Netflix Just Made a Smart, Easy Change. Your Business Should Copy It

by murika Comment Closed
This is a story about Netflix and a very annoying problem. The good news is that Netflix just announced a fix. The even better news is that no matter what kind of business you run, the Netflix decision offers an intriguing example that might well pay off for you, too. First, the Netflix announcement. I'll bet you've endured the annoying problem we're talking about, and to be clear it's by no means unique to Netflix. It's that sinking feeling you get when you realize you're automatically paying every month for something you subscribed to long ago but never really use. ...
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How to Anticipate and Respond to New Venture Realities

by murika Comment Closed
Every entrepreneur I know finds it a challenge to balance the joys of entrepreneurship against a set of frustrations they never anticipated. Of course, most of you expect that raising money will be difficult, as well as staving off competitors, and handling that occasional toxic customer. What you don't expect is to feel out of control, or to always be fighting the many demands for your time. Based on my own experiences in startups, and many years of advising new business owners, I'm convinced that there are a few common frustrations that we all need to anticipate and prepare for, rather than let them be a surprise and a painful dent in your enthusiasm and personal satisfaction from living your dream. ...
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9 Bloody Brilliant Ways Businesses Are Navigating Meat Prices

by murika Comment Closed
This year has been rife with unprecedented challenges for small businesses — especially those in the food-and-beverage industry. Supply chain shortcomings have been thrown into stark relief, but perhaps nowhere more than among meat manufacturers. The plants of the “Big Four” meatpackers — Tyson, Cargill, JBS USA and National Beef — proved highly susceptible to outbreaks, and when they began operating at reduced capacity, meat prices soared....
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If You Have These Traits, This Harvard Researcher Says Your Emotional Intelligence Is High

by murika Comment Closed
If you're new to the emotional intelligence conversation, Harvard researcher Daniel Goleman authored the internationally best-selling book Emotional Intelligence (1995), which spent more than 18 months on The New York Times bestseller list. He followed up with Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998), arguing that non-cognitive skills can matter as much as IQ for workplace success and leadership effectiveness. In Goleman's EQ framework, once you land a job in your field of expertise and start considering things like increasing your role, getting promoted, leading others, and navigating political landscapes, IQ will be begging for EQ to show up and take over. ...
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Do I Need to Give Benefits to My Hourly Workers?

by murika Comment Closed
In an ideal world and economy, every employer would be able to provide benefits such as health insurance, retirement plan matching, and travel reimbursements to all employees. However, it’s often not financially feasible for many small businesses. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, benefits made up about a third of the cost of an employee. Meaning, an employee salaried at $50,000 would actually cost the employer another 30 percent more, for a total of $65,000. For small businesses with thin margins, like local grocery stores, this sort of expenditure per hourly employee...
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Harvard Study Says Just 35 Minutes of Daily Exercise Can Help Keep Depression at Bay

by murika Comment Closed
Many entrepreneurs like to project an image of themselves as solely positive-thinking, productive leaders with a special immunity against negativity, but research has shown that founders are over four times as likely to have a history of depression as the general public. That's nearly a third of entrepreneurs at risk of having a depressive episode. Some have learned how to manage their mental health issues, but others may still need the tools and information to do so. Now, research out of Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that blocking out a small amount of time each day for exercise may actually provide a little of that imagined immunity against depression for entrepreneurs, and anyone else. ...
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How to Stay Focused If You’re Assigned to Multiple Projects at Once

by murika Comment Closed
Few people today have the luxury of working on a single project at a time; most of us are juggling the demands of many teams at once. In theory, this system of “multiteaming” offers a number of upsides: You can deploy your expertise exactly where and when it’s most needed, share your knowledge across groups, and switch projects during lull times, avoiding costly downtime. ...
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The Best Way to Beat a Bad Mood, According to Psychology: The 3 M’s

by murika Comment Closed
Happiness makes your brain work better, Harvard researcher Shawn Achor once told Inc.com. All of us, especially hard-pressed business owners, could definitely use our brains to be at our sharpest in the midst of the current crisis. But let's be honest, now isn't the easiest time to stay positive. For some folks with mental health issues, the challenges go way beyond cabin fever and everyday anxiety. But for those of us lucky enough to be dealing with garden-variety grumpiness, science has good news. Simple interventions that are doable for nearly everyone can have a profound effect on your mood. Psychology writer Nick Wignall brilliantly summed them up on Medium as the three M's. ...
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8 Habits of Mentally Strong People

by murika Comment Closed
Think of a time when you've felt frustrated, anxious, afraid, angry or heartbroken. It's a not a place anyone wants to remain because these feelings are uncomfortable. While it's not possible to avoid negative states of mind entirely, some people are better than others at identifying what's going on in their own head, processing their emotions, and then moving on. Here are several ways mentally strong people conduct themselves. 1. They don't ruminate It's when you revisit something that bothers you, thinking about it over and over again. Mentally strong people go to the source, fix the problem if possible and then stop stewing about it. They know that continually rehashing any situation is a waste of time. ...
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12 Things First-Time Leaders Need to Succeed

by murika Comment Closed
The struggles of first-time leaders are both real and widespread. New leaders are thrown into the deep end to sink or swim. They either figure out how to become a successful leader or fail and retreat disillusioned back to individual contributors and unlikely to step up to a leadership role again. How often do you see high-performing individuals promoted into leadership roles? The skills that enabled an individual to perform at a high level are rarely the same ones that will support them as an influential leader. When people choose to step into a leadership role, they are more likely to bring the right attitude and behaviors that breed success....
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If You Can Answer Yes to Any of These 5 Questions, Your Emotional Intelligence Is Perfectly Suited for This Crisis

by murika Comment Closed
Emotional intelligence (EQ) has been projected to trend by 2022 as one of the top 10 job skills required for workers to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum. Already in demand as a desired workplace quality for several years, emotional intelligence is now being heralded as a crucial people skill to help navigate turbulent waters in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. If you're up for evaluating where you stand in relation to the tenets of emotional intelligence during this time of crisis and uncertainty, I ask you five important questions to help you determine your own emotional intelligence: ...
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How the Coronavirus Has Changed the Future of Work

by murika Comment Closed
It only took a couple of months for the coronavirus to completely change the world as we knew it. But, if you’re patiently waiting for things to return to normal, I have some bad news for you: I don’t think that we’ll ever ultimately return to a pre-COVID-19 world. So, how has the future of work been altered? Well, here’s a glimpse into what to anticipate going forward. Permanent flexibility. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 5 million people were already working from home at least half of the time. Since then, according to research from Salesforce, 61 percent of the workforce is working from home. Even more astounding is that 53 percent of employees began doing so because of COVID-19. And, guess what? They’re more productive and communicative....
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