In the second of this weekend's link posts, an excerpt from an article by Ron Gibori on the common mistake that keeps businesses at a standstill.  The excerpt below resonated this week due to writing a post about Jimmy Iovine to be posted soon.

Remove your ego and make the best decision for your company.

The simple truth is that networking and investment are priceless and necessary for any entrepreneur. Whether or not it means giving away equity, having consignments for your idea from influential thought leaders is crucial. A page in a local publication or being highlighted on a high-traffic site because you know the editor is a quick route to growth and success.

As much as you spend time working on and refining your idea, don't forget to nurture the relationships of the people around you. Nobody climbs to the top by themselves, somebody had to build the ladder.

Read the whole article here

For a long time, I have not been interested in word gymnastics about management and leadership. There are many books and articles that do just that. I always used to think as leadership as good management, and management as mediocre or poor management. This used to annoy people that considered them as vastly different things. But in my flippant disregard for language, what I meant by being a good manager, and therefore a leader, is simply that you set your own work for you and your team rather than simply carrying out the instructions from above - mediocre or poor managers can do that. This is what led to my disdain for a difference in language as I could not see why anyone would be a manager that did not want to plot their own course. And I did not see why any leader would want a manager that did not want to help decide in which direction to work towards. If a manager is simply managing, then why do we need them? Cut out the middleman. 

On a recommendation from my day-job boss, I have started read Leadership Plain and Simple, which has solidified my previous thinking, although the book too does draw a distinction. This book brought to life the part that I was trying to convey. The future.

Leaders have a vision of the future. Something they are striving for. Something that needs to be different. When people think leadership and management are different it is surely the future element that is missing from the latter. This is what I mean when I say leadership is just good management because I was blind to the fact that anyone would not want to plot their own course for the future if they were a manager.

If word gymnastics are in order, then a clearer distinction should be between leader/manager and manager/supervisor. If you just want to baby sit some employees and be a message regurgitate, then you are a supervisor. If you think up some better version of the future and then put that into action? Now you are a leader.

In making any product, there is a balance of making it better or spending time and money promoting it as it is. Without knowing what will be the best return on investment, it is hard to decide on either.

The same is true in your career. You can either spend your time broadly in two areas: schmoozing or getting your head down doing actual work. It is difficult to know where to draw the balancing line especially if your natural tendency is to plan out improvements, get stuck in and execute rather than shout out, self-promote and take credit.

But you must spend the time to cultivate this. Assuming you are not already, many a person has made a career and risen the ranks just by attending the right meetings and being close to the right people despite being mediocre best. 

If you do not believe in yourself, who will? If you do not champion yourself, who will? If you do not shout about yourself, who will? Well, some people will, and most will not.

Elon Musk has said in the past that he does not spend a penny on advertising Tesla, instead preferring to invest in making the product better. This is a good model to strive for, but he does put on press conferences, do talks, interviews and publicity stunts, so he is still getting his message out there. He is still investing his time into marketing even if his money does not follow.

How can you get noticed today? What can you do to push yourself out of your comfort zone today? Who can you model yourself on that is really good at this? What would they do?

​PowerPoint decks are only useful for the unprepared to communicate with the disinterested.
 
Anyone who knows what they're talking about does not need an aid.  And anyone interested in listening needs the speaker to come alive, not the slides.

​After reading Crush It! years ago, and then following Gary Vee’s immense social powerhouse rise to fame through Vaynermedia, I caught up on his subsequent books recently.
 
Although social media and the internet moves fast, the principals and tactics of this book are a must read for anyone producing content for the internet (i.e. everyone).

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

What if you assumed every interaction was for the long term?  How would that affect your actions?
 
That guy who cut you up in his car.  That lady that won’t move out of the way on the pavement.  That annoying person at work in a different department.
 
An assumption of a one-time interaction gets you off the hook.  It allows you to vent from a place of emotion as there are few consequences.
 
What if the guy in the car was your boss?  What if that lady was your grandma?  The annoying person at work the one person you need to unlock a new project?
 
“If you ran into an asshole in morning, you ran into an asshole.  If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole” ~ Fictional character Raylan Givens in TV series Justified – from Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

​Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

Once you have done something, it cannot be undone. 

The only thing in your control is either to try to repeat what you have done or try to do something different next time. 

​This is easy to remember for ourselves.  More difficult is to realise this of others right at the moment of your reaction to their actions.
 
Remember “We judge ourselves by our intentions.  And others by their actions.” Steven R. Covey

​Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day?

There is no worse habit than complaining for destroying productivity.

In Ascending order:

1. Yourself complaining about others
2. Hearing others complaining
3. Yourself complaining about others complaining

​Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with and extra hour per day?

Professionalism. This could be described as “generally accepted expectations”.

You can get away with a lot if you are on the front foot of communication. Managing expectations.  Anything less and you are at risk of being "unprofessional".

The deadline missed, the stock not delivered, the feature that does not work. All can be avoided, or at least softened, with proactive communication and a new plan.

Don't leave this up to your customers to figure out on their own.