"Five leadership lessons my father taught me"/ "Disruptive technologies effects will be subtle, not explosive"

Jun. 15, 2018 "Five leadership lessons my father taught me": Today I found this article by Chris Hamilton in the Globe and Mail:

General manager, Mars Pet Nutrition

Like many of you reading this today, my father was my hero. I idolized him. If there was something to fix, I was right behind him with a toolbox. If he mentioned a camping trip or hike, I couldn’t get my bag packed fast enough. I was his shadow.

As a man whose own father died when he was only four months old, my dad embraced fatherhood with everything he had. But he didn’t just teach me how to be a man. Whether he knew he was doing it or not, he taught me how to be a business man. 

You see, my dad was an entrepreneur. At the age of 35, with a wife and two young children at home, he decided to change careers and buy an insurance company in the small community of Orillia, Ont. It was an incredible gamble that changed the trajectory of my family’s life and led to a quarter-century of growth for his company. 

It also ended up being the first business lesson my dad ever taught me: You can’t win without taking risks. 

To celebrate Father’s Day and thank my dad for the impact he made on both my life and career, I’ve compiled five lessons on leadership that I learned from my father.

Set a direction and step back

I got my first taste of life as an entrepreneur when I was only 12. When the local BiWay store was going out of business, I swooped in and bought every last pair of athletic socks. Then I sold them door-to-door – one pair for $2, three pairs for $5. While I don’t exactly remember my profit margin, what always stuck with me is how my father never broke a sweat when I briefed him on my gym sock business plan. 

My opinion: Oh yeah, Biway.  I remember shopping there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylex

Dad took this same tack when I started a landscaping business at 16. He knew the most valuable lessons are those you learn through trial and error. It is a leadership philosophy that still guides me today. 

I feel like I am failing if I need to tell people what to do. Instead, I believe it is my job to help set the business’s course, make sure my team has the resources it needs, then get out of its way so the magic can happen.

Lead from your values

While employees need space to make their own decisions, it’s imperative that everyone on your team is guided by a core set of values. I remember my dad always had a strong sense of what was best for both parties. At Mars, we call this principle “mutuality.” 

Like any entrepreneur, he was fiercely competitive but it was never win at all costs. He wasn’t afraid to walk away from a deal if he didn’t feel it was right.

While your business principles won’t align perfectly with my father’s, the important point is that you have values in place. As a leader, values provide you with a strong sense of purpose. They serve as a compass to guide business decisions and the decisions of your employees. And they will help you build stronger relationships with your customers, partners and colleagues. I promise you that.

Get to know your employees

My father taught me a slight modification of “The Golden Rule.” He always said, “Treat others as they would want to be treated.” While this slight distinction no doubt helped my dad’s insurance business bring in repeat customers, I’ve employed his advice to get the most out of my associates.

As a leader, I believe you need to listen to your employees to determine how each person measures success. Before making a decision that affects an individual’s career, I want to know how they want to be treated. 

What are their goals? What do they value? There’s always a fine balance between aspiration and capability, of course, but once you understand where a person is coming from, it becomes much easier to draw a path from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow. 

By taking The Golden Rule one step further and really getting to know your employees, you can increase retention and boost performance across your organization.

Get to know your business

As any parent knows, you have very little say in what your children gravitate toward. When I was growing up, I liked swimming, something my dad knew almost nothing about. However, he quickly made it his mission to learn everything he could about the sport. Starting as a lane timer, he climbed the officiating ranks at Swimming Canada until he was inspecting turns and judging strokes for proper technique. 

It almost sounds crazy, but that’s my dad. He’s an inside-out learner, and I’m the same way. I remember when operations first started reporting to me. I would walk the floor, attend shift changeover meetings, observe the lines, etc. I wanted to understand what barriers existed on the shop floor, so I could get my associates the resources they needed to do their job. 

This is a lesson for all aspiring leaders. If you work at a large company, don’t be afraid to move into different business segments or take on assignments that may seem to be a stretch. At Mars, we encourage people to build an ambitious development plan because we believe leaders will make better decisions when they have a complete, well-rounded view of the business.

Take risks

At the lightning speed that business is evolving today, leaders need to be comfortable making bigger and bigger decisions with less and less info, faster and faster. You simply can’t afford to wait for the perfect product or ideal business conditions. You need to trust your experience and value set, so you can move quickly and correct your course as you go. 

Just as every father teaches their children to do their best, leaders need to let their employees know it’s okay to fail. Whether it’s encouraging employees to take on new assignments, put their hands up to offer different points of view, or make important decisions with limited information, you need to foster a culture of risk-taking within your organization, because as dad taught me: You can’t win without taking risks.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-five-leadership-lessons-my-father-taught-me/

"Disruptive technologies effects will be subtle, not explosive": Today I found this article by Ian Phillpot in the Globe and Mail:

Ian Phillpot is the vice-president of Box Canada.

There’s been a lot of speculation and anxiety about the impact that disruptive technologies will have on the future of the work force. The speculation is fair – technology will have a dramatic impact on the way we work, even 20 to 30 years from now, and nobody knows for certain what the future might look like. 

However, the anxiety around the impact, and rhetoric that goes along with it, is unwarranted. 

The impact of artificial intelligence, the cloud, and other disruptive technologies will be much subtler than naysayers suggest. Technology will become our co-worker, not our overlord – supplementing our current work force and refocusing existing jobs. 

Instead of spending countless hours doing manual jobs such as data entry, people will be able to focus on thinking more critically and creatively. Canada, in particular, is reaping the benefits of the growing adoption of technology and is at the forefront of this generational shift. 

A 2016 report from the Brookfield Institute found that the technology industry contributed more than $117-billion to the Canadian economy. Demand for AI jobs alone has increased by 500 per cent in Canada, according to Indeed.com. With all this exciting activity happening in Canada, now is the time to embrace technology rather than fear it.

It’s no secret that a workplace culture that fosters openness leads to employees who are not only more engaged but also more capable of working closely together – bringing down silos and leading to great ideas. 

The future of work is already here – and it is built on collaboration.

Driving work-force collaboration through technology

When we talk about disruptive technology, we often talk in massive terms, instead of focusing on the incremental and subtle changes that affect the work force. 

Rather than a dramatic upheaval, this technology is introducing a new generation of tools that’s changing the way employees are connecting with one another by enhancing their dialogue and simplifying their communication methods. 

We are already seeing how these tools are changing the way employees conduct their day-to-day activities.

Whether its document sharing, co-creation, or enhanced search through computer-vision technology, we are seeing how seemingly normal tools are being improved by combining cloud and artificial intelligence. Enterprises generate vast amounts of data, and these tools can make it easier to view and analyze this content.

 Employees will become more efficient by spending less time searching for files and become more productive by streamlining the editing process to cut down on countless rounds of revisions. 

Having greater access and control over content will empower employees and keep them motivated, especially when their organizations are willing to commit to a system of innovation and collaboration. These are exciting and positive developments for any business, yet it’s not what comes to mind when most people think about discussing digital transformation and disruptive technology. These innovations are far less focused on taking away jobs, and much more so about improving people’s ability to get the job done.

A collaborative work force is a happy work force

The benefits of collaborative technology don’t simply end at increased productivity and efficiency, but extend to improve the overall well-being of the work force. A study by Deloitte recently found that collaboration tools, combined with a culture of innovation, led to employees who are 34 per cent happier than those working in an environment that does not support collaboration. They were also 17 per cent more satisfied when they had access to digital collaboration tools.

According to the report, digital collaboration tools are a key factor in improving productivity, transparency with a business, communication among employees and morale within an organization. 

Interestingly, more collaborative tools mean less back-and-forth, fewer face-to-face meetings and less travel for work. Instead, employees can collaborate directly within the content. The result? More focus on the task at hand and more time for the things that matter to them.

In addition, encouragement of collaborative tools and an innovative culture makes employees feel valued and happy, perpetuating a belief that the business supports their professional development. Many employees working with collaborative tools also see their organizations as more transparent and supportive of a culture of openness. 

The transformation we’re seeing as a result of this disruptive technology is an exciting development for our future work force. We need to put aside the negative rhetoric around the impact of technology on our enterprises. 

The future should not be feared. There are many opportunities for our work force, leading us to be better at our jobs, not losing them altogether. We must embrace change, look at how this technology can be used, and encourage a more innovative and collaborative workplace.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-ai-the-cloud-and-other-disruptive-technologies-workplace-impact-will/