Success Advice
What’s Your Leadership Style? Old School or New School?
Leadership has been around since man began to organize in groups. Cavemen had to organize themselves for hunts, just in the way modern business men organize themselves to achieve their goals. Leadership itself, has gone through many changes: including switching from being analog to digital.
Analog leadership is very much the old way of thinking. It’s very linear, very big-project oriented. Not big picture – big project. It’s also very slow and inefficient. Digital leadership is very speedy. It jumps around a lot. It maximizes resources, and doesn’t worry too much about following a process from start to finish as much as getting the best results.
Here are 5 differences between analog and digital leaders:
1. Approach to failure
In the analog world, failure was not really an option. You were given a task, and you had to see it through. There is no such thing as failure. You must succeed at all costs. Follow this line, and bust through all obstacles.
The digital world looks at failure much different. It allows for failure, and even encourages it. Only by failing will you be able to get to the destination quicker. Where an analog leader would push on and try to bust through a brick wall – no matter how long it takes – the digital leader would simply accept the failure and build a new path to get to the destination.
“Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” – Morihei Ueshiba
2. Organization structure
As you’ve read on about leaders previously, managing millennials is much different than the traditional analog structure. The old analog structure was very much a top down organizational chart, with a clear line of subordinates.
In the analog world, the power and influence was highly concentrated at the top. This meant that managers just passed instructions down, in a straight line, until they reached the employee.
In the digital work environment, collaboration is a lot more important. Everyone has a voice within the company structure. Ideas and decisions are made at the lower levels amongst teams, and passed to the top. The power is spread out, ideas come from everywhere, and the organization is able to adapt much quicker.
3. Staff management
Too often in the analog world, management would attract staff and do everything they could to try to keep them happy and productive. This was considered talent hoarding. It’s a very analog approach: get talent, stick them in a chair, make product, and repeat. The goals of the employee were not important. Company first. Always.
The digital leader knows that’s not how you create the best possible product. They don’t try and hoard talent. They only bring in talent with the ambition to become more. They nurture talent, trying to grow their abilities with the hope that they’ll one day leave the team when they reach their peak.
Digital leaders don’t look at this as a loss, they look at it like it’s the only way to get the best possible people working for them and for the company. If you’re not hiring people with ambition to do more, what kind of people are you hiring?
4. Product development
The number one barrier to leadership is not listening. Product development is no different. In the analog world, leaders would develop or invent a product, and then send it to market. If the product fails, that’s the end of it.
Many companies now do it the digital way – they look to the market first, and develop products based on this need. Apple is a great example of how the marketplace guides the development process. Steve Jobs is a digital leader in his approach to making the products people love.
Steve never let the engineers tell him what was possible. He always pushed the engineers to design the products with the customer in mind. It’s why so many products were so consumer friendly.
This also ties in with organizational structure. Steve never said “do it this way” and passed it down, he let the customer tell him how to do it, and that’s what he communicated to the engineers. It’s not that Steve wasn’t in control, he just used the voice of the customer to guide him, which is what a digital leader does.
“If you don’t listen, you’re never gonna learn.” – Frank Lero
5. Inside the box or outside the box
Analog leaders are very much working inside the constraints of the organization. Ideas come from the top down, only certain things are possible, work within your means, and always look to the most experienced person in the organization for information.
The digital leader knows no boundaries. They learn to think outside the box. They don’t rely on the advice of the most experienced employees. They look to them for their input, but ideas matter so much more than experience. They don’t just look at the organization and figure out what’s possible. They figure out what they want to do, no matter how impossible it is, and rework the organization to make those things happen.
Being a digital leader means things like yearly performance reviews are a thing of the past. Today, it’s about real-time communication with employees. A constant feedback cycle so that the business can involve everyone.
So which type of leader are you? Analog Leader or Digital Leader? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
Success Advice
How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements
Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.
Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.
There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.
Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.
Embed the strength of AI and ML.
AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.
Bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.
ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses.
In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.
Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities
Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased.
Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information.
Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place.
In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.
Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development
You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.
You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.
Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.
Developing key skills to achieve goals
Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.
Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.
Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.
Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.
Development/Coding Knowledge
Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.
Hacking proof framework
There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.
Communication Abilities/Soft Skills
Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:
Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.
Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.
Agile Implementations
It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.
- Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds.
- Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
- Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
- Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them.
- Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.
- Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
- Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
- Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.
Success Advice
Understanding the Power of Yes and No: How to Create Boundaries For Success
These words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds
The two smallest yet most powerful words in life, “Yes” and “No,” have a big impact on our growth on both personal and professional levels. In addition to affecting the choices we make every day, these words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds. (more…)
Motivation
From Couch Potato to Go-Getter: A Step-by-Step Motivation Plan for Everyone
By understanding what motivates you, you can turn your dreams into reality
Are you tired of feeling like a couch potato? Do you want to transform your life and become a go-getter? You’re not alone! Many people struggle with motivation, but the good news is that change is possible. (more…)
Success Advice
10 Micro Financial Habits for More Wealth and Peace of Mind
The World Economic Forum still reports that half of U.S. adults lack financial literacy
You’ve heard about developing financial habits, but what about micro-financial habits? Micro habits are the tiny things you can do every day with minimal effort that, together, transform your future. (more…)
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