READ US ONLINE - Leadership Articles and Videos · In his book Leading, Sir Alex Ferguson (with...

15 May 2018 | www.leaderonomics.com

READ US ONLINELeadershipinsight onthe go at

leaderonomics.com

2 www.leaderonomics.com | 5 May 2018

SUBSCRIBETODAY

atbit.ly/subscribeLD

and get oure-mag delivered to your inbox weekly!

The independent commissioner, Stephen Sedgwick said, “Some current practices carried an unacceptable risk of promoting behaviour, which is inconsistent with the interests of customers.”

In my earlier article, I talked about the need to have a strong story. If the story is clear and meaningful, and shows purpose, then you can actually recruit and motivate a team without relying on large monetary incentives!

A high purpose generates powerful energies that will drive high performance: That is indeed the practice at MDEC, because working in MDEC is more than a job or a career, it’s about “serving the nation with your hand over your heart”.

A note for managers Coming back to the issues faced

by most managers who, after climbing up the corporate ladder, have a team to lead: It is often assumed that they have the skills to manage a team.

In practice, that might not be the case.

A great salesman might not be a great sales team lead, where the job requires him to motivate, assist and plan for his salespeople to perform. This is where mentoring and coaching is required.

The other point to understand is that in a team, there will be some who perform and others who don’t.

If you have team members who are not contributors, they need to be removed quickly and in an open and visible manner.

Unfortunately, many line managers prefer to keep these staff on the payroll and avoid uncomfortable conversations.

When there is confusion about responsibilities, and no one is really held accountable for performance, managers will struggle to have open and fair conversations about an individual’s performance.

Without accountability, you cannot build a high-performing team.

“Well done!” Managers who want to build high-

performance teams need to really understand this.

If I could borrow again from football: All top Premier League teams are packed with talented, committed athletes.

The reality is that, at this level, you can’t build a winning team without a superstar.

Liverpool might have discovered one such star in Egyptian footballer Mohamed Salah, who just turned 25 and joined the club in June 2017 from A.S. Roma.

In his book Leading, Sir Alex Ferguson (with Michael Moritz) said, “The two most powerful words in the English language are ‘Well done!’”

“Much of leadership is about extracting that extra 5% of performance that individuals did not know they possessed.”

In conclusion In building a high-performance

team, you need a powerful story, committed team members, a couple of superstars and an evaluation system that is fair and open.

What’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander, so rewards and expectations must be specific to each member.

Add to this a courageous leader and you will have a winner!

Malaysia, Let’s Aim For World-Class Teams!

Gopi Ganesalingam is MDEC’s vice president of Enterprise Development,

a division that focuses on developing Malaysian technology

companies into regional and global players. If

you have any queries on the GAIN programme,

check out mdec.my/msc-malaysia/gain

for more information. To get in touch with Gopi, you can send

an email to [email protected].

WHEN I joined Malaysia Economic Development Corporation (MDEC) in

February 2015, I took on the role, vice president of Enterprise Development.

It was a new division created to identify and catalyse Malaysian-based companies into the global arena as eventual world icons.

This was and still is one of MDEC’s four strategic pillars, i.e. to build world-class technology champions.

It’s usual for MDEC to move people around internally to lead teams to drive various corporate objectives, so my MDEC story moved through different chapters.

Currently, I am leading a team using MDEC’s GAIN (Global Accelerator and Innovation Acceleration) initiative to elevate Malaysian companies onto the international stage, starting with those in the ASEAN region.

World-class ambitions demand a high-performance culture, which is a fast-emerging trend in many key organisations.

Personally, I point to football teams (known as ‘soccer’ by Americans) as examples of some “secrets” in what it takes to successfully develop and drive high-performing teams.

Success stories Malaysia has already seen several

inspiring success stories, moving in the right direction and gathering momentum.

Just to run through a few: • Vitrox Bhd is a global player

in automated vision inspection solutions. It was founded by Chu Jenn Weng and Steven Siaw Kok Tong, both graduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Vitrox was first admitted to the ACE (for Access, Certainty, Efficiency) Market in 2005 and moved to the main market in 2009.

On March 19, 2018, their market capitalisation stood at over RM2.7bil.

• Aemulus Holdings Bhd is another listed Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) status company.

Founded by Ng Sang Beng and Yeoh Chee Keong, it listed on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia in 2015.

Ng and Yeoh were colleagues at Altera Corporation in Penang. Their market capitalisation stands at RM107mil.

• Other MSC-status champions include Inmagine Group, now 16 years in operations, best known for their stock image business (123rf.com) and Piktochart, which produces visual stories from charts, better known as infographics.

• Green Packet Bhd is a Malaysian company that started out in Silicon Valley in 2000 and achieved listing in 2005.

In true Silicon Valley style, the company evolved, selling its wireless broadband business to Telekom Malaysia to focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) and fintech (financial technology).

• iflix, a video on-demand service, was founded by Patrick Grove, who also built the hugely successful Catcha Group, a leading internet player in the region.

In 2016, iflix secured a USD45mil investment from pay-television giant, Sky Plc.

• MDT Innovations is a leading innovator in the region for IoT.

Driven by chief executive officer Liew Choon Lian and chief operating officer Sim Hon Wai, its revenue is 95% export driven.

It was listed in Gartner’s Cool Vendor and was featured as top 25 IoT companies by APAC CIO Outlook magazine in 2018.

Passion, diversity and innovation There are several other Malaysian-

born companies that are now serving customers around the globe.

What you need to be a winner

All of them started with a core team of founders, who recruited their team and infused it with a mission, and – as they say – a dose of passion to achieve performance.

They developed and continue to maintain high-performing teams: It’s easier when you start from scratch, but if you don’t – you do need to continually add to your talent pool. That means having to be in a location which is attractive for talent, like Malaysia.

MDEC has played a major role in making this possible, as one of the benefits of having an MSC status is the ability to bring in talented staff from around the world.

In the corporate world, managers don’t have the luxury of building their teams from scratch.

They join an organisation, work their way up the ranks and if all goes well, they get to run a department, division, etc.

It’s fully staffed but nonetheless it is incumbent upon the leadership team to ensure diversity and inclusiveness.

That’s how you get innovation – new ideas are needed from the outside: New blood to enable a fresh perspective, so to speak!

Incentives and a common goal are key to building a high-performance team

What does it take to build a high-performance team?

A common goal is clearly important. Incentives also work, as you can see with football players and sales people, in general.

However, one should be wary of incentives driving the wrong behaviour.

When incentives are too ‘significant’, they can sometimes pose challenges.

Most recently, the big four Australian banks were hauled up by regulators and told to stop their product-based incentive payments, as customers were sold products they did not understand or need.

By GOPI [email protected]

To check out Gopi’s earlier article on why

ASEAN companies need to be better storytellers and share their stories

globally, read it here on Leaderonomics.com:

bit.ly/GGstorytellers

In football, the team captain or the star player sets up the

team’s defence and organises the calculation of the

goalkeeper’s next shot. Whether it’s in the

corporate or sporting world, someone has to call the final shot. What else can football teach

us about leadership? Read this article on

Leaderonomics.com: bit.ly/JYfootball



leaderonomics.com

THERE’S so much written about what it means to be a great leader and how to deal with

those with bad leadership skills – but a conversation I had recently led me to think, “How does someone genuinely make improvements to become an effective leader?”

The conversation was with an old friend who, despite leading a fairly successful business, was aware that he could be a much better leader.

He had taken initial steps to improve his leadership style and read lots on practices such as emotional intelligence, mindfulness, empathy, and establishing a work-life balance.

But as he put it, “I know these are great ways to become a better leader, and that they help so many people to develop themselves, but it seems a bit too complicated for me.”

“I don’t have much time to really cultivate mindfulness or emotional intelligence to a substantial degree. I barely get time to eat during the day!”

This was someone who was eager to grow to become a better leader for his team. As is so often the case, however, methods of personal development can sound great and then life comes along with a million different things that demand our attention.

While some might say, “He should find the time – it’s not healthy to always be busy,” any founder or chief executive officer (CEO) of a business

Small Steps Today, Significant Change TomorrowDon’t get too busy to work on your leadership skills

will know that this well-meaning advice is easier said than done.

Reframe your thoughts Often, when we have a problem to

tackle − especially one that relates to ourselves − we tend to look for the major, single-fix solution.

Unfortunately, such a thing doesn’t exist when it comes to significant obstacles. Instead, we have to take a different approach to our situation − one that fits in with our commitments, circumstances, and temperament.

For example, if someone has always lived life “on the go”, advising them to slow down and find time is, well, a waste of time. You might as well try to encourage a sloth to hurry up.

Of course, we are also habituated in our behaviours that we either don’t know where to begin to change them, or we simply have a resistance − conscious or otherwise − to changing our familiar ways.

Reflecting on my friend’s situation after listening to his story, I asked him a simple question. It had nothing to do with meditation or becoming more socially aware.

I make my question as simple as possible:

The reason I framed the question this way is because it encourages a major shift in the person’s perspective.

Now, they’re no longer thinking about any end goal and all the steps it might take to get there, which can be demotivating.

Instead, they’re thinking about what’s manageable now − this instant − that would help them to take the first step in the right direction.

I advised my friend that he should forget about the bigger picture for the moment. What could he do today to bring about a small, positive change?

“Well, I guess I could start by walling off 20 minutes each day for lunch, making sure I have no interruptions,” he said.

“That wouldn’t be so challenging, I suppose, and if I can manage that, then I could make additional small changes until they start adding up to bigger ones.”

Take small stepsIf you’ve ever been overwhelmed,

you’ll know that it’s difficult to focus on separating tasks into clear chunks of time.

Everything seems to come flooding in at once and the mind goes into survival mode – meaning that there’s little time to stop and think rationally about how you can go about managing your time efficiently.

Needless to say, practices such as mindfulness or cultivating empathy are great approaches that bring many benefits to our lives.

However, for many people, the reality is that they need something that works now, an approach through which they can see immediate results and get back some sense of control.

Taking a minute to think about what small thing you can work on

now can yield big results. For a busy person, that small thing

might just be taking 20 minutes out of each day that previously seemed impossible.

That small change is actually a huge step. Not only does it show that you’re committed to improving for your own sake and for others, but you’re also gaining control in a positive way that will automatically lead to more benefits as time goes on.

Instead of looking at the end goal, looking and aiming at the next objective along the way empowers you to take the wheel and go a little further along the road each time.

Maybe a month’s worth of taking 20-minute lunch breaks leads to another step that sees you taking 30-minute lunch breaks with a colleague, twice a week.

From there, you get to know people better, which naturally increases your empathy and ability to connect with others.

Perhaps from that point as a leader, you get to know what issues are affecting people.

With that, you take steps to deal with each one of those issues effectively, which in turn boosts team morale, engagement and commitment to the organisation.

And it all started with that one decision to take a 20-minute break each day.

Inspire change slowly We should never underestimate

the power of taking small steps. There’s always a temptation to aim high and go the extra mile.

If you can manage to do that, good on you – it’s great to be able to take giant leaps forward. On the other hand, there’s so much to be said for taking smaller steps when necessary.

Not only do they sustain our motivation as each step offers a small victory along the way, but they provide us with valuable insights into who we are.

As we develop greater self-awareness, we are in a much stronger position to understand and meet the needs of others around us.

In short, we become the great leaders we imagined ourselves to be.

Take charge now, and be a leader!

By ROSHAN [email protected]

Roshan Thiran is the founder and CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise working to transform lives through leadership development. Connect with Roshan on Facebook and Twitter for more insights into business, personal development, and leadership. What small steps do you need to take now to see a better change tomorrow? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected].

Ask any leader and they will readily agree that self-awareness is critical to success; yet many are not aware of their real strengths or areas of development. The deeper the self-awareness obtained, the greater the leader. Do you know who you are? Check out this article on Leaderonomics.com: bit.ly/RTwhoareyou

Self-mastery is an important ‘tool’ that will keep us on our toes, pushing us out of our comfort zones and driving us towards excellence. Leaderonomics has several empowerment programmes that uncover self-mastery techniques to help you discover and maximise your potentials. Reach out to us through [email protected] to learn more.

As we develop greater self-awareness, we are in a much stronger position to understand and meet the needs of others around us.

“What small thing can you begin to work on that you’d be willing to work on, right now?”


SUBSCRIBETODAY



time-sensitive than the general population.

They are more realistic about the time it will take for them to implement and complete various changes and/or tasks.

In addition, they review their goals frequently and adjust their plans for progress as necessary.

Thus, they are more likely to meet their own goal expectations.

3. DifficultyThe gripe with difficulty is, “The

challenge, process, or task is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It sounded so simple when I was starting out!”

In setting goals, it is important to realise that real change will take real work.

Expecting that “this will be easy” and “this will be no problem for me”, can backfire in the long-term when we realise that change is not easy and that we will invariably face some problems in our journey toward change.

Successful people understand that there is a price for success – they will have to work hard to achieve their goals.

This realistic outlook prevents the disappointment that can occur when challenges do arise later in the change process – and as a result, they are less likely to give up.

Conclusion All of these messages may sound

“tough”, but they are real. Successful people are not afraid of

challenging goals.

Winston Churchill became the British prime minister at the age of 62, though he was constantly defeated in running for the role of a public officer.

Warren Buffet was rejected by Harvard Business School. Today, he is one of the world’s richest and most successful businessmen.

For a list of 50 famous successful people who failed at first, check out this link: bit.ly/50failurestosuccess

Successful people understand that there is a

price for success – they will have to work hard to achieve

their goals.

Marshall Goldsmith (www.MarshallGoldsmith.com) is the author of 35 books which have sold over two

million copies and have been translated into 30

languages. Email us your thoughts on the article at

[email protected]. For more leadership

insights, visit www.leaderonomics.com

THE typical advertisement or “infomercial” – designed to help people “get in shape” – provides

a great example of what not to do in goal-setting.

The message is almost always the same.

For an ‘incredibly small’ amount of money, you can buy a ‘revolutionary’ product that is ‘unbelievably easy’ and ‘fun to use’.

This product will produce ‘amazing results in almost no time’ and you will ‘have the body that you always wanted’.

Most infomercials imply that you will not have to continue exercising and dieting for years, that you will continue to look young, and that you will have a wonderful life for the rest of your living years.

In reality, there is no “easy answer” – real change requires real effort.

The “quick fix” is seldom a “meaningful fix”.

Distractions and competing responses are going to happen and the most successful people, and those who really want to be great, understand this.

Below are three of the most important reasons why people give up on goals followed by a brief description of how successful people “do it differently” and are ultimately well-positioned to achieve their goals.

1. Ownership One of the biggest mistakes in all

of leadership development is the roll-out of programmes and initiatives

with the promise that “this will make you better”.

A classic example is the performance appraisal process. Many companies change their performance appraisal forms on a regular basis.

How much good does this usually do?

None! These appraisal form changes just confuse people and are seen as annual exercises in futility.

What companies don’t want to face is the real problem – it is seldom the form – the real problem is the managers who lack either the courage or the discipline to make the appraisal process work.

The problem with the “this will make you better” approach is that the emphasis is on the “this” and not the “you”.

Rather than rely on the latest “programme”, successful people have a high need for and reliance upon self-determination.

They commit to the challenge, task or process that needs their efforts and make a plan to meet their goals.

Because of this commitment, they are far more likely to achieve success.

2. Time Most of us have a natural tendency

to underestimate the time needed to reach targets.

Everything seems to take longer than we think it should!

When the time elapsed in working towards our goal does not meet expectations, we are tempted to just give up on the goal, and very often do so.

Successful goal-setters are more

Belief alone does not yield success. Great breakthroughs can only be accomplished through hard work, planning, leadership and practice, but without the fire of belief, most people quit. What are the things in your life that you want to do but everyone thinks are impossible? Maybe even you believe they are impossible. Perhaps it is a goal you have given up on, or a target you think can’t be achieved. Maybe you think it is impossible to turn your business around or to inspire your employees? Check out this article on Leaderonomics.com: bit.ly/RTbeliefsystem

Successful people take time to set personal and professional goals to achieve the results they want. They start by writing down the things that you purposefully set off to accomplish. Here’s something to help you transform the invisible into the visible: bit.ly/2n1NRfG

Secrets Of Successful PeopleHow they set goals and follow through

By MARSHALL [email protected]

Did You Know?



leaderonomics.com

IF you are thinking this is a motivation piece about the power of ambitious thinking, it’s not. What I’m going to lay out here has

nothing to do with psychology or inspiration. This is basic math.

A concept so simple, you will grow frustrated that your company doesn’t embrace it.

My 12-year-old gets it. But the USD50bil company I worked with yesterday doesn’t.

This simple idea could overcome your company’s aversion to risk, help them see failure as learning, and accelerate its growth rate.

For the last 50 years, strategy has been premised on the idea that strategy is about making big choices.

Who do we serve? What do we prove to them? How do we get it to them?

American academic known for his economic theories and business strategy Michael Porter advises we choose promising industries.

Good to Great author Jim Collins: that we build the right organisational structures.

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen: that we pick the right customer segments.

Your growth strategy, then, becomes a collection of big decisions.

But strategy is evolving In today’s faster-paced, more agile

world, companies that are winning – Amazon, Google, Tesla/SpaceX – are operating at a higher order. They understand the simple mathematical principle of diversification.

Investors live by this principle. If you spread your money across a variety of risky investments, you can create a predictable return.

Principle Of DiversificationThe Math behind big thinking

While some investments fail, others pop. The average results can be stable even if the individual results are erratic.

This is why smart investors assemble portfolios of investments, instead of funneling all of their capital into just one stock or bond.

Yet most companies fail to apply this simple principle to their growth agendas. They assess each growth idea individually.

Taking each opportunity – each new product, new channel, new customer segment – they assess whether its risk-adjusted return fits what the company wishes to deliver.

As a result, they only pursue growth ideas with a comfortable level of safety.

They grow risk averse because few new, innovative ideas promise the level of predictability that their core business can.

New ideas carry risk. To remove that risk, most companies simply kill off new ideas.

Diversify your risksA smarter option is to take more

risks, not fewer, while measuring the diversified return of those risks. Jeff Bezos said it best:

The key to applying this diversification rule to accelerate your growth is to change your unit of measurement.

Stop judging teams by the success or failure of their individual projects.

Instead, give them a portfolio of ideas, and judge them by the return of their portfolio.

Let’s say you have five ideas for building new businesses with data.

Don’t pick just one and hope it works. Pursue all five, understanding that some will fail while others will take off.

Don’t assemble your team around one idea, organise them around a portfolio of ideas.

In other words, think bigger Think in groups of ideas rather than

individual ideas.But what if your budget only allows

you to pursue one idea? In that case, you have two choices.

You could pick just one, as most companies do.

Or, a better choice, you could conduct less-expensive experiments that will bring down the cost of each idea by 80%.

Instead of taking your USD5 and betting it on one stock, put USD1 into each of the five stocks in your portfolio.

New agile experimentation techniques make this easy.

Read Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by the Google Ventures folks, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland, or The Start-Up Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, and you will quickly understand how to do it.

Bundle your ideas Now your bosses may want to hear

your idea, while you know you need to pitch them a portfolio of ideas.

Getting their heads around this diversification concept may take more time and effort than you think. So instead, simply trick the system.

Put the bundle of ideas into one group and give the group a name.

Call it a multi-prong strategy or call it a concept.

Take your five ideas for generating growth from data and call it “Data Services”.

Take your five designs for new shoes and call it the “Shoe of the Future Project”.

1. Pick five ideas.2. Bundle them together into one

project.3. Give the project a name.4. Assemble an idea.5. Run five inexpensive

experiments.6. Drop what fails and advance

what works.

By DR KAIHAN [email protected]

Dr Kaihan is the founder of Outthinker, a former McKinsey & Co consultant and author of four business strategy books, most recently Outthink the Competition. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and a recognised expert on the topics of business growth strategy and innovation. He is also a faculty trainer with Leaderonomics. To engage with him for your organisational needs, drop us an email at [email protected].

If more of us can be open about our failures and show how they helped to lead us to where we are today, perhaps we will come to realise that failure isn’t the end of the world but simply a stepping stone along the path of self-knowledge and learning. Let’s remember that failure is not a bug in life. Check out this article on Leaderonomics.com at: bit.ly/2na4pSI

Almost everything we do in today’s business world involves one risk or another: customer habits change, new competitors appear, markets get saturated and strategies fail. Formal risk analysis can help you assess the risk factors and suggest solutions to minimise disruptions to your business plans. It will also help you to decide whether the strategies you apply to control risks are cost-effective. Leaderonomics has suitable risk management programmes that can help your business achieve the above. Drop us an email at [email protected] to find out more.

“Given a 10% chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you’re still going to be wrong 9 times out of 10.

“We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business, however,

is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution.

“When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four.

“In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold.

“Big winners pay for so many experiments.”


SUBSCRIBETODAY



Sashe Kanapathi is certain that his

18-year career in IT was about leadership

and not technology. Sashe is currently the

Director of Learning at Leaderonomics and

ponders the use of technology in his free time. Do you think AI

can replace leaders in the future? Tell us why, or why not at editor@

leaderonomics.com

I recently watched a documentary about AlphaGo – a software developed by DeepMind, the

artificial intelligence (AI) arm of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Group – that defeated the best Go player in the world.

For those who are unaware, as a game, Go is much more complex than chess and it was considered a pinnacle achievement for AI to beat a human player at it.

(Go is a two-player strategy board game in which the goal is to surround more territory than your opponent.)

In 2017, AI was used to beat human players at Texas Hold’em Poker, a game similar to traditional poker but with slightly different rules to minimise the role of luck.

The game pushes AI to move beyond predictions of discrete moves into a realm of understanding human tactics.

We know that AI is going to revolutionise the way we work, where some of our work may be replaced by robots.

This led me to a pertinent question: How does AI affect leadership?

The journey to an AI-enabled world There are many articles about competencies necessary for leaders to survive the new digital world of Industry 4.0.

From curiosity and agility to increased learning abilities, there are definite lists of recommended competencies to face the future.

While these competencies help us deal with the changing world, they are more focused on changes around business models and processes.

But what would the future look like

when AI is doing most of our jobs? What would leadership look like?

Can robots lead people? Or can a human leader lead a group of robots?

The future for humansMy curiosity led me to the site

willrobotstakemyjob.com. It’s a site that calculates the

likelihood of your job being replaced by a robot, based on industry research from 2013.

Though outdated, it provided some insight into my questions.

It was interesting to find that a manager’s role is not necessarily removed from risk.

However, if you are a human resources manager, there is only a 0.55% chance (almost no chance!) that your job will be taken over by a robot.

I began to see a trend – people jobs are still protected.

Only those in operational or functional areas of people manager jobs are at risk. Here, you might not even need people.

Naturally, if robots are doing a job, what you need are functional people to “control” the robots. There is no need for “leadership”.

So, what are jobs that we still need leadership skills for?

Obviously, it would be in areas where there is still a need for people.

For example, people who are “controlling” the robots as mentioned earlier.

It will take a long time to transform the world. Even when it does, technology should be used to make us better.

Similar to electricity, mechanisation and the Internet, technology (or robots specifically) will change the way we work and make us more productive (hopefully).

This statement is supported by Paul R Daugherty and H James Wilson in their book, Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, which outlines how AI will not come at the expense of humans, but it will instead enhance humans.

The future for leaders I don’t know what the competencies

are for future leaders, but I do know it will be different from the competencies of today, which are focused on being prepared for the changes of tomorrow.

The disruptive technologies that affect the world of business and work − such as AI − will also be the same technology that future leaders will embrace to enhance their leadership skills.

Although leaders may have a lot of AI intervention in analysing data for decision-making, they may need to spend more time taking care of their people.

Similarly, leaders may receive AI’s help in monitoring the performance of their people, but they may need to pour in more effort to uphold the values of the organisation.

We haven’t seen AI penetrate as much on the soft skills of leadership, but it’s predicted that the day will come, too.

Who knows, perhaps there might be technology that can alert us when we are making decisions too emotionally in the future? This helps to heighten our self-awareness.

Could it also provide deeper insights into others that help us lead them better?

At the end of the day, the core need for leadership remains. And technology can help us be better leaders.

Technological singularity? In the worst case scenario, AI may

completely master the soft skills required to be a competent leader and become human-like.

This is a popular view, perpetuated by movies like The Terminator or the Black Mirror series.

The fact that we are concerned about these things shows that we are aware of some of the broader lines between what is acceptable and what isn’t.

In an extreme case, if AI does become human-like, does that not mean leading these robots would also require the same leadership skills that we use to lead humans?

Conclusion Ultimately, leadership is

contextual and this is why I think AI has a long way to go.

For the same reasons that leadership development is a challenge in organisations today − and that there is no secret sauce which you can replicate across organisations − I think AI will struggle with the contextual nature of leadership.

As can be seen by the success of AI at beating humans in games like Go or Texas Hold’Em, AI today is used to analyse discrete points of data (not soft skills).

Taking the next step of understanding human behaviour and replicating human decision-making is a whole new frontier − more suited for AI to assist human leaders rather than to replace them.

In the meantime, I will keep an eye out and let you know when it’s time to worry about losing jobs related to leading people.

Is the geek getting chic? Could this be the

revenge of the geeks as they begin to take on the world, and shape

our future? We let you be the judge. Get into

the world of geeks for awhile here on

Leaderonomics.com: bit.ly/nerdleaders

Are you a leader who wants to utilise your team’s full potential?

One tip for you to remember is that

your employees are not robots. They are

humans with feelings and needs. In this

video, learn how to refrain from being

too demanding and to be grateful for the

people around you. Be a grateful leader who

inspires people to bring more of themselves

to the table. How would you show your

gratitude towards your people today?

Watch it here: bit.ly/BALrobotvideo

Artificial IntelligenceIs it good news or bad news for leaders?

By SASHE [email protected]



leaderonomics.com

TEXTING and chatting have become so ingrained in our daily lives that, these days, most

people get genuinely upset when they receive phone calls.

The convenience of mobile communication has made us greedy about our time, and spending minutes on the phone for something that can be accomplished via text has become just downright offensive.

For that reason, marketers are now turning to messaging platforms to improve communication channels for sales and customer service conversations.

In fact, a report by Twilio found that 9 out of 10 consumers want to use messaging to communicate with brands.

“[The] report highlights a growing divide between consumers and brands,” said Manav Khurana, vice-president of product marketing at Twilio.

“Consumers message more than they call, email or even post on social media but businesses are still trying to reach them via the channels they no longer use. To keep up with consumers, brands must adopt messaging as a channel and begin communicating with customers in the same way people communicate with each other.”

As a result, chatbots have become one of the hottest marketing tools in 2017; helping marketers not only reach their audience but do it at scale.

Companies like United Airlines, Pizza Hut, Denny’s Diner, Focus Features, and Patrón, just to name a few, have implemented bots on social media to field customer service issues or help consumers seek information more quickly.

United Airlines, for instance, has a chatbot called AutoPilot for looking up your flight status without having to leave Facebook or Twitter.

But not so fast, marketers – if the lightbulb for a bot idea has just gone off, you might need to think twice.

The rise of emotional messaging Chatbots work great for simple or

transactional requests because they remove the boundaries of different apps and websites.

But with chatbots, what we gain in convenience, we lose in emotion, especially in a time where expressive communication is more important than ever.

According to a survey by Tenor, the world’s largest graphics interchange format (GIF) sharing platform, there is an increasing amount of texters that expect better ways to express emotion.

The survey found that 7 in 10 Americans use visual expressions such as emojis, stickers or GIFs when texting.

What’s more, the survey also found that texters are using GIFs and emojis to express a robust range of emotions in messaging:• Roughly half use them to “lighten

the mood”.• Roughly a quarter use them to

show support and empathy.• 28% of women use them to

express frustration − compared to 16% of men.

• 26% of women use them to express anger − compared to 17% of men.“The overwhelming shift to

visual communication is a direct result of our mobile lifestyles and the increasingly important role of messaging, driven by massive smartphone adoption worldwide,” said David McIntosh, chief executive officer of Tenor, when asked about the growth in GIF usage.

“Ninety per cent of GIF searches centre on emotion.”

What McIntosh continued to iterate is that, despite the speed in which we’re able to message these days,

emotional and visual communication have still prevailed.

It’s why we’ve invented acronyms such as “OMG” and “LOL” which have evolved into GIFs and emojis.

Thanks to companies like Tenor, we’re able to visually communicate emotion without compromising speed.

That said, the increasing tendency to communicate emotionally has revealed a significant drawback to deploying chatbots, especially in customer service.

Emotional intelligence in customer service

If there’s one thing we all know about our experience with customer service agents, whether it’s with a real person or automated, it’s that most of the time we’re feeling frustrated, angry or impatient.

While quick, automated responses might be nice for casual information exchange, customer service calls are usually high-stakes situations, given the likely context that someone is having an issue that needs to be resolved.

In those situations, emotional intelligence is arguably the most important trait in customer service interactions.

The goal of customer service, at its core, is to make sure that the customer is not just satisfied but pleased to do business with you.

That would be incredibly difficult without the ability to manage and regulate your own emotions, while empathising with others and adjusting to their emotional state.

There are three specific situations

where emotional intelligence is required for a successful outcome:

1. Dealing with anger and impatience

If an agent is interacting with an angry or displeased customer, the

conflict may escalate if the customer does not sense compassion and understanding.

2. Dealing with disappointment and frustration

If an agent is fielding complaints from a disappointed or frustrated customer, they can turn complaints into compliments by sympathising with them and reassuring them that a solution will be found.

3. Dealing with surprise, happiness and gratitude

If an agent succeeds and the interaction results in positivity, they can adapt their mindset to shift to a more conversational tone, smiling or joking to further earn the trust of the customer.

These customer touch points

carry so much weight that a bad experience can permanently damage their perception of the brand.

These are the human experiences that serve as the foundation of business, and marketers need to be highly cognizant of customers’ emotional states before deciding to deploy a bot.

The trillion dollar problem The booming growth of machine

learning and artificial intelligence (AI) has arguably more potential of being transformational than any other innovation we’ve ever seen.

In fact, it has the potential to be so valuable that billionaire American businessman Mark Cuban, predicts the world’s first trillionaires will actually be entrepreneurs working with AI.

For now, chatbots are becoming good at mimicking our language.

But until they can detect our emotional state and respond accordingly, they might never reach their full potential.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in AIThe one thing holding chatbots back from being truly valuable to marketers

By YAZIN [email protected]

It is an “instant” and “live” world where a multitude of different folks and angles are being constantly updated. It is almost like having a perpetual 360-degree microscope and CCTV on companies’ service level to its customers. How do you stay ahead of the game? Check out this article online at bit.ly/COcustomerservice

Nothing screams “customer service” louder than being a flight attendant. Read the lessons learnt by Haresh Khoobchandani on what makes for a genuine “human experience” here: bit.ly/HRcustomerchatbot

Yazin Akkawi is the founder and principal of MSTQ, an experience design consultancy in Chicago. Akkawi is driven by an audacious vision to shape the future by empowering forward-thinking companies with design. What did you like about this article? Tell us at [email protected].


SUBSCRIBETODAY



Bernard Marr is an international best-selling business author, keynote

speaker and strategic advisor to companies and governments. As

the founder and CEO of Bernard Marr & Co, he is

one of the most highly-respected thought leaders

when it comes to intelligent use of data in business. To

share your thoughts on this topic, email us at editor@

leaderonomics.com.

THESE headlines may seem over the top, but, like the scariest nightmare, they’re rooted in

reality. From factory line jobs to

professions like accounting and medicine, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies mean that more and more tasks can now be automated and completed by machines or algorithms.

A recent report by think tank Centre for Cities estimates that by 2030, one in five – or 3.6 million – British jobs will probably be “displaced” by automation and globalisation.

According to the report, occupations that involve largely routine tasks are at a higher risk of decline, and the sectors most at risk are warehousing, customer service and retail.

So, there’s no doubt that automation will affect human jobs.

But is it all doom and gloom? And how will this increasing

automation affect the human resource (HR) teams of the future?

Automation = opportunities It sounds a dismal statistic, doesn’t

it, one in five jobs? However, the Centre for Cities

paints a surprisingly positive picture, saying that, despite the probability of job losses, there will be an overall increase in jobs by 2030.

In particular, jobs that require cognitive and interpersonal skills are set to grow.

It’s the use of the word “displaced” that I find most telling.

Rather than being rendered unemployed by robots, the jobs humans do will shift, evolve and change.

The report points out that Britain’s cities have been coping with automation and globalisation for more than 100 years and almost all of our cities have seen the number of jobs grow during that period.

The emergence of new sectors – as a direct result of automation, technology, AI, etc – will lead to new roles that currently don’t exist.

Therefore, new jobs – job we can’t even imagine yet – will arise to replace those that are lost to technology.

(If you think this is overly optimistic, remember that there were no such things as social media managers or app developers 15 years ago.)

“Automation and globalisation will boost jobs in British cities over the coming decades,” Centre for Cities says.

How will HR change? In its annual HR survey, recruitment

firm Harvey Nash, concluded that AI and automation will have a major

impact on HR over the next five years. The survey found that 15% of HR

leaders were already affected by AI and automation, while 40% think it will impact them in the next two to five years.

Looking further ahead, an Oxford University study concluded that, by 2035, HR administrative jobs had a 90% chance of being automated.

What does this automation mean in practice?

One good example is virtual helpdesk agents – chatbots – that could answer simple employee questions such as “When is the company closed over the Christmas break?” or “How much of my annual leave have I used this year?”

Chatbots are becoming increasingly common in our everyday lives.

Many large brands are already using chatbots to interact with customers.

For example, eBay’s ShopBot helps shoppers find and buy eBay items from within Facebook’s Messenger app.)

So, as we become more and more used to interacting with chatbots in everyday life, we can expect to see greater use of chatbots in the workplace.

Plus, as our workplaces become more geographically dispersed, and the number of remote workers continues to rise, chatbots can fulfil a vital need for employees who don’t have easy access to HR colleagues.

AI technology is now so sophisticated that it can respond to natural, spoken language, rather than typed questions, and even detect the underlying sentiment behind the words themselves.

Call centres, for example, are using this technology to analyse whether a caller is satisfied, frustrated or angry during the course of their call.

Intelligent assistants can also play a role in talent acquisition, from

Whether you blame robots, artificial

intelligence or automation, is it all

doom and gloom in the future without jobs?

Check out this article on how the proactive professional can plan

for a successful career in this scenario: bit.ly/

CCLfuturewithoutjjob

In do or die situations, sometimes taking a

leap of faith just might save your life. Similarly,

in the face of Industry 4.0, businesses are

facing the risk of dying out if they do not adapt to the changes around

them. Check out this article on how HR can

lead the way in strategic digitalisation of the

workforce: bit.ly/hr_jump

Into the future: Job displacement vs unemploymentBy BERNARD [email protected]

scheduling interviews to supporting (or even making) decisions about applicants.

Talla is one example of a chatbot that’s designed to serve as a real-time advisor to HR professionals as they source new hires.

It provides a set of interview questions based on the role being recruited for and even conducts a Net Promoter Score survey following the recruitment process.

So, it’s clear that HR will be affected by automation over the next few years.

However, just as with the wider jobs market, this should be seen as a positive development.

Automating the simpler, administrative-type tasks frees up HR professionals to focus on more important tasks that deliver greater value to the business – tasks that robots and algorithms can’t complete.

HR to prepare for what lies ahead One critical point from the

Centre for Cities report is that greater investment is needed to help workers adapt to the changing nature of work.

People and businesses need help preparing for the changes that are coming, and I see HR as being central to fulfilling this need.

HR professionals must therefore develop a thorough understanding of the issues around automation if they’re to answer key questions like, “What type of people does the business need to work with these automated systems?” or “What skills should I be developing to future-proof my career?”

With the wealth of data available to modern HR teams, HR is ideally placed to answer such questions and support both the organisation and its people through the coming changes.

HR And AutomationRobots are Coming for Our Jobs – Huffington Post

Robots will destroy our jobs – and we’re not ready for it – The Guardian

Robots taking human jobs is causing a ‘hellish dystopia’ – Daily Mail



leaderonomics.com

fit your long-term goals and don’t need to be done by you.

As new tasks are added to your not-to-do list, it’s useful to be ready with some quick answers in case anyone (including yourself) asks you to do something that doesn’t fit in with your mission.

Life coach, Blaž Kos, suggests actually preparing boilerplate text that you can quickly grab and drop into an email if you want to politely decline a request.

You may want to write scripts you can use in person or over the phone. You should also be prepared with some things to tell yourself whenever a non-essential task rears its ugly head.

4. Repeat.As you’re invited to take on new

tasks, or as you come up with new ideas that you want to pursue, test each one against the questions mentioned earlier.

Does it meet the very stringent criteria to be placed on your to-do list, or does it belong on your not-to-do list?

Be vigilant about protecting your own time and energy and use your boilerplate or script to turn down tasks as needed.

Review your not-to-do list periodically – at least once a quarter, Kos suggests. As you get the hang of it, you may want to add more items to the list.

Who knows? Maybe someday, your not-to-do list will be longer than your to-do list.

DO you have a to-do list? Of course − most of us do.

But what about a not-to-do list? It turns out that it’s equally as important, according to productivity experts.

What exactly is a not-to-do list? It’s not a list of bad habits you’re

determined to break or negative behaviour you want to avoid.

It’s a list of tasks that you might think you should do, or might want to do, or might be asked to do by someone else.

But because these tasks don’t move you towards any of your larger objectives, don’t feed your soul, and aren’t necessary for you to do, you are much better off not doing them.

They should either be left undone or you should delegate them to someone else.

The most successful people I know say that great careers arise out of what you say “no” to.

It makes sense because time and energy are limited resources for each of us, and how we choose to spend those precious resources matters a lot.

Management consultant and executive coach Allison Rimm writes in the Harvard Business Review:

“Once you accept that you have more to do than time to do it all, that is actually a liberating concept. This realisation forces you to acknowledge there are lower priority items that you will likely never complete. Delete those non-essentials, put them on your not-

Minda Zetlin is a business technology writer and speaker, co-author of The Geek Gap, and former president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. This article first appeared on Inc.com. To share your thoughts with us, email us at [email protected].

What you don’t do matters mostThe Not-To-Do List

time, nagging at you, but that you have yet to accomplish.

Things that other people ask you to do should go on the list of potential candidates, unless they move you towards your own goals.

Any task that makes your heart sink just thinking about it should be a candidate for your not-to-do list.

2. Ask yourself some questions. Once you’ve got your potential

candidates for the not-to-do list, challenge each of them with a few questions.

First ask: “Will this task help me accomplish my goals and contribute to my vision of success?”

If the answer is no, follow up by asking: “Will I or anyone else suffer meaningful negative consequences if this task doesn’t get done?”“Is this task either urgent or important?”

If the answer to these last two questions is also no, that task should go on your not-to-do list.

If something does seem urgent or important or could have negative consequences if it goes undone, ask yourself this: “Do I have to be the one to do this task?” “Could I give it to someone else by delegating or outsourcing it?”

If there’s any way to give this task to someone else, it should go on your not-to-do list.

3. Prepare some answers.The whole point of the not-do-do list is so that you will be willing and able to quickly say ‘no’ to tasks that don’t

to-do list, and commit to letting them go. This will prevent you from wasting precious time continually re-evaluating whether you might get to them that could be better invested in actually completing your work.”

A not-to-do list will bring you clarity and peace because there will be less anxiety over things you think you should do, or worse, have told someone else you will do, but are having trouble getting to.

It will also bring greater transparency and improve your relationships with your colleagues and customers because you will no longer be making promises you can’t keep.

It may sound counterintuitive – you’re busy enough already − but set aside a little time, half an hour at least, for creating your not-to-do-list.

The productivity you gain will be well worth it.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Assemble a general list of candidates for your not-to-do list.

If you track how you spend your time (which is well worth doing), review your records to see what tasks you’re spending time on each day.

Look at your calendar and notes you may have that will shed light on exactly how you spend your work time.

Anything you’re spending time on that doesn’t directly align with your long-term goals and vision for yourself should definitely be a candidate.

Likewise, so should items that have been on your to-do list for a long

By MINDA [email protected]

Time seems to be the only element in the world that cannot be retrieved once it is lost. It is also a fair gift given to all of us. No matter how rich or how poor we are, from blue collar workers to senior managers of big or small organisations, we all have 24 hours in a day to spare – no more, no less. Check out these tips on how to manage time effectively: bit.ly/igTimeManagement

Successful people take time to set personal and professional goals to achieve the results they want. They start by writing down the things that you purposefully set off to accomplish. Here’s something to help you transform the invisible into the visible: bit.ly/BRdreamstoreality


SUBSCRIBETODAY



It’s extremely important to bridge these departments to inspire a more communal focus.

She broke it down further: “Companies that make better and faster decisions than their competition, win.”

So what can be done? To speed up good decisions, the

best thing you can do is stop trying to get everyone to unanimously agree on something, and instead “focus on structured collaboration”.

The agreement trap Start-ups and younger companies

are especially prone to falling into the agreement trap.

In an attempt to be democratic, they end up wasting time, effort, and often capital, so everyone can feel comfortable with their decision, instead of making a strong (if not all that popular) choice.

Kates warns that while consensus seems collaborative on the surface, it often elicits debates and brainstorming sessions instead of a targeted solution.

Department heads enter into

Kevin Kruse is a New York Times bestselling author,

keynote speaker, and leadership expert. He is

the founder of The Kruse Group. To engage with

him, email us at [email protected].

HOW can your company make better, faster decisions?

The key difference between a company that stays on the cutting edge and one that fades away always boils down to one thing: Decisions.

Every department or business unit has its own priorities and expertise, and most organisations make decisions with a consensus building process.

While it seems natural to try to get everyone “on board”, it turns out there is a better way.

Amy Kates, the managing partner of Kates Kesler Organization Consulting and co-author of Bridging Organization Design and Performance, says the real issue with reaching agreement across departments is often baked into the company itself.

She explains that, by design, teams have tension baked into them, because every single department is built to focus on totally different priorities and tasks.

Organisations unintentionally end up with “silos” because of this.

decision-making with one thing in mind: voice your opinion and advocate for the smartest decision.

However, this creates an environment where everyone is vying for the decision that best suits their own needs.

The difference is subtle, but debilitating: “Consensus means we all have to agree. And that means that everyone in the group has a veto,” Kates explains.

“So in order to reach agreement, what happens is the group tends to sub-optimise the solution.”

By having multiple people cut down solutions for not being the best fit to their department, very good ideas can often end up on the cutting room floor.

This means everyone will put in their two cents on how choices will affect their own work.

Providing context is good, but aiming to find a common ground is where things can get tricky.

“Common ground might not be the best outcome for the organisation,” Kates says.

“We may not have a good decision,

and we may not have a fast decision. What we do have is ‘everybody feels good.’”

What to do? So, what can we do to start coming

to decisions more quickly without becoming tangled in the search for agreement?

1. Know your goals Kates’ strongest recommendation

is to realign your goals. Is your organisation trying to come

to a concrete and final decision? Then reaching interdepartmental agreement should not be your top priority.

When department heads come together for a meeting, they are coming armed with their own issues and trepidations. This should be acknowledged, but not dwelled on.

First and foremost, you should outline the nature of your meeting: if it’s the make a decision, then release the pressure of consensus.

Embrace different perspectives but understand that there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to any problem.

2. Start to let go In the end, it’s all about trust. To trust in one another, let go, and

say, “Look, you make the decision unless there’s these issues that involve me; otherwise I trust you to make a good decision.”

This may be a particularly painful part for any leaders or business owners, but by trusting your employees, you are effectively speeding up the process.

3. Give the ‘golden vote’ One person has to make the

choice and accept responsibility; perhaps the head of the department most likely to execute the decision.

As Kates explains it: “… one role has what we call the ‘golden vote’. It means that you’re accountable for the quality of the decision. For bringing the right voices, the right data, and making sure there’s a candid conversation.

“And at the end of the day, if we can’t find a decision to align to, you make a well-informed call and we move to execution.”

Nothing is perfect, so trust that you’ve weighed your options and execute your choice confidently.

So, who has the ‘golden vote’ in your next big decision?

Trust and relationships go a long way in

building a healthy and productive working

environment. Through our ‘Building Trust and

Relationship Simulation’ with Knolskape,

participants will be able to identify their

relationship style, build trust to accelerate

business development, influence others and

resolve conflicts, become a trusted

advisor by increasing their confidence and

capabilities, build customer loyalty by understanding the

client’s solutions. Contact info@

leaderonomics.com for more details.

If you truly want to be world-class, you may want to look at these four areas in

your organisation. Are they constraining you and your employees

from potentially being the best in the world?

Check out this thought-provoking piece on

Leaderonomics.com: bit.ly/LDR4constraints

Everyone is in a crazy, busy mode almost

all the time but how does one go through the day with a sense

of “anchoring” and not be “all-over-the-place”? Life has got to be more than just getting things done, right? Essentially, being busy is not a sign

of productivity. Listen to this podcast here on Leaderonomics.

com: bit.ly/productiveleadership

How To Make Better, Informed DecisionsWant to stay competitive? Then start making strong choices quickly.

By KEVIN [email protected]

By KEVIN [email protected]



leaderonomics.com

If you see a three-hour block of open time or one open hour on your calendar, schedule your open hour.

What if? What if team members can put

appointments on your calendar?Have a “calendar conversation”

with your team. Agree that everyone has the authority to protect two or three blocks of time on their calendar.

Depending on your organisation, it might be a two-hour block of time on Monday and Thursday.

Protected time is sacred. It’s your time to get real work done.

Everyone agrees that you have permission to close your door, put your phone on phone mail and not respond to emails during protected time.

What has helped you become more productive?

3. You don’t know how to best use your time.

The #1 one thing that most improved my productivity

Protect open time on your calendar.

Open time on your calendar is your most precious resource.

When someone calls for an appointment, schedule it during busy times, not open time.

THERE is no such thing as time management. Time can’t be managed.

It simply is. Nothing you do changes time.

Time management is really self-management.

Everyone who has trouble managing time is in reality, struggling with self-management.

Time Management Begins With Self-Management

By DAN [email protected]

Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM

Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.

Do you dread team

building activities because

you’re not much of an

outdoor person? Well,

now you can have those

sessions in the kitchen!

See how a kitchen shift can

teach us the importance of

communication by heading

to bit.ly/CCteambuilding to read more.

Marie Curie’s work revolutionised the fields of science and medicine, which led to her becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize twice. Leaderonomics’ CEO Roshan Thiran shares with us the lessons we can take away from the Mother of Modern Physics. Listen to the podcast here: bit.ly/

RYGmariecurie

Editor Roshan Thiran Managing Editor Lydia Gomez Content Leader Lim Lay Hsuan

Digital Content Leader (Bahasa Melayu) Yeoh Lin Lin

Content Marketing Leader Sarah Lim

Assistant Editors Christie ChuaLouisa DevadasonPrethiba EsvaryMichelle Harris

LAYOUT, ART & DESIGN Stephanie Yap

WRITERS & CONTRIBUTORS Gopi Ganesalingam, Marshall Goldsmith, Dr Kaihan Krippendorff, Sashe Kanapathi, Yazin Akkawi, Bernard Marr, Minda Zetlin, Kevin Kruse, Dan Rockwell, Debbie O’Connor

EDITORIAL

Apparently, performing a ritual before you attempt a task reduces anxiety, allowing you to be at your best. Take a leaf out of former President of the United States Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey. Obama started each day in the White House by rising at 5 a.m. to hit the gym, while Oprah reportedly begins her mornings with 20 minutes of meditation. This infographic outlines nine daily rituals you may want to try to boost your performance at work. Check this out: bit.ly/ldrdailyritual *Note: Some jobs require you

to let others run your schedule. If you’re in emergency services, for example, you don’t get to choose when a house catches on fire.

Everyone who commits to respond to others must navigate tensions between controlling your own schedule and being responsive.

Reasons you can’t manage yourself 1. You let others run your schedule.

Being responsive to others may turn into giving others control of the way you use time*. Misconceptions about compassion and kindness can destroy productivity.

2. You need clarity and commitment regarding mission, vision and purpose.

You need to know why you’re here before you can effectively manage your schedule.

Dan Rockwell is a coach and speaker and is freakishly interested in leadership. He is an author of a world-renowned leadership blog, Leadership Freak. To get in touch with Dan, write to us at [email protected].

Untuk kandungan pembangunan dalam Bahasa Malaysia, kunjungilah portal BM kami di www.leaderonomics.com/bm atau halaman Facbookkami @LeaderonomicsBM

This Leadership Guideis Powered By


SUBSCRIBETODAY



Social media is hard to ignore these days.

Even businesses have started to recognise the importance of engaging

their stakeholders and customers via social

media. Check out this infographic highlighting

some of our Top 10 ways to maximise

social media impact for your business: bit.ly/

IGsocialmediaimpact

Check out our corresponding Top 10

video to maximise social media platforms for your

organisation: bit.ly/

Top10socialmediaimpact

Debbie O’Connor is an internationally award-

winning brand strategist, keynote speaker, mentor,

expert guest on the 12-part Build My Brand series.

She’s also the founder and creative director of multi-award-winning branding studio WRD, and CEO of

The Creative Fringe which is listed on Australia’s

100 Coolest Companies. To share some of your

branding experience made on social media, drop

us an email at [email protected].

FOR most businesses, social media is the cheapest way of getting your products or services in front

of the masses for a small investment of your time.

Unfortunately, significant damage can be done to your brand if you don’t have a planned approach to social media.

The saying ‘something is better than nothing’ doesn’t apply when trying to build a brand that customers will fall in love with.

Mistake #1: No plan To avoid brand damage on social

media, you need to decide:• The platforms you should be on

(and the answer is never ‘all of them’).• What do you want your social

media to say about your business? • Your goal: Is it brand recognition?

Sales? Or perhaps engagement?Once that’s clear, write a plan that

outlines what you’re going to post, how often, and by whom, as well as visual concepts for what it should look like.

Mistake #2: The wrong brand culture What are you actually posting on

social media? Are you constantly in sales mode?

Are you sharing inappropriate images or videos of your staff hitting the town (and perhaps the pavement) on a big night out?

And do you have a strategy in place for managing comments or

negativity?Look at the brands you love to

follow. Watch how they engage their customers.

Having a good balance between sharing expertise, highlighting clients, showcasing your products or work, and introducing your team will educate, engage and entertain your followers.

Importantly, it will create a brand culture that’s far more memorable.

After all, your culture helps mould your reputation. What kind of reputation do you want for your brand?

Mistake #3: No brand voice Whether you realise it or not, how

you write and talk creates a particular brand voice for your business.

Are you fun, playful and hip? Perhaps you’re intelligent, witty or intellectual?

Your social media posts should reflect the tone and language you’d

like your brand to have. Create a list of words or guidelines

that staff can refer to, this will ensure the brand voice is consistent across your platforms.

Mistake #4: No brand experience Creating a brand experience is

essential in the cluttered world of social overwhelm.

Why do you think cat and dog videos are so popular?

It’s because they allow us a moment to relax, be entertained and have a chuckle. They provide a viewer experience.

Include an opportunity to create a brand experience for your fans in your plan – something that they will remember or, even better, pass onto their friends.

For us, we like to do logo votes. We encourage our followers to vote on the best of three logos that we’ve developed for a client.

Everyone likes to be asked their

Don’t you want your customers to fall in love with your brand?opinion, so we receive plenty of comments, suggestions and even critiques, but it’s worthwhile as people not only remember that we design logos, but they’ve also been engaged in the process.

Mistake #5: Inconsistency Inconsistency refers to everything

about your brand across all social media platforms.

Your colours, fonts, style of images, brand voice, use of video, music, live streaming, hash tags, and the list goes on.

Are these consistent across the different platforms that you use? Is the message that you send on Instagram consistent with the message on Facebook or Twitter?

This isn’t just about what you post, it’s about the styling of your social media, too.

And most of all, is the transition from one platform to another a seamless brand experience?

* * *Without realising it, too many

businesses unwittingly damage their brand by not being strategic with their social media.

Yes, social media is social by nature and very much about engagement.

But it’s also a digital representation of your business, and needs to be managed in the same manner as you would manage any other facet of your marketing.

Is your social media building a brand that customers are falling in love with?

By DEBBIE O’[email protected]

Social Media Branding Missteps

READ US ONLINE - Leadership Articles and Videos · In his book Leading, Sir Alex Ferguson (with...

Documents

Transcript of READ US ONLINE - Leadership Articles and Videos · In his book Leading, Sir Alex Ferguson (with...