn about your clients’ characteristics. Data points like gender, age range, and zip code will allow you to start segmenting your customer base into various personas. You’ll also see whether the majority of your visitors fall into certain demographic categories, such as male or female. This kind of information could change the way you offer services or the types of products you carry.

Asking customers for their email addresses and permission to communicate with them enhances your personalization efforts. You can combine their purchase and on-premise behaviors with their demographics to deliver tailored messages. These touchpoints can encourage them to come back by suggesting complementary services and products. You can also use these messages to nurture the relationship with personalized offers and rewards for feedback about their visits.

Track Conversion Rates

Businesses that track conversions effectively send targeted promotions to customer segments via text message and email. People can look at the details through an online link and redeem offers at the physical location using a barcode. Once staff scan the barcode on a customer’s mobile device, the business can log which individuals converted.

Conversion rates for individualized or segmented offers tell a business a few things. They let the company know whether those customers found value in the promotion and whether it led to purchases. Conversion rates also reveal whether the messaging about the promotion did its job. This information gives the business the opportunity to target those who didn’t convert with different messaging or offers.

Wi-Fi analytics help you personalize offers after customers’ visits based on some key behaviors. This includes how long they browse in certain areas, how often they visit, and what times they come in. Your business has a greater chance of increasing conversion rates with offers that match those behaviors. A nail bar, for instance, can send a discount mini-pedicure offer to individuals who tend to stop by on their lunch break.

Identify Churn Risk

When customers stop purchasing from you, it can be because they no longer need what you offer. It can also be due to a bad experience or frustration with your processes. While customer surveys can identify some of these problems, their reach is often limited. McKinsey & Company reports that the typical customer experience survey captures only 7% of an organization’s customers.

As the report outlines, combining real-time data with other information can pinpoint customers who are at high risk of churn. For example, customers might browse your website for items to pick up later at your location. The website indicates the products they want are available, but when customers arrive at your location, they learn they’re out of stock.

Some clients might overlook this error on the first or second visit. Others won’t and will start looking for alternatives. By identifying individuals in the latter category, you can seize opportunities to implement recovery methods, such as reaching out to offer a discount on their next purchase. You could also offer to order the out-of-stock item(s) with express shipping to their home.

The power of using Wi-Fi analytics to improve your service processes lies in its real-time data. This information provides insights into how clients are responding to your business as they interact with it. When combined with other data, customers’ immediate and often unspoken feedback can lead to the creation of a superior customer experience.

7 Ways Your Business Strategy Needs to Evolve in 2022

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7 Ways Your Business Strategy Needs to Evolve in 2022

The market is becoming choppier, travel is slowing down, and businesses like Lyft, Google, and Apple are postponing their return-to-office plans. How, in the midst of so much chaos, can companies expect to be able to form and cohere to a single business strategy?

The short, unsatisfying answer is that they can’t. A business strategy composed in January was probably in need of serious revision by the time July came around. This is poised to be just as true for next year as it has been for this one: COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and uncertainties continue to abound. It’s time to call an audible on your business strategy in order to respond to current trends.

Here’s how you can do just that by evolving your business strategy:

1. Keep up with COVID.

This is the big, no-exceptions mantra that should ring out whenever it’s time to make a decision regarding business strategy. While major economies are unlikely to return to the harsh lockdowns of early 2020, the future trajectory of COVID-19 is something a lot of consumers are watching vigilantly. According to an ongoing survey conducted by Deloitte, some 51% of customers are concerned about their physical wellbeing when it comes to their activities, up from 47% a month prior.

Far too many businesses have been on the back foot when it comes to COVID-19, waiting for trends to appear before responding to them. Significant portions of your consumer base are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to COVID safety; if cases start to spike, they may be more hesitant to travel or perform business in person. Instead of working to accommodate those preferences as they arise, closely monitor your local and national situation and adjust your practices accordingly. If you’re not willing to take the steps necessary to make your customers feel safe and protected, they will find another business that is.

2. Complete your digital transformation.

Plenty of companies were transitioning to the cloud before 2020, but the events of that year just added more fuel to the fire. For most of the past year, developments like the rise of remote or hybrid working and virtual communication have been front and center of most companies’ business strategies. The reopening of the economy in 2021, however, has seen some businesses put a pause on their digital transformation for the time being — that’s a big mistake.

While the world may seem to be “returning to normal” for now, the future is all but certain to be one that happens online. Businesses need to transition to the cloud if they want to be ready for the next stage of digital commerce. For example, smart home and small business solutions provider Plume estimates that there will be 8.4 billion digital voice assistants in the world by 2024 — if your business is still married to brick-and-mortar operations, how effectively are you going to be able to respond to a consumer base whose primary method of purchase and research is digital voice assistants? The transitions that occurred in 2020 need to be accelerated, not halted, as 2022 approaches.

3. Don’t bet on rosy markets.

When the stock market plummeted in March and April of 2020, it seemed like the global economy was going to be in the dregs for some time. Little could anyone anticipate just how untrue that would end up being: the recession of 2020 ultimately lasted just 2 months, the shortest in US history. Growth since then has been on a sharply upward trend, and plenty of business leaders are getting ahead of themselves in expecting this growth to continue unabated for years to come.

Predicting the trajectory of the economy and the markets that comprise it is almost impossible, and there’s reason to be skeptical of those who forecast halcyon years ahead. Legendary Boston-based money management firm GMO recently predicted that the S&P 500 will have lost half of its inflation-adjusted value by 2028, for example. Don’t build a business strategy on a foundation of optimism alone. Create workflows and operating principles that can work in both good and bad times, and your business will be able to ride both the crests and troughs of whatever waves may come your way.

4. Meet your customers where they are.

In 2020, businesses had to be able to reach their customers at home if they wanted their attention. In 2021, customers were more eager than ever to get out of the house and head to businesses directly. Which of these routes is more likely for 2022? What about the 2020s in general? How can businesses expect to cope with the uncertainty of consumer behavior?

Sticking to your storefront may ultimately cause more trouble than it’s worth. Indeed, Bloomberg reports that the e-commerce industry could be worth over $16 billion by the year 2027, with few signs of slowing down in growth thereafter. There’s nothing wrong with returning to normal for a while in the next few quarters. However, don’t bet too much on brick-and-mortar making a long-term comeback. Make your way to the cloud; your customers will be waiting for you there.

Consider offering a hybrid option. You would be accommodating both customers who want a traditional in-person experience, and those who prefer to do things virtually. Be sure not to neglect the latter in favor of the former, though. Doing so is equivalent to adopting a business strategy far too near-sighted for long-term success.

5. Adjust to new social media practices.

Social media usage is booming across all platforms. However, that doesn’t mean you can just post-traditional content and expect higher levels of engagement than before. As users grow, social media trends and practices evolve. The posts that accrued big engagement in 2018 will probably not make the same kind of splash in 2021.

This is perhaps most true in the ever-growing world of social media influencers. Just a few years ago, they were objects of fascination or derision in most marketing departments. But, businesses dismiss them at their own peril. A Google-commissioned survey from Ipsos found that 40% of millennial YouTube subscribers say that their favorite creator understands them better than their friends — that level of trust and engagement is way more likely to get a customer’s attention than promoted tweets ever will. Don’t let a dynamic business strategy become sclerotic when it comes to social media.

6. Respond to changing employee priorities.

It’s not just consumers and markets who have had their trajectories changed by the past year. Your employees have likely undergone a few changes themselves. Quality of life is increasingly privileged over big salaries and flexible work over traditional office setups.

In fact, attempting to quickly re-transition to the way things were before may cause quite a bit of consternation among your team. A recent survey from The Morning Consult found that 39% of workers would consider quitting if their bosses forced them to give up remote work and return to the office. This isn’t just true for your current employees either. Prospective hires will also be expecting accommodations when it comes to remote and flexible working options. Businesses too set in their ways when it comes to cubicles and the 40-hour, 5-day workweek risk creating business strategies already out of date.

7. Think global, stay local.

It’s an oft-employed maxim that the world is constantly getting flattered, and not in the literal sense. It’s becoming easier all the time to communicate and do business across borders. At least, it was before COVID-19 struck. Disruptions to travel and international shipping meant that businesses once again needed to refocus their efforts on local and domestic markets.

What about 2022? Should companies bank on the reopening of borders and flourishing of international business or play it safe with nearer markets? Unsurprisingly, the answer is a bit of both.

Don’t abandon your local operations in the hopes that your business’s horizons will broaden in the near future. Instead, continue to nurture any and all existing customer relationships. And, do so while waiting for a good time to begin expansion further afield.

Make sure your business strategy reflects this by emphasizing operations you know can be sustained into the future while probing for potential opportunities down the line.

Anyone who tells you that they know what 2022 will look like is lying. The uncertainty that plagued 2020 and 2021 isn’t going anywhere, and your business strategy needs to be composed accordingly. Prepare your company against whatever may come, and expect solid growth in return.

Instilling Generosity Into Your Leadership Can Help Your Company Succeed

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Instilling Generosity Into Your Leadership Can Help Your Company Succeed

Bad bosses foster bad blood throughout the whole team. That’s not just theoretical, either — it’s been proven again and again. For instance, a Gallup study showed lousy managers contributed to about half of their organizations’ resignations. But to be honest, not all supervisors belong in a Dilbert cartoon.

Take you, as an example. You’re reading an article on moving your leadership level up a notch. So you’re not exactly shying away from self-improvement. But, at the same time, you might not be aware of one attribute that could ratchet up your ability to lead: generosity.

Instilling Generosity Into Your Leadership

What makes generosity such a powerful force when used by leaders? For one, it’s unexpected in a delightful way. When most people describe their bosses, the word “generous” doesn’t spill from their lips. Maybe they say “kind” or “driven” or “smart,” but they rarely talk about a team leader’s or executive’s generosity. This shows how much of a unicorn trait it can be.

Secondly, generosity tends to promote a ton of goodwill. There isn’t an in-person or remote office on the planet that couldn’t use an extra dash of positivity. In fact, infusing a spirit of generosity into a workforce can create a domino effect. As workers experience generosity from their leaders, they tend to pass it around, too.

Finally—and on a personal level—being generous is good for your health. One psychological study on volunteerism found a correlation between generosity and a longer life span. Consequently, practicing generosity regularly could allow you to lead more people toward their dreams and goals over your lifetime.

But how do you put generosity into action? To help your company succeed, you’ll need to make more than just a few small changes. Like most behavioral changes, you need to practice some patience and diligence.

Help your company succeed by forging ahead with a few steps.

1. Redefine your idea of generosity

First thing’s first: To become more generous, you have to know what generosity is.

For example, many leaders would call themselves generous because they hand out year-end bonuses. Yet, according to Jason Jaggard, founder of executive coaching firm Novus Global, wealth can be broken down into different vehicles. The vehicles include energy, knowledge, and opportunity, and they can have just as much (or more) impact than spreading cash.

It’s important to open your mind to thinking of generosity from all angles. For example, when you mentor a struggling coworker, you’re generous. When you’re introducing a neighbor to someone who is looking for a worker with the neighbor’s skills, you’re generous. These actions might not seem extraordinary, but they indicate your willingness to serve.

2. Put a premium on listening

Generous leaders listen. In fact, they listen often, and they listen well. They don’t just hear the words others are saying, but they look for context and opportunities to help. At this point, 83% of workers want their bosses to provide more input. An excellent way to help others is by listening to them carefully and then responding with kindness, honesty, and thoughtfulness.

Listening helps reveal your generosity to your employees.

What does listening show your employees? First, it tells them they’re valued. You actually care. Secondly, it proves that you’re open to learning something, too. Third, it builds your relationship with your people. And that relationship may mean the difference between them staying for years or moving on to a different employer.

3. Go beyond being commonly empathetic to becoming high-level empathetic

We’ve all heard a lot about the importance of empathy in the workplace, especially after the 2020 pandemic. Empathy doesn’t end with just understanding others’ emotional states, though. You can use your emotional intelligence as a springboard to transform someone’s personal or professional life.

Let’s say you have a salesperson who’s been underperforming for about a month. You know that something’s happening, but you don’t know what. So, therefore, you talk with the salesperson and find out he’s going through a divorce and is trying to move out.

Rather than just offer some extra PTO or the ability to work remotely, head down a more generous route. With his permission, you could put out feelers with friends who are landlords or need long-term house sitters. This is a way to be generous through your network. It shows your empathy doesn’t end with the words, “That’s too bad.”

4. Hand over the reins

One thing about leaders, particularly entrepreneurs, is that they tend to be selfish when it comes to leading. After all, they’re leaders by trade. It’s who they are, and they like being at the front of the line. Yet taking up the spotlight isn’t very generous, is it?

Quite honestly, much leadership in business causes others to shrink up and lose initiative — which will surely hurt innovation, morale, and employee engagement. In addition, when you injure anything in your employees, it doesn’t help your team succeed; it’s also not going to help your company succeed either.

When appropriate, give people the chance to lead. This doesn’t mean anointing them as CEOs for the day, though. Instead, hand out projects and delegate key responsibilities. To be sure, sometimes your employees will falter or even fail at their assignments. You have to be okay with that.

Your overarching objective isn’t for them to be perfect, but for talented workers to have the chance to wow the world. So don’t be surprised if this type of generosity allows you to unearth some potential future executives among your personnel.

5. Act protectively with your people

It’s funny how often corporate leaders will stick up for their services and products, but not do the same for their high-performance workers. Ouch. Don’t be “that boss” who throws employees under the bus.

Stick up for your team members when it’s appropriate, even if that means that you’re going to have to go out on a limb. In other words, extend your generosity like a blanket that offers security, and shows that you aren’t a fairweather founder.

Will there be times when you don’t agree with something a staffer has said or done? Absolutely. And you may need to make difficult choices. However, you don’t have to allow angry customers to trash your employees just to make a sale.

If you believe your employees are in the right, say so. You’ll be amazed at the loyalty you can foster by moving to the same side of the table as your crew. Furthermore, fostering a company culture of true teamwork will also help your company succeed in the long run.

6. Spotlight generosity when you see it –and aim to imitate it

When you hear about another leader doing something generous, talk about it in glowing terms. The same goes for any act of generosity you spot among your workers. By communicating your appreciation for generous decisions, you’ll show just how important you place generosity.

In time, you’ll probably start to see people make more generous moves as a result, which will ultimately help your company succeed.

At the same time, be sure to model the generous behavior that moves you deeply. For example, if a colleague volunteers at a shelter, you may want to see if the shelter needs additional help. Of course, you don’t want to step on (or try to “one-up”) your coworker’s generosity, but you should be open to helping.

Generosity in the workplace is kind of like one of those beautiful weeds in your yard that you can’t help but admire. It sprouts, spreads and reseeds at a high-paced level if you let it. To start a new era of generous habits among your team right now by auditing and augmenting your own generosity as a leader.

Video Credit: nik fowler-hainen; prezi; thank you!

Image Credit: fauxels; pexels; thank you!

5 Practical Tips for Keeping Your Team Organized

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5 Practical Tips for Keeping Your Team Organized

Your business might be made up of an organized, established, everyday team, or you might be assembling a project-oriented team to address a specific issue. Whatever the case, we all know that throwing people together on a team can produce mixed results. Productivity and effectiveness can vary widely based on skills, experience, personality, or simply placing the wrong person in the driver’s seat.

Whether your team is permanent or temporary, there are some basic, commonsense principles to apply. The way you handle team expectations can make or break any initiative.

Here are five tips you can use or modify to suit specific team needs.

1. Pick your communication tools carefully and use them effectively.

Nowadays, there are a number of communication tools designed to help teams share issues and progress. Effective and timely communication often makes the difference between project completion and seemingly endless delays. If you’re not currently using something to facilitate communication within teams, you might consider looking for a solution that works well in your particular context. Here are some options:

  • Trello allows users to create “cards” that help organize a list of tasks to be completed. Each card may include a checklist to indicate progress. All of your team members have the ability to edit a card, which makes for easier collaboration.
  • Asana limits the number of team members to 15. It features user-friendly “like” and “thumbs up” functions. The ability to view the popularity of an entry at a glance can bring enhanced clarity for decision-making. It can also cut down dramatically on the need for meetings.
  • Slack functions as a chat room for teams. Team members can get quick responses from colleagues even when they are scattered across the globe. Businesses that implement Slack tend to notice a sharp drop-off in the need to send and receive emails.
  • Basecamp syncs to Google Drive and Google Calendar and offers a cloud-based solution that tracks both productivity and time spent on specific projects. Companies that bill based on staff time tend to use Basecamp to evaluate ROI by project, customer, and assigned staff.
  • Teamwork Projects works best by breaking down large tasks into bite-size chunks and assigning them out to individuals. Each subtask can be given specific milestones and deadlines.

2. Use a team calendar for organized project reporting.

Your team members are routinely walking around with more computing horsepower in their pocket than was necessary to put Apollo 11 on the moon. You should only leverage smartphone apps to keep team members on task without being intrusive. While these devices make it possible for your team members to work constantly, you also want to avoid burning them out.

Step one is to create a project calendar on a platform that provides easy access to all staff. Many apps offer a granular approach to permission setting such that various team members can merely comment while others can make deadline edits. When setting up your team calendar, make sure you select a resource that allows you to evaluate progress regularly.

3. Assign specific tasks to specific individuals.

The importance of giving team members both responsibility and ownership can hardly be overstated. When these are lacking, confusion reigns and employees are encouraged to play a perpetual game of Pass the Buck.

Making sure an individual knows and accepts responsibility for the completion of a specific task is an art. If you are too “soft” or otherwise unclear, this can serve as an invitation to not take deadlines and milestones seriously. Should you veer into the opposite ditch and become overly authoritarian, you stifle employees’ willingness to be creative.

If you notice specific tasks that are falling behind schedule, reach out to the responsible team member privately. It may be necessary to reassign that individual, but they will appreciate your not shaming them in a team meeting. Another benefit is that you will learn things in a one-on-one conversation that you will never hear in a group setting.

4. Make team responsibilities organized and abundantly clear.

Be clear on roles and responsibilities. If team members must come to you or another manager to address every problem that arises, you can expect the team to get bogged down in frequent delays. Head off this common issue by designating a team leader to handle team problems. Each task should have one identified person responsible for reporting back.

Resist micromanagement. Give team members the authority to create subchannels using your communications tool. Encourage efficiency by allowing people to communicate only with the people affected by a specific issue. Allowing subchannel chatter encourages people to take greater ownership and frees you from managing the minutiae of every task.

Establishing responsibilities in this manner will make your team more efficient, as people can keep working without stopping to ask permission for every move they make. Clarify which types of issues require your approval. The rest of the time, your team can take primary responsibility for the details.

5. Hold only necessary meetings and require actionable agendas.

Keep organized team meetings few and short. Experiment with allowing meetings to last no longer than 15 minutes. After all, the purpose of meetings is to decide upon a course of action. Far too many discussions end up devolving into purposeless chatter. Make it clear that each team member should leave every meeting with action items.

As many meetings now occur remotely, inform team members that being on time and well prepared are still requirements. Urge your meeting moderator to avoid statements such as, “We still have 10 minutes left. Is there anything else?” Such questions imply that the purpose of the meeting is to use up the time rather than create a to-do list.

Once you draw up the action items, dismiss everyone. Results-oriented discussions help make meetings painless.

Keep in mind that “Your mileage may vary.”

Every business is unique. Even upper-level franchise managers will tell you that “identical” locations can vary greatly from another simply due to issues of geography, culture, population, and climate. The organizational principles listed above may or may not work flawlessly in your setting, so feel free to experiment with the practices that draw the best response from your team.

6 Ways to Keep Your Team on Task Without Micromanaging

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6 Ways to Keep Your Team on Task Without Micromanaging

According to a study of U.S. workers, over 80% of employees admit to keeping their phones close by while working. While technology offers several benefits, it can be incredibly distracting. If you’re managing a team, you’ve probably seen firsthand just how often employees grab their phones while in the office. 

Whether they’re scrolling through social media or texting friends, smartphones are just one distraction that keeps team members from effectively performing tasks. How can you fight tech and other distractions and help your team stay productive in today’s often virtual environment? Read on for tips on how to keep your team on task without becoming Big Brother: 

1. Hire the Conscientious

You’ll have fewer problems keeping your team on track if you hire the right kind of people in the first place. During the interview process, focus on candidates’ traits as much as their skills and credentials. Look to hire individuals who are self-starters and able to focus their attention on the objectives at hand.   

Ask candidates to describe a time they had to take the initiative to see that a project or task was completed. Seek out those who have operated successfully in unsupervised work environments. When you hire people who have demonstrated the ability to work productively when no one’s watching, you’ll create a company culture of accountability.

2. Make Sure You’re Communicating Effectively 

If your team is struggling to stay on task, consider how well you’re communicating information. Ask yourself, “Am I making my priorities clear?” In today’s hybrid environment, it’s easier than ever for wires to get crossed and information to get lost. Even if you think you’re communicating effectively, your objectives might not be reaching everyone.  

Instead of sticking to what you’ve always done, experiment with other forms of communication. For example, integrate more video calls, schedule one-on-ones, and hold brief team standups. You might also want to consider reaching out to your employees and asking what forms of communication they prefer so you can make sure you’re getting your points across through the best means possible.  

3. Provide Regular Feedback 

Believe it or not, employees like feedback. In fact, according to a study by Officevibe, 82% of employees value both positive and negative feedback. On some level, they know that hearing both the good and the bad about their performance will help them improve it. 

If you’re not already providing your team with regular feedback, there’s no better time to start. One way to do so is with the aforementioned one-on-ones. In these meetings, you can bring up specific issues that are causing your employees to get off task. 

If, for example, you notice an employee spends a lot of time posting funny memes on the team Slack channel, point it out. You could ask them to confine the just-for-fun posts to Fridays, thus encouraging more on-task behavior during the week while not squelching team camaraderie altogether. 

4. Praise Good Work

According to HubSpot data, almost 70% of employees say they’d work harder if they felt more appreciated. In addition to providing feedback on performance, make sure you’re also recognizing good work.

When an employee completes a task successfully and in a timely manner, thank them. You don’t have to do anything huge, but acknowledge the hard work and dedication they’re putting in. For your employees to succeed — and want to keep succeeding — they need to feel appreciated. Whether that means sending a short email, featuring them in a social media post, or giving them a public shout-out at a team meeting, a little gesture of recognition goes a long way.

5. Integrate Remote Work Tools

Keeping your team on task may seem particularly challenging in a remote work environment. Fortunately, there are several project management tools that are ideal for remote workers. No longer do you need to rely on emails and phone calls to manage project tasks. Instead, you can integrate a project management system to help your virtual employees collaborate. 

Tools like Asana, Monday, and Basecamp let teams create projects, assign tasks, and track deadlines. If a task is overdue, the system will let the assignee — and the whole team — know it. There will be no need for you to ride herd on your team when the software does the task monitoring for you. 

6. Prioritize Work/Life Balance 

It’s all well and good to want your team to stay on task. To keep employees motivated, though, make sure you’re not requiring too much. While you want employees who are willing to work hard, you don’t want to overwork them. If you do, employees are likely to burn out, and then you’ll really be kissing effective task completion goodbye! 

To avoid this, make sure you’re prioritizing a good work/life balance for your team. Be flexible when it comes to when and where employees work. They’ll be better able to focus on the task at hand if they’re not worrying whether someone’s going to be home when the kids return from school. In addition, encourage your employees to take breaks during the day and offer paid time off. Employees will return from their time off energized and eager to get back down to work. 

As an employer, it’s important to make sure your employees are staying on task. With more people working from home, it can be a challenge to effectively manage what your employees are doing. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. From using the right tools to maintaining team motivation, the tips above will help you keep your employees on task without becoming overbearing. 

How Analytics Can Help Your Small Business

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How Analytics Can Help Your Small Business

In our increasingly digital age, it can be all too easy for a small business owner to become overwhelmed by a sudden glut of available data. It seems like every new gadget or operations upgrade connects to the internet and includes an opportunity to accurately measure something or other to which they previously gave very little thought.

Some business owners make the rookie mistake of collecting as much data as possible, meticulously entering it into spreadsheets, and more or less leaving it at that. Successful entrepreneurs, on the other hand, understand that increased opportunities for data collection can be helpful, but only when those analytics are leveraged. Simply stated, they know the difference between raw data and actionable data.

The time to be impressed by internet-enabled devices that spit out new forms of previously uncollectible data is over. Small business owners, in particular, need to bring an increased level of discernment to data that’s merely “cool” vs. data that can help them increase efficiency and profits.

The best place to start is not by compiling all the data available to you but instead pausing long enough to write down a few simple questions. Only after you’ve decided which questions you’d like to answer can you begin to assess which analytics might actually prove helpful. Listed below are four questions just about any small business owner can adopt or adapt, along with pointers for how newer forms of data can help provide actionable answers.

1. Where are we wasting time?

The difference between time and money is that money can be replaced. Business owners and managers should be setting the tone in terms of effective time management during office hours. When management consistently demonstrates respect for the value of time, that attitude tends to filter down to the frontline staff. Conversely, managers who call meetings for no apparent reason can’t reasonably expect employees to place much value on anyone’s time.

Nowadays, there are many scheduling apps that include reporting features that will allow you to more effectively track how you’re spending time and whether or not that investment is paying off. For example, time-tracking analytics can be cross-referenced against customer billing numbers to assess ROI. This relatively simple exercise can be eye-opening in terms of surfacing high-maintenance individuals who, as it turns out, are not contributing all that much to revenue. 

Is the relationship worth the ongoing effort? Time-reporting analytics can help you decide whether to limit specific client contact to certain levels of time commitment or not.

2. Which demographics are falling away?

An investment in customer relationship management (CRM) software can provide individualized feedback on customer preferences, allowing your business to tailor its offerings accordingly. Marketing campaigns can be tweaked to highlight products and services that seem to strike a chord with your regulars. Emails can include a higher degree of personalization. Special events can be designed to respond to feedback.

Additionally, CRM data can chart changes in your customer base and help you do a little exploration. For example, visits to your salon by your 50+ customers may have driven the lion’s share of high-end sales, but those visits have declined precipitously. Is the falloff in any way related to how your business is operating in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic? Or did your product or service line shift such that your more mature customers are no longer interested? 

If the latter, are you OK with that shift? Analytics provided by just about any CRM package should provide the data you need to analyze who your customers are, what they care about, and how you can tailor your business to their needs.

3. At what point do our website visitors lose interest?

Website analytics, in particular, are one area where it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of available data. This is where your ability to formulate relevant, niche-specific questions before you start excavating data is most likely to save you from being over-informed and under-actioned. In particular, owners of appointment-based need to pay close attention to website bounce rates and abandoned scheduling forms.

Did you lose the booking when they read your terms and conditions or when you requested prepayment? Was the user confused by being presented with too many options too soon? Website analytics can provide the when, but you might need to investigate further to find the why.

If, for example, you notice a high bounce rate on a website resource that features one of your most popular offerings, that definitely merits a closer look. The problem might be tied to something as complex as mobile browser compatibility or something as easy to fix as a lousy photo. As you study online analytics, scan for any anomalies as your first step.

4. What do our Wi-Fi analytics reveal about peak business hours?

By encouraging customers to freely use your on-premises Wi-Fi, you can learn a lot. What days and times of the week see the most walk-in traffic? You can use this information to make sure you have enough staff on hand to serve these impromptu clients.

If users sign on via their social media accounts, you can glean further insights from demographic data. Are certain age groups more apt to patronize your business at certain times of day? You can tailor everything from promotions to in-office music choices accordingly.

Proceed with caution, though. There’s a fine balance to be struck between using Wi-Fi analytics to enhance your bottom line and being too nosy. Customers are growing increasingly wary of the data that any service provider collects, so you’ll want to be proactive about this. 

A simple disclaimer informing customers that you collect data to enhance their experience with your business is typically sufficient. Not every customer will agree to your terms and conditions, but many will, thereby helping you increase the overall effectiveness of your staffing and outreach.

Analytics can be powerful tools … or they can be powerful distractions.

There is no denying that objective, empirical data is a good thing. The question every business owner needs to address is whether or not specific forms of data can be utilized to foster growth. Depending on the niche you occupy, newer forms of analytics might be interesting but not helpful. Focus on data that facilitates needed changes.

Don’t fall into the trap of collecting and charting data merely for the sake of collecting and charting data. As you encounter newer forms of analytics that can be conducted, stop and ask yourself whether you should. By keeping an ongoing log of relevant business issues you hope to address with data, your data-sifting process will become much simpler.

Less Is More: People Will Attend Your Meetings When You Make Them Painless

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Less Is More: People Will Attend Your Meetings When You Make Them Painless

Workplace meetings often bring to mind the opening scene of John Hughes’s “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.” Like Steve Martin’s character, you’re probably familiar with long, boring meetings that consistently run overtime. Stuck with a boredom-induced headache, you start daydreaming about everything else you could be doing with your day. As the meeting drags on further and further beyond its scheduled endpoint, you watch the clock in growing irritation. 

Fortunately, workplace meetings don’t have to be an annoying waste of everyone’s time. The key to productive meetings lies in making them brief, focused, and as considerate of people’s time as possible. No one will object to attending your meetings when you do your best to make them painless. 

Do the Needed Prep Work

Before scheduling a meeting, begin by determining whether it is truly necessary. There are many scenarios where the information covered in a meeting could be communicated perfectly well in another, less time-consuming way. We’ve all heard the lament: “This meeting could have been an email.” Some meetings could even be a Slack message or a comment thread in your project management software. Make sure yours isn’t one of them.

If you decide that a meeting is absolutely necessary, the next step is to plan the meeting. Meetings should have a goal and an agenda before the invite goes out. 

Without an agenda, a meeting can easily lose focus or run into overtime. Your agenda should state the meeting’s purpose and the topics to be discussed, by whom, and for how long. Attaching the agenda to the meeting invitation will allow attendees to ask questions or propose other subjects for discussion beforehand.

Once you have a written agenda, go ahead and schedule your meeting. While it can be tempting to cram a meeting into any open time block, some slots are more eligible than others. A U.K study found that 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday is the ideal meeting time, but any midweek, midafternoon slot should suffice. Use your team’s calendar app to find a time when all the necessary participants can attend. 

Keep It Concise

A general rule of business writing is to use as few and as simple words as possible. The same applies to running a productive meeting. Avoid lengthy statements and steer clear of jargon. And remember that meetings aren’t supposed to be a one-way mode of communication. Open the floor for discussion, asking questions of attendees and inviting them to raise questions of their own.

That said, be mindful of losing focus during the meeting. Confine the conversation to agenda items and table unrelated topics. More narrowly focused subjects can often be handled better in smaller settings. 

In a meeting, less is always more. You want to make sure attendees aren’t overwhelmed with information. Meetings should convey enough information to enable a decision on some issue or the setting of action items. If you find yourself citing chapter and verse, you should be sharing a document instead.

Add Some Creative Flair

Meetings can’t be painful when you make them fun. With some creative thinking, you can add aspects to meetings that encourage camaraderie and deter boredom. Brainstorming new ways to run meetings can be a great way to engage participants and add some excitement to the office. 

If this sounds frivolous, note that these add-ons can be fun while helping to keep your meetings on track. At Buddytruk, for example, the team has a surefire way of ensuring its meetings end on time. If one runs over schedule, the last person speaking has to do 50 pushups. At Just Fearless, attendees get their chairs taken away when the time’s up.

Not only do these tactics encourage team bonding, they also make it clear to attendees that their time matters. When your meeting participants know you value their time, they will respect you more in turn. 

Probe for Pain Points 

OK, so you’ve tried to hold a painless meeting. You let your attendees know the meeting’s goal and provided a clear agenda ahead of time. You encouraged a discussion that was free-flowing but on point. You even introduced a few fun — but focusing — elements to the proceedings. How did it go?

Meetings don’t always run perfectly, no matter how hard you try. Instead of striving for perfection, strive for continuous improvement. 

As with most things, feedback is the best way of judging the productivity and success of your meeting. You can get a lot of natural and authentic feedback just from gauging attendees’ reactions during the event. If attendees look distracted or bored, it’s probably a sign that the meeting isn’t proving as effective as it could be. If they pull you aside to ask tons of questions afterward, that’s another indication the meeting didn’t convey needed information effectively.

Sending a short survey directly related to what was covered in the meeting is another good strategy for eliciting feedback. It will help you figure out what was clear to attendees and what wasn’t. You might also ask them to rate the meeting or state what aspects they liked and didn’t like. This information will help you make future meetings even more pain-free. 

To show meeting participants you appreciate their time and attendance, it’s a good idea to touch base with them afterward. A simple thank-you email can make attendees feel valued and respected — and more willing to turn up at your next meeting.

Meaningful Motivation: What Actually Drives Employee Engagement

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Meaningful Motivation: What Actually Drives Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is tricky. While our workers tell us money is the way to maximize productivity, results tell a different story. What do we believe?

Recent experiments run by Dan Ariely, author of the book Payoff, showed that money is a poor motivator for getting the best work out of people. In fact, large bonuses for key executives produced deteriorating efficiency.

Based on these findings, if not money, what incentives produce the output employees?

Here are 3 rewards other than cash that we can give to our workforce to boost productivity. All these privileges have been shown to produce more engagement in companies than dollar-based incentives. Start using these motivation boosters in your business today, and watch your company culture and happiness increase substantially.

1. Seeing a satisfied customer

One of the worst parts about pivoting in a startup is the amount of previous work you must throw away. Imagine working 12 hours a day, sacrificing family time, and working weekends to help build a product you believe in. Then after months or years of working your tail off, the company you work for scratches the project. No one will use what you built, and now you have nothing to show for it. Your motivation is gone.

Unfortunately, this scenario is seen in companies of all sizes. While many times an instance like this is unavoidable, the way decision-makers handle a scenario like this can make all the difference.

Seeing a customer have a great experience with something that you helped create is a wonderful feeling. It allows you to see first-hand that what you are working on has a greater purpose, and you can see with your own eyes the positive effect you have caused.

To take advantage of this, if your company is going through a pivot, find ways to save as much of the work that you did as possible. Tie it into your new product, or dig into the processes that worked well before you pivoted and incorporate them into your new plan.

Throughout the building process, bring customers in and have them test the product in front of your team. When your employees see customers light up, they will light up as well.

Once the product is built, share positive feedback from your customers directly with your staff.

When I receive positive comments about the content my team produces, I share it directly with my team. It means more to them to see the customer say good job than it does for me to tell them the same.

People want to work for companies that are improving the lives of others. The best way to show your team they are working for a purpose is to allow them to see happy customers with their own eyes.

2. Meaningful motivation builds trust

Sadly, some employees view trust as more of a privilege than a right. For these organizations, motivation is nonexistent.

While having faith in your team can increase employee output exponentially, not having confidence in them can lead to your company lacking vision and any kind of connection with the organization.

While trust can be expressed in a variety of ways, one of the best is enabling a sense of autonomy to your workers. For instance, in my company, we allow everyone to work from home. There is no office, and we don’t have a set start time. We update each other on our daily schedule and all have tasks we are responsible for that day, but there is no micromanaging.

When I was deciding to build a company this way, I thought about the kind of company culture I’d want to work for. I didn’t want a company who treated me like a child. I wanted to be an equal in an organization, not a prisoner. As I’ve built an autonomous culture in my own company, the rewards have been substantial. Happier employees, increased productivity, and less burn out are just a few of the perks.

The more trust you put in people the better results you’ll get. If you don’t have assurance in your team, then you’re hiring the wrong people.

3. Congratulating Employees For A Job Well Done

When an employee is doing an amazing job, the first thought in many employer’s minds is to up their salary. The issue with this thought process is that the worker quickly becomes used to the increased pay anytime they do something well. So when they do something exemplary again, they want a bigger bonus. Then an even bigger bonus, and on and on.

Try going back down the ladder, and your worker will be furious. Once pay has become the dictator of worth, smaller bonuses are seen as a bad thing not a great motivator.

Instead, positive reinforcement is shown to be just as effective as increased pay but without diminishing returns. So, let’s say if instead of paying you a fat bonus for a project you knocked out of the park, I tell you how great of a job you did and invite you out for a drink. To most people, this will be an equal motivator as a bonus. But, when you do amazing things in the future, you won’t expect more money, you’ll instead just expect me to give you more praise.

Appreciating employees is easy. There are no monetary resources that you need to pour in. All you need is sincerity and time. Over the long term, this is a much better way to motivate your workforce, and a better way to build your company culture.

Innovate, Innovate, Innovate

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Innovate, Innovate, Innovate

Thomas Edison once said, “There’s a way to do it better – find it.” In my opinion, that perfectly sums up what innovation is. But, marketing specialist Will Purcell has a more in-depth definition of how to inovate. “Innovation, as a concept, refers to the process that an individual or organization undertakes to conceptualize brand new products, processes, and ideas, or to approach existing products, processes, and ideas in new ways.”

Purcell adds that in the business world, there are three types of innovation to pursue. These include product, process, and business model innovations. Chasing any of these not only sparks creativity and inspiration, but it can also take your business to new levels.

The most obvious reason is that innovation will help your company grow. In fact, according to economists, between 1870 and 1950, innovation was responsible for 85% of all growth in the US economy. More recently, McKinsey reports that 84% of executives believe that innovation is important to growth strategy.

That actually makes sense. Through innovation, you’re better equipped to reduce waste and costs, embrace new opportunities, and stand out from your competition. Moreover, it can strengthen your relationships with customers and employees. And, it encourages you to continually improves and stay on top of trends so that you’ll remain relevant.

So, yeah. Innovation is incredibly important. And, in my opinion, it’s particularly true in the world we currently live in as we’re surrounded by so much uncertainty.

The good news? There are simple and effective ways to train yourself and your team to become more innovative, such as the following 10 techniques.

1. Cultivate your innovative traits.

There’s a misconception that some people are just born to be innovative. That’s not exactly true. Victor Poirier, a professor at the Institute of Advanced Discovery & Innovation at the University of South Florida, believes we all possess this trait.

“Almost everybody [has] innovative traits,” he told Fast Company. “Some people use them; some people don’t. [I did this research] to make people aware of what traits people do have, wake up dormant traits that they don’t even know they have, and prove the utilization of those traits.”

Which traits specifically? Poirier lists the ability to think abstractly, having deep and broad knowledge, curiosity, openness to risk, grit, and dissatisfaction with the status quo as the most common. If you notice any of these in you or a team member, he suggests seeking out experiences that force you to put them to the test.

For example, you’ve noticed that you’ve got some grit in you. You decide to strengthen this trait. You can do so by developing alternative plans to handle potential setbacks.

Poirier also recommends that you put yourself in environments that are conducive to innovation. And, you should have some ego since this can push you out of your comfort zone. Just make sure to keep it in check.

2. Turn “I can’t” into “I can.”

From my experiences, we often don’t chase innovation because there are roadblocks in the way. For example, maybe the COVID-19 pandemic forced you to close your retail shop. Instead of “I can’t make money because I can’t have indoor gatherings,” look for alternatives, such as opening an online shop.

That may sound simplistic. But, it’s possible if you start small and track your progress. Most importantly, believe in yourself. As Carolyn Rubenstein, author of Perseverance, puts it, “Don’t give yourself any other option. If other people can do it, so can you.”

3. Don’t discount “crazy” ideas.

Airplanes, coffee, light bulbs, personal computers, and vaccines. All are a part of daily life. But did you know that they were initially ridiculed?

The point is, never listen to the naysayers. Whenever you have an idea, jot it down and run with it if it keeps nagging you. It might not change the world. But, life is too short to live with regrets.

4. Shake things up.

I have nothing against routines. In addition to providing structure, it pretty much automates planning. At the same time, monotony can put you in a rut.

To avoid this and light the creativity spark, find ways to diverge from the normal — ideally every day. It could be something as small as eating something different for breakfast or working somewhere besides your office. Or, it could more of a shock to the system, like rearranging your home or traveling abroad.

5. Be constantly curious.

“Humans are naturally curious—anyone who’s spent time with a toddler knows that a hunger to figure things out is a primal motivating force,” wrote Neil Blumenthal, Co-founder, and Co-CEO of Warby Parker. “Learning also leads to ideation: the more you know, the more you imagine.”

“We’ve institutionalized learning in a few ways— by creating employee book clubs and establishing Warby Parker Academy, a program that offers free workshops on everything from frame design to public speaking to retail real estate to fantasy football,” adds Blumenthal. “Learning naturally leads to cross-pollination and ideation. Ideation can lead to action. Action is how innovation comes to life.

One of my favorite ways to cultivate curiosity is to just talk to others. It could be an employee, friend, or stranger you’ve just met at the airport. Actually, listening to others is a great way to learn new things and gain fresh perspectives.

6. Ban things.

While this may sound counterintuitive, Annabel Action, founder of the site Never Liked It Anyway, has a different opinion. When you have constraints and parameters in place, it can “inspire innovation by forcing you to think dynamically and creatively.”

“As an exercise, start banning things and exploring the implications,” recommends Annabel. Ban words, resources, and your primary target market. You could even take it further by banning “your default communication tools.” In most cases, “the ideas you settle on will likely be watered down versions of your initial suggestions, but the point of this exercise is to spark new thoughts on how to do the same old things.”

7. Involve others.

Even if you’re a solopreneur or pride yourself on being a lone wolf, the reality is that innovation stifles when other’s aren’t involved. You need someone to bounce ideas off of and then have them bring in their own diverse knowledge, experiences, and perspectives.

And, sometimes this can push you beyond your limitations. Take the “amazing competition” between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

“It was a great way for us to keep each other on our toes,” Paul told Uncut in 2004. “I’d write ‘Yesterday,’ and John would go away and write ‘Norwegian Wood.’ If he wrote ‘Strawberry Fields, it was like he’d upped the ante, so I had to come up with something as good as ‘Penny Lane.’”

8. Enjoy the silence.

While you should definitely surround yourself with others, you also need time to be alone. Silence can lower blood pressure, bolster your immune system, and gives you a chance to reflect.

Silence also generates new cells in the hippocampus region of the brain, which is linked to learning, remembering, and emotions. Additionally, it can inspire creativity.

“When allowing thoughts to go where they will, inspiration may bubble up,” writes Suzanne Kane for PsychCentral. “Solutions to current or long-standing problems may suddenly occur to you, or a work-around or innovative approach may seem more feasible.”

9. Give failure a hug.

Richard Branson says: “Don’t let the fear of failure become an obstacle. You can create your own luck by opening the door to change, progression, and success.”

No one wants to fail. And, as someone who experienced it, it sucks. But, failure isn’t your enemy. It’s a friend who lets you know what works and what doesn’t so that you can find different ways to overcome obstacles.

10. Juggle multiple areas of interest.

“Truly great innovators aren’t satisfied with focusing on one project,” Deep Patel wrote in a previous Entrepreneur article. “They feel driven to pursue multiple ventures and interests, which may overlap and feed off of each other.” In other words, they possess multipotentiality, “or the ability to excel in multiple areas and fields.”

“It may seem like some creative people are easily distracted, constantly bouncing from one thing to the next,” explains Deep. “In reality, they are just wired to be interested in many things. They may feel a calling to dive into multiple projects because their wide range of creative interests pulls them in different directions.”

9 Collaboration Mistakes You’re Making With Your Remote Team

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Online Appointment Software Says a Lot About Your Business

According to Upwork’s “Future of Workforce Pulse Report,” by 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely. That’s an impressive 87% percent increase from pre-pandemic levels.

“Our research shows the long-lasting impact that remote work and COVID-19 are likely to have on how hiring managers think about their organizations,” says Upwork Chief Economist, Adam Ozimek. “As businesses adapt and learn from this remote work experiment, many are altering their long-term plans to accommodate this way of working. On work marketplaces like Upwork, we can already see this shift underway with increased demand for remote professionals.”

For many, the support of work from home jobs should come as welcome news. After all, people tend to be happier and more productive when working from home. It also allows you to tap into a larger talent and save money since you don’t have a large office.

But, there are also drawbacks to remote work. Loneliness is often cited as the biggest challenge. However, it can also be a struggle to meet deadlines and communicate effectively.

How can you solve all of these problems? By making collaboration a priority. And, to get started, make sure that you aren’t committing the following nine mistakes.

1. Creating teams just because.

There are over six decades of research that have show that individuals are more creative than teams. What does that mean? Well, when it comes to creative tasks, like generating ideas, you might want to scrap the brainstorming session.

“Please don’t create a team just for the sake of creating a team,” says Leigh Thompson, the J. Jay Gerber Professor of Management and Dispute Resolution at the Kellogg School. “People hate that.”

In addition to sparking creativity, having “me” time can be incredibly powerful. Solitude has been found to relieve stress, give you a chance to reflect, and practice gratitude. Moreover, this aids in planning and can strengthen your relationships.

Related: Why You Should Schedule Dedicated ‘Me Time’ If You Don’t Get Enough Right Now

2. Lack of a common purpose.

“Like many parts of leadership, this is not rocket science,” writes Ben Brearley BSc. BCM MBA. “It is not meant to be a detailed, exhaustive list of roles and responsibilities.” Rather, “purpose simply acts as a guiding vision for your team.”

`Brearley adds that team purpose should contain the following three elements;

  • A “functional statement about what your team does.”
  • Why your team is important and are doing what they do.
  • How your team delivers.

When you have all three parts, and clearly let them be known, you’ll be able to decide “whether you are in (committed) or out (choosing not to take on the work),” states Brearley. Additionally, it assists in modeling the right behavior and connect to a higher meaning.

3. Ignoring time zones/schedules.

Let’s say that you reside in the Eastern Time Zone. By 9 a.m., you’re ready to tackle the day. So, you start sending out Slack messages, emails, or even prepare for a meeting at 9:30 a.m.

The problem? Several of your colleagues are out on the West Coast. It’s unreasonable to expect them to respond to your messages or attend a virtual event when it’s only 6:00 a.m. or 6:30 a.m.

Even if you’re in the same time zone, be self-aware that working remotely means having different schedules. You might be a morning bird. But, others could be night owls and might not be online when you are.

Tools like Calendar by handling availability across time zones. So, when you’re scheduling an event, you can see what time it is for your team members before adding it to everyone’s calendar. You could also poll your team to figure out the best time for everyone to get together.

4. Building brick walls.

Are you not listening to others? Do you allow your team members to share their opinions or ask questions?

In other words, are you being stubborn and not accepting different points of view? If so, then that’s not exactly a supportive, positive, and collaborative environment. It sounds more like a dictatorship.

Let everyone voice their opinions and input. Encourage them to ask questions. And, make sure that not only listen to them but act on their suggestions.

Most importantly? Grant autonomy and let your team do things their way.

5. Over-participating.

“Over-participating and taking on too much within a team can stifle group collaboration by sapping the oxygen in the room and making team members feel unheard and excluded,” writes Sabina Nawaz for HBR. But, you can avoid overtaking the group by taking the following steps;

  • Find your unique contribution. It’s 4th, and 10 and your football team is on the 20-yard line. You wouldn’t call in your linebacker to kick a field goal. Have the right people playing the right positions.
  • Redefine what it means to be helpful. When it comes to groups, figure out where you belong. Sometimes you might just be an onlooker from the sidelines or helping out with busy work.
  • Stay quiet. “Mute before you refute to see how the discussion goes,” states Nawaz.
  • Negotiate a realistic timeline. The team should all agree on deadlines that work best for everyone, so that aren’t any bottlenecks.

Related: How to Focus Employees Who Are Too Helpful With Their Ideas

6. Not creating channels to share ideas.

If you go by the dictionary, then sharing ideas would count as collaborating. But, that’s not always the case in the real world.

Think about when you have your best ideas. It’s not when you’re forced or put on the spot. It happens more organically, like when taking a shower or going for a walk.

As such, provide multiple channels throughout the day for your team to share their ideas when the iron strikes hot for them.

To be fair, this would be much easier in a physical workplace. For example, there could be in-person lunches or drop-bys. But, you can still do this remotely by;

  • Planning virtual lunches and water-coolers.
  • Shared docs or dedicated Slack channels for ideas.
  • A process for vetting ideas.

7. Using the wrong tech.

Just because you’re an Apple devotee doesn’t mean that everyone is as well. With that in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to schedule all video calls on FaceTime. Instead, you would choose a platform that all of your colleagues use and are comfortable with.

Furthermore, make sure that you’re using the right communication.

“Having a surplus of communication and collaboration tools is great,” writes Deanna Ritchie in a previous Calendar article. “At the same time, you don’t have to collect them all. We’re not talking about Pokemon here.”

“Instead, limit the tools that you’re using,” Deanna recommends. “Besides decreasing distractions, it prevents everyone from bouncing back-and-forth between tools. And, it can also help avoid information overload.

8. Getting too comfortable.

Routines can kill creativity. How can your team be innovative when everyone is nice and cozy? By that, I mean working with the same people on familiar tasks day-in-and-out.

Rather than digging you and your team into a rut, push everyone out of their comfort zones by;

  • Creating a more innovative climate. Encourage your team to take on new roles that they find exciting and challenging. You can also push them to work on side projects.
  • Assemble diverse and inclusive teams. You can do this by having a team that is comprised of people from various backgrounds, geographical settings, and/or business units.
  • Shake-things up. As opposed to a tired, virtual team meeting, freshen it up. For example, you could host something like a hackathon to get the creative juices flowing.

Related: Beyond The Comfort Zone: Building A Model Workforce

9. Your team has become a victim of natural pitfalls.

According to renowned author Patrick Lencioni, “companies fail to achieve effective teamwork because they unknowingly fall victim to five natural pitfalls that progress like falling dominos, one after another,” notes Jody Michael Associates. These include the five following dysfunctions;

  • Absence of trust. “In this context, trust is the ability of team members to make themselves vulnerable— essentially revealing weaknesses without concern about repercussions,” add the authors. To achieve vulnerability-based trust, use personal histories and team effectiveness exercises. And, profile personalities.
  • Fear of conflict. Don’t run away from healthy debates. Conflicts can encourage open-mindfulness and prevent groupthink. It’s suggested that you use tools like the Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument (TKI). You can also encourage them to be “miners” and encourage engagement.
  • Lack of commitment. Commitment is simply “a function of clarity and buy-in.” You can accomplish this by reviewing key decisions, establishing deadlines, and discuss Plan B.
  • Avoidance of accountability. “In this context, accountability refers to the willingness of team members to call out their peers on behaviors that might hurt the team,” state the authors. To ensure that this happens, publish objectives and standards, have a progress review, and reward your team.
  • Inattention to details. “Avoidance of accountability creates an environment in which team members put their individual needs (such as career) or even divisional needs (such as status) above the team’s need for results,” they write. To avoid this, publicly declare your desired results and align team members’ rewards to specific outcomes.
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