DnDDaily

Do Good, Don’t Just Do Well With Your Business

Salmon Cove founder Owen Schnaper talks about the business case for generosity, which he believes is more than a tool for building market share.

For more bite-sized bits of wisdom on leadership and strategies for success, explore our ongoing video series at 30 Second MBA

1 year ago

0 notes

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go.

4. Be a realistic optimist.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good.

6. Have grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle

8. Don’t tempt fate.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/celolmk

1 year ago

1 note

LeanLaunchLab: Online Tools For Focused, Nimble Startups

Last May, entrepreneur Ben Mappen scored a meeting with Menlo Venturesmanaging director Shawn Carolan to pitch a startup idea. Carolan invitedSteve Blank, an eight-time serial entrepreneur and Stanford professor, to help evaluate the notion. But Blank had ideas of his own: He had been requiring his pupils to blog as they started up real companies, he told Mappen and Carolan. The results were phenomenal, letting the teacher weigh in at key junctures as students experimented their way to a viable business. He imagined an online service that would maintain a structured, cumulative log of a startup’s activities. That would keep investors and advisers abreast of the company’s progress so they could help steer the company constantly and immediately, rather than waiting for infrequent meetings or urgent phone calls.

“The idea resonated with me as an entrepreneur and with Shawn, who sits on eight or ten boards,” Mappen says. “I asked Steve, ‘Are you going to work on this?’ He said, ‘Of course not. I’m retired.’ I said, ‘I can build this. Give me a shot.’” Carolan wrote Mappen a $250,000 check on the spot.

Last Friday, after several months in beta,LeanLaunchLab opened for business.

Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week

You may think you’re getting more accomplished by working longer hours. You’re probably wrong.

There’s been a flurry of recent coverage praising Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, forleaving the office every day at 5:30 p.m. to be with her kids. Apparently she’s been doing this for years, but only recently “came out of the closet,” as it were.

What’s insane is that Sandberg felt the need to hide the fact, since there’s a century of research establishing the undeniable fact that working more than 40 hours per week actually decreases productivity.

In the early 1900s, Ford Motor ran dozens of tests to discover the optimum work hours for worker productivity. They discovered that the “sweet spot” is 40 hours a week–and that, while adding another 20 hours provides a minor increase in productivity, that increase only lasts for three to four weeks, and then turns negative.

HBR Management Tip of the Day: Get Your Team Thinking Like Entrepreneurs

Teams in large organizations can easily get tangled in bureaucracy. It takes a long time to execute on projects when waiting for approvals and gathering resources. But, you can get around this by helping your team members think and act like entrepreneurs. Try doing the following:

Experiment.Challenge one or two people on your team to quietly push a project forward without analyzing it. Protect them from those who may question this approach.

Broadcast results.Share the results of this experiment with other leaders in your company, and encourage them to support the project.

Manage it closely.Throughout the process, ensure that the costs never exceed your organization’s acceptable losses, so your team can clearly see the upside of acting fast.