Morten Hansen is a management professor at UC Berkeley, and co-author of the book ‘Great By Choice’. Through his extensive research, he has established three key traits that great leaders share – especially when it comes to thriving in times of uncertainty:

1. Productive paranoia

Essentially, this is being ‘hyper vigilant’ about things that can go wrong, and channelling those things into actions that prepare the company for the challenges that may arise. As an example, Morten refers to Bill Gates and his ‘nightmare memo’.

2. Fanatic discipline

These leaders are not just disciplined, but are fanatical about their commitment to their company and their work.

3. Empirical creativity

They are not just creative and innovative – they  do not take unnecessary risks or ‘bet big’ on things if there is too much uncertainty surrounding whether or not they will work. Their ideas and products are rooted in real observations and data, and go through an ‘extended period of validation’ to make sure they will really work before any ‘risk’ is taken.

In his interview with Sarah Green of HBR, Morten also discusses ways in which these leaders ‘make their own luck’:

When it comes time to conduct performance reviews, do you feel you have the knowledge and data about your employees to allow you to give a thorough evaluation of their true performance? Or are you, and the employee, not really sure what you are measuring their performance against, leading the review to be vague, focused only on the last couple of weeks, and generally unhelpful?

To overcome this, one must acknowledge that an effective performance management process takes work.  Managers and employees alike need to be prepared when it comes to performance reviews, and these 5 steps will help in getting there:

Set targets

Set clear, objective, SMART goals for employees to work toward.

Include employees in setting targets

Get employees’ input, making the goal setting collaborative. When people have a say in what their goals are, they will take ‘ownership’ and responsibility for the achievement of those goals.

Track progress

Do this as regularly as possible, and take action if there is anything out of an employee’s control that is hindering their performance. Also make sure that they have all the resources necessary to achieve their goals.

Give feedback

This should also be done as regularly as possible. Realtime feedback allows employees to modify and improve their behaviour immediately, rather than waiting until their performance review or next big meeting for constructive feedback on what they should be doing differently.

Have employees rate themselves

Asking employees to do this requires them to be proactive about their achievements and performance, and to think honestly about how they can improve. The idea behind this is that employees should be accountable for their own development and their own careers, with the help and support of their managers.

Take the time to read more on these steps in the article ‘6 Steps to Move from Perception Management to Performance Management’ by Mehul Mehta and Lawrence Polsky.

This post was originally published on 17 August, 2011.

As humans, we simply aren’t programmed to keep our brains focused on mental tasks for sustained periods of time. While it is theoretically possible to do, it is not advisable, as we significantly decline in productivity when we attempt to keep going for too long. As Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project says “the more continuously we work, the less productive we become”.

But there’s much more to gain from taking regular breaks in your work day, especially if you’re working in a creative role. Matthew E. May quotes Jonah Lehrer, author of ‘Imagine: How Creativity Works’, in his recent post on Open Forum ‘Boost Productivity by ‘Resting’ Your Brain‘:

In fact, to fuel both creativity and productivity it is important to give our minds some time off to wander. As Jessica Stillman writes in her article ‘Go Ahead, Daydream’:

With this in mind, it’s important for managers and employees alike to recognise the value of taking breaks during the day, and going outside or away from the office for those breaks whenever possible. In fact, it is a practice that should be encouraged at each level of the organisation, as too much focus can stifle productivity while taking a few ‘daydream breaks’ a day can enhance both productivity and creativity.

In order for your organisation to be successful and truly progress, there needs to be a high degree of clarity in your overall strategic goals – what is it, exactly, that you are wanting to achieve? But equally important is communicating those goals to the entire workforce.

Each employee’s goals should be set in such a way that allows them to see how their work and role contributes to the company goals, or ‘the bigger picture’. Doing this creates a sense of purpose for employees, as they know that what they are doing really matters and has significance.

But how can this be done from a practical perspective?

In her article for TLNT, Jacque Vilet talks about how ‘goal cascading’ can be used to address the situation:

She goes on to describe a real example of a goal cascading initiative she was involved with, and the amazing impact the process had:

Goal cascading may be something that your company intends to do, but even with that intention the process often hits a barrier at the middle management level. But as Jacque describes in her article, the effort and time involved in taking goal cascading to the lowest level will be well worth the benefits that come from pushing through and completing the process.

Most companies – the larger ones in particular – exist and function through a variety of systems, processes, formalities and rules. This certainly can make them efficient, but as Tim Leberecht points out in this article for FastCo.Design, it can also make them profoundly ‘unhuman’.

In his article ‘5 Keys To Building A Business That Doesn’t Bury The Humans At Its Core’, he makes the argument for making business ‘humanist’, as in the end, it is humans that drive the functioning and success of an organisation, not it’s systems and processes.

Here are the 5 distinctly ‘human’ qualities that Tim says companies should foster in order to be more productive, and to flourish:

Empathy

There needs to be an understanding of the sentiments, dreams, and ambitions behind each person within an organisation. Instead of focussing on the numbers and ‘data’, the intuition of an organisation should be refined. As discussed previously on our blog, a manager who possesses empathy is sure to have a positive effect on their team.

Culture

Your organisation’s culture is key for facilitating successful collaboration, but it’s even more than that – it should also be seen as a source of competitive advantage, as is the case with Zappos who ‘competes on culture’.

Morality

Operating on the basis of good morals and integrity is of the utmost importance now, given the fact that each aspect of your business can be so easily scrutinized due to this age of ‘hyper-connectivity’, transparency and social media. Customers and consumers can easily see the ‘behaviour’ of your business, and watch how you are operating and conducting yourself; hence the need for constant and unfailing integrity.

Creativity

Tim describes a few different organisations’ creative endeavours to explain how creativity can help to build connections and relationships, not only amongst people within your organisation, but with customers and consumers too. There are a couple of things these businesses have in common:

Aspiration

People need goals, hopes and dreams to aspire too, both as individuals and collectively. Successful and aspirational businesses are those that allow people the freedom and autonomy to be change-makers, or ‘entrepreneurs’, in their own right who are inspired to make a difference and be part of something meaningful.

Tim sums up his philosophy nicely in his concluding paragraph:

The above is just a snippet of the wisdom offered in the article – take the time to click over and read ‘5 Keys To Building A Business That Doesn’t Bury The Humans At Its Core’.

What it is that makes a good leader? Robyn Benincasa (author of ‘How Winning Works: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth’) sums it up nicely in her article for FastCompany, ‘6 Leadership Styles, And When You Should Use Them’:

But on top of this, she says it’s important to recognize that different situations will require different leadership styles – it’s not a ‘one size fits all’. She cites a study done by Daniel Goleman and his team, which involved studying 3000 managers over the course of 3 years:

Benincasa then goes on to discuss the leadership styles Goleman and his team pinpointed through their research, as well as how each of them impact on corporate climate in different ways:

• The pacesetting leader
• The authoritative leader
• The affiliative leader
• The coaching leader
• The coercive leader
• The democratic leader

Ideally, companies should strive to have leaders that vary across each leadership style in influential positions. Or, even better, find people who are able to subtly shift their leadership style, depending on what the situation requires. Great leaders are those who can intuitively assess what’s going on around them, and then know the best way forward in addressing each situation.

Giving employees some time off from their regular jobs to work on other projects is a trend that seems to be gaining in popularity. Everyone has heard of Google’s 20% time, and we’ve posted about FedEx days and genius hours on our blog before.

Those are practices that take up a few hours, or a full day, every so often. But what about the idea of taking off an entire month to focus on a project of your choice? 37signals is taking that fantasy and making it a reality, as co-founder Jason Fried explains in his blog post:

Yes, there are some jobs and industries where this simply won’t be possible – company operations would come to a standstill. But if it’s feasible to do this with a team or two in your company, it’s bound to produce some interesting ideas and projects that can add great value to your company.

Virtual teams are commonplace these days – if you aren’t part of the remote workforce yet, you may be soon. While it’s true that there will be many challenges faced by virtual teams, it’s also true that they have the potential to be more productive and produce better results than a traditional work team. However, in order for this to be realized, a virtual team does need to be extremely well managed.

First, let’s take a look at some of the challenges virtual teams may face, followed by several key reasons they can actually outperform conventional teams. Finally, we’ll discuss a few essential tips for managing virtual teams effectively, in order to help them perform at the highest level possible.

Challenges for virtual teams

Lack of face-to-face interaction can lead to lower levels of empathy amongst team members, as well as a lower degree of trust – simply because you have never met the people you’re collaborating with. Not being able to see and respond to verbal cues certainly plays a role in how well a team can interact and gel with one another.

Cultural barriers are also very real challenge for global teams. Differences in language, communication style and work ethic will influence team members’ interactions and understanding of one another.

Potential over-communication is also a factor to consider.  Some virtual teams may try to overcompensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction by sharing too much information that may often be irrelevant or unimportant.  This information overload may cause team members to filter out the ‘noise’, leading to some important things missed.

Despite the challenges, virtual teams can still be more effective…

There is certainly evidence to suggest that virtual teams can indeed be more effective than traditional teams, as reported by Meena Dorr in her article for Training Magazine:

In line with this, Keith Ferrazzi lists 3 reasons why virtual teams have the potential to outperform conventional teams in his article ‘Virtual Teams Can Outperform Traditional Teams’:

• The best expertise can be enlisted from any location in the world.
• Cycle time of projects can be reduced with ‘follow the sun’ schedule – effectively, there are always team members, in various geographic locations, working on the project 24 hours a day.
• Tap into a diversity of input – people are working closely with customers in each of their local markets.

But these potential benefits of virtual teams will only be realized if the team is managed effectively.

Essential tips for virtual team management

Pick the right people at the start.  That is, people who are self-motivated and can work independently, yet are also good communicators.

Provide excellent training.  Virtual team members need to know how to make the most of the various technologies that they are using to collaborate and share information in order to be highly effective.

Have set processes in place.  This is particularly important in the area of decision making within the team, as well as having regular check-ins to make sure progress is consistent and that any potential issues are addressed and fixed before they can escalate into major problems.

Be aware of communication overload.  The quality of communication is more important than the quantity.  It’s advisable to have these communications at predictable times each day or week, so people can be prepared and aware that important things will be shared and discussed.

Where there is conflict, keep it task related.  Don’t let conflict get personal, which could happen more easily in virtual teams because of the potential lack of face-to-face interaction, empathy and trust.

It’s not only employees who need feedback from their peers and managers in order to progress.  Everyone needs feedback to help them improve on a continual basis, and this includes managers all the way up to the most senior levels in every company.

But it may be a little more difficult to get. While it’s a key part of the manager’s job to give their team feedback as much as possible, who is there to spontaneously give the highest level managers feedback? Often, as Amy Gallo points out in her article for HBR, employees are unwilling to give their managers feedback because they fear the consequences if they are in disagreement:

Amy offers a few great pieces of advice for bosses to get around employees’ unwillingness to provide feedback:

1. Acknowledge the fear – remind employees that even though you’re the boss, you make mistakes too! And you need their opinions and constructive criticisms in order to improve as a boss.

2. Ask for it constantly – employees are naturally less likely to spontaneously offer their feedback to you, so they need to be encouraged. And the more regularly you do this, the more detailed and valuable answers you will get out of them that will help contribute to your own development.

3. Ask for examples – generic and vague feedback is not especially helpful to anyone. When you ask for examples, then you can know that you’re really understanding the feedback completely.

4. Read between the lines – employees may not be entirely honest in their feedback, especially in the beginning. But you can try to get around this by asking several people the same question, to strive for some objectivity.

5. Start anonymously – this can also help with the honesty factor (though there are both pros and cons to consider with anonymous feedback). However, if you communicate the feedback you have received to your team, showing that you are indeed open to hearing suggestions and critique from them, then you will become more approachable in person.

6. Find a few trusted people – if feedback is truly difficult to get out of people in your organisation, then you can consider finding just one or two people who you know will be honest and frank with you – such as a coach or mentor.

7. Act on it – when you get your feedback, it’s important to actually acknowledge it and do something about it. If you don’t do this, then employees will slowly but surely stop communicating their feedback to you because they learn that it won’t have an impact anyway.

Read Amy’s full article, ‘How to Get Feedback When You’re the Boss’ for more on each of these points, as well as a couple of great case studies.

There are still a number of sceptics out there who aren’t convinced that the cloud is a good idea – their main fear is that their data could be compromised too easily. But in his article for Inc.com Daniel Saks, co-founder and co-CEO of AppDirect, points out why the cloud is actually better from a security perspective – especially for small businesses. Here’s a quick summary:

Cloud security is stronger – “…big data centers have exceedingly strong physical security.”

Cloud security is smarter – “…data centers that host cloud-based software utilize cutting-edge encryption and security tools.”

The cloud makes security compliance easier – “…the vast majority of small online merchants work with a third-party, cloud-based payment processor, like PayPal. These large providers have the resources to ensure PCI compliance…”

The cloud makes security more cost effective – “When you use cloud-based software… all you need to purchase is a subscription to your software of choice. Security is covered by the cost of your subscription…”

The cloud lets you focus on your core functions, rather than on data security – “You can focus on your business without having to worry about technology that may fall far outside of your area of expertise.”

Click through to read Daniel’s full article on 5 reasons why your business is safer in the cloud.