The Benefits of Business Bravery

“Curiosity and an attitude of openness to possibilities, ideas, experimentation and a sense of excitement tend to be underlying drivers for innovative organizations,” writes Emile Haddad, the respected Business Coach and Consultant whose perspective on the entrepreneurial spirit of today focuses on how younger companies are bolder, and arguably driven more by openness and a willing to branch out into the unknown than their more seasoned contemporaries.  New ideas and riskier moves have tended to shape much of the business landscape over the past decade.  Take, for instance, Napster.

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Napster was founded and designed by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, and co-founded by John Fanning.  The company began in June of 1999 as a simple peer-to-peer file sharing program, mainly MP3 music files.  Although there were many other similar programs at the time, theirs was overwhelmingly faster than anything else online.  Despite copyright infringement allegations from musicians and record labels, the service exploded beyond possibilities anyone could ever imagine, with roughly 80 million registered Napster users at its peak.  Shawn Fanning was 19 and Sean Parker was 20 years old.  Mark Zuckerberg has a somewhat similar story, and Sean Parker would go on to help Zuckerberg launch Facebook just years later.

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Albeit Napster eventually closed down its service by court order due to copyright infringement, these entrepreneurs still represented that youthful determination to push something, enhance it, and drive to inspire the overall abilities of the individual and the group with clear and conscious diligence.

Emile Haddad touches upon these sentiments quite often in his writing, stating, “Asking difficult questions of yourself and your peers requires skills that include mutual respect, encouragement of all ideas and the recognition that in every idea, even the least significant, lays a kernel of wisdom worth inquiring about and worth teasing out of the collective wisdom of the group.”

 

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Contemporary times call for contemporary approaches to business development and operations, and having the courage to dive in headfirst and lean more on bravery than caution can instill a core of ideals that hold true and reap the rewards your willingness helped forge and acquire.

Leadership in the Age of Social Media – Advice from Emile Haddad

Leaders who have spent their formative years using low-tech tools to implement their directives might find it difficult to transition to a more digitally savvy format.  After all, social media platforms are constantly evolving, and although Facebook and Twitter have been the gold standards for several years now, the public is fickle – new formats are always emerging and occasionally fading away forever.  Nevertheless, it is critical to get a handle on the digital social landscape in order to keep abreast of public sentiment. 

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“The information technology sector is one of those industries whose innovation potential, though still in its infancy, has the potential to change every aspect of life as we know it,” says leadership consultant Emile Haddad.  “To keep this edge in the face of global market competition, entrepreneurs will do well to listen more and talk less at their teams; they need to take a much more proactive role in being curious and inquiring in effective ways so they can mine the imagination of everyone around the table.”

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Social platforms play an essential role in the effective communication between not only business leaders and their teams, but also leaders and the public.  Many organizations have social media branches of their organizations as a type of marketing solution, but some of these same organizations fail to use social media for its most useful purpose – namely, to keep their brand in touch with societal whims and desires which may prove to be highly lucrative.  Social media platforms provide fruitful trend and information mining opportunities that should never be ignored, and 21^st century leaders disregard them at their peril.

 

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“We must be comfortable in pushing the edge; asking tough ‘why’ questions and exploring territories unfamiliar,” says Emile Haddad.  “Successful new discoveries bring to the market new opportunities, new industries and new investments.”

Emile Haddad on Emotional Intelligence

The business world is replete with contradictions.  New college graduates are hired for their technical or specialist skills.  As they move up the ladder at that organization or another, technical competence becomes less important and leadership gets more important.  The difficulty is that the employee’s college education emphasized the technical skills, such as engineering or accounting, and ignored the softer skills, which are necessary in leadership.  Even more contradictory is the MBA education.  Often, a technically skilled manager such as an engineer or accountant, will take the MBA curriculum of finance, strategy, marketing and HR, along with some electives.  Any soft skill elective is viewed with some derision because it is not numbers-driven.  Yet it is just these soft skills that the MBA graduate will need to advance to senior positions, according to Emile Haddad.

 

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Haddad explains that effective leadership depends on emotional intelligence (EI).  This topic is not specifically taught in MBA programs, but its addition to the curriculum would make a big difference.  Emile Haddad says that EI “… tends to be much harder to teach on an individual level and embed within teams.”  He maintains that learning EI requires the ability to objectively observe oneself.  Others in the field call this self-awareness.

 

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It is easy to go through a workday addressing challenges in a reflexive manner without any self-reflection.  What was the impact of your order to a subordinate?  How did a customer view your handling of a problem?  What is the reason that your stomach is churning after your meeting with your boss?  Emile Haddad recommends that you pay attention to these questions so that you have a better understanding of your own emotions and how they impact others.

 

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Haddad advises that a coach or mentor can be helpful for building EI and improving your leadership skills. 

The advantages of being a curious leader

Companies are constantly driven to improve and innovate in their search for unique angles of engagement and brand reputation. This, in turn, has the potential to increase their customer bases and, consequently, profits.

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This, however, is not easy for most companies. The difficulty here lies in their focus: Most companies rely on the logical side of an idea in order to attempt at innovation. This approach has the unfortunate tendency of reducing their team to a bunch of emotionless, entirely logic-driven robots which blindly follow stimuli based on predefined conditions. The truth is that human beings are not like this; they are emotionally-driven beings who make decisions according to their whims.

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This emotional aspect is the key to innovation. This is also why a lot of newer companies are more likely to come up with innovative ideas. Young people generally have a more curious and excited view toward life. This curiosity is the perfect mix of logic and emotion, one that can naturally drive people to come up with new, progressive ideas and activations.

However, most corporate environments are not conducive to the curiosity that drives innovation. Older entrepreneurs, in particular, tend to exhibit less curiosity due to the numbing effects that years of workplace experience can give.

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The key to fighting these numbing effects is to keep one’s emotional intelligence constantly developing. As a company grows, leaders in particular have to find ways to keep abreast of their employees’ and colleagues’ experiences in order to keep the innovative spirit alive, which can benefit the company in the long run.

Emile Haddad is a Seattle-based business coach who is the head of Catalyst Business Consulting, which specializes in keeping leaders on their innovative toes. Visit this LinkedIn page for more about his work.

Workplace detox: Overcoming workplace insanity

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The toxic culture of your workplace has a huge impact on your productivity and performance. Even if you’re not the direct target of aggressors, the fumes may get you and affect your health and morale. For managers, managing daily aggressions such as bullying, incompetence, hypocrisy, and dysfunctional relationships, is critical in maintaining positive leadership and outcomes. However, leaders know that controlling what other people say and do is beyond their control, so often the onus is on their employees to arm themselves against their negative environments.

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It’s imperative to address workplace insanity at all cost. If you’re stuck in an environment that drains you of your energy, you should, foremost, remind yourself that your environment is not a reflection of who you truly are. It’s important to segregate the negativity of the workplace from your individual reality—both as a person and as an employee, in order to shield yourself from the demoralizing effects of your surroundings and maintain your performance.

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While it helps to cultivate positive relationships among your colleagues, finding and keeping valuable relationships can be a challenge. As you find and build good relationships, remember to focus on improving yourself, including your social and mental wellbeing so that you know how to protect yourself in case bad politics gets in the way. Never own up to other people’s behavior and direct your focus on the lessons you’ve learned from the experience. A moment of positive self-talk and detachment from your surroundings are as good as placing uplifting notes in your office or cubicle.


Emile Haddad is a principal consultant at Catalyst Business Coaching and Consulting, LLC, a Seattle-based business consulting firm that provides guidance and management tools for entrepreneurial success. Subscribe to this Twitter page for more links to informative sources on management and leadership.

Leadership in Business

Corporate culture and successful management relies on the interaction of teams and leaders in order to cultivate a positive environment. Leadership needs to be focused on not only overseeing projects and day to day operations, but also on encouraging team members to become independent of constant supervision. The best leaders create a positive morale to increase productivity throughout even the busiest times of the year.

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Unsuccessful managers and team leaders often make mistakes and believe that giving orders and double checking team work makes up all the responsibilities of any supervisory position. Theoretically, this is accurate; subordinates must follow instructions in order for a company to succeed. However, this management style almost always results in a less efficient department or team, as no one in the office believes or cares in the work they are doing.

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The best managers ensure that employees understand the reason behind each task, and foster an environment that encourages more output and better results through positive feedback, rather than fear of reprimand. Professional and constructive relationships need to be built between leaders and team members to improve team communication and efficiency when working together. Team members need to believe that management and leaders care about employees as people rather than business assets, which can be created through a positive atmosphere manifested by an effective leader. Regardless of the work load, employees rally behind leaders that show themselves to the company and make employees believe in them. Good leaders are magnetic in any setting, and make team members believe in a company message and culture. 

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Leadership is always far more involved than basic delegation of work. Leadership involves the management of people and finding effective ways to encourage and help employees. Visit leadership expert Emile Haddad’s blog for more information on leadership and how to apply effective leadership skills at any setting.

Leadership Involves Understanding the Logic behind Decisions That One Makes

You are leading a team meeting, and as you look into the eyes of your subordinates, a thought suddenly occurs to you: These individuals are quickly formulating opinions about whether you are a true leader or whether you are simply their “manager.” The two terms are quite different, particularly when the need to make a decision is at the center of the complex discussion.

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Many people who are in supervisory roles quickly discover the need to make important decisions effectively, but they often neglect the need to pay attention to the logic behind these decisions, according to Emile Haddad, a business consultant and coach. Understanding the purpose behind a decision that you plan to make will increase the chances that the decision will have a positive outcome

Knowing that you have to achieve a goal at your organization indeed is the first step toward experiencing success. Figuring out what you have to do in order to attain this goal is the next step toward success; however, many managers stop at this step. The third step that is critical in any decision-making process is pinpointing exactly why the decision has to be made in the first place. Knowing the purpose of the planned action as well as the expected outcome will enable you to determine whether the decision truly is the best option.

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People often explore the purposes of their decisions subconsciously, but they usually fail to discuss this openly, which allows for greater analysis of the decisions. Important decisions that may benefit from open discussion range from introducing a new product line at one’s company to merging with another company with the goal of maximizing one’s future profitability. When more people examine all sides of a potential decision and agree that it offers the best method for solving a problem, the chances are higher that the decision will have positive long-term consequences.