Vessela Ignatova: “It is the founders’ role to set the vision for a company. They are good at it! Chances are they were a part of an industry for a while, or saw a problem first hand, and have the courage to think up a different way of doing things. They will do “Strategy” better than anyone else in the org. At least… we hope so! Where founders sometimes struggle is, they can’t effectively tell their exec team what the vision means for them. Or they want big picture conversations, when in reality the day to day of their Head of Sales is working through pipe. Or when they are worried about developments that will affect the company over the next 2 years, and the Head of Eng is still thinking in 2 week sprints. This is where Biz Ops should be able to help. Biz Ops steps in to bridge the gap between vision and execution. In this context, that’s called strategy. I would further elaborate – it should be called quantifying strategy, to deliver on a vision. Biz Ops doesn’t own the strategy; they quantify its business intent, clarify its internal impact, and align the team around its practical execution.”
Scott Wolfe Jr: “Getting people to remember the priorities was going to take repetition and year-long communication consistency. But people always remembered the feelings from the annual meeting. Year-in and year-out, these feelings were always the same: Belonging, Pride, Alliance, Appreciated, Motivated. If you get these 5 things right, the execution and “winning” will take care of themselves. You can deliver all 5 of these in a great, thoughtful annual meeting.”
Scott Belsky: “We’re entering an era that changes everything. A few critical technology breakthroughs and fundamentally more accessible platforms are changing everything. From free web-based tools with templates that help conquer the fear of the blank screen to powerful generative artificial intelligence that conjures up anything from a text prompt, expressing yourself creatively no longer requires climbing creativity’s notoriously steep learning curve.As these new tools give millions (or billions!) more people life-long creative confidence, what are the implications for society at large? How is this good for humanity, and what does it mean for the professional creators among us? I see seismic shifts ahead. How creators get compensated will change. How people succeed and get promoted in most jobs will change. And the nature and goals of K-12 education will change. Humanity will gradually shift from the insatiable pursuit of productivity to individual differentiation through creativity. Culture itself will evolve as creative expression is democratized, empowering all of us to personalize fashion and our everyday life experiences in miraculous ways.”
Bonnie Dowling: “I was speaking with an IT director. She had about 300 people under her in her department, and she said, “We can offer flexibility, but everybody wants something different. I have people who want to work three 12-hour shifts. I have people who want to work five eight-hour shifts. I have people who want to work a little bit seven days a week. I don’t know how to give them the flexibility when we’re still a team in a department and we need to have time together.” I said, “Why don’t you think about core collaboration hours? Do an analysis of your calendar and figure out what meetings your department owns. And see if you can start to establish a time frame and figure out when you expect people to be together and available and to schedule the meetings. But what you do outside that time, how you do the rest of your work, that’s up to you. You want to do it all in one go, then do it all in one go. You want to do it from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. every day? Do it that way. They ended up designating 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday for core collaboration. That gave them 20 hours a week of meeting time, and that’s plenty. The other 20 hours, you figure out how you want to do the rest of your work.”
NYTimes: “Today your goal is to think of a person you love: someone you miss, someone you wish you connected with more often. Send that person a quick text asking if they can chat on the phone for eight minutes — ideally today, but if not, schedule it for sometime this week. You can even copy and paste the following: Hi! I read this in The New York Times and it made me think of you. Want to schedule an eight-minute phone call this week? After the eight minutes are up, decide together when your next such catch-up will be — and then honor your time commitment and sign off promptly. (Unless your friend is having some sort of crisis, in which case it’s good that you got in touch anyway.) Hang up and enjoy that little glow of well-being.”
Andy Kessler: “Meet the Dontells, sure to be a political force in the next few elections. Their mantra is simple: Don’t tell me what to do, hence the name. Their telltale sign is an obvious case of ODD. What’s that? Oppositional defiant disorder, which, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, is a behavior disorder, often in children who “are uncooperative, defiant, and hostile toward peers, parents, teachers, and other authority figures.”…We no longer live in a nanny state, but a bossy state. You must express the prevailing opinion or face mockery. Do this, don’t do that. Instead, let’s eliminate ODD in our lifetime. The Dontells’ philosophy is simple: How about you live your life, and I’ll live mine. Don’t tell me what to do, say, think or pay. Oh yeah, and don’t tread on me . . . because I vote.”
