Mon. Sep 21st, 2020

How data centers can give back to society

By Diane 14 hours ago

Why corporate well-being initiatives need to get personal

By Diane 4 days ago

Connecting the dots in an uncertain world

By Diane 6 days ago

Lessons from COVID-19 about communicating risk

By Diane 7 days ago

Forget about the “new normal”: Design something different

By Diane 1 week ago

Featured

Why corporate well-being initiatives need to get personal

By Diane 4 days ago

Lessons from COVID-19 about communicating risk

By Diane 7 days ago

The power of feelings at work

By Diane 1 week ago

A CEO who won’t take the gloves off

By Diane 2 weeks ago

The One Thing Every Successful Entrepreneur Does

By Diane 7 days ago


5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Talking about how to handle failure as an entrepreneur might seem easy from a distance. But once you find yourself in that ugly rut, you might wish you never trundled the entrepreneurial path. Many compare the feeling to a bad break up, which is what it is.

I remember back in college, my project supervisor talked to me about the wonders of failure. He said failure is a ladder through which an entrepreneur can attain the next phase. As a naïve entrepreneur, I never really grasped the concept or realized how tormenting it would be.

Related: 10 Strategies for Entrepreneurs Dealing With Failure

I had an idea — a business model that I was convinced would be my ticket to financial freedom. It started with a formidable plan, a map to guide me to my dream.

… Read more

Forget about the “new normal”: Design something different

By Diane 1 week ago

As executives adjust to the realities of business during COVID-19, they often default to talking about the “new normal.” Although this phrase acknowledges that there will be differences — some of which customers have already experienced — it’s a blithe nod to the notion of coming back to something that begins to feel familiar. Sure, we now have curbside pickup, more video calls, and less actual contact between customers and those who serve them. But normal, new or otherwise, implies a degree of familiarity and stability that is impossible now and might be so for years. It gives an unrealistic expectation of comfort, and, as an unintended consequence, encourages people to close their eyes to new possibilities.

The reality is that we are in an era ruled by uncertainty. In one recent survey, more than 80 percent of business leaders said that they were likely to make significant

… Read more

The power of feelings at work

By Diane 1 week ago

Imagine two call centers. In the first, you see smiles and concentrating faces, and overhear heartfelt efforts to help. There is a tangible buzz of hard work but also a feeling of energy and commitment. In the second call center, you see scowls, pained expressions, and eye rolls. Representatives carefully adhere to rote scripts, but their voices lack empathy and warmth. Despite frequent breaks and lags between calls, employees already seem exhausted halfway through the day.

Many would chalk up these differences to culture, the seemingly nebulous and hard-to-control factor that contributes to business success. Our work over the last three decades has centered on culture. We have developed effective tactics to align cultures and strategies and tap into the momentum that a culture can lend to any business effort. What has struck us, again and again, and what we’re sharing now for the first time, is the consistent gateway

… Read more

The power of feelings at work

By Diane 1 week ago

Imagine two call centers. In the first, you see smiles and concentrating faces, and overhear heartfelt efforts to help. There is a tangible buzz of hard work but also a feeling of energy and commitment. In the second call center, you see scowls, pained expressions, and eye rolls. Representatives carefully adhere to rote scripts, but their voices lack empathy and warmth. Despite frequent breaks and lags between calls, employees already seem exhausted halfway through the day.

Many would chalk up these differences to culture, the seemingly nebulous and hard-to-control factor that contributes to business success. Our work over the last three decades has centered on culture. We have developed effective tactics to align cultures and strategies and tap into the momentum that a culture can lend to any business effort. What has struck us, again and again, and what we’re sharing now for the first time, is the consistent gateway

… Read more

The Reason Good Businesses Tell Boring Stories

By Diane 1 week ago


5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


“Ultramarathon Man” Dean Karnazes is a jerk. I say this jokingly because the year I ran my first marathon, he ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. He’s also written several bestselling books about his trials and triumphs as an ultramarathon fanatic.

A business journey, like a marathon, can become quite rambly, yet you can make engaging, vibrant stories out of it. The key — and this is something people get horribly wrong every day — is respecting the difference between a story and a narrative.

The good news is you don’t need to be a creative genius to tell a story that makes people want to work with you. Simply understanding the distinction between a story and a narrative will help you construct higher-quality stories with greater ease. And that will help

… Read more

Building a New Habit Starts with These 5 Steps

By Diane 1 week ago


6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


If you’re like most people, you probably have countless goals and aspirations: eating a more balanced diet, saving money, exercising more, being a more engaged parent. Prepared to make a major life change with your sights set squarely on perfection, you fail — if not immediately, within the first few weeks.

According to Marti Hope Gonzales, an associate psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, 80 percent of people who set New Year’s resolutions fail or have forgotten about their resolutions by the second week of February.

So, what can you do? Are all attempts to change doomed to fail?

Fortunately, no.

Whether you want to exercise more, sleep better or build any other new habit, here are five science-backed techniques to help you create lasting behavioral change.

1. Create your implementation plans

Implementation plans

… Read more