Month: September 2020

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A new model that correctly rests responsibility for change with local leadership” With Matt Warner of Atlas Network

The world bank is estimating that COVID-19 could push over 70 million people globally into extreme poverty. We can’t let that happen, but we need a new approach. In order to end poverty for good we have to radically shift how we view our role, as Westerners and as outsiders in the process. Property rights, free markets, and the rule of law supported by democratic institutions are the reason poverty has declined as much as it has. But to build an institution that lasts in support of lifting people out of poverty for good, locals must take the lead. This might sound obvious to some, but historically, this has not been the model we’ve acted on.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Warner the president of Atlas Network, a nonprofit grant making organization committed to supporting local NGOs in more than 90 countries. Matt is the editor of Poverty and Freedom: Case Studies on Global Economic Development and coined the term “the outsider’s dilemma” to describe the challenge of helping low-income countries develop without getting in the way of their most viable paths to prosperity. His organization just launched the project Dignity Unbound: a whole new approach to solving poverty for good. Matt writes, speaks, and consults internationally on the topics of economics, institution building, nonprofit management, and impact philanthropy. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Hill, Cato Journal, Forbes, Harvard’s Education Next, and EconTalk, among others. Matt has a master’s degree in economics from George Mason University and is certified by Georgetown University in organizational development consulting. He is also a 2019–2020 Penn Kemble Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy, a member of American Enterprise Institute’s Leadership Network and a recipient of America’s Future Foundation’s 2019 Buckley Award.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I grew up a comfortable, suburban kid so my knowledge of poverty had to be learned. As a teenager I volunteered at a nonprofit where my brother worked helping homeless families get job training and childcare. That opened my eyes to the challenges people face. Later, I took a two-year break from college to work with low-income, immigrant communities in Brooklyn and Queens. I became very close with many people from all over the world and I worked with them to help them learn English, find employment, and a sense of community in their new neighborhoods. I learned quickly just how diverse we all are — each with our own ideas and dreams — but we share this need to make our life count for something, to mean something. That’s human dignity. Preserving human dignity on a large scale is what has motivated my career path. It’s an important time now to be pushing a whole new approach to ending poverty for good.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

The first time I went to Kyiv to visit one of our grantees, a friend there arranged for me to spend an afternoon with the young revolutionary who first occupied the palatial estate of Viktor Yanukovych after he fled Ukraine during the Maidan Revolution. He gave me a tour of the main residence with its unbelievable luxury paid for by corruption. He took me through the underground tunnels that Yanukovych traveled by golf cart to go to his exercise buildings and spa. I also saw his large automobile collection and party boat. All of this indulgence while GDP per capita in Ukraine began its plummet to $2,000 per year. This is what unchecked power does when democratic institutions of accountability fail. I am in awe of the young people who risked their lives to take their country back. Those kinds of injustices keep me motivated to work harder. I’ve seen the same injustices in India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Guatemala — it goes on and on. We have to stop abuse of power so that low-income populations have a chance to thrive but the way we’ve tried to do it through foreign aid and foreign policy has backfired.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

The value and importance of human dignity is a universal language and should never be underestimated. This has been the guiding principle in our work and the inspiration for Dignity Unbound. Over the last few years, I’ve traveled to dozens of countries and have listened to locals and community leaders describe a vision for change and prosperity for their people and their country. What we have strived to do at Atlas Network is help them realize that vision, not nation build on their behalf.

The problem with large foreign institutions such as USAID and the World Bank leading local change is that they put so many conditions and expectations on local communities that it gets in the way of something that actually works well in the local context. For example, it was a local think tank NGO in Peru that understood why microenterprises could never grow — they were required to make monthly tax payments even when they hadn’t yet been paid themselves. How to navigate to a fix for that broken system is not something outsiders would have thought to prioritize and would not have known how to go about doing it.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

The world bank is estimating that COVID-19 could push over 70 million people globally into extreme poverty. We can’t let that happen, but we need a new approach. In order to end poverty for good we have to radically shift how we view our role, as Westerners and as outsiders in the process. Property rights, free markets, and the rule of law supported by democratic institutions are the reason poverty has declined as much as it has. But to build an institution that lasts in support of lifting people out of poverty for good, locals must take the lead. This might sound obvious to some, but historically, this has not been the model we’ve acted on.

Consider these two examples: In Uganda, Western academics spent $300,000 to entice a local village to stop growing bananas and start growing corn in order to increase their crop yields. They got bigger crop yields but there was no local market for corn and nowhere to store it. In the end, the village had no bananas and suffered a rat infestation due to all the rotting corn. Atlas Network does things differently. We support systemic change led by locals. Nearby, in Burundi, we gave a grant to a modest think tank NGO. They wanted to find ways to make their economy more inclusive for the large number of low-income street vendors and others operating very modest businesses. Because most of those microenterprises aren’t formally registered as businesses, they have no legal recourse when the police harass them and take their money and goods. It’s a massive problem. Our grantee worked with the government to lower the barriers to business licensing so that more of the existing economy could move from the shadows to the formal sector where they can grow and increase incomes. In the year prior to those reforms there had been a 5% increase in formal business registrations. In the year following Burundi saw a 49% increase. That represents an economic revolution, but it had to be locally conceived and locally led to succeed.

Stepping back and letting other countries design their own futures is a key feature of a liberal democracy. People deserve and need to choose for themselves. Large institutions such as USAID and the World Bank can continue to play a role but it should be restricted to facilitating knowledge sharing and increasing opportunities for global engagement.

How do you think this will change the world?

Unfortunately, we are witnessing a global rejection of liberal democracy in favor of authoritarian populism, a return to “strong man” politics. You see this in Hungary, Poland, Russia, China, and Brazil, though there are many others. This phenomenon is built on the exploitation of the disappointments and humiliations that have come as a result of our ham-handed attempts to spread liberal democracy through conditional aid and foreign policy influence. Political scientists Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes refer to this attempt, beginning after the fall of the Berlin Wall and ending in 2016, as the Age of Imitation, during which we worked with transitioning economies to replicate Western norms, laws, and governance structures. This has not been the right model. A new model that correctly rests responsibility for change with local leadership is much more likely to accelerate the strengthening of liberal democracy over time. Ultimately, this sets the stage for real, and long-lasting progress towards alleviating poverty.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

It is not easy to make the shift I am proposing both for practical and political reasons. The practical reason is it is not intuitive to most donor countries and donor organizations to adopt a model like ours — which lets locals take the helm You have to strike the right balance between letting your grantees lead while also holding them accountable to high standards. The trick is to let them define those high standards for themselves. It takes humility to recognize that donor expertise is insufficient to lead local change in faraway communities. Change is always hard, but this particular change asks well-meaning, very capable experts to stand down from what they consider to be a very moral cause. It’s hard to steer moral conviction if the new direction feels like doing less. I also recognize that any shift, though advisable, represents some short-term tradeoffs that are difficult to navigate. While tough choices are an everyday part of the status quo, I personally feel humble about the tradeoffs that will have to be navigated as we shift to a smarter model.

Politically, foreign aid is a useful instrument for donor countries. Some of the most generous countries, as a percentage of GDP, heavily use foreign aid to advance national interests. It serves them well and it is attractive to local politicians in recipient countries, but it’s too often a disaster for local communities. That perverse dynamic will be difficult to get away from. But we can make progress now by increasing the role of philanthropy and work towards crowding out those political arrangements.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

I attended an event cohosted by #BlackWomeninDevelopment and the Center for Global Development on the topic of consent. The panel discussion challenged all of us in the room to think about what getting consent looks like in the context of foreign aid and development. It struck me that this is a very difficult question to answer under the traditional model of foreign aid and foreign NGOs who are working in-country to solve problems. What’s worse, we undermine budding democratic processes abroad when we make their governments accountable to us and to our preferences for solving local problems. The alternative model I support solves the consent problem by investing in locally-led NGOs who promote their own ideas and who work to persuade their local stakeholders of their merits in the local context. When they succeed in getting their ideas adopted through this very public and transparent advocacy, local consent is baked into the process.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

My criticisms of foreign policy and foreign aid are widely shared. The aid industry, in particular, has been introspective the last 20 years about its own efficacy and the actual harm it has unintentionally caused. With COVID-19, the urgency to redefine our role has increased. I see a natural coalition forming that transcends politics and focuses on results. This coalition builds on our own #dignityunbound initiative as well as the seminal work of the Doing Development Differently project out of Harvard, and joins the #shiftthepower movement from Global Fund Community Foundation and the broader “localization agenda” covered by the media outlet Devex to restructure donor countries’ support of liberal democracy building around the world. This can be a powerful, diverse coalition that respects local culture and the prerogatives of local actors to choose their own destinies. If we can join together on this shared mission, I think we can make a big difference in redefining the role of outsiders in favor of local leadership.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

“People support what they help create.” This is something I learned from an organizational development course I took midcareer and it has become my mantra. It is so insightful and applies to all levels of human endeavor from working with my daughter on her homework, to galvanizing a professional team, to institution-building in faraway countries. Smart people can come up with great solutions and, if they have the authority, implement them without consulting anyone. But they will be far more successful if they think of their idea as a hypothesis and then work inclusively with relevant voices to validate, improve, or pivot off what they think is best. A “genius” plan that is at odds with the thinking of those who will be relied upon to execute it is not as good as a consensus plan that others have helped to shape.

Be confident about being vulnerable. I slowly noticed that a lot of successful people were uninhibited in seeking advice, help, and feedback. They learned so much faster than people like me who were so worried about not looking like an impostor that they hesitated to admit what they didn’t know. For the first event I was ever in charge of just out of college I decided everything in a vacuum. From the event name to the type of invitation, my instincts were all wrong for the audience I was trying to attract. The result was woefully low attendance. At the last minute, my boss had to scramble to get his friends to come to prevent a total flop. If I had simply reached out to some of my intended audience to ask for their feedback on what I was planning they would have immediately steered me in the right direction. Again, if I cared more about what I was working on than my own need to prove myself, I would have been much more successful.

Focus more on the content of your work rather than your performance in doing it. As in writing or public speaking, I am much more effective if I focus on the value of what I am communicating rather than how successfully I am doing it. I once gave a speech that went so horribly I had to pull out my notes and read the second half of my remarks. I realized it was much more natural for me to share my passion for the content than to worry about impressing people, the latter just made me self-conscious.

Everyone is your customer in some respect. Treat them accordingly. Whether an intern, a former colleague, or a member of your board, everyone matters. I can’t count how many times someone from my past has reemerged in my professional life in an important way that I never would have anticipated. So, really — burn no bridges.

One of my mentors from early in my career always said, “Don’t take it personally. Take it seriously.” I think about that all the time whenever I am tempted to be offended by someone correcting me. Criticisms should ideally be shared constructively and thoughtfully, but however they are shared they are useful data and if I can take that data seriously instead of personally I can learn something from it.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Run as fast as you can with the vision you have rather than pace yourself out of fear you don’t have it right yet. You don’t, but the faster you learn that the quicker your vision can evolve to become more sophisticated.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

We have the opportunity to end poverty for good, but it will require a complete rethink of our philanthropic approach. Atlas Network has developed a model that works at large scale because we do two things differently than almost everybody else: 1). We invest in social change at the systemic level — the rules of the game that make the biggest difference for low-income communities. 2). We support the vision of local research and advocacy organizations in each country who know better than the best foreign experts how to achieve that change at the systems level in their local context.

Over the last three years, our judicious investments in this portfolio have totaled less than $5 million but with that we have achieved measurable successes in 36 countries to date. This includes the removal of a tariff on sanitary napkins in Sri Lanka, legitimizing street vending in India, transferring title to post-Apartheid victims in South Africa, and many, many more. In response to COVID-19, we launched a new grant opportunity, the COVID Relief Fund, to provide timely support for local think tanks who are leading reforms to accelerate economic recovery in their communities. Our vast network includes independent partners in 96 countries. They have huge potential to do even more and we are prepared to scale up our model to achieve an even faster rate of social change return. Not only that, new research shows the fiscal crises caused by government mitigation efforts in response to COVID-19 represent a ripe opportunity for systemic and regulatory reform. If we can raise another $5 million to invest in the next 12 months, we predict more than double the results of the previous three years by 2022.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Twitter: @mattwarnerdc @atlasnetwork @dignityunbound

Facebook: Atlas Network

Instagram: AtlasNetwork

Youtube.com/AtlasNetwork

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A new model that correctly rests responsibility for change… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One thing that has grown during the pandemic was the need for personalized ads. Consumers today are constantly subjected to advertisements, and they are adept to tune out generic ads that have no real connection to them. We see brands adapting to the changing times by showcasing personalized ads that take into consideration three major factors: time, context, and location. By incorporating these factors, brands were able to target their audience with accurate, relevant, and personal advertisements.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Oz Etzioni the CEO and co-founder of Clinch, an AI-powered omnichannel personalization technology platform. Clinch’s platform combines brand, product and consumer data with dynamic creative messaging to generate unlimited personalized versions of advertisements for programmatic and social media video and display ads.

After spending years leading user experience, design and innovation teams at major agencies, Etzioni founded Clinch to take advantage of the explosive growth in programmatic and address the need to provide data-driven video creative at scale. As CEO, Oz has led advanced omni channel, personalized campaigns. Today, Clinch is the only creative technology company to enable advertisers to use data to personalize videos regardless of platform to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Early in my career I was focusing on digital consumer products that connect the online and offline worlds. As user experience became more and more essential and core to a brand’s initiatives, it was clear that personalized content that is relevant and tailored to the individual will be crucial for digital advertising, so we started building Clinch solutions.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The funny / absurd fact is that we actually built Clinch as a video solution first, however back in the day every brand we talked to told us “What would I do with video??” or “Can you offer me the same solution for HTML5 banners?” Priorities were different then, but at that point we realized we needed to build more capabilities that address all the different channels and executions, and on the same core technology, as building a separate solution would add unnecessary cost, and complexities. That was when we started thinking of omnichannel and the potential of actually learning between the channels and executions of display and video. Soon, video became the hot commodity, and the demand quickly turned from HTML5 banners to video…and our video solution was already battle-proven and fully integrated into the full omnichannel solution. That initial clients’ “rejection” to our offering truly helped us shape our product vision going forward.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

A lesson about the importance of brand guidelines and the subconsciousness of ads…In the early days, a client from the travel industry asked us to create ads for a “hot sale” event, for which we developed an amazing animated ad with elements that were on fire, and an amazing animation of a plane flying acrobatically through the ad. We were very excited to accomplish such a complex level of animation in HTML5 at scale. Then the client feedback came and we were roasted on the fact that not only it seem that the plane was on fire and out of control, but the animation ended with the plane disappearing into the lower left edge of the ad, in the worst possible angle, giving the viewer the notion that the plane did not have a successful landing. From that point on, brand guidelines, emotional takeaways, and storytelling became essential components in our solution, and just as important as the tech itself.

Are you working on any new exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people in the industry?

Video advertising has caused many marketers to hit a rough patch. From lack of efficiency, speed, and cost many industry experts fall short. We recently launched the industry’s most advanced and efficient video rendering engine, called Clinch Xenon. Our new innovative technology replaces existing common rendering solutions for video advertising personalization at scale. Clinch Xenon provides customization and control for video editing and significantly reduces processing time, making it far easier and cost-efficient to produce the scale and variations of video assets required for true omni-channel personalization. This gives industry execs the ability to streamline the process, removing unneeded steps where errors may be introduced. Because of its lightweight, cloud-based design, error-reduction, and speed, Clinch Xenon can reduce rendering costs by 90%. You can learn more about Clinch Xenon here.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Stay true to the vision but be aware and attentive to clients’ needs and market trends and be bold enough to iterate the product and positioning accordingly (don’t fall in love with your initial concept). Your team is an essential part of your offering to the clients, they are the real engine of the company. Choose the right people, take good care of them, and most importantly, empower them.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

My family and my co-founder. No one in the startup world can succeed without the support from their closest people; they all become co-founders in one way or another, and all carry the burden and challenges and ups and downs of building a company with a vision that starts from scratch and grows. A good, honest, ego-less and target-oriented relationship between the co-founders is crucial (make sure to pick right for the LONG TERM!).

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I sure hope so. We built our tech to make sure that we help our clients and their consumers provide value for each other. The idea behind personalization, not only in advertising, is to make things relevant and customized for me as an individual, so I can enjoy and maximize the benefits from everything I do or experience. It could be to save time, save money, even just entertain. Regardless of the specific goal, I dedicate my time and attention, and I want value in return. So we are trying to always improve our tech to build value and help consumers get what they want or need, when they need it.

Can you share 5 examples of how retail companies will be adjusting over the next five years to the new ways that consumers like to shop?

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way consumers will shop for the foreseeable future. The major adjustments made were:

• E-commerce: This experience opened the door for the e-commerce industry, consumers were flocking to online shopping during the pandemic and brands took clear notice by offering pick-up and delivery services. The industry has now seen major growth in e-commerce and consumers have now acclimated to the current reality, the ease of use has been a major player for the new consumer mindset. The path to purchase has become more digital-reliant and retail will become a showroom / experience.
• Ad Consciousness: Advertisers had to change the way ads were seen, displayed and positioned to consumers. Within the matter of months social gatherings were considered taboo and ads needed to reflect the current reality. The key is to ensure that the content being consumed is as relevant, personal, and geographically applicable as possible (e.g.: offering delivery messages in ads to people in locations with a stay-at-home order, and to offer curb-side pick up messages to people in less restrictive locations. In the upcoming back to school campaigns, when we are setting up personalization parameters, we not only have to consider geo on a state level, but also at the county-level, in order to determine messaging that resonates with schools that will operate in-person vs. remote). Seeing ads that didn’t reflect the current reality would not seem relevant to the consumer, and doesn’t connect with your audience. Brands need to stay conscious of the types of ads displayed for their client base. The most successful ads resonate in a relevant manner by “addressing the times” head on, and remain authentic to their brand. Avoiding the issue altogether has its own set of risks.
• Personalization: One thing that has grown during the pandemic was the need for personalized ads. Consumers today are constantly subjected to advertisements, and they are adept to tune out generic ads that have no real connection to them. We see brands adapting to the changing times by showcasing personalized ads that take into consideration three major factors: time, context, and location. By incorporating these factors, brands were able to target their audience with accurate, relevant, and personal advertisements.
• Transparency: Just like the ‘organic’ movement in the food industry and the demand for food sources transparency, ingredients, and transparent process of production, etc. The retail industry might experience a similar process which they need to prepare for. Consumers want transparency with where and how products have reached their warehouses and shelves. Safety and health conscious consumers are more prevalent now than ever before. Brand messaging needs to have a purpose, not just a vague “we’re in this together.” Viewers want to know: Who are they helping? Is it believable and authentic? Is the brand doing its part? Can I trust this brand? Do I share its values? Where did it come from? Is it safe? Brands will need to showcase supply chain management, efficiency, and sanitation needs to keep consumers at ease while shopping both online and in-store.
• Dynamic Audiences segmentation: DMP segmentations will continue to generate audiences that are too broad. The idea of identifying and segmenting audiences based on engagement, preferences, and context will drive retailers to start segmenting audiences in a more granular, precise, and dynamic way. This will allow the retailers to address consumers with much more relevant and personalized content, and form much better and frequent communication that is beneficial to both sides.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would focus on food and water resources, as this is accelerating to become a global issue that needs to be addressed well ahead of time and not when encountered, as it’ll be too late.

Oz Etzioni of Clinch: The Future of Retail Over The Next Five Years was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: “Diagnosis and Treatment For Soft Tissue Injuries” with Dr. Mary Rose Reaston of Emerge Diagnostics

It is difficult to be an innovator. I have learned that people are not always receptive to new ideas and technology. The light bulb went on when I was presenting to a group of people and they kept putting up roadblocks as to why something new is better. It was then I looked down at the table and saw my iPhone and looked back up at them. I asked the question who remembers the rotary dial phone and half the group raised their hand. I then picked up my iPhone and asked who has one of these; most of the room raised their hands. I said congratulations you adopted an innovative technology.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing MaryRose Reaston.

Mary Rose Reaston is an innovator, author, expert witness and is the CEO and Chief Science Officer of Emerge Diagnostics, Inc. MaryRose has a successful track record in the development, commercialization, marketing and governmental acceptance for advanced Electrodiagnostic testing. She is the Co-Inventor of EFA technology and holder of several U.S. and international patents. She has been named as an Industry Risk Innovator and Responsibility Leader.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Many years ago, I was involved in a severe car accident that left me with debilitating headaches. I was told, after trying medications, various treatments including physical therapy that I was “suffering from” soft tissue injuries and since there was no way to diagnose these types of conditions that my treatment with be” hit or miss”. This was not acceptable to me. I just wanted to get better. After much research become a Co-Inventor with Phil Reaston of the Electrodiagnostic Functional Assessment, EFA technology. EFA technology has proven to be the gold standard for soft tissue injury diagnosis and treatment. It was thought that I had migraine headaches after the car accident but with the development of the EFA, it was found I had tension headaches with a vascular component. Being able to distinguish the difference allowed for site specific treatment. With the specific treatment I became pain free and have not suffered these types of headaches. This led me on my journey to be able to further develop this innovative cutting edge technology so that other people could benefit.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One of the most interesting events that will always stay with me, was when we decided to make the technology wireless. In order to be able to accurately evaluate soft tissue injuries, you have to be able to look at many muscle groups simultaneously. Also, just looking at muscle groups wouldn’t be enough because in order to understand the muscle pathology you needed to know what the person was doing. We decided to integrate range of motion testing with the muscle testing and that meant more sensors. More sensors with wireless technology was an issue as current technology only allowed a few sensors to be connected. Phil Reaston came up with an innovative method that allowed many sensors to be used simultaneously so that many muscle groups could be monitored with multiple access for range of motion- our EFA technology. This was unheard of and critical for effective diagnosis. Our first large technical meeting scheduled a demo of the technology with industry leaders at Intel. Walking into the meeting with the introduction of the technology, I was met with overwhelming skepticism and everyone saying that connecting all the sensors we needed could not be accomplished. The joy of my face and the looks on their faces when we provided the working demonstration of the project is something I will always treasure. Phil Reaston has continued to upgrade and expand on the technology so that it is truly cutting edge and proven to be successful in the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injuries.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

The $100 billion dollar problem: soft tissue injuries, typically defined as back, neck and shoulder pain is a leading health cost driver in the United States. These conditions are the most common reasons for people to seek medical care. They are difficult to diagnose and treat. Previously, there has been no way to access the injury and a doctor often must rely on the person’s complaints. Now, there is Exciting Emerging Technology: Electrodiagnostic Functional Assessment. (EFA) EFA uses FDA registered technology and is the gold standard for the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injuries. For the first time, connection via wireless technology multiple muscle groups and range of motion can be monitored. This allows for pinpointing the precise location of the injury and allowing for site specific treatment. This has helped prevent surgeries and helped people to become better and lead productive lives. In fact, the EFA technology is changing the face of diagnosis and treatment and allowing for better care via telemedicine. With the advent of EFA technology and telemedicine a doctor can gain more information than if the person was sitting in front of them in an office. This is important especially with COVID. Since bringing EFA technology to market, we have helped thousands of people get better, return to work sooner, and lead more productive lives. With COVID facing the World and in person care being limited, we had to adopt our technology to be better able to handle telemedicine visits. In the past, telemedicine was not an option for people who had a soft tissue injury since the doctor was not able to palpate of feel the person through a video link. The EFA enables “virtual palpation” for a more objective assessment, which is a critical component of the physician’s evaluation process that was, until now, impossible via telemedicine or any other remote/virtual platform. In fact, with the EFA the doctor actual receives more information than if the person were sitting in front of them. Better care anywhere with the EFA especially via telemedicine will enable people to get more accurate diagnosis for the leading healthcare issues/cost drivers. Being able to pinpoint with the EFA the precise location and type of soft tissue injury will allow for better directed care, anywhere.

How do you think this might change the world?

I really do believe the EFA technology can change the world because it fills a void in medicine. There are great diagnostic tools, and each serves a specific niche, for example x-rays are excellent for broken bones but they cannot look at soft tissue injuries. EFA technology is designed just specifically to evaluate soft tissue injuries. With the advent of EFA and telemedicine this innovative solution can be offered worldwide. The EFA solution dramatically reduces the costs associated with inaccurate diagnosis or prolonged treatments. By being able to ascertain if conservative care is appropriate and offering site specific treatment recommendations an individual can recover faster and not only return to work but all the activities of daily living. If surgery is appropriate that can be identified early on and the person can get the best treatment possible. Accurate diagnosis and treatment also reduce the reliance on pain medications and narcotics which has become a worldwide epidemic. I have many stories of how the EFA has benefited humanity, but I would like to share two of my most memorable. A young AAA picture who had undergone rotator cuff surgery and was unable to return to baseball, came to me and asked if there was anything, we could do to help him. His arm hurt to throw pitches and he was “demoted” to the A team. He was going to be cut from baseball. Baseball was his entire life and livelihood. The EFA found he had referred pain from his neck muscles that was affecting his arm. With appropriate care as outlined by the EFA evaluation, he was able to pitch and was once again return to the AAA roster. Using our guided EFA telemedicine program, we evaluated an individual who was injured at work and we were able to compare him to a baseline EFA and determine he had a work-related change in condition to his shoulder. He was able to be seen very early on in the case, had surgery, and returned to work 8 weeks later with a full duty release. Because of the site-specific care, he had appropriate early treatment and had very little pain medication. Better diagnostics equates to better care and with telemedicine that can be anywhere.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

The EFA technology is truly an innovation for the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injuries. That being said, there is no panacea in medicine. There is not one global solution so the only drawback I could foresee with the EFA, as with any technology, is that it been used for what it was intended for: no more no less.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

The tipping point that lead to this breakthrough came from Phil Reaston. The limitations of getting to a telemedicine option and an option that could be mobile rested with the ability for us to make the technology wireless. Wireless technology was limited to very few sensors and no real time or live access. The A- HA- moment came when Phil thought outside the box and found a way to connect it all together. That is the secret sauce so to speak, and this has enabled us to be able to offer the EFA to anyone including unmatched telehealth care. I will never forget the day that Phil took many EMG sensors and range of motion sensors and said watch they can all connect. He made it seem so simple but so many years of development went into the effort. Our technology and programs are now offered worldwide.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

For wider spread adoption, we need people not to be afraid of innovation. A good story, I will always remember is from a friend of mine who is an orthopedic surgeon who embraces the EFA technology in his practice. He had a deposition and the EFA was mentioned. He was asked did you learn about the EFA in medical school doctor, and he replied no. I went to medical school over 30 years ago and at that time I did not even learn about the MRI. Medicine must constantly progress and change, and people need to embrace change and innovation.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

One focus of the EFA is to assist employees and employers with work related soft tissue injuries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Soft Tissue Injuries are the leading cause of lost workdays and health care dollars spent. Our EFA-STM (EFA Soft Tissue Management Program) is a bookend solution that helps give better care to employees with work related injuries and uses our telemedicine platform. Achieving better results in a complicated and challenging worker’s compensation environment is what every employer and employee should want. If a workplace incident happens, the employer is responsible to return the employee to the employee’s condition prior to the incident. The employee wants better care and back to work quicker. The EFA-STM program is built to achieve these results for the employee and employer, a win for all parties. Our clients and their employees have had tremendous success with the program. Employee’s with work-place injuries are returning to work quicker with a more focused diagnosis and our clients are benefiting from less lost workdays, less recordable days and the knowledge that EFA tested employees will have the benefit of the EFA-STM program in the event a work-place incident occurs. This is an innovative concept and it changes the game of workers’ compensation into a win for all parties.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I am particularly grateful to Robert Thompson. Bob was the prior CEO of Emerge Diagnostics and my mentor. When we first started to work together at Emerge, I was the Chief Science Officer of the company. Bob saw in me the ability to become more to the company. He helped me learn the business side of the company and help me ease into the role of COO. As COO Bob helped me refine my management style and learn more about delegation. He had confidence in me and when he left the company, he promoted me to CEO and President. He left me with invaluable knowledge: people love sausages, but they don’t really want to know how to make them. This might sound corny but so true it taught me solve the problem and provide the results.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Absolutely. With my success as Emerge, I am focusing on affordable healthcare and wellness. We are developing a program that will allow individuals and their families to have unlimited access to telemedicine and wellness programs at very low cost.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. It is difficult to be an innovator. I have learned that people are not always receptive to new ideas and technology. The light bulb went on when I was presenting to a group of people and they kept putting up roadblocks as to why something new is better. It was then I looked down at the table and saw my iPhone and looked back up at them. I asked the question who remembers the rotary dial phone and half the group raised their hand. I then picked up my iPhone and asked who has one of these; most of the room raised their hands. I said congratulations you adopted an innovative technology.
2. Be true to Yourself. Often on this journey I received overwhelming negative feedback as the EFA would never be accepted, would not work, would not be reimbursed by insurance. This chatter was sometimes more pervasive then any positive feedback. It was during these times I would look back on my struggles with ineffective care and headaches and look back to how the EFA changed my life. This gave me the strength to continue on this journey.
3. Always surround yourself with excellence. If it were not for Phil Reaston’s thinking outside of the box and being a true innovator in his field, we would not have the EFA technology that is changing medicine today.
4. Listen to the experts and incorporate their ideas into new technology. An earlier adopter of the EFA technology was a gifted neurosurgeon. He loved how the EFA could assist him in providing a more objective diagnosis. When we wanted to advance into telemedicine for soft tissue injuries, he said no way. He was a surgeon and he had to “feel” the patient. His suggestion and needs advanced the development of the EFA telemedicine platform.
5. Think Outside the Box. If you are willing to be creating and evaluate a problem for many different perspectives, I believe a solution can be found.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Always strive for better healthcare and new technologies and innovation to offer to people everywhere. Don’t make better healthcare options unobtainable to the majority of people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorite Life Lesson Quotes is Believe in Yourself. If you do not believe in yourself then how can you expect anyone else to believe in, you. If you believe in yourself, you project confidence and that is what is needed to be an innovator to have breakthroughs for cutting edge technology.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Want to change the world for the better with cutting edge healthcare…. We have it. There is no other technology for the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injury and most importantly in today’s times of COVID where social interaction are limited, we have the most objective telemedicine platform. Don’t’ be left out, together we can change the world for the better.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

MaryRose Reason — Linkedin

@MaryReaston Instagram

Mary Cusimano Reaston Facebook

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Is Now: “Diagnosis and Treatment For Soft Tissue Injuries” with Dr. Mary Rose Reaston of was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future is Now: “A Platform That is Zoom Meets Masterclass Meets Calendly Meets Venmo” with Troy Roques of Symposium

The opportunities with our platform are endless. Musicians can offer their creative process to thousands who want to virtually be involved. Chefs can cook with their biggest fans. Therapists can offer their services to their clients while the country remains partially shut down. Accountants, tax consultants, life coaches, personal trainers, and tutors all have a place to make their mark on Symposium. I can see the utility for anyone who has a burning passion for a subject that they want to share with others.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing the cofounder and Chief Strategy Officer at Symposium, Troy Roques.

Troy is a former Marine Corps Veteran who has a background in Casino Marketing, where he managed the profiles of numerous high-profile clients. In 2014 he partnered with the National Hotels Association to develop his brand Room Deals Travel, which provided wholesale rates to over 750K hotel destinations worldwide. In 2018, he co-founded the startup Symposium that offers itself as a platform to help people market and sell their skills through videoconferencing chats.

Thank you so much for joining us Troy! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Hello and thank you for having me today. That’s a great question and one I’ve often asked myself. The beginning of the Symposium story started after a long hard day of nothing going right. I was in sales before starting the company, and in sales, you face many obstacles and gatekeepers, including dealing with people’s personal schedules, the fact that they don’t know you, or may already use the service you provide. All of this puts you at a huge disadvantage. That was the moment that Symposium was born. I knew I had to create a way to circumvent all of the obstacles so I could speak directly to a decision-maker who could help me get to the next level of success in my life. I knew I was ready to start my own company and it would be one that would empower business owners. It was very reminiscent of the scene in Transformers 2: Revenue Of The Fallen when Sam Witwicky was flooded with signs and symbols. I went home that night and started writing a business plan.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

The most interesting story that happened to me since I began this career relates to the undertone of racism when it comes to African American founders and CEOs in tech. One instance that stands out is an investment meeting where a gentleman flew to Las Vegas after hearing about how Symposium had essentially figured out how to sell the last free commodity on earth — TIME. After excusing myself from the meeting, the gentlemen asked, “Do they all look like him?” I didn’t hear about this until the next day, and that same gentleman invested a significant amount of money into another company.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

The philosophies I live by are pretty simple: One of them is “you have not, cause you ask not,” which I learned about from Steve Harvey. You can’t get discouraged by all the nos along the way; you have to stay true to your vision. Albert Einstein said, “imagination is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” The moment you stop believing in yourself and let other people blur your vision is the moment the blueprint is altered. I can tell you from personal experience, as an entrepreneur, the worst thing to see is someone else becoming successful from an idea you had long ago that someone talked you out of doing. Lastly, “get out of your comfort zone.” The things you fear are exactly the things you should do more of.

Ok. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

I am a cofounder of the tech startup Symposium. We are an all-in-one video marketplace where professionals, consultants, and creatives can take their talents and offer their knowledge, expertise, and services to users around the globe. What separates us from other platforms is that calendaring and monetization are built right in. You don’t have to book or pay manually and then have a video chat/conference — with all three on separate platforms. Nor do you have to rely on problematic forms of monetization like ad revenue, which at any time, a platform can strip the ad from your video through tricky algorithms. Symposium places all the power into the hands of the people. Creatives and professionals offer their services, set their own prices, and make their own schedules. They can offer a direct one-to-one video conference, or host thousands at a time. They can also create direct messages for their individual followers. Users don’t have to pay for anything more than the time that was given to them; e.g. if a booked session for an hour only goes 35 minutes, then they are only charged for 35 minutes.

The opportunities with our platform are endless. Musicians can offer their creative process to thousands who want to virtually be involved. Chefs can cook with their biggest fans. Therapists can offer their services to their clients while the country remains partially shut down. Accountants, tax consultants, life coaches, personal trainers, and tutors all have a place to make their mark on Symposium. I can see the utility for anyone who has a burning passion for a subject that they want to share with others.

It also doesn’t have to be all that serious. One of our users is the mother of a four-year-old boy, who is on there to be a virtual buddy to his peers, and offer a consoling voice for other kids who might be feeling lonely during these stay-at-home orders. Contrast that with Dr Janice Hooker-Fortman, a 78-year-old relationship therapist who found Symposium as a way to reinvent her business and continue offering her services to all her clients during the pandemic. There is plenty of opportunity for people of all ages to contribute.

How do you think this will change the world?

I think we’re slowly realizing how virtual our world has already become. COVID-19 took our world by storm and it was virtual replacements that allowed people to maintain a sense of stability. It kept the classroom alive, so students wouldn’t have to fall behind. Delivery services were taken to a new level — now you can press a few buttons and have food brought to your doorstep. And of course, the stock prices of video conferencing companies skyrocketed. Businesses realized how efficient they can still be without paying for all that office space. For many people and businesses, virtual platforms are key.

However, many professions were left out to dry. Some people have the wrong impression that if you teach yoga or piano, or do any style of coaching that you can transition to YouTube and it’s smooth sailing from there. It’s a totally different ballgame to upload to an audience versus having that direct interaction with someone in real time. That’s where Symposium is going to fill the gap. Our main focus is to nurture that human connection that often gets lost when things go digital. It’s one thing to follow your favorite chef on his or her YouTube channel, try their recipes, and leave a comment on the video. It’s another thing to cook alongside your favorite chefs, interacting with them in real time and asking them for suggestions. Maybe you have a certain way that you like to do things and you can share that with the expert. That’s what separates us from other online platforms: at its best, Symposium is Zoom meets Masterclass meets Calendly meets Venmo.

The same way Facebook changed the nature of friendships, to where you don’t have to actually have met somebody in person to consider them a friend, Symposium will change the relationship between creatives and consumers, chefs and foodies, and trainers and fitness enthusiasts. You can develop working relationships with clients whom you’ve never met all over the world, which has the potential to change our idea of a network. If enough people use the platform, it will alter the way people look for work. If not someone’s only source of income, Symposium allows everyone to have a taste of the entrepreneurial journey.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

In any new technology that aims to push the boundaries, there comes unforeseeable risks. One thing we don’t want is for Symposium to make it so that people never need to meet face to face again, even with the clients they have virtually. What it’s meant to be is an option that makes itself especially useful during times like these when social distancing is recommended or required. Even when society can return to previous behavior, people deserve to have options that allow flexibility in their work schedules. People will still get sick and have transportation hurdles and family issues that prevent them from going into work. This allows people to continue to provide their services even when life gets in the way. This also allows more chances to take little vacations throughout the year, because Symposium eliminates the need to completely check out every time you decide to travel. And most importantly, you can connect to people all over the world; an expert in New Zealand can teach piano to a student in Pakistan.

Going back to the potential drawbacks. If a power user becomes popular, I worry about the potential fort them to take advantage of their followers; that is that they’ll charge for a service such as a SymGram, which is an option available that allows creators to record a personalized message to a follower, and not deliver on those personalized messages. We have protocols in order to prevent that from happening, but it’s still a worry. We also want to make sure that people aren’t lying about their credentials and knowledge base to make a quick buck. We want our users who are passionate about learning to be given the best guidance possible.

On the more futuristic end, I worry about the potential rise of deepfake technology being used on our platform. The more realistic it becomes, I worry about scam artists posing as other celebrities and influencers and using our platform to offer false advice to users who think they’re speaking to the expert. To keep things contemporary, perhaps our most pressing concern is security. We don’t want to have the same problems that Zoom was having where video conferences can be breached by hackers and have people’s privacy compromised. We work hard every day to think of worst-case scenarios and then do our best to get ahead of them so we’re fully prepared for every possibility.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

I was in sales before starting the company. In sales, you face many obstacles and gatekeepers, including dealing with people’s personal schedules, the fact that they don’t know you, or may already use the service you provide. All of this puts you at a huge disadvantage. That was the moment that Symposium was born. I knew I had to create a way to circumvent all of the obstacles so I could speak directly to a decision maker who could help me get to the next level of success in my life. I knew I was ready to start my own company and it would be one that would empower business owners. It was very reminiscent of the scene in Transformers 2: Revenue Of The Fallen when Sam Witwicky was flooded with signs and symbols. I went home that night and started writing a business plan.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

What we need are backers and people who believe in the platform. The more widespread we become the more useful we can be to others. The Symposium platform is only as strong as the users who are on it. So if you have a passion, a level of expertise in a particular field, or a talent you want to share, we could use your voice on our platform. If you want to learn something, want to be entertained, or need some one-to-one guidance, create a free account and see what’s out there. Encourage your favorite content creators, streamers, podcast hosts, and creatives to join and see what they can offer. It never hurts to tap into a new market to grow your audience and open up a new stream of revenue.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Oh! I love this question.

1st. You may lose some friends.

It has been an eye-opening experience to see the people who I thought would be the most helpful not show up when I needed them, especially some of my celebrity friends. Symposium is a work-from-home solution; and with unemployment at an all-time high, our teachers out of work, and the whole country shut down for the remainder of 2020, who doesn’t want to support that?

2nd. Whatever amount of money you think you need, DOUBLE IT!

I am fortunate enough to have a First Ballot Hall-of-Fame investor and co-founding partner with a champion mentality, because getting Symposium out of beta to where we are today took longer than initially anticipated, and we were over budget. If I had to find another early-stage investor, it would have been disastrous, and asking for more money with no leverage is a tremendous disadvantage.

3rd. Say goodbye to sleep.

If you want to work from 9 to 5, then get a job, because this life is not for you. Being responsible for the success of your business and your investor’s money is a huge responsibility. My team and I work around the clock: learning, building, and strategizing to improve Symposium and our customer experience. 3 am text messages from the team and sleeping with my laptop are a common occurrence.

4th. You can’t do it all yourself.

I can’t express to you enough the importance of having a good team. Having a good idea is just the beginning, but it requires a team to implement your vision and bring it to fruition. I am blessed to have a team of knowledgeable hard workers who don’t see problems as problems, but as opportunities for solutions. On a personal level, I have grown a lot by being in the presence of such an amazing group of people.

5th. Get a dog.

OMG I love my dog. Her name is Kona and she is our greetings director. Kona always seems to know when my stress levels are high because she’ll jump in my lap and start demanding attention. You will often see her on conference calls with me or at the boardroom table where she has her own chair. If you’re ever in Las Vegas, make sure to stop by the Symposium offices and meet Kona, along with the rest of the team.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

I like to start my days by waking up early. I stay away from my phone and don’t worry about what can go wrong, but instead I get excited about all that can go right. After breakfast, I’m off to the gym where I enjoy boxing and kickboxing conditioning classes before heading into the office. Along with my daily work, I’m known to swing for the fences. My mindset is this: you have not ’cause you ask not, and every no is a step closer to a yes.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Symposium has successfully figured out a way to monetize the last free commodity on earth — TIME. We are more than just a paid video conferencing app. We have created a culture where people are willing to share their real-life experiences to help others reach new levels in their lives. On Symposium, the more you share, the more you earn. If there is one thing this pandemic has taught us, it’s that when the world shuts down, all we have is each other. People need people to survive. People need real, meaningful interactions that are meant to educate, entertain, and inspire. We have all either paid tuition or paid attention to get where we are today, and Symposium is the marketplace where you can finally get paid for the time you spend in perfecting your craft. So I ask you, how much is 15 minutes of your time worth? Simply answering the question is proof of concept and qualifies you as a seller in our worldwide marketplace. Someone somewhere is seeking your advice and is willing to pay you for your time. As you continue with your day, take a moment to stop and ask a few people this very same question; but don’t ask the colleagues that you work with. Ask the Starbucks cashier who moonlights as a math tutor. Ask the valet attendant who gives trumpet lessons after work. Soon you will realize that we all can and should put a value on our time. How would you like the opportunity to get a piece of each transaction?

The Future is Now: “A Platform That is Zoom Meets Masterclass Meets Calendly Meets Venmo” with Troy was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

…We bring bleeding edge user engagement and monetization capabilities from the mobile gaming sector to the world of telecom operators and mobile service provisioning. As a result, users worldwide can now lower their mobile phone bill costs the more they use our platform to discover and interact with brands, games and much more.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Boroff, Founder and CEO of Adfone.

Dubbed a “Natural Born Entrepreneur” by the Daily Telegraph, Brian Boroff founded Adfone in 2015 after having successfully founded and grew his telecom company in the UK which was a multi-national Software-as-a-Service provider to Tier-1 wireless carriers. With 20 plus years of industry experience and a proven track record in the IT, Marketing & Telecom sectors, he grew Adfone from concept to closing on a $7.5 million seed funding round this year. He has been featured in UK journals including The Guardian, The Mirror, Mobile Today, and The Sunday Times. He is an author and subject matter expert in the fields of Customer Retention & Acquisition technologies, Competitive Intelligence, Wireless Telecom and Entrepreneurship.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

During my freshman year at University of Central Florida, I was hired by AT&T Wireless Services as a part-time call center advisor. Within several months of starting the role, I was promoted to web master of the department, responsible for automating inbound call processes and improving call handle time. I was recognized by the executive leadership team for my work and by the age of 20 years old was reporting directly to the Chief Marketing Officer of AT&T Wireless Services, overseeing the implementation of Customer Acquisition & Retention solutions deployed nationwide. Immediately after graduating, I launched my first start-up, which brought me to London, UK, where I resided for nearly 12 years. We were selling Customer Acquisition & Retention solutions to carriers around the world including Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange and O2 to name a few. Shortly after my return to the U.S. in 2015, I conceived the idea for Adfone with the vision of putting an ad-supported mobile device in every prepaid users’ hands on the planet.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

As an entrepreneur you must, above all, have confidence in your abilities during the most difficult times. There have been numerous occasions in my startup experience during which I needed to secure cash, in a relatively tight timescale, to enable the company to survive. The most interesting fundraising experience was when I was given the opportunity to present to an Angel club that was based in Doha, Qatar. This came through an introduction by one of my existing investors. He told me that while an investment in the company was not guaranteed, attendance in person would increase the chances of a positive outcome. As a global company, I valued having a diverse investor base and decided to jump on a 17-hour flight to Doha for a 30-minute pitch, in person. I had been to many investor pitches in my career, but this was the most fascinating to me given the cultural differences. Upon my return, I was notified that they decided to invest in my company.

Can you tell us about the “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Adfone’s Play2Pay™ platform is truly unique. We bring bleeding edge user engagement and monetization capabilities from the mobile gaming sector to the world of telecom operators and mobile service provisioning. As a result, users worldwide can now lower their mobile phone bill costs the more they use our platform to discover and interact with brands, games and much more.

How do you think this might change the world?

The other day I walked into a Starbucks and there was a sign above the register that read “At this time, it is recommended all Customers use cashless payment options whenever possible during their visit to our store.” This is the new reality that we now live in and consumers worldwide will be looking for alternatives to paper currency as a matter of health and safety. Adfone’s platform is the world’s first to convert user engagement into mobile payments, initially focused on mobile phone bills. Rather than use cash or credit cards, our users can monetize their attention. We see this as transformative on a global scale.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Our technology is only provided on an opt-in basis, so users have the control in their hands, literally. Users are rewarded for interaction with the platform and receive value for their time. With this in mind, I don’t see any potential drawbacks.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

When I returned from the UK, I had no idea what I would do next professionally. It was only after shopping for new mobile devices that I was able to experience firsthand the difference between the U.S. and UK phone markets, specifically around how devices and service subscriptions are sold. Having been accustomed to receiving my device for free in the UK, I was reluctant to pay anything for one. My original idea was to have a device with an OS level framework that would serve ads via the lock screen to fund the hardware, hence the name “Adfone.” Over time, with refinement, the platform became a way for users to offset subscription costs from their wireless carrier, with the lock screen being only one of many methods of interaction.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

Our commercial model is Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C). It means that we would never have a direct media budget or user acquisition costs. We partner with wireless carriers who have massive subscriber bases and marketing budgets, and are responsible for driving adoption of the program. They (and us as a result) are uniquely positioned to drive scale given a carrier’s ability to preload our app on devices or sim cards, coupled with messaging their existing customers about our value proposition and leveraging their brand which customers know and trust. We are backed by formed CEOs of wireless carriers from around the world, which helps us to develop relationships with carriers from all corners of the globe.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

Continuing on from my last point, for us it is a matter of signing up wireless carriers to distribute our platform. To this end, we have had great success from publicity around our company and platform leading to many inbound requests from wireless carriers around the world. We are big believers in the power of earned media and word of mouth and will continue to focus on this strategy.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I have had many advisors and mentors throughout my career, but the one that has had the greatest influence on my career path has been the former Chief Marketing Officer of AT&T Wireless Services. At a very young age, I was given an opportunity to lead an initiative that on the surface would seem like too much responsibility for someone of my experience at the time. She saw something in me that others perhaps would not have and, as a result, my career in information technology and mobile telecom was launched. I kept in touch with her over the course of 23 years, and she even helped me enter the market with Adfone by helping to pitch our first client.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I have given many presentations on entrepreneurship, startups, and raising capital, both in classroom and professional settings. I believe it is important to give back and this is one of the ways that I can do so by mentorship. In the future, I plan to have a more structured approach to this, whereby I can most effectively dedicate my time, knowledge, and experience to helping budding entrepreneurs to blossom.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

I would actually like to answer this in a slightly different way, which is to share the “5 things that someone told me that I wish I learned sooner.” Each of these was taught to me by a different mentor at various stages of my career and I think all founders would benefit from them.

“A small piece of a large pie is better than a large piece of a small pie.”

Obsessing about dilution is an impediment to the growth of the company.

“Performance is your best defense”

The best protection of your role and equity stake is to hit your targets.

“Hire slow, fire fast.”

I think this one speaks for itself. It is human nature to the reverse.

“Recruit, Retain and Reward.”

Focus on these three “R’s” and the rest will follow

“Don’t let Best get in the way of Better”

Striving for perfection can be detrimental to progress.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

It took me decades to discover it, but I realize now that the key to success lies in our ability to have self-discipline. Discipline comes in many forms. It is a muscle that needs to be trained. Applying disciple in a certain area of one’s life means one will be able to apply it more easily in other areas. Having self-control in terms of what we say, eat or drink are excellent examples. Why is that we are careful about what we put into our mouth and not what comes out of it? I believe that training yourself to control what you say and how you treat others is not only critical to one’s success as a leader, but if enough people practiced this the world would be a better place. Helping others to strengthen this muscle seems like a movement worth inspiring.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Every day we face obstacles in our business and personal lives. It is how you deal with those obstacles that determines how your day will be, and it is the combination of all the days throughout your life that determine your success. Famed racing driver Mario Andretti said, “If everything seems under control, your just not going fast enough.” I love this quote and when I am having a rough day and feel like I’m losing control, I think about this quote, because to me that means that on that particular day, I’m actually making great progress.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I would tell them that COVID-19 has forever changed the way in which consumers, service providers and advertisers interact with one another. By enabling mobile customers to discover new brands and apps while reducing the cost of their bills, Adfone’s Play2Pay™ platform gives those customers an alternative way to make payments, service providers a new form of monetization and advertisers a powerful way to acquire new customers. With billions of smartphone customers worldwide and hundreds of billions in in-app advertising spend each year, Adfone is uniquely positioned to help reshape this new reality and, in doing do, create substantial value for all stakeholders involved. This, in turn, will make Adfone an incredibly valuable company.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bboroff/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future is Now: “User engagement to pay for your phone” with Brian Boroff of Adfone was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jan Van Bruaene of Real-Time Innovations (RTI): Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Hang out with your remote team. With weekly group meetings, regular 1-on-1 meetings, and almost daily conversations, I felt I was in tune with the team in Spain. I was wrong. I didn’t walk in their shoes or sit next to them. I didn’t realize how loud the office was without much sound absorption. I didn’t realize the stress they get at the end of their day when the California office comes online, or from the 5 p.m. meetings. You can only understand that when you hang out there for some time, with no specific agenda.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jan Van Bruaene, Real-Time Innovations (RTI).

Jan joined RTI in 2006 and has over 23 years of experience in technical and customer-facing leadership roles at companies such as Sun Microsystems and VLSI Technology. He has led professional services, support, and engineering organizations and has experience in middleware, grid application and infrastructure software, operating system design and device driver and network chip development. In his current role of vice president of Engineering, Jan is responsible for RTI’s Research and Development efforts and for software development processes and product quality.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

My Silicon Valley backstory has been always about networking: from networking chips, to Unix drivers, to integrating third party networking and peripheral products with Sun servers, and to a real-time connectivity platform. My story started as many immigrant stories to the Bay Area do.

A few days after graduating in 1995 with a degree in Electrical Engineering in Belgium, I was already on a plane to Silicon Valley. My plan was, after a 3-month culture/work immersion as part of an educational exchange program, to travel for a month throughout the Western United States. I was lucky enough to have found an interesting opportunity at VLSI Technology working on telecommunication and networking chips. That plan changed quickly when I was offered a permanent role on the team.

In 1999, I got the opportunity to expand beyond hardware and firmware, with Sun Microsystems. It was an exhilarating time to work for the company who put the dot in dot com. I worked again on I/O and networking technologies at Sun. As a software engineer, I was responsible for integrating third party networking and peripheral products (PCI, USB, 1394, Infiniband) with Sun thin client, workstations and large servers. We had one of each system in our lab. And when not being used for testing, we would compete with other companies to see who could complete the most SETI@Home workloads at night.

In 2006, I joined Real-Time Innovations. It was a big change from a huge systems company to a smaller software company.

I joined RTI as a senior applications engineer in the Services team. We helped customers succeed with our technology by training them and providing architecture guidance and on-site consulting. I spent the first summer at RTI, commuting weekly to one of our customers in San Diego. Although you spend the entire day until late in a cold lab, it was always great to conclude with a warm night in San Diego. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to be the group lead for a dedicated support team. It was a great place to learn customer skills and work under pressure. After managing the application services team, I moved over to the product development side and joined the R&D team in 2012 as RTI’s new VP of Engineering.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

As I managed the RTI R&D and Support team, we got an interesting and special support case. Our software had been part of a NASA experiment where an astronaut controlled a K10 rover on the Roverscape at the NASA Ames Research Center. The experiment had been a smashing success, but, there had been a short snafu at the beginning, which was quickly resolved. We learned about this when we received a picture from the astronaut’s laptop screen with the “error” message. Who receives a support case from space? That was pretty cool.

Sometimes it is about the little things that may have a large impact. As Sun transitioned to USB for many of the peripherals, I was a part of the team working on the Solaris USB developer kit. As part of the project, I created example driver code. Little did I know that the small piece of code would end up in production, as part of a family of storage systems from Sun.

For most of my years at Sun, I had a remote manager in Boston. One time, he asked me to join a meeting for him and our group but didn’t tell me who else would be there. As I walked in, I was quickly starstruck as I joined the table with Sun luminaries Bill Joy, James Gosling and Whitfield Diffie. I wished I had a camera-phone at the time!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Be careful before you allow any application access to your contact list, even if they are reputable companies. During the early days of LinkedIn, the application was encouraging its users to reach out and grow your network. “Do you allow LinkedIn access to your Google contacts?” I expected it to show me a list of contacts which already were on LinkedIn and offer me the option to connect. I don’t know how it happened. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention, or the questions were misleading. However, all my contacts received an email to connect with me on LinkedIn. That included the Sun Microsystems Alumni alias — a 60,000 people email list. That also included my non-work related contacts, such as my barber and gardener. Both of them recommended me for my Unix administration skills.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

First of all, it is important to encourage the team to take time off, for a week or two, to really disconnect from work. A long weekend is nice, but it is not the same to really be away from work. At RTI, as part of the rPTO time off policy, we pay employees a small bonus if they take at least a week off and are not checking email or thinking about work. Plus we changed the overall approach to time off so you can take time whenever you need it, rather than when you accrued sufficient time.

On a day-to day-level, I recommend people to actively manage their calendar so they have larger blocks to think and be creative. If your day is a constant stream of interruptions, email replies and Slack messages, it will quickly become very exhausting. Context switching is a real productivity killer.

Block two hours to work uninterruptedly. Dedicate a day for deep work. I reserve Tuesday. Agree as a team for a meeting-free day. Fridays in the R&D team at RTI are lighter in meetings, because the team in our Spain office ends their day earlier and because we encourage the managers to make it a limited-meeting-day.

However, I disconnect most when I am creating something else. One of my colleagues does woodworking and mentions his mind cannot think of work when his fingers are nearing the spinning saw blade. My creations are different. I enjoy cooking, I am a beginner banjo player, and I use my Saturday mornings to write.

Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

RTI evolved from having the team primarily at our Sunnyvale headquarters, to one where more than 50% of our employees are elsewhere. We have a large group of employees in Granada, Spain, and a number across the US and Europe, working from their home offices.

I’ve managed remote employees, and teams for the past 10 years. The R&D team is about 70 people and is distributed around the world including Sunnyvale, CA, Granada, Spain, and with remote employees in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Minnesota. The team works in 5 different time zones.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team and what can one do to address these challenges? Can you give a story or example for each?

Top 5 challenges and advice when managing a remote team

1. Setting up the team as an extension of each other, rather than as a separate function, builds a cohesive team, and a team which can work more independently.

When we started the development team in Granada, we didn’t set up a specific function or product. We hired for almost every function there: core libraries development, tools development, customer support, etc.

This brought a few important benefits. Firstly, we could hire the best people, regardless of whether their product or team was local. Secondly, by having almost all teams and engineering functions in Granada, the group could work more independently. If the support team needed to talk to a core library engineer, they had a local person to work with. Local expertise was also beneficial when on-boarding new engineers. Lastly, everybody felt a part of the same larger R&D team, rather than being identified by location.

This setup does bring some logistical challenges, in that team meetings need to take into account both people in Silicon Valley and Spain. Furthermore, your manager may not be local, which can be a challenge for new graduates figuring out how to work in a corporate setting. We solved this by having local mentors.

2. Experiment and educate the team on how to best use the communication and productivity tools. This is harder than we think.

We all know the remote team tools to get: Zoom for video conferencing, Slack for group conversations, and Google Apps for collaboration. For each of them, there are a number of solid competitors as well. How you use these tools, however, is more important than the tool choice itself.

When we introduced IRC (the predecessor to Slack) to the team, we set up an IRC server and told the team: you are all engineers, you either know what this is or you can figure it out — good luck. We had a few enthusiastic early adopters, but the majority of the team wasn’t participating. They were trying to figure out how and when to leverage it. Our first foray into group communication soon fizzled out.

We tried again a short while later with HipChat. This time we made a plan and offered a more guided introduction to using the tool. First of all, we wanted maximum participation. We created the #GoodMorning channel. The price to be invited to HipChat was your commitment to start your day by posting a Good Morning message.

“Good Morning, today I have a customer meeting with GE, and a code review in the afternoon about the new content filtering feature. For lunch, a few of us are heading to Robee’s falafel”.

It was the equivalent of walking into the office and sharing with a colleague what you were up to for the day. The little message created more awareness of what people were up to, but also lowered the barrier of entry to using the tool.

We created a few more easy entry channels: #rvk was the RTI Virtual Kitchen for all kinds of non-work water cooler banter. #Arstechnica was for non-work related geek discussions.

We have since switched over to Slack. As folks had become very familiar using the tool, and as the rest of the company joined, we phased out the #GoodMorning channel as it became unwieldy.

It is important to experiment with how to use a tool and educate the team. The introduction of a new tool should always come with guidance, training and one or more shepherds of the tool.

Here are few small practices and lessons we learned:

• Have a remote first attitude — Arrange the conference room seats to face the camera and television screen rather than having remote participants to the side. It is all too easy to forget there are remote folks when you do not see them all the time or are not facing them.
• Invest in good audio, especially in larger conference rooms or when holding company presentations. It has taken us many tries to get this right. A great audio system is not cheap but pays for itself when you realize the costs of a poor meeting or briefing.
• Spend the time to write it out, be it the meeting agenda topics or the meeting conclusion. A lot can be lost over a video conference. A lot may be unclear when participants are at different levels of the English language. When you write out your ideas, they tend to improve in clarity. I also recommend this for 1-on-1 meetings: we have a shared document where we prepare the meeting topics and capture conclusions.
• Guide the team on what type of feedback you are seeking, and how you want to receive the feedback. The collaborative nature of Google Documents is very powerful, but also can slow us down a lot. Google Docs’ commenting feature makes us lazy. It invites us to make drive-by comments and creates more work for the original author of the document. We love to add our two cents or wordsmith. In many cases, these comments are rarely improving the original idea substantially. The commenting feature doesn’t really lend itself to elaborate, as comments are squished into the margin. Resolving the many little comments becomes a job in itself. All this creates Execution Drag. Instead, ask the reviewer what you want specific feedback on, and encourage them to write it inline with the document for easy contrasting with the original idea.
• Considering the purpose and desired action will help you determine the optimal communication method. In my blog, “A framework to work more efficiently and effectively as a distributed team,” I discuss how depending on whether you are sharing information, creating something or deciding, you should adjust your approach. A simple example of that is separating high-signal (must-read) from low-signal (fyi) Slack channels. For example, I created the #team-eng-mgrs and #team-eng-mgrs-fyi channels.
• Frequent mini-updates keep a remote team informed. We hold internal tech briefings to share technical updates. These presentations don’t have to be polished, and demos don’t have to fully work. Early information sharing is what we’re after. There are other ways we share updates continuously, from internal quarterly product updates, to mini “What’s cooking” in each sub team bi-weekly updates.

3. Hang out with your remote team

With weekly group meetings, regular 1-on-1 meetings, and almost daily conversations, I felt I was in tune with the team in Spain. I was wrong. I didn’t walk in their shoes or sit next to them. I didn’t realize how loud the office was without much sound absorption. I didn’t realize the stress they get at the end of their day when the California office comes online, or from the 5 p.m. meetings. You can only understand that when you hang out there for some time, with no specific agenda.

I made it a point to travel there every quarter, even if there was no big decision to be made, or a planning meeting to be organized. When I go to Granada, I also meet with all the new hires, and go for walks through the town while talking about their work, and their life. Walking together is a non-confrontational way to meet, rather than on opposite sides of a conference room table.

In those conversations, you also realize important culture differences. For example, when hiring in Spain, candidates will only apply when they meet all requirements in the job description. In the US, that is different. I see many people applying when they’ve barely met 25% of the job requirements. When hiring for Spain, we are very careful in what and how we phrase the job requirements.

Every year, we also bring the entire team together in California. We have presentations about the plans for the year and/or about new product features. However, the real value from the company kick-off (CKO) week are not those presentations. The real benefit from the CKO event is what happens in the kitchen, at the bar in the evening, or while playing a game during the team building events. That’s where you build trust as a team and accrue goodwill.

A company kick-off event is a large planning endeavor. It may be hard to do those multiple times a year. Do plan smaller team get-togethers. The immediate cost will be dwarfed by the return you get from better teamwork and lower attrition.

4. Language skills matter

During the hiring process, we also assess the candidates’ English skills. They are infrequently a disqualifying factor, though they give us an idea about the ramp up time. English is the primary language in the company, and we want to make sure all people can defend their ideas adequately.

We host language classes, provide opportunities to practice presentation skills in a friendly environment, and have tried a few other things to improve the English proficiency of the remote team, such as English-only-Mondays.

The latter is hard when the team is almost 95% Spanish speaking. It is a bit unnatural to talk to your colleague in a foreign language when you could be much faster in Spanish. If you have different nationalities with different mother tongues, the language barrier will be much smaller as teams will default faster to English.

5. Ooch into bringing the time zones closer together.

Eight years ago, many engineers in Silicon Valley would start their day around 10 a.m. and work until late. The RTI engineering team meeting would be around 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. PST. Even though for Europe, Spain’s working hours are shifted, that didn’t work. Slowly we moved the time zones closer to each other. Nowadays, many team meetings start at 8 a.m. PST / 5 p.m. CEST. Many start their day before 8 a.m. PST, or end their day in Spain closer to 7 p.m. We are definitely atypical for Spain in that regard.

A few years ago, we made the change that Friday 7 p.m. meetings are off limits for Spain. As a matter of fact, people can arrange their day to leave around 3 p.m. on Friday, as many Spanish companies in the South of Spain allow.

This was not something we changed overnight. We slowly “ooched” into a better overlapping schedule. A willingness to stay late or wake up early for your team, combined with a meet-only-when-necessary approach are key to making sure distributed teams feel appreciated. I start my day before 7 a.m. I am available for my team early in the morning and that creates a lot of goodwill and trust.

I am also cognizant of energy levels across the group. If you launch into a heavy topic at 6:30 p.m. local time, you can expect people to be drained. In this case, publish the agenda well in advance and allow for plenty of prep time. This way, you can still get the input when faced with the time zone differences.

One of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language, but not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

Indeed, facial expressions and body language are very important. We encourage verbal and video conversations, over email feedback, even for positive feedback. If you have to have a tough conversation, I always like to make sure it is a video conversation. I do want to cue on the visual feedback.

Even though my 1-on-1 template includes a feedback topic, I always make sure I discuss it during the 1-on-1.

Your topics (No need to complete all the fields here. This is a template to remind ourselves if something fits into these categories.)

• Highlights — items you are especially proud of
• Lowlights — items you wished had gone differently
• Challenges — even if you are handling it, and don’t need help
• Needs — how can I or others help you?
• Other topics:

Jan’s topics

• FYI
• Feedback — let’s go over this in the meeting
• Review/Follow up — not all the time
• Career Development Plan items
• Your milestones
• Your OKRs
• Action Items
• Other topics:

Secondly, I ask more explicitly for confirmation. “Do you agree with the feedback? Is it fair?” or “What do you think about my comments?” I want to externalize what you normally can figure out from body language or facial expressions.

Thirdly, one of my reports provided me with feedback that I could be quite persuasive in these meetings and that he needed time to think it through. Since then we made it a standing 1-on-1 topic, as a follow up from the previous meeting: “Is there anything for our last discussion that we need to revisit or discuss?”

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Ninety percent of the work here is unrelated to the email. You need to build trust and goodwill every day through 1-on-1s. How you interact every day will dictate how your email will be interpreted.

In the Radical Candor book, Kim Scott points out that providing feedback is key: criticize in private, praise in public. If you mess this up, you lose goodwill. And as a result, the email may be misread. Another tip is to think very hard when reviewing who is on your cc list. I’ve seen multiple times where people weren’t necessarily upset about the content of the email, but more so who the email was shared with.

In my experience, you may start with sharing constructive feedback via email, though it best to be followed up in your weekly 1-on-1.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

People just miss the camaraderie of hanging out together at work or having lunch together. Even though we try informal coffee chats or a virtual happy hour, no Zoom session can replace that. There is definitely a transition period and people need time to adjust.

When you are in the office together, it is easier to know how the group is doing. Perhaps Ross is frustrated about the code check-in, while Rachel is pumped that she finally figured out the hard software bug. We have been trying a few things to get a better read on the team working remotely. The HR team has done pulse surveys to figure out how people are doing working remotely, and what type of support they need. We also started the engineering manager meeting by taking the stress temperature: red/yellow/green with a sentence or two about your state of mind, both professionally and personally. E.g., it may not be obvious that Joey and his wife are struggling to balance work and two toddlers at home.

To combat Zoom fatigue, and a bit contrary to some of the advice to turn on video all the time, I recommend folks to go for a walk while joining a call. Get up and move around.

One tip I found useful for people who didn’t normally work remotely was to create an end of day ritual: pack up your bag, walk outside around the car, and approach your house like you’re coming from a long day’s work.

There are a few things I haven’t figured out yet as I transitioned to a home office, like having an effective virtual whiteboard. I am a visual person and am known to quickly grab a pen and jot things down on a whiteboard. Also, I’m still trying to figure out how to manage a planning meeting with multiple remote people. Typically we get together in person to hold planning meetings. Perhaps Zoom breakout rooms can aid, though I haven’t gone through the experience of organizing a virtual off-site.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

My three essential tips for creating a healthy and empowering work culture with a remote team would be:

• Clear responsibility maps are even more important when the team is remote.
• Promoting life balance. We do virtual classes or games to encourage healthy habits. Employees at RTI love sharing healthy recipes. #ChefsOfRTI
• Out of sight does not mean out of mind. Do an impromptu call or set up a 15 minute check-in

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I am more of a pragmatic person of incremental and continuous changes than of big visionary ideas. To effect change you need both the dreamers and those who make dreams come to life. I see myself more in the second group.

Global warming and affordable healthcare are top priorities to solve. They affect us all, regardless of our background, nationality, ethnicity, or political affiliation. However, if I had my TED wish, it would be about education. The development of a curious and creative mind will lead to solutions for whatever problems we are facing or going to be facing in the future. It will also bring us back to a time where decisions and opinions are rooted in science. Or at least we will be talking about the merits of a scientific study, rather than discussing opinions.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Growing up in the Flanders region of Belgium, you tend to be down-to-earth and humble. I grew up to work hard and with the mantra that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

I do believe that “nothing worth having comes easy.” That surely is true for big causes.

That’s also true in everyday life. A great Thanksgiving dinner takes time in the kitchen. You have to hike up that mountain to get the beautiful view. Growing great-tasting tomatoes in your vegetable garden takes constant care… so, as you work on your dream or a tomato garden, enjoy the struggles and hard work.

Jan Van Bruaene of Real-Time Innovations (RTI): Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A Universal Coffee Lid” With John Antignane of The LidGrabber

…For me, it was the fact that I was honestly always grossed out at the thought of what could possibly be on the coffee lids. What if someone had not washed their hands properly before fitting it on? I was bound and determined to find a device that could securely fit on a lid so no coffee would drip out while you were drinking it, and to do so in a very hygienic manner a well.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing John Antignane.

John Antignane is the founder of The LidGrabber. A patented, groundbreaking, and innovative solution designed to support both self-serve and full-service coffee environments. It provides” SECURITY” a healthier way to seal lids to coffee cups, “ SAFETY” eliminating hand-to-lid contact, “SATISFACTION” customers will walk away pleased know their coffee order is LidGrabber safe. It’s a low-cost simple device that conforms to most lids available at major retail coffee shops.

John’s mission is to have the LidGrabber in every coffee shop and revolutionize the way businesses serve coffee by showing customers they matter and to raise awareness among consumers to expect nothing less.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Thank you for having me. I’ve always considered inventing to be one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given me. I’ve just always had this habit where I’m looking for problems and easier ways to solve those problems than have already been invented. Perhaps my first notable achievement was when I helped work on custom made radio case in November 22 1963, which tragically happened to be the same day that President John Kennedy had been shot.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Hmm, well in the 1980s I devised Christmas gift bank on wheels for each of our corporate customers. I asked a toy company who had a wooden armored truck to have the truck modified by drilling holes at the top rear part of the truck, enabling it to hold coin tubes that I invented. These are the same plastic reusable coin tubes that you see today. They are a wonderful learning tool for kids to count and save their money.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

You need to know (and feel) what you were made to do. Like I said, I’ve always had a passion and a knack for finding better solutions for common, everyday problems. I was good at it, and I’ve enjoyed doing it through the many inventions that I’ve made throughout my career. By pursuing something that you are both good at and enjoy, it makes life a lot more fulfilling.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

My favorite invention, or my big idea that I hope will change the world, is called the LidGrabber. Over ten years ago, I walked into a fast food restaurant. I noticed this rather peculiar device being used to put lids over coffee cups. When I inquired about this device to the manager of the restaurant, he just said that it was a part of the franchise. Personally, I don’t like lids because I’m honestly a bit grossed out at what I think might be lurking on top of the lid.

That’s when I began thinking about a device that could fit coffee lids over seventy different sizes of coffee cups. I just didn’t want people to be grossed out by coffee lids anymore like I was. I’m always turned off when I see somebody handle a coffee lid, because who knows if they washed their hands or not.

How do you think this will change the world?

I collected many different kinds of coffee lids, and worked via email with Louise Harpman, who has the largest collection in the entire world (she’s a professor over at New York University).

In her words, as I think she explains it best:

“The LidGrabber solves a problem you might not even know you have. Except you do! Imagine this scenario: You order your cup of hot coffee to go. The barista gives you the cup of coffee. Either they or you put a coffee lid on top. But the lid does not hold firm to the side of the cup. When you go to drink through the lid, the coffee dribbles out the side, or what is worse, the whole lid “pops off” because it was not fully attached in the first place. Mess? Yes. Burn? Possibly. Avoidable? Yes. The LidGrabber is a new, easy to use product that promotes a positive lock between the cup and coffee lid. The LidGrabber also keeps (possibly dirty) hands away from the lid itself. You know, the one you’re about to drink through.”

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

People may think that it’s not really necessary, because they can just put the lid on themselves or they may not even care about potential germs on the lid in the first place. But I think that when they begin to use the device for themselves, they will begin to see its practical uses.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

For me, it was the fact that I was honestly always grossed out at the thought of what could possibly be on the coffee lids. What if someone had not washed their hands properly before fitting it on? I was bound and determined to find a device that could securely fit on a lid so no coffee would drip out while you were drinking it, and to do so in a very hygienic manner a well.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

Simply the material resources and endorsements from enough coffee shops! I have lobbied the local Board of Health to make proper handling of coffee lids a part of the health inspection checklist. I said forks, spoons, knives, straws, and toothpicks are protected with paper wraps around all of them, but nothing around coffee lids. Coffee lids are a big germ avenue. This should be addressed especially in these times of COVID-19.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Number one, know what you are good at. I knew from a very young age that I was skilled at finding practical solutions to common problems. Two, know what you enjoy doing. I was fortunate enough to enjoy what I was good at. Three, always find people who can help you in whatever it is you need to accomplish. I was fortunate to receive a great review from Louise Harpman after she tested the LidGrabbers. Fourth, persevere! I came up with this idea back in 2009, and here in 2020 I’m still here working on it and making headway! Fifth and finally, enjoy life along the way. Focus on your goals and what you want to achieve, but don’t ignore or miss out on the small things.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

So long as you are both very skilled at something and passionate about or enjoy it, you’ll find the drive that you need to accomplish anything.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Imagine this scenario: You order your cup of hot coffee to go. Either the barista or you put a coffee lid on top. But the lid does not hold firm to the side of the cup. When you go to drink through the lid, the coffee dribbles out the side, or what is worse, the whole lid “pops off” because it was not fully attached in the first place. Mess? Yes. Burn? Possibly. Avoidable? Yes. The LidGrabber is a new, easy to use product that promotes a positive lock between the cup and coffee lid. The LidGrabber also dirty hands away from the lid itself. You know, the one you’re about to drink through.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “A Universal Coffee Lid” With John Antignane of The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “An interactive stage where performers can interact with fans who are safely at home” With Bubba Ginnetty of InCrowd

Success is for the doers. Success comes from turning ideas to tangible things. Never be afraid to fail, it takes 100 terrible ideas to get to the great one that changes everything. Also being successful requires a team and that requires being a good leader. As leaders, we take good care of your people and I’ve always been dedicated to making sure that our crew is taken care of and feels appreciated

I had the pleasure of interviewing Bubba Ginnetty. With tours cancelled, stay at home orders issued and social distancing changing the landscape of live concerts and comedy shows/performances for both fans and performers, one man is introducing a solution. Ryan “Bubba” Ginnetty (director/production manager) launched a Los Angeles-based immerse innovative experience — InCrowd, an original multimedia concept that creates an interactive stage where performers can interact with fans who are safely at home. This allows the performers to see, feel and laugh with the audience which is a key element to stage performances.

Each LIVE virtual event can hold up to 50,00 General Admission attendees and 300 VIP Wall participants who will be displayed on screen and heard virtually anywhere in the world. Ginnetty’s pandemic proof solution was to combine his stage and lighting design skillset to create “The Wall.” VIP fans are shown to the performer via a 360-degree video wall during their performance, streamed LIVE. Ginnetty designed ‘The Wall’ so that it is curved around the performer to simulate a surround-sound audience. The Wall projects up to 300 VIP participants who can see, hear and interact with the talent and other members of the audience. Each show is directed live and controlled by an in-studio broadcast and production team allowing for an ultra-high-quality multimedia stage show.

When Ginnetty has time off from traveling around the world producing shows for DJ Snake, French Montana, and Zeds Dead, he is also a stand-up comedian. InCrowd Entertainment unifies the latest technology in live streaming and stage production with comedians, musicians, theatre productions and more that thrive in a live audience setting. From live studio performances and talk shows to concerts and theatre, InCrowd is the new way to experience live entertainment from the comfort of your home.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Bubba! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to create InCrowd Entertainment?

Thank You for having me. For over 10 years I have been stage designing and production managing for some of the biggest music acts in the world, and at the same time I was writing and performing Comedy. I would go from the main stage at Coachella, to a dive bar in West Hollywood to do stand up all in the same weekend. My journey here has been quite unique and InCrowd is really a culmination of my life’s work.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

To me the most interesting part of my career is that I have gotten to travel the entire world and learn about their culture and eat their local food. The most fulfilling part of that is that I have gotten to work with people hand-in-hand from these countries and I have built strong friendships and bonds that I will have for life, with people so different than me, that I would have never met in any other way.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

“Say what you mean and mean what you say”. To me is about accountability and business ethics. I believe I have been successful because everyone I have worked with in some way or another knows that they can count on me and that I can be trusted with their project, artist, and budget. Also, I believe in staying present and allowing creativity and hard work to manifest new projects and opportunities. The biggest piece career wise is to collaborate with others and be willing to take direction and criticism from your peers. I work directly with very skilled and talented people that are experts in what they do. As much as I believe in myself and my vision, listening to them and staying open has led to some of the biggest creative accomplishments in my life and career.

Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

My biggest idea I am entrenched in currently. My partners and I coined it “InCrowd”. InCrowd is an interactive audience experience that was spawned in the midst of the pandemic. While it is current, we believe it is still ahead of its time! InCrowd brings comedians and musicians directly into the homes of their fans, where they can interact with each other live and in real time! This wasn’t possible before now and we have made it possible and everyone that experiences it wants to come back! When have you ever been able to talk directly to your favorite artist from your couch while they are on stage performing live? It is a really special experience to have. This is the future of live entertainment, there are so many unique new elements this platform brings to both the fans and the artists themselves. We believe this is just the beginning for InCrowd, we have so many avenues we are pursuing with live ticketed shows as well as programming for existing streaming platforms and television. We are beyond excited for what the future holds for us.

How do you think this will change the world? Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

Some may say this is a supplement for the times or that InCrowd will take away from ticket sales in future physical events. I do not believe either to be true, for a few reasons. The InCrowd experience is unique and offers elements that an in person live show doesn’t. We believe the two can co-exist and in fact complement each other. There are so many reasons InCrowd is here to stay, from people living in smaller markets, to sobriety, to budget to park and overpriced tickets, disabilities, I could go on and on. To be honest these contrarians to me are just holding onto old ideas. Evolving your habits and ideas is tough. Changing business models and structures are even tougher. InCrowd is a perfect representation of Vertical integration.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

InCrowd is honestly serendipitous, the pandemic hit, myself and my crew were on tour with a musician and that tour was cancelled. We were pondering what was next and what was possible to pursue to create, innovate, and continue to feed our families. My creative passion and artistic craft have been standup comedy and it’s been a real outlet for me between living the life of a professional production manager and touring. I saw immediately how live music was changed by this, but I also saw how live comedy was being hit even harder. Comedy can’t happen without the audience’s reaction so I thought about a solution and me and my team here at InCrowd created a creative solution by designing an interactive stage that brought the audience in and allowed us to re-create a live performance environment that feels real, and connected, and it works.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

We are in the process of working on that each day reaching out to performers, managers, and many different agencies about several show concepts and options for their talent to take advantage of this medium. And more and more of them are learning about us and our capabilities and see the vision and possibilities for themselves. Ultimately to be the most widespread we are working towards being an application on your apple TV or Roku, a network of sorts that you rely on for the best in interactive programming where you can jump into the audience and be part of the live show right from your home. We also are gaining ground in collaborating with some of the biggest names in live music and comedy, producing their own shows on the InCrowd platform and reaching wide audiences and the numbers really tell the story for us.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each).

As a comic I wish someone told me that just being amazingly funny and a great personality is no longer the barometer for success. So many people rely on the popularity of their socials. But as someone who is a writer, comic, and stage designer/producer I do the work each day, and so therefore the talent is in my work not on how many blue check marks follow my accounts. I’ve figured it out on my own but the entertainment industry of all kinds and especially in Hollywood is a marathon, not a sprint. I moved to LA from Boston 15 years ago and I’ve been working on so many projects since, that have both contributed to experience and creativity, but most of all relationships. None of these things would be possible if it wasn’t for a strong team that I work with every day and knowing what it takes to produce a quality show of all kinds. It requires time, dedication, process, and development. If you would have told me that the pandemic would put touring and live performance on pause around the country and the world but myself and my team would still figure out ways to do live performances and bring relief to both audiences and the artists, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible at a time like this. We refused to quit, and our creativity is at an all-time high. We are working just as hard if not harder now to figure out solutions daily. Lastly, If you said I would pitch this platform and company to Jamie Foxx and he would see the vision immediately, just like I do, I wouldn’t have believed you, but I did and he does, and so do many more well-known performers and artists that I admire and respect. I’m a father of a 10 month old beautiful baby girl and I’m just as motivated as I’ve ever been about my profession and creativity and I wake up every day with a new purpose, I believe that one of my times is now.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Success is for the doers. Success comes from turning ideas to tangible things. Never be afraid to fail, it takes 100 terrible ideas to get to the great one that changes everything. Also being successful requires a team and that requires being a good leader. As leaders we take good care of your people and I’ve always been dedicated to making sure that our crew is taken care of and feels appreciated, and we work so hard for the artists that we work for to achieve their visions of their show that they respect us and we all have a real relationship working towards a common goal.

Some very well-known VC’s (venture capitalists) read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them. 🙂

Ahhhh, the elevator pitch. Here you go. InCrowd is what the future of Live Performance will be but it’s right now. The opportunity of talent from all aspects of entertainment to produce their own shows, tours, and specials where their fans participate from their own homes. This isn’t a concept or an idea, we are doing it now, and the numbers and the possibilities are endless. We can do a show for 50,000 fans today, and see VIP fans interact with their favorite talent in a way that they didn’t even know was possible. This is a different kind of experience and on the business side this is a different kind of model. An artist can schedule in one day a World Tour from LA, a show in Sydney, a show in London, and show in Japan, then in close it out NYC, having reached all those markets and those fans in a unique way that fulfills that fan base and it all happened from one stage in one 24 hour period. You do the math, but we have done it, the ticket sales are there, the ad and brand opportunities are there, and we can change and personalize the art direction all in house with our InCrowd animators. The InCrowd is moving towards being something you see on television and streaming platforms, through high concept shows and recorded live performances. This will be a platform everyone knows and loves, that they will engage in for decades to come. InCrowd will be one of companies in the article we read in 10 years about the companies and brands that exploded during the most difficult and trying time in American history. Reach out directly, we’ve got the investment deck ready for your viewing. There is existing interest, and this is an exciting and fast moving medium with so much star power and several revenue streaming opportunities.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

We are on Instagram : @incrowdcomedy & @incrowd.studio . Our company website is: Incrowd.studio

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “An interactive stage where performers can interact with… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The moment we stand up and admit to ourselves, “I have an addiction”, the burden of secrecy and deception is broken. This is most definitely the first step in taking your power back and working towards overcoming your addiction, permanently.

As a part of my series about people who made the journey from an addict to an entrepreneur, I had the pleasure to interview René Michele, Founder and Principal of Renemichele.com.

René established herself as an entrepreneur in 2017 after spending the majority of her life trapped in a cycle of substance abuse and addiction, stemming from significant childhood abuse and neglect. Today, she is an international speaker, published author, coach and consultant, and was named one of eight female Changemakers of 2020 by YMAG, Australia’s leading women’s empowerment magazine.

Rene’s remarkable story is powerful and inspiring, and continues to encourage, empower and equip people from around the world with the tools to transform their own lives from victim to victory.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you describe your childhood for us?

To say my childhood was lonely and chaotic is quite the understatement. Following the break-up of my parent’s marriage when I was ten years old, my mother and I moved from a very small country town in New South Wales Australia, with a population of approximately 200, to the large multicultural city of Sydney with a population of approximately 3511,000.

As a young child, I struggled to cope with the drastic change in environment and lifestyle, which was significantly exacerbated by my mother’s inability to provide me with adequate emotional support due to the decline in her mental health. She became depressed and began to take large doses of sleeping pills and drinking both heavily and regularly. By the time I was eleven years of age, she was leaving me home alone on the weekends so she could go out partying with men at the local hotels, and within a few months of this new lifestyle, she began bringing these men home.

Unfortunately, these men not only enjoyed my mother’s intimate company, but sought out mine also. My childlike innocence was forever shattered by the cycle of sexual, physical and emotional abuse inflicted upon me by my mother’s many occasional partners. These men were predators who hid their depravity well. They would wait until my mother’s back was turned to reach out and grab at my pre-pubescent body or purposely rub themselves up against me as they walked past. It made me feel dirty, and with each and every assault, I froze with fear.

The most difficult struggle I faced with what was happening to me was my inability to confide in my mother. I was already terrified of becoming yet another burden for her, as the collapse of my parent’s marriage changed her. I could visibly see the strain on her face, her features once soft and gentle had become hard, fixed, and she was unemotional and unaffectionate towards me. I felt partially to blame for the stress she was clearly under, and I was determined not to make her life even more difficult. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my mother’s love all together. She was all I had in the world and I was fixated on safeguarding that.

The secrets I carried bore with them immense shame and guilt, and as a result, I fantasized about suicide constantly. My first suicide attempt was just prior to my eleventh birthday. Every day was a psychological and emotional struggle for me. On one hand I despised my mother for bringing these disgusting men who violated me into our home, yet on the other hand I felt fiercely protective of her and craved nothing but her love and affection. I would close my tear-soaked eyes at night and envision her coming into my room to hold me in her arms and tell me she was sorry for what was happening to me, that she was going to protect me and that everything was going to be alright. Unfortunately, I craved something that was never to become my reality.

The abuse I experienced continued until I was sixteen years old, which was the legal age a child was permitted to leave home and the care of their parents at that time in Australia, so that is exactly what I did. I packed my belongings and moved out as soon as I found a job to support myself, and I never looked back.

I felt free, and I truly believed that the worst years of my life were now over, that I was finally safe. I could never have imagined that the years of abuse I had experienced would continue for many more to come.

Can you share with us how were you initially introduced to your addiction? What drew you to the addiction you had?

I was exposed to addiction and substance abuse in early childhood. My mother was initially a binge drinker, which later turned into full blown alcoholism. We routinely had parties at our farmhouse when my parents were together which was where I observed the adults in my life getting drunk and partying well into the morning hours. They were always laughing and dancing, so as a young impressionable child, I made the assumption that alcohol went hand in hand with having a good time.

It was at one of these very parties when three of my older sisters encouraged me to snort crushed up paracetamol through a straw when I was only nine years old. I wanted nothing more than to fit in, and I looked up to my sisters more than anything at that age so if when they said I would be “cool” for snorting paracetamol, I didn’t hesitate. My sisters also showed me how to steal and swig cans of beer while the drunk and preoccupied adults weren’t looking. Such behavior became normal to me, which is why in my early adolescent and adult years, drinking to the point of vomiting and passing out never dawned on me as excessive or necessarily bad in any way, I considered it to be a regular part of life.

By the age of thirteen I was getting drunk occasionally when my mother herself was too drunk to notice, and by fourteen I was sneaking out of the house and meeting friends in local parks where I got paralytic drunk to the point of unconsciousness most weekends. Getting drunk was my way of coping with the shame and self-loathing I felt towards myself as a result of the sexual abuse I experienced for six horrendous years. I told myself that because I automatically froze during each assault, that I was in some way to blame for the abuse. This belief haunted me for the majority of my life.

I continued to struggle with a negative self-image for decades, and I attempted suicide by overdose at age seventeen and then again at age nineteen when my addiction was in full swing. My first introduction to recreational drugs however was when I was seventeen and homeless, which led to couch surfing at various friends’ houses. I was always moving around and living out of a suitcase which I was embarrassed and ashamed of, then one night while out partying at a club, I was introduced to a group of people who said they all shared a house that had a spare room which I could move into if I wanted. I felt like I had won the lottery, finally I was going to have a stable home and a fixed address, I was excited to say the least. Unbeknownst to me, the oldest guy in the house, who was forty-five years old, was both a tattooist, and a drug dealer. This new arrangement I had found myself in was the perfect recipe for destruction. I was an extremely vulnerable young girl, in a house with practical strangers, estranged from my family, broken and depressed, and all of a sudden, I am surrounded by a never-ending flow of drugs and alcohol. My new life was nothing like I could ever have imagined it would be.

We partied hard every weekend, and one night not long after I had moved in, I was offered some acid and amphetamines by my new housemates, which I hesitantly accepted. Inside I was terrified, I must have been physically trembling when I put the tab of acid in my mouth as one of my housemates hugged me and said, “It’s okay, we are here to look after you.” Strangely, hearing those words meant the world to me and all I could think was, “I am so lucky to have found such kind people.”

This is how messed up I was, I actually thought they were the nicest people I had ever met because they said out loud the words I had always wanted to hear. They told me they were going to look after me, and I wanted that more than I wanted air to breathe. For me, drugs were both an escape from the pain that I carried with me every day, and a way to become someone else for a few hours. I became a “fun” person who wasn’t afraid of anything, who could laugh without fear of judgement, and when I was high, my walls came crashing down. Drugs turned me into someone I wasn’t, they made me bold, loud, confident, and that in itself was intoxicating. They provided a temporary escape from the René I hated, and before long, they took over my life and ruled every thought in my mind. They became all I wanted as the temporary escape from reality became an addiction all of its own and wanted to be anyone other than myself more than anything in the whole world.

What do you think you were really masking or running from in the first place?

Shame — plain and simple, for me, it was shame. The shame that I carried around with me was so deep, so devastating that it stopped me from seeing myself as a person with any type of value and worth. I believed I was nothing, a waste of a heartbeat, not worthy of living. When you hate yourself that much you have no ability to see beyond that. You have no way of believing things will get better because there was no one in my life that was healthy or living any kind of life that was positive and good.

I had zero role models, the only people I had in my life were drug dealers and drug users, so I became exactly what I surrounded myself with. Broken, sad, lost and lonely, this is who I became, this is what we all were deep down inside. We were a group of shattered individuals desperate to belong and to be loved. Drugs and alcohol numbed my pain and covered up the deep loneliness within me, however they were only able to make me forget that I hated myself for hours at a time. Each time I woke up, I hated myself even more, and the high I chased was never as effective as it was initially, so I needed more and more drugs to achieve a state of oblivion. I was on an endless rollercoaster than I had no idea how to stop.

Can you share what the lowest point in your addiction and life was?

The lowest point of my life was at age nineteen, when I woke up in the emergency ward after my second failed suicide attempt, with my entire body wracked in pain. No one tells you that overdosing is actually acutely painful, and in my case, I took enough codeine, antihistamine and paracetamol that if someone hadn’t found me and called an ambulance, I would be dead today.

Not only was overdosing painful, it caused severe damage to my body and my organs began to shut down. In my case, my liver pulled the short straw and the doctors had to act swiftly to ensure I didn’t require a transplant or die of liver failure. At one point I flatlined and had to be resuscitated, the very thought of which to this day, causes me to shake my head in utter disbelief, I had come so close to dying.

When I woke up, I was in the hospital all alone, covered in vomit from the doctors attempts to pump my stomach, and writhing around in extreme physical and emotional pain, so immense that I have consistently failed to adequately articulate it. It was a terrifying and dark place I found myself in, and I hated myself even more, for being the one who put me there.

In my addiction, my lowest point was most definitely the day I stood in my father’s bathroom at age twenty-three, snorting lines of amphetamines off the surface of his bathroom sink. It was my stepbrother’s birthday and all my extended family were just outside the door celebrating and laughing. Little children were running around playing outside and I could hear them through the door. As I finished inhaling my first line of powder, I caught my reflection in my father’s bathroom mirror. In that moment I was disgusted in the person looking back at me, so much so that I couldn’t bear it, I had to look away.

In that moment, the familiar echo of vile words rang loudly though my mind, words like “disgusting” and “failure” , — that was my opinion of myself. I sat on the floor with my head in my hands and cried, and I told myself what a terrible person I was to dishonor my father and my family that way. I got up, wiped away my tears, washed my face and I didn’t ever take drugs again in my father’s home. I always hid my addiction from my family, so in my mind, even my drug affected mind, I had crossed a boundary. My actions also revealed to me that I was in fact an addict because I had lost logical control over my drug taking and broken my own personal values regarding my family. Actions like these are what fueled my shame for so many decades. My inability to make sound choices again and again is what continually kept me angry at myself, no matter how hard I tried, I struggled to imagine a life without my inner rage and self-disappointment.

Can you tell us the story about how were you able to overcome your addiction?

My life became an endless downward spiral that consisted of constant drinking sessions, blackouts, repeated sexual abuse, domestic violence and heavy drug use. I looked like a happy party girl, yet I was miserable. I felt empty and dead inside and thoughts of suicide were constant. I was self-harming by way of slicing my skin with broken glass and razor blades and punching myself in the face hard enough to cause black eyes and swollen and bruised cheeks. My life was in tatters, but my heart and my soul were much worse, they were utterly decimated.

One morning after a big night out partying, I woke up in a strange bed next to someone I did not recognize. I was horrified and very, very scared. I got dressed quietly and crept out of the house, terrified of waking anybody up as I had no idea where I was, or who I had been with. I found my way outside and walked for what felt like hours to a bus stop where it took me half the day to get home. When I finally arrived home, I scrubbed my body raw in the shower and couldn’t stop crying. I still couldn’t remember what had happened the night before, and my body was covered in bruises. It was at this point that I knew I didn’t want this life anymore, that I didn’t want to feel disgusting. I didn’t even like being intimate with men, I was afraid of them, so I was so confused as to why I repeatedly found myself in situations where I could not protect myself, and even worse, situations where I ran the risk of losing my life altogether.

Deep down inside, death is what I secretly hoped for, and placing myself in risky situations was yet another means of self-harm. At that stage of my life, I didn’t care if one morning I didn’t wake up. But that morning after returning home, I made the decision to pack up all my belongings and move away from Sydney and start over somewhere else. I knew if I stayed living at that house with drug dealers and free access to whatever drugs I wanted that I could never make the changes I needed to beat my addiction.

I moved many hours away from Sydney, found a job and began the long road to rebuilding my life and overcoming my habit. I got a small apartment and put myself through college to gain qualifications in hospitality as I knew that I needed a stable income and financial security to be able to build the life I had always wanted. It wasn’t easy. While I wasn’t craving drugs anymore, drinking continued to remain an issue for another few years until I realised yet again it was cutting short any possibility I had to build a healthy, happy life for myself.

At age twenty-six I gave birth to my daughter-falling pregnant with her saved my life. I immediately stopped drinking, not one drop did I consume, and I became driven and focused on creating the life for her I never had. I was determined to be her provider, protector, nurturer, teacher and greatest supporter in life, and it was this mindset and persistence that enabled me to turn my life around and truly begin my journey of healing and recovery.

How did you reconcile within yourself and to others the pain that addiction caused to you and them?

This was one of the hardest lessons of all. Knowing that I had broken people’s trust, that I had lied to them, hidden the truth of what I was doing and the damage that I was willingly and knowingly inflicting on my body caused me to be extremely ashamed of myself, and at times was too much to bear. I sought out the help of a counselor and sought support from my local church who were amazingly encouraging and understanding of my journey. They helped me to see myself in a brand-new way, without shame and guilt, but with acceptance and forgiveness. It was a long hard process that is for sure, but it was the key to be being able to see that I had carried with me for so long a blame that wasn’t mine to bear.

Once I accepted that I was not responsible for the abuse I suffered as a child, or the domestic violence and sexual abuse I experienced throughout my life, this is when the true process of healing from my past and looking towards the future became my reality. I learned how to reframe my past and look at the strength and courage it had provided me, I learned how to rebuild my identity from a person of worthlessness to person with value, and I learned to rewrite my story from victim to victory. Trauma, abuse and addiction is not a life sentence, there is hope and healing available to everyone and it all starts with believing we are worth the fight.

When you stopped your addiction, what did you do to fill in all the newfound time you had?

I became very active in my local church and I threw myself into reading self-development and leadership books, I volunteered in the community and threw myself into parenting my daughter. I wanted to be the best mother I could, the kind of mother my daughter deserved, and the kind I never had. I joined parenting groups to learn all the skills that had never been modelled to me and I rebuilt my life from the ground up. I also made the conscious choice to distance myself from those in my past that I knew could be a potential trigger or bad influence on me, and I surrounded myself with healthy, happy, thriving individuals.

I also learned how to “be” with myself and enjoy peace and quiet. I learned the act of journaling and practiced the art of gratefulness which I continue to do today. I appreciated the sunshine on my face, my daughters laugh and waking up in my own bed, in my own home without ever having to wonder how I got there.

What positive habits have you incorporated into your life post addiction to keep you on the right path?

I am very grateful to say I have never relapsed into addiction, and I believe the reason for this is my two children. My daughter is now eighteen and my son is fifteen. Being a parent truly tapped into a part of me that I never knew existed. I became a better, stronger more capable person when I became a parent. In saying that however, I have taken on a particular approach to life, a mindset that keeps me performing at my best.

I am very focused on healthy living and exercise which keeps my mental health strong and my mind clear. I also discovered early in my recovery journey the necessity for having mentors and accountability partners in life to help me stay on track and both challenge and support me when hard times come, and they do come, for all of us. I have surrounded myself with very strong leaders in many areas of life including business, spirituality, wellness, family and relationships to ensure that I stay motivated and honour my personal and professional values and beliefs. My trusted circle knows my journey, and they are nothing but supportive, encouraging and loving, they are the reason I am able to do what I do with such energy, passion and commitment; they keep me grounded and are my true family.

Can you tell us a story about how your entrepreneurial journey started?

I fell into entrepreneurship by complete accident. I had never imagined myself going into business, let alone starting one from scratch, so when my fiancé and I began contemplating how to utilize my passion and skill for writing, my first solo startup was born. I opened a resume writing and interview coaching business, acquiring my gold certification as an Advanced Resume Writer within three months of operation, an accreditation that can take up to twelve months to acquire. I hit the ground running and within twelve months of operation successfully assisted over 250 people globally acquire senior level positions. I specialized in several unique categories including law enforcement and military to civilian transition and health and community services applications.

It is strange however, when in life some doors suddenly slam shut and new ones open, which is exactly what happened with my resume writing business. I was extremely busy as the solo writer and coach in my own business as well as being a contract resume writer for another local business, and at that time, I thought writing resumes would be my permanent vocation when all of a sudden, I began to feel pulled towards public speaking and writing of another kind.

It was at this time that I began writing my memoir, Battle Scars Are Beautiful From Victim To Victory, and new opportunities and visions for the future were born. While working with my publisher on my book, I commenced sharing my story via several social media channels, and the response from people around the world took me by surprise.

Within months, my online global audience had grown into the thousands and I began to receive constant requests to feature on podcasts around the world, to share my story and how I was able to transform my life. As the impending release of my book drew near, my online tribe began requesting in depth support around how to overcome their own past experiences with trauma and abuse and it quickly became apparent to me where my true purpose lie.

In 2018 I began running online workshops and webinars and was acquiring public speaking opportunities around Australia. Unable to keep up with the demand for resumes, I phased out my resume writing business completely and rebranded myself under my own name, René Michele.

My focus had become crystal clear. To empower survivors of child sexual abuse and trauma through coaching, speaking, consulting and in 2019, as a published author

What character traits have you transferred from your addiction to your entrepreneurship. Please share both the positive and negative.

My addiction most definitely exacerbated a prominent negative belief I carried since childhood, one that said I was not good enough. This presented itself throughout my entrepreneurship journey as perfectionism and imposter syndrome which in business and in life, can be your demise. I always believed that I had to work harder than anyone else in the room, that I was not as deserving as others which led to extreme exhaustion and robbed me of any and all work satisfaction.

When I began my resume writing business, I would work up to eighteen and twenty hours a day because I believed this was the only way I was deserving of success. Then, when the success came and I received outstanding results for my clients, I felt like an imposter and struggled to receive it, throwing myself back to the grindstone to repeat the cycle of limiting beliefs all over again.

What I quickly came to realize, was that I needed to surround myself with amazing mentors and leaders in business that were further along the journey than myself that I could glean from, just as I had done in my recovery journey. So that is exactly what I did. I focused on networking and I fostered authentic, strong connections online, with a range of men and women from different spheres of business and entrepreneurship, and I cultivated within my own business the philosophies, mindsets and practices that I admired and aligned with, and I did so with the upmost honesty and integrity.

I transferred the same approach to kicking my addiction as I did to growing my business — I surrounded myself with healthy, strong, admirable, empathic, wise individuals who were generous and gracious enough to support and encourage me along the way.

Addiction however, also taught me the importance of loyalty, friendship and integrity, as I never had those things in my life. An addict is a user and consumer of things, and of people, and addiction is a state of pure survival, we take what we need, without considering the consequences. Loyalty, friendship and integrity have no place in the land of addiction, they are foreign concepts that as an addict, we cannot recognise or reciprocate.

I am a walking, talking, thriving example that experiencing and overcoming addiction can actually be a gift. Today, the positive that I take from my years as an addict, is that I am an exceedingly strong, resilient, loyal, real, transparent and encouraging person because of my addiction. It taught me the value of all these things and so much more, including the power of gratefulness — I am truly grateful for my past challenges and experiences because they have made me appreciate how far I’ve come and I will never forget the dark places I walked through to now live my life in the light.

I am an unstoppable woman with a powerful vision and purpose because I know what it is like to have nothing, feel nothing and believe you are nothing, that is why my clients seek me out today, because they know I understand their journey, it is what sets me apart and equips me to guide my clients from victim to victory.

Why do you think this topic is not discussed enough?

There continues to be significant stigma surrounding addiction which keeps addicts and former addicts shamed and silenced. Many people assume their professional reputation may be damaged if they were to disclose issues with addiction as unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation, assumptions and misunderstanding when it comes to the reasons why people become addicts.

There is no clear-cut answer as the pathway to addiction is as complex as it is unique to the individual. I have worked with addicts from a range of ethnicity, ages and socio-economic status, from the chronic homeless, to middle class, right up to the highest echelons of society.

Addiction is a global crisis and it does not discriminate, and like many other issues we face today, I believe there needs to be a much greater focus on early intervention and education, and we must get better at utilsing those with a lived experience of addiction as members of funding bodies, advisory boards, therapeutic rehabilitation and service centers, advocacy agencies and counseling/support services.

It is through the power of our stories, of triumph over tragedy, where shame is broken and people find hope, and that is the entire reason I speak out about my own life. When people see and hear that an ordinary person like me can overcome addiction and trauma, it can be enough to give them the courage to believe it for themselves. Rather than judgement their needs to be empathy and acceptance.

While I was once an addict, I have always been a human being, and what we all must understand is that addiction is an outworking of a much deeper problem. No child dreams of growing up to become an addict, therefore we as over comers of addiction need to be speaking out, and we as a society need to continue to educate ourselves and demonstrate empathy towards those that struggle to escape addiction’s grasp.

Can you share three pieces of advice that you would give to the entrepreneur who is struggling with some sort of addiction but ashamed to speak about it or get help?

1. A crucial step in getting help to overcome any life controlling issue, particularly addiction, is to admit to ourselves that we have a problem. Contrary to popular belief, there is immense strength in submission, it is not a sign of weakness, but of power. Submission means to accept or yield to a superior force, and the superior force that an addict must submit to before lasting healing and recovery can occur, is truth. All addicts live in a world of secrecy, lies, and deception; lying mostly to ourselves which we do my justifying or minimizing our actions, despite the negative consequences. If you constantly say things to yourself like, “I have it under control,” or, “I can stop anytime I want,” yet despite your best efforts you return to the very thing you’re trying to stop, it’s time to face the truth.The moment we stand up and admit to ourselves, “I have an addiction”, the burden of secrecy and deception is broken. This is most definitely the first step in taking your power back and working towards overcoming your addiction, permanently
2. There is no shame in asking for help, similar to admitting to ourselves that we have an addiction, asking for help demonstrates strength and courage. The complexity of addiction and the various pathways that lead people down that road are unique and personal to the individual, as is treatment, and the road to recovery is not something that we can manage alone. Therefore, my second piece of advice is to reach out for help, even when it scares you. Consider speaking to a trusted mentor, a specialist counsellor or a help line. You can make an anonymous phone call to a crisis line if that’s easier in the beginning, and a far better option than continuing to struggle and suffer in silence. We all need help from time to time, and the reality is, the road to recovery from addiction is paved with twists and turns and requires a range of supports to be effective. As human beings we are fallible, we face struggles and times we need the support and assistance from others to be our best, and addiction is no different.
3. My final piece of advice is to hold onto hope and believe that you can and will beat your addiction. There will be days you want to throw in the towel and give in, there will be days when you believe it is too hard, and that you are not strong enough to keep going or beat it, but they are feelings, not facts. Our mind is the most powerful element to overcoming addiction, therefore it is our mind that we must master if we are going to rebuild our lives beyond addiction. If you begin to doubt yourself, your ability to get well, if you become fearful of reaching out for help or speaking out, remember to take one step at a time, one day at a time, one minute at a time. Trust the process and remind yourself of your why, your what and your who. Why are you an entrepreneur? Why do you do what you do? What is your vision? Who do you want to help? Take an inventory of why you began your entrepreneurial journey and reignite the passion that is within you to make a difference in this world. Addiction will rob you of your purpose, it will steal your joy, your peace and the legacy you seek to build and leave behind. Don’t allow that to happen. Take your life back and step into your truth and your power today.

Thank you so much for your insights. That was really inspiring!

Renè Michele: F.A.T.E From Addict to Entrepreneur was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Being Connected: Working remotely vs. in-person affects how connected your team is to one another. To address this, make technology your best friend! Schedule times when everyone can connect via Google Hangouts, Skype, or Zoom to share, ask questions, and just support each other.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to know to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Drew Gerber, CEO of Wasabi Publicity. Drew is on a mission to change global conversations and challenge industry conventions. He lives to spark “aha” moments, helping people discover new ways of thinking to create positive change.

Wasabi Publicity works with clients who are clear they have enough and who are committed to making a difference. Drew is the author of “Destination Aha! Becoming Unstuck in Life and Business,” and he lives in Budapest, Hungary, with his husband and two rescue dogs, Brodee and Koki.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

My degree is in chemical engineering. I never planned to be the CEO of a PR company. But, as fate would have it, I had a passion for marketing and fell in love with PR. When I met my business partner, Michelle Tennant Nicholson, that was when I got clear about the power of PR in changing what people are talking about, which ultimately changes the world.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The main reason Michelle and I decided to go virtual when we created Wasabi Publicity in 2001 was so we could live anywhere in the world. Back then the whole virtual concept was new, so much so that we were recognized by Good Morning America and The Christian Science Monitor for innovative business practices. The decision made it possible for me to live in the most beautiful city in the world: Budapest, Hungary.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I learned the difference one letter can make in the meaning of a sentence when I was working on marketing copy for a company. Instead of “Your publicist is your most sacred business relationship,” I put “Your publicist is your most scared business relationship.”

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Be flexible in the integration of healthy work/life balance. This ensures your employees remain less stressed and more in control and satisfied with their lives (and in turn, more productive).

For example, allow and encourage employees who are parents to be with their child on the first day of school, or attend a holiday lunch, or award ceremony. Simply prepare in advance for staff absences with skill redundancy. In our company, we make sure at least one other team member can do someone’s job, which means we can continue to serve our clients and avoid any undue stress.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

20 years.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

1. Lack of Information: Even with video conferencing, the nuances of body language and nonverbal communication are missing. People interpret words (especially written words) in different ways, therefore dealing with emotions can play a large part in managing a remote team.

2. Being Connected: Working remotely vs. in-person affects how connected your team is to one another. To address this, make technology your best friend! Schedule times when everyone can connect via Google Hangouts, Skype, or Zoom to share, ask questions, and just support each other.

3. Structure: It can be very challenging to create structure when everyone works from home. Again, utilize technology to keep staff organized and set expectations. We use Basecamp.

4. Being Related: We are human beings with a need to be related to each other. Ask your employees how they’re doing, or how their kids are doing. Discuss fears and concerns around the pandemic. Don’t be afraid to get personal and encourage a personable, relatable culture.

5. Flexibility: A remote team comes with all kinds of distractions and considerations. The majority of our staff are parents (skin and fur), and the reality is, we deal with kids crying and dogs barking all the time. Be flexible! It’s all part of the fun and being related.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

If there’s an upset, get clarity — with a conversation, not an email.

One of the most important distinctions I learned at age 15 while doing the Landmark Forum is called The Vicious Circle™. When something happens, we assign a meaning, and then we form an opinion. Over time, that opinion (the story we tell ourselves) becomes the way it is, and our actions are based on that interpretation. When we can separate what actually happened from our story, situations that may have been challenging become open to change.

Here’s a great example: A huge challenge when we first created Wasabi Publicity virtually 20 years ago was dealing with emotions and interpretation around short texts and emails. Sometimes, the person on the receiving end would misinterpret the brevity, getting upset and worrying that the sender was mad with them. In reality, the sender is almost always just busy. Being able to separate your meaning from what happened alleviates a lot of unnecessary drama.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

Another powerful lesson Landmark taught me is on the power of listening. Clear, effective communication requires us to hear what is really being said, as opposed to what we may be adding based on our experiences or our view of life.

I believe constructive criticism requires these steps:

1. Listen carefully to what’s being said.

2. Distinguish what’s being said from your interpretations.

3. Use language to create new possibilities and relationships.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

From my experience, if constructive feedback is needed, don’t send an email. Do a video call so you can see how that person is taking the feedback and to make sure they’re left empowered.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

It’s an opportunity for companies to reevaluate what works best for them. A lot of employers that believed people who work remotely are less effective are now finding the opposite is true. As we’re navigating these uncertain times, this is the perfect chance to evaluate and set up the working situation that best serves the company and its employees.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Years ago, we created PR Power Hour (aka water cooler chats). This provides a daily opportunity for our team to collaborate, share, and be connected via Google Hangouts.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

We owe a lot of the way marketing currently works to one man: Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Louis Bernays. In the early 1900s, Bernays realized that people’s emotions were the key drivers of their decisions, which meant that manipulating those emotions could elicit whatever reaction you desired.

Being fascinated with neuroscience, something clicked for me recently. Our current “Bernays” marketing model is designed to aggravate our brain’s amygdala, leaving us feeling unsafe, insecure, and unsure — and desperately seeking a solution to escape that feeling. Our amygdala is hijacked. We make decisions that are not in our best interests, or the world’s.

Amygdala-driven marketing feels off for me, and now more than ever, it’s not business as usual. My commitment is to support people, companies, and organizations who want to market differently. They are clear they have enough, and they want to make a difference by sharing their message (without activating the amygdala) and making the world a better place.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” by Deborah Moggach: ”Everything will be alright in the end, so if it is not alright, it is not the end.”

If I could create a movement it would be to have people relax and enjoy the journey.

Thank you for these great insights!

Drew Gerber of Wasabi Publicity: Five Things You Need to Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Don’t get sidetracked; Never give up.
I made a commitment long ago that I could live with tiredness, difficulty, and hard work in order to accomplish what I have been called to do, but I also committed that I could not live with the pain of regret. I still haven’t met anyone who can honestly say that they can live with regret. I came to terms with the fact that when I fell, If I didn’t get back up, that I could not live with the results. I could not live a life of mediocrity or failure. Therefore, I get back up.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share, and in many cases, it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Rodriguez.

Mike is CEO of Mike Rodriguez International LLC (MRI), a global speaking and training firm specializing in leadership, HR, engagement, and change. Mike is also a professional speaker, a master trainer, and a trusted adviser for business and life strategies. As a multi Best-Selling Author Mike has written 15 books and over 75 articles. He was signed by Nightingale Conant, the world’s leader in personal development to produce several of his audio courses. His firm works with clients around the globe and their logos include names like Bank of America, McDonald’s, Thomson Reuters, U.S. Army, and many others in tech/ software. Mike believes that through faith and action, you can overcome the challenges in your life to uncover your greatest potential.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?

I have learned that your life story can be used as an inspiration to excel or it can serve as anchor to be used as an excuse not to succeed. For me, I grew up with the opportunity to create many excuses, but thankfully I had people in my life who kept pushing me to focus on my potential and not on my circumstances. I went from dropping out of college while working two jobs, to working in a variety of jobs making zero progress with my life. Through a series of poor decisions and reckless actions I got caught up drinking too much and almost destroyed my life. I worked hard at blaming others and making excuses until I decided to take accountability for my life. It was at that point that I was inspired to do something. I went on to have a very successful career in corporate America for close to twenty-five years. Then, when I finally realized my gifts were to help others, I committed to put them to use and I left my career to start my speaking and training business.

Now as I continue to develop my potential, I am focused on growing in all areas of my life as I believe you should never stop learning. I have studied at Harvard Business School online, abroad in Oxford, and I am currently finalizing my master’s degree, all while I speak at over 60 events per year, write books, and coach global leaders. Through my faith, I have cleaned up my life and built a successful career spanning three decades training some of the world’s best-known brands. I also lecture at many universities. I don’t share these things to boast, but to let your readers know that the only true limitations you will have in life are those that you accept and believe. Excuses, blame, bad habits (and people) can and will hold you back, but you only truly fail once you decide to completely give up. Although I have had many reasons to fail, my life purpose has always been much stronger, and it keeps me going. It’s easy to find an excuse, its always harder to get back up, but the payoffs are worth it!

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

Early on in my career in my twenties, I was given a ticket to a seminar in Dallas to see the world-famous sales trainer/author Tom Hopkins. There were several thousand people at that event, and everyone was fired-up. It was amazing to see how Tom engaged with the audience and how the crowd hungered to be successful in their profession. That seminar inspired me to not only get my profession in order, but it uncovered how I wanted to speak and help others in the same way. That day at Tom’s seminar, I was honestly imagining myself on the stage doing what Tom was doing.

Fast forward about twenty-eight years later and during a trip I had to Arizona where I was speaking at a seminar, I was invited to Tom’s house. After meeting and connecting, Tom’s people followed up asked me to be a guest speaker at his upcoming seminar in Dallas, it was unbelievable!

For a guy who was a seminar attendee almost thirty years earlier in Dallas, here I was now sharing the stage in Dallas with one of the biggest names in training in the world. It was humbling and amazing at the same time. From that amazing experience I learned that how you view yourself and the actions you take in your life are your responsibility. Your experiences can create opportunities for you, or they can break you. In everything you do, you are either building or destroying your brand, but it is up to you. My previous success allowed me to believe in me, for Tom to believe in me, and for us to do together what the average person would call luck. Resilient people know that there is no such thing as luck, there are only strategic actions that allow us to be prepared to meet unique opportunities.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

According to our clients, our company stands out because we really aren’t just another speaking and training company. I am a professional committed to the success of the specific people we work with, therefore I take the work we do very seriously. I recognize that every client has different needs because people are dynamic. We deliver customized content based on the client’s needs that we uncover through our engagement process together. It doesn’t matter what industry they are in; it matters how we prepare to teach and inspire their specific people. We also don’t use paid corporate trainers; not that they are bad, but I am an expert in my field and our clients get to experience my professional delivery, content, and expertise first-hand. We build relationships and teach content relative to our client’s challenges, not my topics or agenda. With that, we have many clients but, 92% of our clients are referrals from a previous event.

As an example, I was speaking at a large conference a few years back and afterwards four different people approached me to inquire about booking me at their organizations. One lady said that she was the president of a very large speaker’s organization. She wanted to know if I would be willing to be the keynote speaker at their upcoming conference for their aspiring speakers. She said her members were too cliché’ in their approach and she wanted me to teach my unique delivery to their hundreds of members. I was blown away that such a sharp lady who led a group of aspiring speakers would admire my style, content, and delivery. That request from her created a great feeling knowing I stood out. I always say you are in the ‘people business’ first, so you better be genuine and understand how to work with people; we do.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

You are right, we can never gain success on our own because it’s impossible; we always need help. Although I am grateful to many people who have helped me, I am profoundly grateful for my wife Bonnie and I mean that. Not only is she my best friend, but she is also my business partner and my personal motivator. She simply sees things that I cannot see and has supported me through everything we have faced together. The day I left my twenty-five-year career in corporate America to start speaking and training, I was elated! I finally felt relieved that I was free, and I was excited that I was pursuing my calling. However, the next morning, the realization that I was on my own, without salary and benefits, and with a mortgage, cars, and kids in college slapped me in the face. I was nervous and I started having major doubts. I realized I had to put into action everything I had always talked about, but the reality was overwhelming knowing I was starting from scratch, again. I went for a drive to gather my thoughts and finally came back home to pick up Bonnie to talk. I told her what I was thinking and without skipping a beat, she reminded me of not only ‘why’ I was doing what I was doing, but she told me I was crazy if I didn’t keep pursuing my calling. She helped me to put into perspective that what I was called to do was bigger than me and our current situation, and that I needed to step up and work through my doubts and fears. She was right and I’m so glad I listened.

I often say that looking back now, I am way more afraid of what wouldn’t have happened if I had decided not to take action and stay where I was! I would be in a very different place. I am thankful that I listened to Bonnie that day. Each of us needs to have people in our lives who sincerely care about us to help keep us on track and to help us keep going. The problem with people today is that most people seek out those who will simply tell them what they WANT to hear. But those who really love us, who can see in us what we fail to see, will always tell you what you NEED to hear to keep you moving forward one step at a time.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

Resilience is such a wonderful word that is often used improperly as a platitude. It is frequently discounted, or it is written off as a magical word for tough people, and that is simply not true. Resilience comes from the Latin word ‘resilire’ which means to ‘rebound’ or ‘start back.’ When I think of resilience or of being resilient, I often visualize hitting a wall and falling, and thinking how it is my responsibility to connect my heart, attitude, and actions to get back up and start going again!

The truth is that we are all going to hit walls or drop in holes in life, and when we do, we will almost always fall. Walls and holes are inevitable, and falling is often the result, but to get back up and to keep going is always a choice! With holes, we can get stuck and not see the way out, but it’s there if we can just rise higher to see it. We must learn that resilience is a choice!

When we choose to be resilient, we aren’t focusing on the wall, the hole, or the fall. Resilient people focus on much bigger things; they focus on WHY they are doing what they are doing, and they focus on WHY they need to get back up!

The characteristics of resilient people always start with having a positive attitude, a clear purpose, shifts to focus, and ends with another action to keep going, again and again. Resilient people understand and accept that success will never come if they stop, but if they keep going, the results are potentially endless. Resilient people aren’t special people, but they believe in something that is special to them. Because of that belief, they get back up to pursue it when they are knocked down. Resilience starts becoming mandatory in their lives, because it becomes a part of who they are.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

When I think of resilience, I think of Nick Vujicic, the author of Life Without Limbs. If you haven’t heard of Nick, look him up, he is one of the most inspirationally resilient people alive today. He was born without arms and legs, but he doesn’t focus on that ‘supposed limitation’ that would destroy most people. Throughout his life his parents encouraged him to keep rebounding after he would literally fall, and he ultimately found strength through his faith. Watch 5 minutes of Nick speaking and any reason or limitation you have created in your mind for not getting back up after you fall, while having two arms and two legs, will seem utterly silly.

For a man who has a thousand reasons not to succeed, Nick won’t tell you any of those. Instead, he will challenge you to get back up and to find a way just as he did. He is amazing to watch and hear and understanding his life story should change how you view your life story. Nick lives with and shares love, faith, purpose, positive actions, and hope through his resiliency, and we all could use just a little bit of his mindset in today’s world.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

That has actually been my personal mantra. I’ve always been very determined to pursue my big dreams, so If I’m told I cannot, or that things are impossible, I most certainly choose to find a way.

When I was younger, I used to do things just to prove people wrong because I wanted to show them that I was capable. Now in my life I don’t seek to please people, I seek to encourage people. I challenge people to pursue what is important to them, but that they might believe is impossible due to having a faulty belief system. I also challenge people to rethink the concepts of “quitting” and “failing.” Quitting is a decision, usually made by people who aren’t committed, while failing is a result of taking an action that needs to be re-evaluated. Resilient people learn from failing, while others learn to adapt to quitting, often justifying why they quit.

When I committed to starting my speaking and training business, I was told by many people, including many well-known professional speakers and trainers, that the career was impossible to break into and that I shouldn’t take the risk since I had a family. Some said I should quit, but I was determined to succeed, knowing and understanding that I would face failures. I would politely thank them and remind them that their opinion had absolutely no impact on my career outcome, and that my path was unique for me. Ironically, after starting, my career actually took off within a few months. Before long I was speaking in front of crowds of hundreds and it only grew from there. Those same people are silent today.

When I went to write my first book, that same resistance showed up from a new set of people, but I stayed the course. When I faced failure and was told to give up, I got back up. Now thirteen books later and over 100,000 trained globally, many of those same people ignore me today.

Unfortunately, success is hard for people to pursue and almost impossible for others to accept. Most people aren’t against success, the truth is that most people have big dreams, but very few take action to pursue them. Whether they are afraid of failure, judgment, or they might lack confidence, or maybe even have excuses that they grew up believing, if a person has dreams that they believe are impossible, they will become impossible to them. But that isn’t the biggest problem…the biggest problem can be the fallout from quitting, as those same people sometimes criticize others, because they need to blame someone for their lack of success. This creates a circle of negativity, anger, jealousy, and lashing out; the chronic traits of complainers. For me, my life story has been about people telling me things are impossible, that I shouldn’t do certain things, or that some things just couldn’t happen. I have found that when people tell you that “something is impossible,” that’s only what THEY believe, therefore it will be impossible for them. The better question that I ask people to evaluate is “what do you believe?”

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

Yes, just this year has been a fantastic story of resilience. We started off this year very strong, but like most businesses, we were immediately shut down. We had many scheduled events that had to cancel, and it was discouraging. In addition, we quickly realized that most people wouldn’t be holding any new live events with crowds of people anytime soon. Plus, since we are in the travel business, visiting people in crowds,” we also recognized that any new business would vaporize or become extremely anemic. We were knocked down hard, but we knew we had to not only get back up quickly, we had to get started in a new way and even stronger.

I often say that when you face a difficulty, you don’t change your goal, you change how you get there. For us, we had to change our methods to reach our goals of helping people with our strategic content. We quickly launched our virtual speaking and training business, teaching and inspiring via ‘live’ online sessions and seminars. The result was that people started engaging. They told us that through their current difficulties, they appreciated having a viable option to train and motivate their people live online with a pro. The change hasn’t been easy but change never is. I often say that through faith and action ALL things are possible. I still believe that if people aren’t finding a way to learn to attain their goals and dreams, that they will find an excuse and quit. Setbacks are a given, but quitting should never be an option for those who are committed; you must find a new way.

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?

My parents are resilient people and I have been impacted by their life lessons. Both my mom and dad were raised poor and had a million excuses to fail, but they always fought to create a way together. Without speaking English and without a formal education, my dad joined the U.S. Army when he was about 17. As a Hispanic, he fought to build a career at a time when it wasn’t fashionable for minorities to excel in the military. My dad built a 44-year career in the Army, overcoming many crazy obstacles. His resilience allowed him to retire as a Chief Warrant Officer 5, which is a pretty high rank. My dad had more reasons than most people I know not to succeed, but he chose to not let his excuses define him. I believe that if more people today thought like my father, we would have more success stories and less complainers. Instead of focusing on what he didn’t have, he knew what he had inside, and he put it to work for himself. The payoff was tremendous as he built his career in the U.S. Army.

As a child of an Army Soldier, my family moved around a lot and I had to change schools and make new friends every couple of years. In addition, my father was frequently off on other assignments (at war, etc.,) many times. I had the privilege of being raised by a mother who was often by herself, but she successfully raised five kids by choice! My mom encouraged us to keep going, and my father taught us not to focus on what we ‘can’t’ do, but to figure out what we ‘could’ do and to get it done!

My life experiences taught me what focusing on my limitations would get me, and I wasn’t ok with that. I have always been driven by possibilities, so I’ve never listened to others who were negative.

By moving around so much, I had to learn to make things happen and that mindset still grows in me to this day.

Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.

Like muscles, everyone has access to resilience inside of them to recognize and build. Here are my five steps anyone can take to become more resilient:

Recognize that you have resilience inside of you and that you can use it if you choose to.
Throughout my life, every time I experienced long-periods of failure, I was always not recognizing my resilience therefore I wasn’t using it. Instead, I was focusing on failure, excuses, blame, self-pity, and other life anchors, or I was hanging around the wrong people. I tell people to look back on their lives and find an opportunity where they could have permanently failed, but they didn’t because they kept going. Now review what was going on at that time and work to apply those principles to your life today. When you can believe and accept that you do indeed have a choice about your life direction, you can get back up, and move to step two:

Determine your BIG purpose that inspires you.
Purpose is the fuel that prompts you to get back up and keep going. For me it wasn’t until I figured out my true purpose that I got on track for success. I often tell people that if they lack purpose, they will probably never get started, or if they do get started, and their purpose isn’t genuine or their own, they will probably quit when things get too tough. Many times, I meet people who aren’t succeeding in their lives because they aren’t following their own dream, therefore it’s not important to them. As a result, it’s easier for them to give up. I was in the business world for twenty-five years and although I never quit, I never realized my true potential. Don’t get me wrong, I was very successful, but because I wasn’t doing what was aligned with my heart and skillset, I wasn’t using my gifts to their fullest. When you realize what is important to you, you will remove the things that aren’t important; you will accept nothing less than your purpose. That leads us to the next step:

Commit to your Big purpose.
Most people don’t make commitments, simply because they don’t have the right purpose or if they do commit, they won’t make it public to avoid accountability if they fail. Instead most people use the phrase “I’ll try.” The truth is that you will not succeed in anything you are only ‘trying to do’ and you will not commit to something that isn’t important to you.

When it comes to commitment, much like resilience, we must understand what the word means. My definition is that “commitment doesn’t mean you won’t fail it means you refuse to give up. No excuses, no exit plans.” Resilience and commitment are critical components that must be present and used together. When I started speaking, we encountered many failures as we launched, but because I was committed, we would evaluate failures and learn from them to find a new way. When you commit to something that you believe in, that’s positive and good for others and this world, then you will want to keep going to create a positive impact. This type of commitment is what keeps you on track through the difficult times. Don’t try, commit and find a way!

Have faith and avoid people without it
This is another word that is often shared as a platitude. Faith means that we are focusing on things that we do not see today, but that we know will be possible for tomorrow, if we only keep going today. Throughout my life, my faith was often diluted or absent when I listened to discouragers or let the negativity of others compromise my faith. Today I tell people that others probably won’t understand your dreams and goals, and that’s ok, it’s not for them to understand, but you better have faith if it is your dream. Throughout my life I have had many distractions. Whether I was hanging out with the wrong people or group, or being involved with unhealthy things, I always felt that I could do more and become more. I believe distractions are the key to failure for most people today. Distractions fill time, but don’t help to build people up. Distractions cause most people to simply believe that they cannot do more or become more. It’s another self-destructive lie. The people you hang out with and the things you are doing are indeed having a critical impact on your life. You should honestly ask yourself “Am I growing or slowing?” If you are slowing, then you are being distracted and you need to take action today to break free.

For every success I have had, my faith has always pulled me through. Although I have had people encouraging me, I have also always had a group of people who sought to discourage me, sometimes those who were very close to me. You must have good friends, but again, look for people who will guide you and encourage you to keep going.

Don’t get sidetracked; never give up.
I made a commitment long ago that I could live with tiredness, difficulty, and hard work in order to accomplish what I have been called to do, but I also committed that I could not live with the pain of regret. I still haven’t met anyone who can honestly say that they can live with regret. I came to terms with the fact that when I fell, If I didn’t get back up, that I could not live with the results. I could not live a life of mediocrity or failure. Therefore, I get back up.

I have also committed to the fact that when you give up, not only are you choosing not to rebound, but more important, you are choosing not to be a better you. The question is can you live with that decision?

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would like to inspire the movement to work together to “Find A Way!” so we can eradicate negativity and complaining. I’m not saying to act like all things are wonderful. But what I am saying is that we all should be looking for truth, not complaints; we should offer solutions, not resistance, and we should stop gossiping and posting about what we don’t like, but we should promote what we love.

In today’s world too many people are focused on hate all in the name of love and they want to share that hate with everyone, all in the name of love. It’s ironic and destructive chaos. Real love forgives and seeks resolution; it seeks to find a way.

Whether you or someone you know is facing a difficulty or has been knocked down, and their purpose is valid and beneficial to all, remind them that through faith and action all things are possible.

Don’t complain about life or focus on what you don’t like, focus on what you DO have, what you CAN do, and then get it done.

Negativity itself is a movement that seeks to prevent success, impede productivity, destroy faith, and create resistance. Complaining is the preferred tool of negative people to propagate anger, which holds people back and stops us from finding a way. It destroys lives by suppressing the very idea of resilience.

We all should choose to discover our purpose, to commit to it, to create a positive impact in this world, and then to passionately pursue it while we encourage others with positivity. If we want to change the world, we must first commit to changing our own lives first; we must find a way.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

When I look at my life and career, Robert Herjavec is a person that I would love to share time with. As a trainer of leaders, I am in the business of genuinely helping people to think bigger and to realize their true purpose by focusing on the big picture in their lives. This requires helping people to connect their hearts and minds, something that is missing in this world today. Robert does a fantastic job of expressing genuine interest and involvement in not only what he does, but also in the people he is working with; he connects hearts and minds in a forward-thinking way. He is a great example of what a leader in today’s world should look like, and I have a unique question for him.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m very active on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikerodspeaker/

and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MikeRodSpeaker/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Mike Rodriguez: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 1994, I was tasked with managing six different divisions of operations and consolidating company spend. To do this effectively, I had those teams work from home. We didn’t have Zoom (it was still the age of the fax machine), but luckily, we had great people in the field who had strong relationships with clients. A learning I took away from that part of my career and am applying to my company today is how important it is to stay engaged, even though it’s more difficult to communicate.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Jackson, CEO of virtual workspace software company Bluescape.

Peter Jackson is a serial entrepreneur and advisor with a broad and deep knowledge of technology, business, and financial markets. Prior to Bluescape, he co-founded Ziploop Inc. (acquired by SNIPP in October 2017), served on the Boards of Eventbrite, DocuSign, and Kanjoya; took Intraware to IPO, and was President/COO of Dataflex (NASDAQ. DFLX) following its acquisition of Granite Systems, among other achievements.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Briefly touching on my childhood, I was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where my mother taught deaf and blind students from our home. There, I grew up quite imaginative, and was always dreaming up inventions and businesses, and taking up small jobs wherever I could find them.

My first real job out of college was as an associate in sales at a company where they’d hire 10 people and then immediately fire seven. In that working environment, I taught myself to work smart versus more. While others were making 100 calls a day to make their sales, I would focus on 10 accounts by connecting with my customers in unconventional ways. Instead of working overtime to hit personal call quotas, I’d leave the office to go where I knew my clients spent their free time to make actual relationships. I went from being #400 to #1 salesperson in less than 2 years.

From there I co-founded two companies, Ziploop and Intraware, even taking Intraware to IPO. Additionally, I have served on the Boards of Eventbrite, DocuSign, and Kanjoya; and worked as President/COO of Dataflex.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

At my first sales job, everyone was working like crazy. But like I said before, I prioritized just 10 accounts and honed in on the actions that made me the most productive. For example, if I knew that some of my clients were going to be at a soccer game, that’d be my office for the day. By looking at what I had to do to sell over what was perceived as the ‘office norm,’ I made myself the #1 salesperson.

This forever shaped my belief that the future of work is a future where we can accomplish our responsibilities on our own terms. If someone can complete what they need to do for that week more swiftly, they should not be bound by geographical or 9-to-5 time restraints.

Years following my first position in sales, I met a man who was told by his company that he needed to work 40 hours a week. He asked them if he could choose which 40 hours he worked — and they said yes. He would start his work on Sunday and work up to Wednesday so that he could spend the rest of the week with his family. He was given the freedom to create his own schedule, but even more, he proved that work can be task- or outcome-oriented versus time.

Much like the geographical restrictions that we’ve unbound ourselves from during the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe that we should free ourselves from the traditional 40-hour workweek. If workers can complete their day’s tasks in 5 hours, why should they sit at their desk and twiddle their thumbs? At my company, we’ve cultivated a culture prioritizing outcomes, independent of assumptions about time and place.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This story started as a mistake and resulted in altering my status at my first job. It was a Friday night and I was grabbing a bite after work when I saw another gentleman who immediately started engaging with me in conversation. Halfway through the chat, he said, “Man, I’m so sorry but I have to tell you why I’m so happy.” I had time to spare, so I told him I was all ears. That’s when he told me he just won a major contract for scanning equipment for every grocery store in Canada, to be followed by the U.S.

I offered to buy him a drink to celebrate, but he instead insisted on buying me a round. He asked what I did for a living and I told him that I was in tech, selling equipment that big providers couldn’t manage. He lit up and said, “I just made your life” and instructed me to meet him Monday morning in front of that same restaurant for a meeting.

On Monday morning, he picked me up in front of the restaurant to meet with one of his partners. Upon walking into the office, his partner hands me a huge stack of paper, easily worth $35 million in orders. I was making about $30K as a salesman back in 1983 and my company ended up making $20 million from that deal, bringing me to the #1 salesman.

The learning from that night was simple: You can meet anyone, anywhere.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

As a nation, we’ve all been working non-stop from our homes due to coronavirus. Teams are struggling to disconnect, especially as companies become more decentralized and work across various time zones. While we’re bound to our homes, we still need time off to prevent burnout and boost productivity.

Comparing 2019 to 2020, employee PTO requests have reduced by nearly half. However, employers are juggling more than ever — ranging from personal burdens to new ways of working to the emotional and physical toll of today’s many pandemics. Employees need to take a break and it’s up to business leaders to create the space for them to do that. Even before the pandemic, 2 out of 5 employees felt that time off to address their personal lives would negatively influence their futures. This is why the responsibility lies in business leaders to be flexible and support their employees for long-term success. The first step is rethinking company PTO policies. Whether that means unlimited PTO, creating new company holidays, or even planning company-wide mental health days, these new policies will provide employees with the space — and trust — needed to take much-need time off.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

In 1994, I was tasked with managing six different divisions of operations and consolidating company spend. To do this effectively, I had those teams work from home. We didn’t have Zoom (it was still the age of the fax machine), but luckily, we had great people in the field who had strong relationships with clients. A learning I took away from that part of my career and am applying to my company today is how important it is to stay engaged, even though it’s more difficult to communicate.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each? Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Managing remote teams can be challenging, especially if you don’t have the proper tools to communicate, collaborate, and track team projects. Layer in the fact that, for many, this is the first time they are working remotely — and had to adapt practically overnight. With new management styles, technology, and even home offices, here are a few of the biggest challenges I’m seeing:

• Managing progress without exhausting teams with “catch-up” meetings. We’ve all experienced ‘Zoom-fatigue’ and this is seen even in our personal lives with the disappearance of Zoom happy hours! Attending these virtual meetings take up more energy and focus than in-person meetings, so traditional phone calls or even regular email updates can make up for this. Reserve video conferencing for in-depth discussions/brainstorms or when you need quick updates in real-time.
• Accessing, collaborating, and finalizing content, remotely. Even in the office, teammates may ask each other, “Do you remember where this document was saved?” However, in the office, responses are much more prompt. By centralizing all of your content, remote teams don’t waste their time and energy to search and toggle between documents and applications.
• Engaging teammates during virtual meetings. Allow team leaders to focus on delivering key information while designating a moderator to run the meeting, focus on asking questions, and engage each member of the team. This balances the participation rate and ensures everyone has an equal share of voice.
• Developing feelings of stress and tiredness from long hours. Many reports show that we’re productive only 3 hours a day. Yet, we are still transitioning from the era of punching the clock for compensation. This approach has not credited employee efficiency and has slowed production. Rather than tracking time, record milestones and deadlines and reward for the effective completion of assignments.
• Creating secure best practices to prevent cyberattacks. Remote work has created several vulnerabilities for company data and employee personal data and privacy. Creating best practices with regular reminders to employees will empower teams to stay vigilant while navigating online.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

When giving feedback to a remote employee, you want to be clear enough so they understand there is an issue at hand. However, you also want to ask them questions about how they feel about the situation and discuss processes and suggested actions moving forward. Asking your employees questions about how they feel about the feedback and how they got to their situation will help make up for the body language/physical gap created by today’s remote work environment. It’s also important to discuss work processes, as employees are confronted with a new working environment. Maybe they are used to ad hoc brainstorms with their neighboring office mates, but no longer have the creative outlet to have these discussions. Business leaders must always remember to foster growth in their feedback and criticism.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Honestly, I don’t recommend giving constructive feedback solely over email, unless they’re factual or quantitative. Even when it comes to one-off employee performance feedback, I think managers should address these during 1:1 meetings to get an employee’s real-time reactions and thoughts. Emails can provide space for different interpretations and for feedback to be constructive, it must be concise. However, after 1:1 discussions, managers can summarize the discussion and feedback in an email to their employees as a record of the conversation and a way to align on concrete next steps.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic? Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

While we are learning to live with today’s global pandemic, we’re also learning how to work in new ways. COVID-19 is pushing businesses to integrate remote work technologies to keep their companies running, employees productive, and customers served — all while implementing company-wide remote work policies for the first time. Some of the challenges companies should be aware of, and ways technology can help, include:

• Maintaining visibility on important business initiatives. In a remote setting, it takes more effort to get team updates on projects, especially since we aren’t able to drop into a coworker’s office. This is where the right technology can help executives keep a pulse on projects and team members by tracking deliverables, timelines, and budgets from a singular workspace platform.
• Lacking access to important data. Finding information saved in the cloud by other colleagues can be frustrating even when working in the same office. Unfortunately, progress and timely decision making are compromised when documents aren’t more easily retrievable. Again, be sure to put into place a technological solution that makes it easy for authorized employees to find what they want and when they need it.
• Transitioning the company culture during a global crisis: While COVID-19 is transforming the business landscape, what companies are doing in response should not be viewed as temporary. Remote work is shifting company culture and going back to “business as usual” will be disruptive. As the virus abates and people return to the office, companies need to have a plan in place around the long-term future of remote work.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

I make a conscious effort to check in on every single one of my employees at least once a week, usually through Slack. With a quick message, I can see how they’re doing and how they are working. At Bluescape, we also have weekly town hall meetings where I try to engage everyone with a fun trivia question and a cool reward.

I think that making each employee feel appreciated and heard is the best way to boost morale and productivity. I really believe success is about productivity, not time. Productivity leads to the business making money, and to do that, your workforce needs to feel like they have the right tools, whether its education, technology, environment — or especially mental health. Again, business leaders need to put employee well-being at the forefront of their decisions, especially during this critical inflection point.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

From my perspective, the movement I try to stress is that your opinion — whatever that is — is very important. It’s not my job to judge your opinion or feelings, but to listen and try to understand what you are expressing and experiencing. I think to be compassionate and really listening and processing what people are saying and feeling can be very powerful, especially now.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

You must have honesty and integrity. People can read your eyes and will gravitate towards you if they believe in what you stand for. I think, right now amid COVID-19 and remote working, this becomes difficult. It’s hard to read people on Zoom and get the right body language. That’s why it’s more important now than ever to have honesty and integrity.

Thank you for these great insights!

Peter Jackson of Bluescape: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Julie Cottineau of BrandTwist: Brand Makeovers; 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image

Tweak your brand name, Probably one of the most successful examples of this is when Kentucky Fried Chicken officially changed the brand name to KFC. This was to draw focus away from the fried nature of the food when consumers were starting to pay more attention to healthy eating. It also capitalized on the way that loyals fans were already referring to the brand.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Julie Cottineau. Julie is Founder and CEO of BrandTwist, a brand consultancy that helps entrepreneurs and corporaitons build stronger, more profitable brands. She is the author of best-selling book TWIST: How Fresh Perspectives Build Breakthrough Brands (Panoma Press 2016) and a globally recognized branding expert and teacher. She has been an Adjunct Professor and Guest Lecturer at Columbia, Cornell and Stanford and has supported hundreds of women entrepreneurs through her Brand School Master Class.

Julie is a frequent commentator on in media such as Forbes.com, Entrepreneur Magazine, C-Suite Best Seller-TV and CNN. She is the former VP of Branding at Richard Branson’s Virgin and was a Global

Account Director for Grey Global and the Executive Director of Consumer Branding at Interbrand.

She is a highly rated keynote speaker and is frequently addresses groups of women executives helping them to identify and own and their personal brand TWISTS.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Well going way, way back…when I was a little girl my parents wouldn’t let me get a pet because my brother was allergic to pet dander. Undeterred, I went into my garden, picked a rock and put it in a Cool Whip container. I poked air holes in the container and put in a blade of grass for food. Voila! I had created the pet rock. A few years later, a copywriter in San Francisco, Gary Dahl, was bemoaning the fact that friends were leaving the bar early to go feed their pets — so he created the official Pet Rock. A gag gift that made millions. I remember seeing it in stores and feeling upset that he had “stolen” my idea (I was only 10 years old at the time). But this was the beginning of my path toward finding ways I could use my creativity to develop solutions that would solve problems — and make a living from it!

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing or branding mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I was working in advertising at Grey Global, I had the fabulous opportunity to transfer to Grey Paris for a few years to head up account management on a global P&G account. While I was fluent in the language of Procter & Gamble beauty care marketing, I did not actually speak French. The official business language with the client was English, but inside the agency it was definitely French. I really wanted to bond with my new co-workers and show them I was not the ugly American sent over from HQ to spy on them- so I dove feet first into learning their language. I learned French basically on the job, supplemented by a private tutor when I had time between meetings. Anyway, for a while my ambition to speak French outpaced my knowledge. I remember the day I asked the receptionist to reserve a meeting room for an appointment I had with my client to discuss new ad concepts. I asked her to book me a “chambre de reunion”. Well I found out quickly that “chambre” means bedroom. I should have said “salle de reunion”. That branding mistake made the way around the agency with lightning speed. But I was a good sport about teasing, and I think that went a long way to helping me be accepted as part of the French team. I ended up extending my two year contract to three years, met my French husband of 22 years (at French tennis camp- not in a chambre de reunion), and am now fluent in my beloved second language!

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Is there a takeaway or lesson that others can learn from that?

Transitioning to starting your own business can be hard. Especially when you come from a background where you have always had the strength of big brands behind you. This was the case when I decided to start my own brand consultancy, BrandTwist, after over 20 years working for large, well-known companies such as Grey, Interbrand, and Virgin. For the first few years, I would meet people at networking events and conferences and often they would look kind of dismissively at the unknown company name on my name badge and move on in search of a contact with a more recognizable brand name. That was really hard for me. I had always been sought out in those situations — because I represented brands that people had heard of and wanted to get to know. But I was not deterred. I kept building my business through thought leadership, speaking engagements, the publication of my best-selling branding book TWIST: How Fresh Perspectives Build Breakthrough Brands, and an online Brand School for entrepreneurs. In the early days, I was often introduced as Julie Cottineau, Former VP of Brand for Virgin — rather than Founder & CEO of BrandTwist. But I remember a meeting that signalled the tipping point for me. My brand building efforts were beginning to pay off in terms of exposure, a growing social media following, a lot of positive media and interviews behind the book (such as a feature on CNN) and a small business visionary award. I was at a conference and someone looked at my badge and said “Julie from BrandTwist, oh I love your work”. I kept my cool and extended my hand, but I really wanted to grab my new best friend in a bear hug. That recognition made me feel like I had arrived on the scene — with a brand that I created. I guess the lesson for others is be patient and keep at it. Brands are not built overnight.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Like everyone else, my world has been turned upside down by the Pandemic. As a thought leader, I felt the need to get out and help people navigate this new normal. I truly believe that disruption, while difficult, can be great for brands. So when the world started going crazy, I launched a micro-site called BoostYourBrandImmunity.com. Through webinars, key notes, workshops, Facebook Live, and Brand Coaching, I’ve been helping businesses of all sizes to TWIST uncertainty into opportunity and look at new ways to focus their branding. I wanted to help as many people as possible, so I decided to offer a speed version of my 1 on 1 strategy sessions called a “Brand Booster Session”. In :30 minutes, I help a business come up with at least one idea that will bring in much needed revenue right now. I price these sessions at a very affordable rate and I give a portion of the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders. I am proud to say that we’ve done a great many of these Brand Booster Sessions over the past months, have helped a lot of businesses, and have been able to donate to a worthy cause.

What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

Make time to fill up your own tank — intellectually, emotionally, physically. I try to follow this through regular TWISTING Tuesday’s. I set aside one day a week where for a few dedicated and precious hours, I do something new to shake things up. This could be taking a bike ride on a new trail, watching a NetFlix documentary about a subject I don’t know anything about, or visiting a new retail or museum experience (in person or online). I call this going on a Brand Safari even if it’s just for an hour — and not in Africa. During this time, I practice “Triple A” Twisting. I consciously become Aware of something new, I Analyze what makes this experience special and then I Apply what I learn to my own brand or to a client project. This keeps things fresh for me, and helps me to step away from my screen. I think keeping yourself curious and energized is really important when you work in brand innovation.

Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Great question. There is a lot of confusion around this even among senior executives. For me, your brand is the fundamental story of who you are as a business, what you offer, what you stand for, who you serve, and the problems you solve. It is your core identity. It is brought to life by your brand assets (name, logo, tagline, tone of voice and core brand touchpoints like a website) and your actions (how you treat clients and employees). I don’t really use the term “brand marketing”. I prefer Branding. Marketing (corporate or product) is how you get that message out and build awareness- advertising, promotions, partnerships earned media, social etc.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Many people think they don’t need to invest in branding because their business is built through referrals or word of mouth. But even if this is the case, your brand walks into the room before you and hangs around after you are gone. It can help reinforce your message and help you stay top of mind. Research has also proven that strong brands are able to charge higher premiums, minimize consideration of other brands, create word of mouth recommendations, have lower cost of acquisition for both customers and new hires, and are more easily forgiven when inevitable errors occur.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

Rebranding can be a great opportunity to tell your brand’s story in a fresh way while energizing your employees and customers. There are many reasons a business might want to consider a re-brand, but here are the three I see most frequently.

1) There is a disconnect between the product and the brand. This happens fairly often in technology companies. Often, a tech company starts out with one platform or offering, but over time, they’re actually adding value in a different direction. Then they’re constantly explaining and saying, ‘Well, I know we sound like a data streaming company, but we’re not.’” If you are constantly explaining why your name doesn’t fit anymore, wasting valuable time in meetings with prospects, then it’s definitely time to consider rebranding.

2) The company has grown through merger or acquisition. Mergers can be an exciting, but also a scary time for businesses- they struggle in how to present the new entity. There is usually also a bit of internal angst and chaos. The employees of each company are trying to figure out their roles in the new structure, and often even if they are excited about the new opportunities, they are mourning the loss of the comfortable old brand they are accustomed to. Creating a new brand can be a rallying cry for internal teams to all get behind something new. It can also be a great opportunity for leadership to go out to the market with a new message that focuses the conversation on the strategic vision moving forward — which is encapsulated in a new brand.

3) The brand feels tired and even dangerously out of step with current culture and trends

I see this with a lot of brands that have been around a long time. Brands created in the past may suddenly find themselves out of step or out of sync with the present. The brand name or logo might even have become a bit of an albatross. We are seeing that right now with product, sports team, and academic institute names that are deemed culturally insensitive to the world we live in now. In addition, we often see logos that worked well on the side of a building or a traditional format, but are struggling to convert in a new digital age where many brands’ primary representation is an app on a smartphone. I’ve done quite a bit of work helping clients re-brand for the digital age.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

Re-branding can be scary for many people, and it’s not an exercise for the faint of heart. I don’t think there are categorically companies that I would advise against it but there are some considerations I would urge. First of all, finding a new name can be really challenging. It’s gotten a lot more difficult in recent years to find an available trademark. When clients come to me saying they want to change the name, I first ask them to review their logo and tagline. Sometimes a current name can still work if you change the other branded elements supporting it. If you do want to consider rebranding, it’s extremely important to first decide on the brand strategy before beginning any work on new names or logos. Don’t use a creative exploratory to decide your strategy. Agree to the updated strategy first (brand promise and values) and then use this as a benchmark to evaluate new name and logo candidates. Otherwise, you will waste a lot of time and money. Branding is very subjective. Expecting an agency to “wow” you with no strategic brief agreed to up front, or a “I’ll know it when I will see it” approach is a recipe for disaster- and a waste of valuable resources. Designate a cross-functional brand development team to give input in the process, but make sure it’s clear who is the final decision maker. Usually this is the CEO in conjunction with the CMO. Deciding a new brand name, for example, should not be a democratic vote. This leads to settling on the lowest common denominator name. Going with something that everyone can live with, but no one is passionate about. A rebrand should have an internal champion that helps get everyone on board, and brands should always be launched internally with a lot of care and tools before being shared outside.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Can you share 5 strategies that a company can do to upgrade and re-energize their brand and image”? Please tell us a story or an example for each.

Tweak your brand name

Probably one of the most successful examples of this is when Kentucky Fried Chicken officially changed the brand name to KFC. This was to draw focus away from the fried nature of the food when consumers were starting to pay more attention to healthy eating. It also capitalized on the way that loyals fans were already referring to the brand.

Refresh your brand logo

Starbucks is a good example of this. In 1971 they started with a wood cut elaborate mermaid logo with the word “coffee, tea, spices”. In the late 80’s/early 90’s they simplified the mermaid design and the language underneath only referred to coffee. More recently, in the last decade, they have removed any words from the logo and further simplified and zoomed in on the mermaid design to make it more app friendly.

Infuse energy through a new tagline

Coca-Cola does this pretty frequently. The brand has always stood for enjoyment but from time to time they refresh the brand (pun intended) with a new tagline/advertising slogan. In 1929 the brand used the slogan “The Pause that Refreshes”. It was updated over the years with notable lines “It’s the Real Thing” (1971 — with the famous “I’d like to Teach the World to Sing” jingle), “Always Coca-Cola” (1973), and Open Happiness (2009). These updates keep the brand current. However, it’s important to note that this iconic brand has never strayed from its core brand promise of enjoyment. It just finds new and relevant brand expressions.

Revolutionize with a whole new brand (name, logo, website)

There are many examples of brands that have opted for a revolution vs. an evolution strategy. An interesting one is Clear Channel radio who rebranded to I Heart Media in an effort to reshape perceptions of the company for the digital age when radio’s dominance is being challenged by digital entries like Pandora and Spotify. Comcast’s rebranding of its Cable Division to Xfinity to more effectively compete in an increasingly “on demand” driven market is another example.

Elevate and existing or under-leveraged brand within your portfolio

Developing and clearing a new trademark is a big challenge (I know I’ve mentioned that already). Often a great alternative strategy is to look and see if there is a trademark you already own that can play a more important role. Often this could be a product brand, a brand name of a singular division, or even a dormant trademark acquired as part of buying another company. This is what retailer Dayton Hudson Corporation did when it renamed the company behind one of its star brands and became the Target Corporation.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job doing a “Brand Makeover”. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

I think one example of a national nonprofit that is doing really important work is Feeding America. They were originally called America’s Second Harvest- The Nation’s Food Bank Network. The rebranding is explained on their website as a way to “ invite the public to understand and commit to fighting hunger, clearly acknowledging that each of us is connected to it. Our efforts to engage the public will have faster results because the name is so direct and action-oriented, which will translate to a better use of our resources.” As part of this rebrand, my own local Food Bank of Westchester was changed to Feeding Westchester. I love this example because it TWISTS the name away from a focus on the location, towards the benefit — and wonderful service they provide. I think any company can learn from this by examining if your brand is too focused on what you sell versus the value you bring. In Feeding Westchester’s case, I think they also remove some of the stigma for people who need help. Food insecurity is a huge problem in the US and people need support more than ever. I think when a “Brand Makeover” makes it easier for people to connect with what you have to offer that’s a huge success- no matter what type of business you are in.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would love to inspire a movement to “Dream.Dare.Do”. I know so many people who have great ideas for innovative products or services and they just sit on them. Often these ideas are responses to something they wish were better or different in their own experiences — but could also help so many others. It doesn’t have to be the ultimate innovation. Often incremental improvements on the status quo can really improve people’s lives. The world needs new solutions right now — new TWISTS on old problems. I would love everyone to commit one day a week to working on something new, something they are really passionate about that solves a problem which could have a ripple effect of impact.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorites is from my mentor, Richard Branson. He frequently says “Screw it. Let’s Do it!” This reminds me not to overthink everything. If you have an idea that you are passionate about, get it out in the market. Get some reactions and revise as you learn. Don’t wait until it’s perfect and don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis.

How can our readers follow you online?

They can follow me on Twitter at @jcottin, instagram at @brand_twist or on Linkedin. We also frequently post interesting brand perspectives and TWISTS on our blog at BrandTwist.com and invitations to Covid specific branding webinars on BoostYourBrandImmunity.com

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

Thank you. It was truly a pleasure.

Julie Cottineau of BrandTwist: Brand Makeovers; 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Be agile. The last several months have shown that our daily life situations can change quickly. Adapting quickly to the environment around them and how quickly consumer sentiment and spending habits may change (need vs. want) takes on new importance in times of uncertainty and change.

As part of our series about the future of retail, I had the pleasure of interviewing Vincenza Caruso-Valente.

Vincenza is the General Manager of Sterling’s Staffing, Retail, and Franchise group at Sterling — a leading provider of background and identity services. She previously held SVP roles leading teams that supported Sterling’s largest clients in Staffing, Retail, Gig, and Tech. She also played integral roles in Sterling’s M&A growth strategy. Her teams are dedicated to consulting clients on building best-in-class programs, optimizing the candidate experience, managing scale in growth eras, reducing time-to-hire, and driving profitability. Prior to Sterling, Vincenza spent over 11 years in leadership roles in sales, business development, and finance at Dun & Bradstreet, AT&T, and EDS.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

At my core, I have always had a great passion for service and problem solving. At the age of 10, I watched my parents start their business (still successfully running today after 34 years!) out of the basement of our home. I learned so much, working alongside them. They taught me everything about the importance of work ethic, taking pride in my work and defining success not just by delivering product to their clients, but by how clients responded to what was delivered to them — did it meet and exceed their expectation? — and earning it every time. Out of college, I started my career in business and, several years later, this brought me back to my roots in retail and I have often returned to what I had learned as a kid while working alongside my parents and being in direct contact with clients on a daily basis (more to this story, later).

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

One of the most interesting things that happened to me was during a sales kickoff conference many years ago. I was a new leader at the time, trying to find my way and develop my leadership style. At this kickoff meeting, one of our days was spent doing volunteer work in the city where the conference was held. I was assigned (on the same day as the event) to lead a team of 20 people in building a wheelchair ramp for an elderly couple who could no longer use the stairs to their front door. Owning and executing this task was overwhelming and I was scared of failing and disappointing my organization and the elderly couple who were counting on me to lead the project. We had been given only four hours to complete the build, and to add insult to injury, what was forecast to be a sunny 80-degree day quickly turned into a 3+hour rain storm. I could tell that many on the team felt uncertain on how we would get it done. At my biggest moment of pressure and anxiety, I found an unwavering desire to complete the mission at hand. I strategized my approach to the situation, communicated to my team and knew that by engaging others and simply leveraging the strengths of every single person in our team — whether it be their ability to use a drill, manage a power saw, serve lunch, or be on clean up duty — each person had a part to play. Together we finished the project, even in the middle of the pouring rain. We found a way to work together. Nothing was more gratifying than being able to invite the couple out of their home at the end of the day to deliver them a fully built wheelchair ramp. Their gratitude has forever stayed with me, along with the profound power of people working together toward a shared goal. No one person is responsible for the success of something — it’s the ability of people deciding to rally together — and have each other’s backs — to get to that end goal. This one experience offered me a great leadership lesson that has stayed with me over the years.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

Right before I started my career in sales about 14 years ago, I stood in for one of my peers in another sales office for the week. I walked into the office thinking it would be a week of fun, exciting sales calls with clients and contract signatures. And while we did have some good times in the office that week, I was not prepared for some of the harder situations that occurred, which included losing a new sale that was in the forecast for the whole quarter, leading through the emotion of the loss of this deal felt by the sales rep and team, and galvanizing the team back from the loss. It was a great lesson on humility, preparation and leadership that has stayed with me ever since.

Are you working on any new exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

I am currently working on an initiative to enable continued safety in our communities by facilitating and incorporating COVID-19 health testing as part of our service offerings to our clients. It is exciting to be part of an organization whose focus on building a foundation of trust and safety continues to evolve in these ever-changing times. We are able to continuously support clients’ safe hiring practices so that they can deliver a safe experience to their customers and get their employees safely back to the workplace. It is very humbling to be a part of the team making it all happen.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

My tips are simple but important:

1. Stay connected to everyone in your network as often as you can — both personally and professionally. Take time for 1 on 1 interactions with your team and your colleagues, whether virtually or in the office. Connect with family and friends and — most importantly — take time for YOURSELF. The personal connections are critical to staying centered; time alone is equally important. I have built a habit of taking a two-mile walk by myself at the end of each day, at least three times a week, to help wind down and reflect.
2. Keep things in perspective. Remember that the uncertainty we have been experiencing at work, home, and in the world around us has taught us to be resilient and understand ourselves better. Be proud of what you have been able to work through, even if it is as simple as getting through a conference call. Determine when to tune in and tune out what is going on around you and not let it consume you — balance is key.
3. Restructure how you plan. We are living in a very fluid world right now, which requires agility. If you are used to planning out longer term, shift your planning to be more for 1–3 month game plans.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Approximately 14 years ago, a few leaders and peers invested in me and my aspiration to move out of a corporate leader role and into the sales side of our business. Over the course of 18 months, they each played a critical role in teaching, coaching, and helping me build my skillset and knowledge to make the leap. I will be forever grateful to that team of six peers and two executives who helped and challenged me along the way.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I am very proud to have worked for an organization like Sterling for the last 10 years. Our goal is to help organizations make safe and smart hiring decisions by delivering on our mission to develop a foundation of trust and safety. From driving an organization’s business objectives to hiring the best talent and enabling people to get jobs that progress their careers and support their families, the meaningful work we do — for the organizations we partner with and the people they hire — inspires me daily. It is a great reminder to me what we do every day matters. I extend that same simple message to my team and colleagues daily — what they do every day matters.

Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main question of our interview. Can you share 5 examples of how retail companies will be adjusting over the next five years to the new ways that consumers like to shop?

Yes, retailers are no strangers to change in the needs of their consumer and employees. In this environment, like in many before, retailers will need to:

1. Reset business models to meet their customer and employee expectations.
2. Modernize the experience they provide by evolving how they deliver a great product and service to their consumers. It will be important to understand how traditional and evolutionary delivery methods can co-exist successfully (brick & mortar + BOPIS + e-commerce).
3. Prioritize SAFETY in their business model, both for their consumers and for their employees. Their employees need to feel protected and know that they will be trained on tools and processes available to them to stay safe when coming to work, so they can do their jobs and be set up for success in serving customers. Customers equally want to know they will be safe by having confidence that the people who are serving them are being treated well and following safety protocol, as it will directly impact their confidence and experience as a consumer. If their employees feel confident and safe, it will be felt by their customers.
4. Be agile. The last several months have shown that our daily life situations can change quickly. Adapting quickly to the environment around them and how quickly consumer sentiment and spending habits may change (need vs. want) takes on new importance in times of uncertainty and change.
5. Assess more frequently how well their strategies are working, pausing more frequently for feedback and having contingency plans.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I have learned through these past several months of the COVID-19 pandemic how essential we are to each other — how human, yet amazing, we all are as individuals — and how much we have to be grateful for that we may have taken for granted. A great example is how essential grocery and convenience store employees are in our everyday routines. Not having the ability to pick up my cup of coffee daily — or a gallon of milk or loaf of bread — makes us all realize how critical those interactions and daily habits are to our personal and professional wellbeing. I have witnessed some amazing acts of kindness and selflessness, both in my personal life and professional life. As individuals, we are capable of having a profound impact on society in what we do daily. I do my best to live by my mantra: Leave it better than how I found it (whatever it may be).

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me here on LinkedIn!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Vincenza Caruso-Valente of Sterling: The Future of Retail Over The Next Five Years was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I found my inspiration in the female leadership movement. Something that I’ve noticed ever since I moved to America is that it’s not just a country providing countless opportunities, but also these opportunities are equal and available to women. The female empowerment movements start here and shake the world with their strive for equity and equality for all. In the last twenty years, so much positive change happened, allowing people of any gender to pursue their dreams. I am a very active member of various projects and organizations. Participation in them inspires me and increases my enthusiasm towards helping provide equal opportunities for everyone.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Anna Denysenko. Anna is the CEO and founder of Deneeze, a successful all-female owned and operated marketing and PR agency based in New-York City with its team scattered all over the world. Anna is beyond familiar with distanced management of employees, so even during the COVID-19 pandemic she keeps delivering excellent results and is eager to share some of her distant management strategy tips.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Growing up in Ukraine, I dreamt about becoming a lawyer, so my path started with enrolling into university to study law. While being a student I developed an unexpected interest in journalism and found success and international recognition in this field, yet I decided to take a chance and follow the biggest passion of mine — Public Relations. I moved to America in pursuit of new opportunities and experiences. To grow, one has to possess an ability to learn new things daily, yet starting my life over in a new country made it a bit harder to take risks and go out of my comfort zone. Seeking out new experiences, my first job in the US was working for the United Nations, after which I was invited to take the position of a managing editor of the ForumDaily, being part of their website relaunch to help other immigrants, very much like myself. To become even closer to my dream of working in PR, I moved on to working as the head of a marketing department in another company in an industry I wasn’t familiar with. This experience inspired me to branch out and allowed me to progress onto a new level of my career.

Currently, I’m an entrepreneur and an owner of my own company Deneeze, and, looking back, I realize that every single step of this journey was essential and led to what I have now. I am not planning on stopping getting closer to my dream anytime soon, yet, reflecting, my path showed me that conquering my goals one step at a time and not being afraid to open myself up to new experiences in different fields is exactly what made me who I am now.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Ever since I started my career, interesting situations would not stop happening to me. There is a quite obscure incident that I still can’t comprehend, and it even happened to me twice. Two years ago, one of my friends invited me to visit a breathtaking ballet performance. It was a fascinating event, but for the whole evening, I couldn’t help keep noticing elements I would’ve done differently from a PR/Marketing standpoint. I knew this cultural event was worthy of more attention and praise, yet not many people even knew about the existence of this show. I was genuinely interested in helping promote this event and, as you can imagine, the extent of my surprise was just colossal when, a year later, the curator of the exact ballet requested for my company to help them promote their upcoming performance. The situation occurred again with an art museum I was a fan of for many years. I’ve also been noticing some incoherent or inaccurate marketing moves and kept thinking over different scenarios of which strategies would benefit this company most. Out of nowhere, they also created a partnership with Deneeze so my visions became true again. One day I’m expressing my concerns and ideas about promotional strategies of a project to my friends and the next these projects are requesting my assistance. Never underestimate the power of our thoughts and how often they get materialized and always stay grateful for every opportunity you get.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I learnt that often what we perceive as a mistake or a failure may actually be a gift that will help you learn and become better. Looking back at my story now, I can, luckily, just laugh at it and appreciate the lessons it taught me. Years back this mistake was a very important life lesson that helped me grow tremendously. While I was still working as a journalist, I always enjoyed writing exceptionally bold and scandalous material that provokes discussion. Some of my pieces would frequently cause a stir in the news or even be re-published by other publications. Working in a daily news source requires almost immediate response to every important event, yet this element can cause many inaccuracies to arise. Once I was responsible for the coverage of a new construction project. The article I wrote became sensational and spread very quickly, causing a wave of serious conversations. Shortly after, I realized that the neighborhood that the structure was being built in was identified incorrectly. This minor misstep snowballed into a massive problem for all parties involved, putting at risk the credibility of the publication and I. This situation made checking and reviewing information a priority for me. Please listen to my advice and learn from my mistakes — never rush into anything. Before acting upon anything, evaluate the information given to you as many times as you can. This is also applicable to working relationships. Important emails, documents or any part of communication in projects wholly relies on your responsibility for quality and liability of the material. Never hurry and think before you act.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

As an increasing number of people worldwide have to adapt to working remotely due to the ongoing pandemic, I think each individual will have their method to be and feel most productive. From my experience, it is crucial to remember to sometimes distance yourself from all of the technology and emerge yourself into real-life events and enjoy the present, even though that might be a bit hard in the current circumstances. Things we usually take for granted, like taking a walk in the park, spending time with our loved ones to reconnect or having free time to enjoy hobbies are now key to happiness. I would also suggest meditation or other relaxation rituals that help focus on the present and stay grateful, clearing your mind. It is also crucial to have a schedule set in place with the establishment of distinct boundaries and work hours to avoid complications while working with people in different time zones. I advise you to spend time to identify an activity that helps you relax and enjoy yourself most.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience in managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

I started managing remote teams ever since I came to the US. I still had many connections and a job back in Ukraine so I had to communicate with my clients and employees digitally for 5 years now, figuring out the most efficient way of working from different parts of the world. All my jobs helped me constantly improve my skill of remote management. I had no choice but to come up with the most effective strategy of working remotely as the head office being in a 7-hour time difference with us. Later, while working at ForumDaily, I had to manage 40 employees from numerous countries. The website would present news from all over the world and different parts of the US and work remotely was our biggest advantage — no other form of working would result in such heavy news flow. We were releasing new information almost 24/7. Furthermore, when studying at Harvard Business School, I had to collaborate with classmates that were scattered globally, which required the entire process to be remote and digital. I got so used to this process and recognized the benefits of having specialists worldwide working towards the same goal, so I continued to work and develop even better distant management strategies. Thankfully, during the 5 years I’ve been in America, a distinct technological shift has occurred. Planning, organizing, scheduling and determining work hours and adjusting them to different time zones is very easy with the emergence of many different applications and online tools. This time of radical technological development decreased the occurrence of unpleasant surprises and difficulties to a minimum and made working with people across the globe easier, more enjoyable.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

The first challenge would be establishing communication. Sometimes, it can be very hard to find the time to devote to every employee individually and that can lead to misunderstandings.

Another challenge lies in organization. Due to time differences or just personal circumstances, every employee will have their individual preferences for a schedule. Differences in schedules are in the core of the decrease in team productivity.

One of the most important elements in the work process for me personally is face to face communication. I enjoy getting to know people and the absence of interaction with my team in real life is really one of the downsides that is very hard to deal with.

Tracking productivity can be a burden due to the distance between workers. It is easier for everyone to get used to procrastination and you can’t really supervise everyone, seeing whether they are distracted or working hard. It is especially difficult with big time differences as I have no idea what my employees are doing while I sleep.

When I created Deneeze, I immediately eliminated the challenge that was present at my other jobs. I made sure everyone was on the same page. Understanding of the task and how to use technology to complete it is crucial in the working environment. I educate every single person that joins our team on the software and programs we use as sometimes people who join the team simply may not be aware of how to use a program, yet are too shy or nervous to tell. When I worked at my first ever job, for a very long time I did not understand one platform the employer provided me with, although most other people seemed to be very comfortable with using it. I was too nervous to ask for an explanation, so I tried using other resources to do the same task which resulted in them being completed much slower. Only when the team noticed my pace being different from everyone else, I got taught how to use the correct software. After that situation, I always ask for clarification and put the worker’s understanding as the top priority.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Communicate as much as you can. Regardless of external factors, it is very important to find people who are willing to take on the challenges that come with this type of working environment. To prevent any mishaps and have a positive experience, install communication within the team through technology. Even though this method of getting to know one another is drastically different from the office environment, it is nonetheless effective. One of the greatest tips is also finding people you will have no problems communicating with, regardless of tools used. You have to genuinely believe in the capabilities of each individual and they have to be interested in the work and opportunities you provide them. Creating a habit of frequent communication, even though you’re not working in the same office physically, is key. People have to know that they can reach out to each other or to you to ask for help or advice. Also, use the right tools that allow for easy and accessible contact, such as videoconferencing and online chats. Putting all those means of communication into your schedule is the way to tackle this issue.

Good organization is an essential element of a good working pace. Systems like Google provide so many functions, amongst which are online scheduling, video meetings and chats. Zoom is also a current phenomenon and is extremely useful for effortless group communication. Amongst others, the programs I recommend for project management are trelo, gia and asana. Remember to make sure that everyone on the team is familiar with the programs used in your company.

Encourage collaboration to create opportunities for face to face meeting through various opportunities remotely. Some of the employees live closely so make sure to organize meetings for them, even though you may not be present. Also, if the client can talk over the project with one of your employees in real life, plan that for them. This will only benefit the company and will improve the team spirit. Organize outside of work activities(could be online as well), making the maximum out of employees who are able to travel and, therefore, meet each other. Team building is very important for the spirit of the company, even if in-person meetings occur once a year, they are still so worth it. Keep up the working pace through the team creating personal experiences, exchanging them and developing new ones together when possible.

For tracking productivity, you have to be familiar with the technology available and educate your team on them. Being on the same page and understanding the way each tool works and what kind of benefits it provides to everyone is essential and will help tremendously. The schedule of each employee should be able to adapt to circumstances and be flexible for collaboration with others. It needs to mould and change according to what suits other individuals in the team as well to make collaboration possible, setting the tone of mutual respect in communication to increase team productivity.

In order to make sure every individual in the team is up to speed with the current technologies, goals and plans, talk to them and explain everything, ask questions to prevent misunderstandings. Preferably, organize a video chat as it will make the contact even more personal. Make sure to cover all things that the person joining the team will need to know in order to perform to the best of their abilities and, in the meanwhile, get to know them a bit more to make them comfortable and decrease the nervousness that comes with entering a new team. Every team member understanding their tasks and how to achieve them and also being comfortable with the group they are is a promising combination that will take your company far.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

It’s true, you’re completely right.

Within any basic human interaction, there will always be an emotional and reactive impact. I can’t say that I have found the perfect approach to giving constructive feedback, but in my understanding, you should focus on the positive in any given situation and minimize the negative aspects. It is essential to highlight people’s strengths first so they learn to trust and respect constructive feedback. Facilitating two-way communication develops a deeper understanding of the issues at stake. Failure of the employee to fully understand what is required in the workplace will hinder self-improvement and reduce motivation. Through experienced and sensitive feedback your employee will be encouraged to develop and improve their skills. The length of time you have known this employee for and your relationship with them will determine whether constructive feedback is best delivered via video call or through personal communication. This will ensure the most successful outcome when seeking to explain how a situation can be improved or avoided in the future.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Coming from a post-Soviet Union country, I can say that people from where I’m from are often very straightforward. Understanding this information was crucial as it led me to find ways to deliver constructive criticism in a way which wouldn’t be perceived as rude or too harsh. For example, this situation can be compared to candy in the sense that you must acknowledge its external wrapping as well as its internal appeal. When communicating with employees via email or otherwise, it is important to demonstrate an interest in their concerns in the workplace and beyond. By actively seeking to understand their issues, a manager is better able to assess how to deal with an individual’s situation and provide appropriate support. At my company Deneeze, we have clients who are served by our remote workers on a global scale. As our remote workers continue to increase in number, we must continuously demonstrate our high level of management skills. Learning from the challenges our employees face, we can evaluate and adapt existing strategies to address similar issues in the future.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

Actually, after three or four months of the world-wide pandemic, examples like that are almost eliminated. As the majority of people had to adapt to the remote working regime, they have worked a habit out of this and found the ways of working that suit them best. For example, organizing your own working space inside your own house, managing all the inside distractions, setting boundaries for your schedule, and finding the right ways of channelling the communication to anyone in any part of the world regardless of the circumstances are all ways employees at my company have found ease during these trying times.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

At Deneeze, our employees work towards a common goal together while being thousands of miles away from each other, so we take empowerment of our team very seriously. Encourage an environment of open communication and feedback. Also, set the right expectations and communication methods. Always talk to your employees and reflect in every conversation to make sure there are no misunderstandings.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I found my inspiration in the female leadership movement. Something that I’ve noticed ever since I moved to America is that it’s not just a country providing countless opportunities, but also these opportunities are equal and available to women. The female empowerment movements start here and shake the world with their strive for equity and equality for all. In the last twenty years, so much positive change happened, allowing people of any gender to pursue their dreams. I am a very active member of various projects and organizations. Participation in them inspires me and increases my enthusiasm towards helping provide equal opportunities for everyone.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” is a Chinese proverb that I apply to many aspects of my life. In every project I work on, despite how strenuous it may be, I believe that if I can allocate a significant amount of my time and energy towards it, I will be able to complete the task at hand successfully.

Anna Denysenko of Deneeze: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brenda Darden Wilkerson of AnitaB.org: “In order to have women-led teams thrive, it is important to ensure that as their leader you are supporting and promoting them in a meaningful way”

In order to have women-led teams thrive, it is important to ensure that as their leader you are supporting and promoting them in a meaningful way. And sometimes, this means knowing when and what to tell them to get the work done. Providing the information your team needs doesn’t necessarily mean telling them absolutely everything. Being selective in this way not only streamlines how the job gets done, but also helps define your leadership position among your peers.

As a part of my series about “Lessons from Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brenda Darden Wilkerson.

Brenda is the President and CEO of AnitaB.org, a global nonprofit founded with the mission to empower women in technology. Brenda is an advocate for access, opportunity, and social justice for underrepresented communities in technology. She currently serves as the President and CEO of AnitaB.org, an organization that connects, inspires, and strives for greater equality for women technologists in business, academia, and government. She founded the original Computer Science for All program, building computer science classes into the curriculum for every student in the Chicago Public Schools, and serving as the inspiration for the Obama administration’s national CS4All initiatives.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Thank you for having me.

I come from a family that champions the value of education which originally led me to pursue a career in medicine. With my desire to help and serve others, to decrease suffering and increase the impact of other people, I initially started as a pre-med biomedical engineering major at Northwestern where I was required to take two programming classes. This first-time exposure led me to programming and computer science, and helped me discover my new passion for tech. While my career path shifted, my goal to help others remains true today.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Early in my career, I secured a teaching position at a community college where I signed up to teach an eight-hour class in Lotus 123. I led these classes for weeks, and tried to engage my often quiet class through the lesson plans. It wasn’t until the last class where I asked if they had any final questions and a student raised her hand and asked, “How do you turn this on?” referring to the computer!

This was beyond humbling and terrifying as it showed me how poorly I had read the room, how much I had assumed about my students’ prior knowledge, and how I took my own learning for granted. It’s funny in hindsight, but that was a pivotal moment in my career as an adjunct professor, and in all roles since that taught me how to know the needs of the people I’m trying to reach. Half the job is knowing what to teach; the other half is knowing who you are reaching.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

It’s uniquely impactful to help women in tech understand how needed their work is, and how powerful they are. It sounds insignificant, but if you don’t know who you are, you won’t act with the power you have. You could speak with a woman who makes software that impacts 35 countries, but because she has been isolated from other people like herself, she feels like an impostor. AnitaB.org is able to put women technologists in proximity to each other while realizing the power of that network. That revelation extends beyond the individual; it follows her in every action she makes afterward.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

With our annual Grace Hopper Celebration going 100% virtual, we have the ability to reach women we haven’t reached before. Historically, GHC engaged 60–70 countries. This year, we already have participants from 90+ countries registered, and counting. One of the reason’s we’re thrilled about vGHC is because it causes us to rethink how we reach out to our audience.

We’re also focusing on Membership, which addresses a historic and current need in the community to provide women with access to one another at the click of a mouse.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

No — absolutely not, and I don’t know if I ever will be. Here’s why: We have so much work to do in terms of changing what’s ‘normal’. People in STEM impact the lives of so many, so securing equal representation at every tech team’s table is critical for elevating creativity and accuracy for finding solutions.

One of the ways we can do this is by changing how we count; White men represent 31% of the population, yet 71% hold business leadership roles. Why don’t we raise our eyebrows at that? We must look at these numbers with a surgical eye.

We also must change what we measure; How does your company measure diversity? I don’t just mean ethnicity, race, and gender, but also difference of opinion, age, educational background, and more.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

In performance reviews, we see ambitious women are labeled “bossy” while ambitious men are seen as gearing up for success. In my second job in software, I was the only female analyst, and we would call the common area the “locker room” because it was full of men; I was an exception. Showing up is always challenging if you are in the minority, and most women in tech face that tokenism every day. This can only change when company numbers change — when companies hire from and successfully manage diverse groups.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?

There’s a myth that all women technologists are this antisocial stereotype. There’s also the idea that every woman technologist needs to be a unicorn in order to be successful. This simply isn’t true. Every person is uniquely able to integrate their experiences into their work, and this should be seen as a positive.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

My experiences as being one of the few Black women in tech at my previous companies have taught me:

• Be prepared, but not totally dissuaded by fact that the first thing people see are your differences from the norm.
• Until we reach pay parity, we can’t model ourselves based on the current way of working. Be prepared to pioneer.
• Learn to delegate. My generation was raised to ‘do it yourself’. But while women tend to carry more than they should, men immediately delegate. For your sake, and that of your project, delegate.
• Find your mentors. To be frank, you need a male mentor to interpret the craziness of the male-dominated industry, and a female mentor as someone to learn how to navigate as well.
• Be prepared to give your all every single day, and forgive yourself when you miss the mark you set for yourself. Grit includes self-forgiveness and is essential for growth.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

In order to have women-led teams thrive, it is important to ensure that as their leader you are supporting and promoting them in a meaningful way. And sometimes, this means knowing when and what to tell them to get the work done. Providing the information your team needs doesn’t necessarily mean telling them absolutely everything. Being selective in this way not only streamlines how the job gets done, but also helps define your leadership position among your peers.

What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

It’s important that the norms and values of your teams reflect that of your organization at large. If the norm is to treat one another with respect, that expectation drives how the organization and respective teams communicate and perform.

Delegation is another critical component of managing a large team, however this does not mean delegate and silo team members to perform certain tasks. Spread the wealth of tasks that align with their strong suits, and challenge them to move their career further.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Cynthia Clontz was the dean at the community college where I eventually became the director of IT training. She was the reason I was able to transition from tech to education, and she taught me about what it meant to be a leader and woman leader.

Looking back, the norm for women was to wear suits and never speak about our kids at work. She was an incredible exception to that norm. One day, my husband and I were at a church, and I was pregnant at the time. And she began to ask me, what are you going to do when you have the baby? Finally, she asked if I would join her college to teach as adjunct faculty. She phrased it as, “Can you help me?”

She taught me how to see talent in people where others might not and showed me it was okay to care about people while being successful. I hire people based on that mentality today. She’s a woman leader ahead of her time and we’re still good friends.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I am proud to have founded Computer Science for All. Since I lacked access to computer science in high school despite being a heavily involved STEM student, my goal was to ensure that people from all walks of life had the access and visibility to the computer science field.

I believe the opportunity to help others choose what they want to do/providing them with another career choice is critical to driving innovation and creativity forward.

Through our efforts, we were successful in helping turn computer science into a core class in the curriculum, and I am very proud that this year, 97% of Chicago public school students graduated with at least one class in computer science.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Let’s change how we see our potential. You only go as far as where you can see. Forget your limitations and push for more.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Bobby Kennedy once said, “Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” I reimagined it to address all genders, and his quote allows me to truly believe that one does not need to confine to preconceived notions of worth or potential in order to succeed.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Women who have saved lives. Right now, with COVID-19, I would love to have breakfast with Jacinda Ardern and Angela Merkel. And, of course, Michelle Obama.

Brenda Darden Wilkerson of AnitaB: “In order to have women-led teams thrive, it is important to was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Heroes Of The Homeless Crisis: How Commissioner Kenneth G. Hodder & The Salvation Army Have Been Helping To House 10 Million People Every Year

The Salvation Army houses nearly 10 million people every year who would otherwise be sleeping in their cars or under an overpass. One of our programs, Pathway of Hope, works to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. It often starts on the streets — our teams let those in need know we’re here for them. In several cities across the West, our teams use vans to distribute food and supplies to those experiencing homelessness, and invite them to receive long-term help.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Commissioner Kenneth G. Hodder. He is the National Commander of The Salvation Army, the largest social services organization in the country, with 7,600 centers of operation that serve 23 million people each year. Before becoming the National Commander in July, Hodder served as the Territorial Commander of the Western Territory in the United States, where he worked diligently to address the growing homelessness crisis.

Thank you so much for joining us Kenneth! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your personal background? How did you grow up?

I’m a sixth-generation member of The Salvation Army, or a Salvationist. My parents were both Salvation Army officers when I was growing up, meaning, we moved a lot, and I was automatically involved in the ministry. My parents were always deliberate about making their work a fun, fulfilling experience for the family, and their encouragement helped me understand what it meant to serve the Lord at a young age. We had a deep familial bond.

I didn’t originally intend to become a Salvation Army officer — I thought my work would be done as a soldier, or lay member, of the Army. After a few years of practicing law, though, I discovered that God had other plans for me: He called me, I responded, and I’m awfully glad I did.

Is there a particular story or incident that inspired you to get involved in your work helping people who are homeless?

I practiced law in Los Angeles, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed. It was intellectually challenging and financially rewarding — I was living the dream. One day, I was called into the office of a senior partner, who presented me with a generous bonus check. I gratefully accepted, of course, but as I returned to my office, I realized the stack of papers sitting on my desk was a representation of my contribution to the world. I stared at the papers for a moment before looking down at my check. I knew then that all the money in the world wouldn’t give my life greater meaning, and I felt a definite calling to become a Salvation Army officer. That was a moment I will never forget.

When I was an attorney, I told my father I would buy him a Cadillac, so when I told him I decided to be an officer, he responded by saying, “So, I guess that means I won’t get my Cadillac.” He laughed, but was thrilled by the announcement. (And I ended up buying him a golf club made by Cadillac years later, so I suppose I’ve fulfilled my promise.)

Homelessness has been a problem for a long time in the United States. But it seems that it has gotten a lot worse over the past five years, particularly in large cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco. Can you explain to our readers what brought us to this place? Where did this crisis come from?

Homelessness has been a crisis for all of recorded history, and The Salvation Army has been combating homelessness since its inception over 155 years ago. The causes have always been many and varied, ranging from family breakdown and addiction to poverty and social limitations. After my wife and I returned from Kenya and the United Kingdom (we were overseas for 11 years, starting in 2002), we were in disbelief after realizing how much worse the problem had become during our absence. As Salvation Army leaders, we’re determined to get individuals and families off the street. There’s no short answer for “how we got here,” but my job is to get people out of homelessness.

For the benefit of our readers, can you describe the typical progression of how one starts as a healthy young person — with a place to live, a job, an education, a family support system, a social support system, a community support system — to an individual who is sleeping on the ground at night? How does that progression occur?

Homelessness can occur in several situations, but that’s only one subset of the problem. In my experience, people experience homelessness because of factors such as substance abuse, job loss, relationship troubles, death of a spouse, and mental illness, to name a few. The fact is, though, most people don’t begin from a position of strength — most have a far more fragile set of circumstances, which typically means their options and resources are quite limited.

A question that many people who aren’t familiar with the intricacies of this problem ask is, “Why don’t homeless people just move to a city that has cheaper housing?” How do you answer this question?

People relocate when there’s an economic opportunity to do so, and the people we serve typically struggle to make ends meet, often living paycheck to paycheck. The people we serve, who are suffering from homelessness, have lost their jobs or struggle with substance-abuse issues, so they need to live where jobs are most available. The majority of the time, however, they aren’t able to take advantage of employment opportunities.

If someone passes a homeless person on the street, what’s the best way to help them?

In my opinion, it’s always best to refer them to The Salvation Army, or another direct service organization that can help that person address their long-term needs. I always keep a small number of business cards in my pocket with information on how someone can get help if they need it.

Can you describe to our readers how your work is making an impact battling this crisis?

The Salvation Army houses nearly 10 million people every year who would otherwise be sleeping in their cars or under an overpass. One of our programs, Pathway of Hope, works to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. It often starts on the streets — our teams let those in need know we’re here for them. In several cities across the West, our teams use vans to distribute food and supplies to those experiencing homelessness, and invite them to receive long-term help.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the homeless crisis, and the homeless community? Also, how has it affected your ability to help people?

There has been a dramatic increase in the opportunities we’ve received to address homelessness in the past four to five months. We’ve collaborated with hotels, governments at every level, and corporations amid COVID-19. That’s a positive thing! It has allowed us to help thousands more people in a compressed time frame. However, questions remain. What will things look like six months from now if our economic circumstances continue to deteriorate? The initial response from the public has been outstanding, though — people are suddenly more aware of how the well-being of those living on the street contributes to the overall well-being of society.

While there’s still a lot that’s unknown, one thing is for certain: The Salvation Army will continue doing everything possible to help those in need with the resources available to us.

Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?

When I first accepted God’s call to be an officer, I wondered whether my training as an attorney would be helpful. Salvation Army officers are ordained ministers and responsible for organizational and social service programs in their assigned areas, but they typically don’t have legal responsibilities. Soon after becoming an officer, though, I was appointed to a small facility in California, where a young lady would often visit for food assistance. She suffered from drug addiction, and at one point, she was charged with several minor drug offenses. I’ll never forget the day I went to speak on her behalf in court. I stood there, in my Salvation Army officer’s uniform, and it was at that moment that my professional life and my calling came together.

I know that this is not easy work. What keeps you going?

Over the years, I’ve received notes from people telling me about something I said or did, which I’d forgotten about, but which made a deep impression on them. I keep those notes in my desk drawer, and in challenging or difficult times, I pull them out and think back to the precious opportunities that I’ve been given to impact the lives of others. Those notes — along with God’s Word — that’s what keeps me going.

Can you share three things that the community and society can do to help you address the root of this crisis? Can you give some examples?

Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

As communities, and as individuals, we should seek to be wise, striving for knowledge and discernment; to be kind, demonstrating gentleness, understanding, tolerance, compassion, and grace for each other; and to be helpful, continually lifting others up.

Every morning, in my personal devotions, I ask for guidance to be wise, kind, and helpful. If we all committed to doing those three things, the world would be a very different place.

Do you have hope that one day this great social challenge can be solved completely?

I certainly have hope, but in the meantime, my job is to do what I can in my little corner of the field. I take great joy in seeing individuals and families who have not only escaped homelessness but have come to understand that God loves them.

What are your “five things I wish someone told me when I first started,” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

I can’t say that there are a lot of things I wish someone had told me, but there are a few things wise people told me that I wish I’d listened to more closely.

For example: “It’s not about you.” When you’re young, it’s easy to think everything is about you and the contribution you’ll make to the world. In the end, it’s not about you — it’s about lifting others up.

Another example is, “We’re all the same.” When I was younger and immature, I was more willing to draw dividing lines between situations and individuals. As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve come to understand that people face a lot of the same issues — the need for acceptance, fulfillment, and finding a place in the world. These are basic human needs, and they should unite us.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I don’t have to inspire one, because I’m already a part of one. Christianity is a movement about unconditional love, grace, and acceptance that could wipe away anger, resentment, bitterness, addiction, unkindness, and discrimination. If people recognized that there was a God who cared, that they had a place in His creation and were loved, that they were worthy of respect and attention — it would change everything.

Can you please give us your favorite “life-lesson quote”? Can you share how it was relevant to you in your life?

I still use an old-school Day-Timer, and at the beginning of every month, I write out my personal mission statement:

“I will serve my God, to whom I owe everything; my family, whom I love limitlessly; and the Army, to which I am called.”

That little sentence keeps me focused on the things that matter.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

Unfortunately, all the tagging in the world won’t help arrange my dream lunch. The two people I’d be honored to have that experience with would be President Abraham Lincoln and Sir Winston Churchill.

I’ve always respected Abraham Lincoln’s ability to grow as a leader, and I admire his willingness to change. I strive to be like that every day.

Lunch with Winston Churchill would also be memorable — there’s no one with more quotable statements than him. I could share Winston Churchill’s quotes with you all day long!

How can our readers follow you online?

You can always visit The Salvation Army’s website or social media pages on Twitter (@SalvationArmyUS) and Facebook (@SalvationArmyUSA).

You can also follow me on Twitter: @NatlCommander.

This was very meaningful. Thank you so much!

If there’s one message that I want to get across today, it’s that people who read this piece should ask themselves what they’re being called to do. Whatever it is, do it, because nothing else will ever be enough. You don’t have to worry about your passions, and you don’t need to figure out what you’d like to do — God already knows all of that. He’s just waiting for each of us to say that we’re ready to do what He asks, and He’ll take it from there.

Heroes Of The Homeless Crisis: How Commissioner Kenneth G Hodder & The Salvation Army Have Been Hel was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I had my midlife crisis at 25, I read a lot while traveling. I was searching for how I was going to live my life. One day when we were about eight months into our trip, I was lying on a beach in Bali when I read a quote that would change my life. In The Drifters, James Michener wrote, “Southern Florida is filled with people sixty-eight years old who were going to do something big in their lives but waited until it was safe. Now it’s safe and they’re sixty-eight years old.” I immediately knew I had to take a risk and try to do something big. I often read that so many people on their deathbed regret not taking a risk for something they were passionate about. I have tried to live life taking those big risks.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Larry English.

Larry English is president and cofounder of Centric Consulting, a management consulting firm that guides you in the search for answers to complex digital, business, and technology problems. Before Centric Consulting, Larry worked for a large international consulting firm out of college until he got burned out at 25. He and his newlywed wife backpacked around the world as he tried to find his path in life — and he did. Shortly after returning home, he and his like-minded pals founded Centric with a focus on changing how consulting was done by building a remote company with a mission to create a culture of employee and client happiness. Today, Centric is a 1,000-plus person company located in 13 US cities and India.

In his new book, Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams, Larry unpacks everything he’s discovered about creating and sustaining a culture of collaborative teams in a virtual environment. To learn more about Larry and how to become an office optional company, visit LarryEnglish.net or connect with him on Twitter.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I had a midlife crisis at 25. I was disillusioned with the companies that I had worked with that were all about money and didn’t care about their employees’ happiness. After backpacking around the world with my wife, I realized that I wanted to start a company that valued employee happiness and balance. Part of that solution was creating a remote company that would make it easier for employees to find balance between work and what they were passionate about. We started Centric 20 years ago with this remote foundation and have grown to 1,000 people in the US and India.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

About 12 years ago, I joined a peer group organization called YPO. One of the best parts about this organization is you get to be part of a group of 10 peers where confidentially is guaranteed and trust ensured so you can openly share and grow. This group of peers lovingly point out your blind spots.

The biggest blind spot they shared with me was that I was terrible at vulnerability. In my entire career, no one had shared this insight with me. It was transformational. I learned to show I had the same doubts and fears as my team. When I started sharing my vulnerability, my employees immediately felt much more connected to me as a leader.

For remote companies, vulnerability is key: it is the shortcut to trust. Teaching employees and leaders to show vulnerability and not making it all about business helps build virtual relationships faster.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In Office Optional I share many funny and embarrassing stories from what we’ve learned about how to work remotely. It was unheard of 20 years ago to be a remote company. One day after we decided to start a remote company, I was presenting a final deliverable to our first client on a conference call to stakeholders spread out across the country. I was at home in my office, on speaker to keep my hands free. I was excited, and the presentation was going well.

My office had the kind of French doors where the handles don’t turn — you simply push to open them. My young son, still in potty-training mode, burst through the doors and came running into my office. I had no time to react before he loudly proclaimed, “Daddy, I’ve gotta poop, and you are going to wipe me!” Just like the movies, it felt like slow motion as I lunged for the mute button — but I was much too late.

But to be serious for a minute — the biggest mistake I have made running a remote company is skimping on software collaboration tools for too long. The right software will make you more efficient and lead to happier employees as your organization seamlessly collaborates from anywhere in the world. Software can even improve your culture. Here are a few examples:

• Training employees on your culture. They can see the history of how you interact and treat each other.
• Creating virtual affinity groups that share a common interest to improve employees’ sense of belonging, such as veterans or runners.
• Breaking down silos. Employees are more effective when they know what’s going on across the company.
• Increasing trust and making you a more transparent organization.
• Building an intergenerational workforce. The right tool increases engagement because employees can interact in ways they are comfortable with.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

We learned that when someone new joins us that has not worked remotely before, they work way too much. The boundaries between your personal and work lives disappear. The laptop is always right there in front of you, and your mobile phone is always on. Your ability to jump between work and personal tasks is suddenly a lot easier, but if you switch back and forth all day long, it quickly adds up. Before you know it, late-night work sessions can become the norm — hardly ideal.

We’ve found the best approach is to encourage healthy boundaries around work. Based on your life schedule, determine the time periods during business hours that are strictly for work and when you’ll be taking breaks. Develop the discipline to respect those times so you can achieve a healthy balance. And share your approach with your family, so they know when to leave you alone so you can stay focused on work. Being virtual isn’t about working more. It’s about better work-life balance, which leads to happier, more productive employees who in turn create a great culture.

Also, make it okay for remote employees to take advantage of being remote. Most feel guilty initially and want to hide that they are doing something personal during traditional work hours. We embrace it. Go to that yoga class in the middle of the day or take your kid to the park and call me on the way. Help employees learn to design their day around taking breaks that energize them. They will be much more productive this way.

Finally, help employees learn to stay connected. Working from home can be lonely. Depending on your job requirements, you may have periods where you don’t interact with coworkers for a large part of the day. To combat this, encourage employees to schedule regular time to catch up with coworkers.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

We’ve been operating as a largely virtual company, managing remote teams, for over 20 years now. When we started the company, we always envisioned this would become the future of work.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

When managing a remote team, the key to success is changing your leadership approach. Here’s how:

Increase the frequency and approach of check-ins — An old leadership saying, “You can’t coach from the press box,” speaks to the need to get out of your office if you want to keep a pulse on what’s going on. You can’t walk the halls in a virtual company, so you need to learn the virtual equivalent. Virtual employees can quickly feel disconnected from the company without regular interactions. Lacking the visual cues of the office environment, a problem can fester before you ever hear about it. You want to catch any feelings of disconnection before employees start looking for a new job — this can only be done if you’re regularly reaching out to your direct reports and “checking their temperature.” And business-related conference calls won’t cut it. You need to allocate one-on-one time (in person or virtual) to check in with individual employees to connect on a personal level and give them opportunities to share any worries. By building in this one-on-one time — which, by the way, shouldn’t feel like a sacrifice, given that in-office employees spend about 8 percent of their time socializing — employees will feel more comfortable bringing up issues when they arise. Without an established, trusted relationship, they’ll feel awkward starting those difficult conversations and might even leave before you realize there’s a problem.

Establish two-way feedback mechanisms — Great remote culture can’t exist without feedback to employees on their development and feedback from employees on how they are feeling about the company. Because you don’t see each other in the office, you will want to establish formalized mechanisms to make sure feedback is occurring.

We’ve developed an elaborate individual feedback, coaching and development process. Employees tailor the frequency and type of career growth feedback that is most beneficial to them. When you are a remote employee, engagement is critical. One way to ensure high engagement is by providing regular feedback. Feedback is a win-win. Employees get help climbing the career ladder, and you get more skilled, more engaged workers who are more likely to stick around.

Businesses need to keep their pulse on employee sentiment about the company. When you are remote, it is easier to lose touch with how your employee base is feeling. And employees can feel unheard. For virtual companies, regular feedback is even more critical. With limited in-person interactions, you must take extra, deliberate steps to get feedback and understand how employees are feeling. Determine how often you want feedback and how you’re going to get it. Centric uses a mixture of anonymous companywide surveys, exit interviews, external feedback via sites like Glassdoor, and touchpoints with individual employees.

Model vulnerability as a leader — We teach our leaders to model vulnerability so that our employees feel comfortable doing it themselves. Vulnerability is the shortcut to trust. When your leaders exhibit vulnerability, they are going to build relationships faster and be trusted sooner.

Train leaders to be experts at building relationships virtually — In addition to vulnerability, leaders need to be experts at building strong relationships when we can’t meet face-to-face. All employees in a virtual company need these skills, but as a leader, you must be able to:

• Bring Your Whole Self to Work. Share your personality, showcase who you are as a person, share your interests, and encourage others to do the same.
• Take Time to Nurture Personal Relationships. Encourage leaders to have a genuine interest in getting to know their teammates, to be curious, and to learn what matters to them.
• Know How to Resolve Conflict Virtually. Conflict is always hard to resolve, even when you can see a person’s visual cues. It’s even harder virtually. We use a training course based on the book Crucial Conversations to help leaders become conflict resolution experts.

Hire leaders who help embody and infuse your culture. — As we’ve grown to 1,000 employees, we worried about how to scale our culture and make sure employees felt connected when everyone was remote. It turns out it is possible, and the secret is in your leaders. To have a great remote company, you need to hire leaders who embody your remote culture and infuse it into the area of the business they oversee. If you do this, you can scale your company to thousands of employees and maintain the same culture you had when you were just a handful of people. We have created a leadership development and mentor program to ensure that our leaders know how to lead remote teams with our value system.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you, much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

The first part of the answer is to encourage your leaders to build strong personal relationships with their team, so that feedback is easier to give and receive. The second part is the technique of how you give feedback. As I mentioned, we provide a training course to our employees on the techniques used in the book Crucial Conversations. It provides tools on how to approach conversations as an opportunity for an honest, human-to-human interaction that ultimately builds a deeper relationship.

Finally, we recommend that any feedback be done by phone, by video, or in person. We really do not want leaders to give feedback via chat or email. There is just a much greater risk of misinterpretation and frustration on the part of the employee.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I see this mistake all the time with new remote leaders. I do not recommend that you give feedback over email. There is a huge temptation because it is hard to give feedback and new leaders hide behind email. I’ve seen this backfire so many times. It will often create a bigger issue than the original feedback itself. It’s important to take the extra time to pick up the phone. You will develop and maintain a better relationship with your employee.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

We had this question a lot when the pandemic first started. We found many companies were surprised at how quickly and effectively they adapted to working remotely. We aren’t getting this question anymore. Instead, companies are now asking, “What do we need to do to permanently adopt remote work?” If you want to become a permanent, high-capability remote organization, you must develop an integrated approach across your people, operations and technology. Train your people to be great virtual workers, change your operations to accommodate remote work, and invest in software tools that increase remote collaboration effectiveness.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

The biggest suggestion is learning to build and grow relationships virtually. We think our culture is actually stronger by being remote, because we have learned how to build deep, trusting relationships with our virtual co-workers. I’ve already touched on some of these skills like modeling vulnerability, bringing your whole self to work, taking time to nurture personal relationships, and learning to resolve conflict virtually.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Well, you might ask my kids about my powers of influence! Seriously though, remote is the future of work, and it represents a potential solution to creating jobs for many disadvantaged people. We have a massive digital divide in the U.S. Using the digital economy to train and then employ millions of disadvantaged people is possible with the right approach and leadership. That is also why I’m donating the proceeds of this book to helping solve this issue.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

When I had my midlife crisis at 25, I read a lot while traveling. I was searching for how I was going to live my life. One day when we were about eight months into our trip, I was lying on a beach in Bali when I read a quote that would change my life. In The Drifters, James Michener wrote, “Southern Florida is filled with people sixty-eight years old who were going to do something big in their lives but waited until it was safe. Now it’s safe and they’re sixty-eight years old.” I immediately knew I had to take a risk and try to do something big. I often read that so many people on their deathbed regret not taking a risk for something they were passionate about. I have tried to live life taking those big risks.

Thank you for these great insights!

Larry English of Centric Consulting: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Make sure your product is great, and the more differentiated, the better. Try to do things your competitors are not doing that provide value to whatever niche you’re going after.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Adam Robinson.

Adam was born in Houston, Texas and graduated from Rice University in 2003 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.

In 2014, he launched Robly Email Marketing after working on Wall Street for ten years. The business grew to $5 million in revenue in the first two years and by 2017 was awarded #1 in Customer Satisfaction across the entire email marketing space. After proving Robly’s viability, Adam worked to scale the business. After testing and scrapping a few ideas, he and his team launched GetEmails in 2019.

In GetEmails first six months it’s grown to $2.5 million Annual Recurring Revenue.

Adam is now based in Austin, Texas where he lives with his girlfriend Helen and their chiweenie, Bonnie Rosa.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I graduated from Rice University in 2003, then took a job in Manhattan trading real estate credit default swaps at the now-defunct Lehman Brothers. My first roommates were starting a company called Vimeo in the apartment I was living in. It planted the entrepreneurial seed, and I always wanted to do what they were doing. Starting a tech company seemed like a dream life.

After 2008 and the Lehman debacle, I lost everything, and decided that rather than try to go back into finance, I should try to get into tech.

Many years later, after trying and failing many times, I finally got something to work — Robly Email Marketing. That was my first startup. It’s a nice bootstrapped business, and it’s still running today by a group led by Sebastian Reingold. We have 5000 happy customers and have won #1 in customer satisfaction by G2 Crowd.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led you to think of the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

The “a-ha” moment for my current company (GetEmails) came about when I was trying to grow my first company (Robly).

We came up with this identity resolution feature that we thought was going to be very well received by people in the email marketing world. We could identify anonymous visitors on your website, and sell you their email address, first and last name, and postal record. And these are email addresses the businesses didn’t already have. Everybody wants to grow their email list, and we discovered the cheapest way to do it with targeted and engaged contacts.

We built the feature inside of Robly, called it RoblyID, and eight weeks later we noticed that new customers were signing up for RoblyID and not using any other part of the application. Not only that, we were doing customer interviews and people were saying that it was a 10/10 product and they hadn’t seen anything this good on the internet in the last ten years.

The original plan was to get people to switch to Robly Email Marketing because we had a unique feature. It turns out that people were just using RoblyID, downloading the file, and uploading it into their Email Marketing application.

It clearly wasn’t a great product if we made people use Robly to get value from it. We thought it would be a great product if we made it a stand-alone, and connected it to everything through one-click integrations.

So we built the stand alone product in eight weeks, launched it on Nov 4, and by Dec 1 we had spent 5k on ads and had 10k in Monthly Recurring Revenue from them. We knew we were on to something.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

We were building an email marketing application because we had found a bunch of email marketing customer information all over the internet (before the days of Builtwith and Datanyze). We had built everything except for the drag-and-drop editor. Then we hired a guy to build that, which he said would take three months.

At the end of three months it worked great … but when we went to send a test email to ourselves, it looked like absolute garbage. It turns out the guy had built an editor to make websites, not emails. We were about to launch, but we had to push the launch back another three months.

This was devastating for us. We had three non-devs sitting around (also a huge mistake) waiting for launch, and now we had to wait another 90 days before even the possibility of revenue existed.

We didn’t have a choice but to just put our heads down and wait. It was miserable.

So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Things are great now. Robly is a growing, seven-figure profit business that is managed entirely by a different team.

GetEmails, which we started in November, has been growing like crazy and just passed Robly’s revenue seven months in, with a huge upside. I’m having a blast and love the stuff we are working on.

There have been many failures along the way, none as stressful and severe as running out of money on that first business. But I have just kept trying because I love the game and I love starting things that end up working. Failure is a part of it.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I used to be a real estate CDS trader at Lehman Brothers (think “The Big Short”), and quit after the 2008 crisis to start a tech company. I tried a bunch of stuff that didn’t work and made a bunch of investments that went to zero, but somehow one of the things I started — Robly Email Marketing — actually worked.

We couldn’t afford an office, so I was bootstrapping a business out of my apartment. We were growing with outbound sales — basically a boiler room call center. Room by room, this slowly took over my entire space. At one point, we had 39 people coming to my apartment making dials.

I had two bathrooms, but everybody took breaks at the same time and they were almost all men. The bathroom line was a massive problem at break time.

In order to solve the problem, I was going to put a urinal in my laundry room. But when I had a plumber over he told me, verbatim, “the only difference between a urinal and that sink is $3000”. So, we put up a stool to stand on, a little soccer ball urinal toy to aim at, some hand sanitizer, and a lock on the door — and now there was a third bathroom.

But as we transitioned from a 100% outbound to 100% inbound operation and I had to let all of the sales guys go, my Glassdoor reviews were horrible… “Adam even made us pee in the sink”. What did I learn? I’m never going to start an f-ing business out of the apartment again.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

GetEmails uses video to establish a personal connection at scale in a way that no other startups are doing. We do weekly video ads like this and this which we promote on Facebook and Google. They’re short and funny and show the same two faces week after week — me and my girlfriend Helen, who’s also our head of PR. Our view is that we aren’t competing with software companies on these platforms, we’re competing with the rest of their news feed.

Six months in we have a following of people that leave hundreds of comments on our videos, and now we’ve created a storyline about our two characters that we are developing. It’s hilarious, Helen kicked me out of the company in this video two weeks ago, and made our product freemium. I then replaced her with our inbound sales girl Alice in the next video, and opened it up by saying “It’s Adam and Helen again”.

Our fans went nuts. I signed in three hours later to find over 50 comments saying “That’s not Helen”, “Bring Back Helen”, and somebody had even created a change.org petition demanding that Helen return to GetEmails marketing. Pretty amazing, considering these are ads that make us 5–10x ROAS.

We have a bunch of follow-up videos planned to really string this drama along. Helen is going to Aspen to look for new men, I’m trying to find a girl to replace Helen in the ads, etc.

Away from the ads, we are faces-forward across the entire funnel. We recorded a podcast that answers every possible question sales could get that looks like this, and we send custom videos to people after they complete step one of onboarding to try to establish a human connection. On Zoom calls we always leave our video on, even if the customer has video off. Many times they will turn it on, and even if they don’t, they are connecting with us by seeing our faces.

All of this is working fantastically well. Yes, our product is great and we have zero direct competitors, but this unusual style of presenting ourselves has tens of thousands of people feeling like they know us as people, even before they think about buying.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

It’s hard in the beginning, but try not to work too much. I found especially when I started out that the feeling of being “busy” made me feel like I was moving things forward. That’s just not the case. Try to only spend time on things that are very high value, and quit every day at a certain time. I start early, and stop at five every day.

I’ve been most satisfied when I had some other long term pursuit going on in my life outside of work. I took Spanish lessons four days a week for two years when I was spending a bunch of time in Argentina, and I’ve done the same with piano lessons upon moving back. If you can diversify your identity beyond your job, then a bad day at work won’t completely ruin your mood. Your life is sitting on several other building blocks. This helps a lot with burnout.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

When we first started Robly, our original plan was to go after the customers of a defunct company called RatePoint that my brother was using for Email Marketing and customer review management. I made a video called “If you liked Ratepoint, you’ll LOVE Robly!”, and the founder of Ratepoint, Neal Creighton, saw it and wrote me an email. He said “if you try what you’re about to try, you’ll fail. If you do what I’m about to tell you to do, you will 100% succeed.”

The guy showed us how to find customer information from a vendor who was carelessly leaving it all over the internet. That trick alone got us to a mid seven-figure/year business in 18 months.

Even with that massive lead pool he showed us, we almost didn’t make it. If Neal hadn’t shown us that one thing, I would probably still be on a trading desk in Manhattan. He’s definitely been the most transformational relationship I’ve had. All the success I’ve had from creating things from the money that Robly made was only because he showed us how to get Robly off the ground.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. Approximately how many users or subscribers does your app or software currently have? Can you share with our readers three of the main steps you’ve taken to build such a large community?

We started GetEmails eight months ago. We currently have 500 paying customers that pay us an average of $425 each. Subscription prices range from $29 to $25,000/month. Approximately $2.5mm ARR, bootstrapped, with five people working on it, growing by around 50% per month.

Our video ads, which I think are the most unique thing about us, have driven almost all of this success. Again, we’ve done one new video ad per week (we pay for the distribution) featuring me and my girlfriend Helen. Originally the videos just answered product questions, but we are now developing a storyline so it’s almost like a sitcom.

What is your monetization model? How do you monetize your community of users? Have you considered other monetization options? Why did you not use those?

We have a freemium model. 95% of the market can use our product for free. But if you want integrations, or your website has over around 10,000 unique visitors/month, you have to pay.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful app or a SaaS? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Make sure your product is great, and the more differentiated, the better. Try to do things your competitors are not doing that provide value to whatever niche you’re going after.
2. Get things out as quickly as possible. Let people tell you what else they want after you throw something light out there.
3. Try at all costs to sell something where you are making most of your money off subscriptions of thousands of dollars per month (instead of under $50 average). I have companies that do both. It’s way easier to grow and accrue enterprise value if your subscription price is high.
4. Do not hire salespeople before you have product/market fit. This is a very easy mistake to make. To learn what product/market fit is, read the y-combinator blog.
5. I personally find SaaS that is profitable (rather than burning money) to be much less stressful than raising venture dough and always having to be on the lookout for more money. The problem is most of the time high growth businesses need venture. Every once in a while you can create something that grows extremely quickly and doesn’t need outside capital. Usually it’s in a space that isn’t competitive and it’s a relatively new market. That’s the dream.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would try to add two subjects to K-12 education that I think are very important for living life:

1. Mindfulness, emotional self-regulation, and navigating your internal psyche
2. Personal finance — specifically, why you should avoid accumulating credit card and student debt, and how to do that

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Our companies are on twitter and Facebook — @usegetemails

I’m on Linkedin — https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-robinson-64409348/

Adam Robinson of GetEmails: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Communication: In any team, healthy and consistent communication is key. While I’m a firm believer that work can be organized around asynchronous communication, I also see great value in using synchronous (or live) meetings to maintain feelings of team “connectedness” and drive accountability. While I encourage the use of project management platforms, like Asana, to allow team members to provide task and project updates asynchronously, I recommend meeting as a team via video conferencing on a weekly basis. This not only allows the team to collaborate and re-prioritize in real time, but it also creates opportunity for team members to catch up personally, share some laughs, and reiterate the most important to-dos.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kara Fasone.

Dr. Kara Fasone is a talent development manager at Kin + Carta and adjunct professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She has a PhD in Industrial Organizational Psychology and a passion for pushing others to reach their fullest potentials. She practices a people-focused and data-driven approach to exploring workplace behavior and building incredible employee experiences.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

For as long as I can remember, I hoped to find a career that would allow me to directly help others. I initially considered medical school … until I encountered my college nightmare — also known as Inorganic Chemistry. Soon after, I realized the sight of blood was a fool proof way to make me queasy.

While becoming a medical doctor was out of the picture, I didn’t give up on finding the perfect career for me. I eventually discovered my career “sweet spot” by aligning my personal mission — helping others to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives — to my professional strengths. This led me to study human behavior in the workplace and use that knowledge to help organizations maximize the performance, productivity, and overall engagement of their most important asset: their people.

Since completing my PhD in Industrial Organizational (I/O) Psychology, I’ve built my career by partnering with organizations to inspire people-focused and data-driven policies, programs, and cultures. Over the past 7 years, I’ve built, managed, and iterated HR programs in areas ranging from employee engagement to leadership development to diversity, equity, & inclusion (and everything in between!).

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Growing up, I imagined that I’d have to find a job close to home, commute to the office daily, and eventually embrace the monotony that can come with having a “regular 9 to 5” job. I’ve been lucky enough to have escaped that grim reality by kicking off my career just as organizations were beginning to recognize the value of distributed talent.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more companies have begun to embrace the idea of partially remote (and in some cases, fully distributed) workforces. This is particularly exciting for me as an I/O and HR professional, because when we remove the constraint of geographic location in our search for candidates, the result is a much wider pool of super talented and diverse prospective employees.

When considering the future post-pandemic world, I’d hypothesize that remote work options are here to stay. My current company, for example, has looked toward establishing more permanent remote work options for many employees after being forced to adapt quickly in the face of the pandemic. Not only did we have to work tirelessly to convert conventionally in-person events to remote-friendly offerings (e.g., new hire onboarding, learning & development, etc.), we also collaborated with our clients to maintain trust and confidence in our partnerships.

The outcome? While the effort needed to support the transition from in-office to remote work was substantial, it ultimately wasn’t as big a deal as many had anticipated. Work days chugged along, employees continued to be productive and collaborate freely, and life went on.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Throughout my career, learning and development (L&D) approaches have shifted rapidly. Whereas lengthy classroom learning sessions were popular at the company with which I kicked off my career, I’ve seen a shift toward shorter, remote-friendly learning sessions (based on employee preference and necessity!).

I once built and prepared to facilitate a remote workshop session on creative problem-solving. Just as the learners had signed into the video conference, I began encountering technical issues. It seemed that everything that could go wrong was going wrong (Murphy’s Law, anyone?), from difficulties sharing my screen to the inability to record the session for those who couldn’t attend.

The first 15 minutes became a group problem solving session in itself, but the class was engaged and laughing by the time we finally dove into the actual workshop content. That day, I learned you should never underestimate the importance of proper tooling for remote collaboration and facilitation. Since then, I’ve built my toolbox of go-to platforms and software for ensuring virtual work and delivery is smooth!

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

My advice is simple: just C.A.R.E.

In this case, the acronym C.A.R.E. can be used to help CEOs, founders, and leaders across all levels of an organization to support their employees in times of uncertainty and stress.

1. Check in: While check-ins need not be formal or lengthy, they should be consistent. I make it a priority to send a quick instant message to my team members in the morning and as I’m wrapping up my day. This quick, 5-minute action shows that I care and I’m available to support. I also meet with each team member for a 30 minute 1:1 meeting weekly (or bi-weekly) to provide coaching, feedback, and deeper discussion on how they’re doing in their role.
2. Ask how they’re doing: When you’re able to have an extended check-in with an employee, ask how they’re doing in a way that shows it’s okay to be honest and vulnerable. How? With 5 words: “How are you doing, really?”
3. Rightsize expectations: In hectic and uncertain times, it can be easy to succumb to the work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle. This continuous flurry of activity can be more harmful than helpful in the long-term, leading to increased stress, disengagement, and sometimes even total burnout. Regularly calibrate with your team on key projects, anticipated timelines, and individual workloads to ensure the time and effort spent at work is realistic.
4. Empathize & adjust: Not every team member will be forthright about feeling stressed or overworked. As a leader, practice perspective taking and open your awareness to nonverbal cues or atypical behaviors that may clue you in to an employee who needs a bit more support.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

Throughout my career, I’ve operated with remote colleagues in mind. My first job out of college was with a small firm that comprised a handful of distributed colleagues and no official office space, so communicating and collaborating remotely was a routine part of my job.

As an HR & talent professional, I’ve built countless workshops and talent programs that required a remote-friendly learning environment because of the distributed, global nature of the participants.

Over the past year, I’ve managed a global team which has helped me deeply appreciate both the challenges and benefits that come with remote working. Seeing the theory and research I’d encountered during my doctoral studies come to life in real-world practice has been an eye-opening and rewarding experience.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

Managing a remote team can be incredibly fulfilling, but also challenging at times. After quite a bit of reflection, I’ve narrowed down the top five challenges below:

1. Communication: In any team, healthy and consistent communication is key. While I’m a firm believer that work can be organized around asynchronous communication, I also see great value in using synchronous (or live) meetings to maintain feelings of team “connectedness” and drive accountability. While I encourage the use of project management platforms, like Asana, to allow team members to provide task and project updates asynchronously, I recommend meeting as a team via video conferencing on a weekly basis. This not only allows the team to collaborate and re-prioritize in real time, but it also creates opportunity for team members to catch up personally, share some laughs, and reiterate the most important to-dos.
2. Culture: Culture oftentimes serves as a competitive advantage for companies. It can, however, be difficult to maintain certain cultural rituals when transitioning to fully remote work. My advice? Keep what you can and create new virtual rituals to maintain a sense of collaboration, connectedness, and team bonding. I’ve seen teams be super creative here, organizing everything from quirky “Friday Funday” virtual polls to remote happy hours to pet photo swaps. The sky’s the limit, but remember to keep it relevant and light-hearted.
3. Collaboration: Collaboration — similar to communication — can be accomplished via asynchronous teamwork. It does, however, require the right tools and productivity platforms to make it easy. As a leader, you’ll want to make sure your team is equipped with the following:
4. A task or project management platform (I enjoy Asana and Trello)
5. Video conferencing software (e.g., Zoom or Google Hangouts)
6. An instant messaging platform (e.g., Slack) AND norms to go with it (e.g., respect “away” statuses, use concise & to-the-point messages)
7. A shared drive (e.g., a protected Google Drive) to allow real-time edits and version control for shared deliverables
8. Career Development: A remote employee’s accomplishments or peripheral contributions may be less visible than those who are able to work in a physical office environment. This can be problematic when it comes down to career development because visibility and senior-level advocacy can heavily influence internal decisions such as high-visibility project assignments or vertical promotions. In remote environments, self-advocacy and regular career conversations can help to mitigate the challenge of limited in-office visibility.
9. Candid Feedback: Delivering open and honest feedback can be challenging regardless of your work environment, but remote work can magnify this difficulty. At times, when communicating via email or instant messaging for example, the absence of nonverbal cues and context can result in miscommunication and misunderstanding. Developing clear team agreements and knowing when to take communication “live” (i.e., jump on a phone call or video conference) can mitigate poor feedback delivery or reception.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

As I described the 5 common challenges above, I offered up a few specific solutions. Ultimately, effectively managing a remote team depends on the leader’s willingness and ability to understand each individual team member’s motivations, work style, and ability.

I love sharing the concept of situational leadership with managers because it emphasizes the importance of flexing one’s leadership approach to align to the needs of the individual. Situational leadership is a leadership model coined by behavioral psychologists Paul Heresey and Ken Blanchard which claims there is “no one best” leadership style.

Rather, the most effective leaders are those who take the time to learn each individual’s level of competence (e.g., knowledge & skill to do their job) and level of commitment within their current role. Understanding the interplay between an employee’s competence and commitment helps managers understand whether they should take a more hands-on directing or coaching approach or a less involved supporting or delegating approach to managing each team member (see graphic, below).

I encourage all leaders to become acquainted with this model and deeply reflect on what they can be doing to personalize their style and level of support for each of their team members.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

When I coach leaders on giving effective feedback, I ask them to consider this simple 3-pronged approach. Ultimately, feedback should be provided with a focus on empathy, examples, and execution.

• Empathy: In order to deliver constructive feedback, practice perspective-taking to help you understand the situation, surface underlying emotions, and anticipate potential reactions of the feedback recipient. Asking probing questions, gathering relevant context, and acknowledging your own personal biases can help you deliver feedback in a way that underlines the importance of the message while minimizing defensiveness.

Empathy also requires knowing when to take a conversation “live”. There are some messages that may be particularly sensitive in nature, and would be best delivered “face-to-face” via video conferencing. Use your best judgement here.

Be careful not to fall victim to what Kim Scott terms “ruinous empathy” — a phenomenon in which important constructive feedback is lost within an overly nice message.

• Examples: Prepare specific examples to support any piece of feedback you provide. Not only does referring to examples validate that the feedback is real, it also provides an opportunity to discuss ineffective behaviors and ways in which the feedback recipient can evolve and change in the future.

Charles Jacobs, author of Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work, asserts that when we hear feedback that contradicts with our self-image, our first instinct is to discount or adjust the information, rather than changing our behavior. This instinct can be overcome by reflecting on tangible examples of our behaviors.

• Execution: Feedback should always inspire action. You can accomplish this in a number of ways. Share strategies you’ve used to grow a similar skill, offer to brainstorm action items related to the feedback provided, or ask the recipient to set a tangible goal (or two) that can frame future progress discussions.

I’ve shared some examples to see this feedback framework in action:

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Providing constructive feedback via email can be tricky because of the absence of social cues. Typically when we communicate with someone in person, we are able to consider nonverbals, like facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. When we communicate through email, however, we are forced to interpret the meaning of messages without those context-rich cues.

When delivering feedback remotely, the importance of using empathy, examples, and a focus on execution is magnified. Here are a few tips to deliver delicate feedback via email without sounding too critical or harsh:

1. Lead with appreciation — Kicking off your email with a simple “thank you” begins the message on a positive note while allowing you to genuinely acknowledge and reinforce something the feedback recipient did well.
2. Frame feedback with an explicit example — As I mentioned earlier, this is important! Specific examples ground your feedback in reality and increase the likelihood that the recipient will accept and internalize your intended message.
3. Describe the why behind any decisions — Clearly outline any changes in direction related to the feedback you provided and explain why these pivots were necessary. Make this into a teachable moment!
4. Keep it concise — Keep your email short and sweet. If you’re writing paragraphs to convey your feedback, you’re likely to end up with a convoluted and confusing message.
5. Know when to talk it out — Let’s face it. Sometimes instant messages or emails aren’t the most effective means of communication. When you have a great deal of feedback to provide or you need to discuss a sensitive topic, schedule a phone call (or even better, a video conference).

See below for a hypothetical example of providing feedback via email:

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

It can be difficult to transition to a different routine and way of working, but it’s certainly not impossible! The great thing about having established teams is the fact that most team members are already aware of one another’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall work styles. Of course, you’ll need to adjust to your newly remote environment, but it helps to have a tightly bonded team going through the transition together.

Consider the following 3 tips to ensure a successful team transition from in-office to remote working.

1. Preserve Rituals: Don’t cancel your team rituals simply because you’re no longer convening at the office. Rather, make some small adjustments to facilitate them virtually. For example, bi-weekly happy hours can be held via Zoom and birthday cards can be signed and sent as a virtual e-card. Preserving these rituals (whether big or small, frequent or infrequent) can instill a sense of familiarity and normalcy for team members.
2. Clarify New Expectations: There will undoubtedly be changes to how work is done. Leaders should clarify new processes, policies, or tools to ensure all team members are on the same page. For example, a leader may introduce a temporary initiative in which the group will conduct daily virtual stand-up meetings as they transition to working together remotely. Stand ups are quick 10–15 minute meetings in which individuals can report their top priorities for the day, identify any blockers they’re facing, and express how they’re handling remote work.
3. Keep Open Lines of Communication: While team members may no longer be able to do “desk drive-bys” to ask a question or say a quick hello to a teammate, that shouldn’t inhibit communication or collaboration in a remote environment. Encourage continued communication by leveraging your resources. For example, you might create two team group chats: one to be used for real-time problem solving and troubleshooting and the other to be used for social purposes (e.g., swapping pet pictures or sharing interesting articles and stories). Whatever you do, make it clear that as a leader, you’re available to support at any time.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

While I’m sure many readers are hoping for specifics, the answer is: it depends! To create a healthy and empowering culture with a transitioning team, it’s important to include your team members in building their new remote reality.

I’m an avid proponent of using principles of human-centered design (HCD) to put employees at the center of designing meaningful workplace interventions. While HCD might sound complex, it’s really quite simple (and not just limited to product designers or HR professionals). Managers can use HCD principles to build a killer team culture by considering the following steps:

• Inspire: Fully understand what your team needs by probing into their likes, dislikes, challenges and overall experiences in transitioning to a remote work environment. You can gather this information through individual 1:1s, a team survey, or a focused group session. The goal here is to use the information gathered to inspire and envision the “ideal remote workspace” for your team.
• Ideate: Bring the team together to share what you’ve learned and work together to brainstorm what you should start, stop, and continue doing as a remote team to feel connected, engaged, and productive. Create a space where all voices are heard and all ideas are considered (no matter how big). You can prioritize the best ideas at the end of this ideation session.
• Implement: Once you’ve identified the most important changes you’ll make as a team, create a shared sense of accountability by identifying owners across the team for each project or task. Take it slow, gather continuous feedback from one another, and keep iterating until it feels right.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I’d love to make mental health a more mainstream consideration in the workplace. While many employers offer access to employee assistance programs (EAPs), it still seems to be somewhat of a “check-the-box” type of offering. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression, one of the leading causes of disability, with many of these people also suffering from symptoms of anxiety. This statistic is particularly relevant to remote workers for a number of reasons, one of which is increased reports of loneliness. In fact, a Viking survey of 1,500 employees — both conventional office workers and remote workers — revealed interesting statistics. Approximately 30-percent of the office workers said they suffered from depression, compared to 56-percent of freelancers and remote workers.

As I’d shared earlier, my life mission is to help everyone I touch to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. Since we spend nearly a third of our waking hours working, it’s not surprising that the workplace presents ample opportunity to help people increase their well-being and sense of self.

My vision goes beyond EAPs and conventional wellness programs. I’d love to see more flexible work policies, manager education on how to help employees manage stress and prioritize work-life balance, and safe spaces in which mental health can be discussed opposed to stigmatized.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

Leading others is both an art and a science. While there exists countless theories, how-to books, and hypothetical case studies centered on how to most effectively lead, sometimes we lose sight of the simplest truth: great leaders in the workplace make employees feel empowered, excited, and elevated toward their potential.

Influence as a leader doesn’t come only from title, achievement, or persuasion. It comes from knowing and caring about those you lead. Use empathy to conjure up the right words, model the most positive behaviors, and inspire feelings of trust, respect, and engagement.

Thank you for these great insights!

Of course! I invite any interested readers to reach out via my LinkedIn page. I’m always happy to connect with individuals who are passionate about Human Resources (HR) and the many fascinating areas within this space!

Dr. Kara Fasone of Kin + Carta: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Trust — as leaders it’s important to ensure we create an environment of trust, so our people feel safe to raise issues, concerns or new ideas without judgement. However, building and maintaining trust online can also be challenging. We now have less visibility of the workloads of team members and how much time people are actually spending at their desk. This can build resentment and distrust within the team and people subsequently feel reticent about speaking up or raising issues. I work with a CEO who wants her team to return to the office as soon as possible and is putting pressure on her leadership team to get this done. Her team believe this is because she doesn’t trust them to do their job remotely.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy Born.

Wendy is recognised as an engaging, results oriented leadership specialist who leverages talent and strengths in leaders to create high performance within global organisations. Well known for her common sense approach and clear, articulate communication Wendy firmly believes the success of any business starts with the effectiveness of its Leadership Team to drive engagement, performance and deliver on strategic results.

As a highly experienced and recognized corporate coach, Wendy has over 25 years of experience in business development and management including 15 years in senior leadership positions across Finance, IT, Retail, Financial Services, Communication and Government sectors. She works with executives, senior leaders and leadership teams to enhance their leadership and performance, with a strong commitment to results.

Wendy is certified in Training & Development and has over a decade of experience as a facilitator and speaker earning her a reputation as an engaging, fun and effective professional who delivers results for her clients.

Wendy is a graduate from the Harvard Kennedy School, Executive Education in 21st Century Leadership and is the author of “The Languages of Leadership” and “Raising Leaders”. She holds a Trade Certificate, Diploma of Finance, Bachelor of Business (HRM), Post Graduate Diploma in Operations Management and a Certificate IV in Professional & Personal Coaching and is a member of the International Coaching Federation.

Wendy is accredited to administer Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), DISC, Strengths Profile and Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey (GLWS) which all provide unique insights into individual and team performance. She has a warm and engaging style and quickly builds strong and enduring relationships.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

I grew up in a small town in North Queensland in Australia and left school at the end of year 10 (end of Junior High School). I struggled with school in particular Maths and seemed to like the more practical subjects like sport, home economics and typing lessons. I guess I had an underappreciation of education and this lasted until I became an adult. When I left school I did a hairdressing apprenticeship and this taught me the ability to build rapport with people quickly. When you have someone sitting in the chair and you are about to cut their hair, you need to build their trust quickly. Throughout my apprenticeship I attended an adult college on a part time basis, and it was here that I leaned that all education was not the same. There was learning to be gained through interesting and practical ways and it was here that I then developed an appreciation for education.

I then left the world of hairdressing and went to work for a large corporate organization in the finance industry and worked my way up the ranks from a customer service officer to a senior leader. It was here that I developed my love of leadership and gained an appreciation for the good, the bad and the ugly sides of leading. I also went on to complete a Diploma in Finance, Degree in Human Resource Management and Post Graduate Diploma in Operations Management while working full time and raising two kids with their father.

After 23 years I left and went out on my own to work with leaders and leadership teams. I studied for my Certificate in Professional & Personal Coaching and went to the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education in Boston, to learn about Leadership for the 21st Century. It’s fair to say my love of learning came after leaving school and that learning is different for everyone, you just need to figure out what works best for you.

I have written two books — The Languages of Leadership published in 2018 and Raising Leaders published in June 2020. Raising Leaders looks at the similarities between raising children and leading people, and as our worlds of work and home have been converged recently due to Australia’s Covid-19 restrictions, now more than ever we can leverage these similarities.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

In March 2004 I was walking back to my office through the middle of the city when I felt a pain in the right side of my head. With every step I took the pain seemed to pound in unison with my steps. I then felt my left leg go weak and I thought I was going to lose my balance. As I lifted my left arm it also felt week and I wondered if I was going to have a stroke, right there in the middle of the street. This concerned me because I had a mountain of work to do and well, I didn’t really have all that much time for a stroke. It seemed to subside a little, so I went back to work and finished my day.

The next day I woke up with a very big headache, so I went off to the doctor who diagnosed a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics. The headache continued for another two weeks, multiple returns to the doctor before she finally suggested I have a CT Scan to which they determined I had far too much fluid inside my head. A referral to a Brain Surgeon, an MRI and further analysis resulted in a diagnosis of a cyst in the middle of my brain. The doctor said I would need surgery, the next day to remove the cyst.

As I sat on my hospital bed that night, I tried to make sense of it all. Here I was about to have my brain operated on by a man I had known for less than 24 hours. I was terrified, I felt alone, I felt extremely vulnerable.

So when I think about these uncertain times we are currently living in I often think about how we also try to make sense of it all. We are scared because we don’t know what to expect. We can feel alone in isolation and we can feel vulnerable because our health is in the hands of the authorities who we barely know.

I think we have to trust that the medical experts will get us through this, and that together we can support each other through isolation, and out the other side.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I was hairdressing, I recall I had a customer who wanted a specific style of haircut that was in at the time. The “Mullet” is a style that is short at the front, top and sides, and longer at the back. As I started cutting his hair I realized I had cut the top far too short and tried to cover it up, poorly! The customer returned a little while later and asked for their money back and it was then I learned two valuable lessons. Always get clear with your customer about what they want and their expectations, so you know what you need to meet. Secondly never, ever try to cover up your mistakes. They stand out and are always discovered so own up, cop it on the chin and learn from it.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

I often see employees frustrated by the lack of empowerment from their leaders. Leaders become control freaks where they need to know exactly what their people are doing and all of the associated details. There is also the perception that the leader has all the answers. This puts employees under stress and at the risk of burnout.

When we truly empower our people, they feel more involved, they have more ownership and are more accountable. But empowering people requires leaders letting go of the outcome or solution, enabling the employee to arrive at their own conclusion. When you step back and let your people step up into their roles and actively contribute, you are sending the message that you don’t have all the answers and that’s okay. I always say that 5 + 5 = 10 but so does 6 + 4 and 7 + 3. It doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you do. Empowering people is 50 per cent employee’s ownership and 50 per cent leader’s letting go. It’s uncomfortable and will make the leader feel vulnerable, but its worth it for everyone.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

For approximately fifteen years I worked for a large organisation that had a strong outsourcing strategy requiring the leadership of remote teams offshore. The teams we led were made up of finance professionals responsible for the processing of our standard operating procedures within the accounting function.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

We are now running organisations from our lounge rooms and while we have typically worked hard to keep the worlds of family and work separate, the two have been thrust together almost unceremoniously. We are working on marketing plans while helping children with schoolwork, running meetings while supervising art classes, and at times wondering if we can possibly put our teenagers on a performance improvement plan!

Running virtual teams adds a layer of complexity to an already difficult job. Here are my top 5 challenges:

Connection — As humans we are designed to connect, it’s in our DNA. When we eyeball others, smile at them, laugh with them, it makes us feel good. So, when we work remotely we have less personal interactions with our colleagues and employees. I was told about a university lecturer who had a student come up to him in the hallway and greet him like an old friend. The lecturer walked away thinking he had no idea at all who the person was. Turns out it was a student in one of his online classes who never turned his camera on during class.

Trust — as leaders it’s important to ensure we create an environment of trust, so our people feel safe to raise issues, concerns or new ideas without judgement. However, building and maintaining trust online can also be challenging. We now have less visibility of the workloads of team members and how much time people are actually spending at their desk. This can build resentment and distrust within the team and people subsequently feel reticent about speaking up or raising issues. I work with a CEO who wants her team to return to the office as soon as possible and is putting pressure on her leadership team to get this done. Her team believe this is because she doesn’t trust them to do their job remotely.

Health — maintaining our health is important at the best of times, critical during times like these. While physical health is more obvious to others, our mental health can go unnoticed and we can suffer considerably from feelings of anxiety, fear and isolation. A colleague of mine commented to me how she realized the value of going into the office and interacting with people since she has been working from home. She lives alone and can often go for days without seeing anyone face to face.

Language — as leaders we are always on show and our people observe our words, actions and behaviours constantly. In the office we can show our people the right way to speak, act and behave and to walk our talk. When we are remotely located our actions are reduced to a visual head and shoulders on a screen, and for a limited amount of time. Add to this the increase to written communication e.g. emails where we lose tone and body language, we can run the risk of our communication being interpreted incorrectly. An example of walking your talk is Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer who was photographed visiting her holiday home for the weekend. After she admitted that it was the second time she had done so during the lockdown period she was stood down from attending press briefings.

Focus — its hard enough when you’re in the office to keep everyone focused on the right thing, let alone when you’re all dispersed. Distractions from work are plenty and it’s easy to do a load of washing, clean the dishes or go for a walk when we should be working. When I know I need to sit and write an article or a chapter of my next book, I always have the cleanest house and am up to date with the latest series on Netflix — anything to avoid the hard work!

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Connection — Connection can be done remotely, it just needs a little more organisation than when we are all in the office together. Scheduling time in our diary to call, Zoom or message others to check in is something we can all build into our day. I am part of a networking group and since we started meeting remotely, we have been more connected than we were when we met on a face to face basis. Also don’t let remoteness of your team deter your social gatherings. Having a virtual Friday afternoon drink with your team is a great way to connect.

Trust — The best way to build trust is to get to know each other, both personally and professionally. Finding things in common with each other helps with trust because when our brains see things in common they tell us this person is just like me so I can trust them. Also being vulnerable with each other builds trust and we can do this by sharing our stories. Stories like when we did something difficult or made a mistake at work and what we learned from it, or perhaps a funny story about something that happened at the start of our career. Sharing stories also shows others that we are similar and experience similar things, again increasing trust.

Health — Leading by example is best here. Sharing how you are feeling with your team is a good way to help others to open up and share. You can then offer additional support through your Employee Assistance Program or other psychological support system your organisation has in place. Also checking in when you have one on one meetings with your people will help you determine what level of support each employee needs. Also remaining consistent in your weekly routine helps. During times of uncertainty our brains look for consistency and certainty as it helps us to deal with and manage change. When we keep things as routine as possible it can help to put the changes into perspective.

Language — Always think about how your message is going to be received. Ask yourself “who is going to read this message?” “How would I feel if I was reading this message?” and “would I want this on the front page of the newspaper?”. When we consider the responses of those hearing or reading our messages, we are able to show empathy, consideration and care. Also reflection on our words, actions and behaviour is a great way to consider how they may impact on others. Daily reflection is a great way to build self-awareness and research shows people who reflect regularly increase their performance by up to 35%.

Focus — Taking the time to set clear expectations, deadlines and consequences will help people to stay focused on the task at hand. Also using systems and apps such as Slack or Monday.com helps the team to maintain focus on the work that needs to get done. Ensuring that you set deadlines and hold people accountable if these aren’t met also helps to maintain deliverables and productivity.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

Here are my suggestions for giving constructive criticism or feedback:

• Use a video tool such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, instead of the phone. At least with a videoconferencing channel the employee can see the whites of your eyes and your facial expressions. Making eye contact helps to show empathy and understanding rather than relying on your voice alone.
• Always use clear examples and stick to the facts. Using clear examples helps the employee to make sense of what you are saying rather than trying to interpret anything. When we try to interpret someone else’s meaning we use our own values and belief systems to do so. These are all different in each of us, so interpretation is never the same.
• Ask open questions — when we ask open questions such as “how do you think this went?” or “what do you think you could have done differently?” it helps the employee to consider more than they would if they are being told what to do. When our people are involved in problem solving for solutions, or coming up with their own answers, they are more likely to do what they say they will.
• Use your own experiences — sharing your own experiences of how you have dealt with similar circumstances helps to show the employee that you too make mistakes and that learning from our mistakes is a great way to develop and grow. Through sharing these experiences you are also being a bit vulnerable, which can increase trust. A good outcome for a difficult conversation.

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

Similar to verbal constructive feedback I recommend always using specific examples to ensure the recipient understands the “why”. If you can, outline a similar experience you have had before and how you reflected on it and what you learned from it. Again ask open questions in your email to elicit a response that requires the employee to actually reflect and think about the situation, what their role in the situation was, and how they might learn from the experience for next time.

Also use terms such as “I understand…” and “I can see how…” as this shows an understanding and empathy for the employee’s situation.

Through the use of open questions, particularly on what can be done next time, the employee is involved in coming up with their own solutions and will be more likely to adopt those actions in the future.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

Try to keep consistency in your weekly routine for meetings and get togethers. These are times of significant change and disruption, so keeping some level of routine will help with certainty in everyone’s lives. When we have some level of certainty it helps us to manage the changes going on around us.

Also talk often, every couple of days if needed to check in on your people. Even a 10 minute chat to check in on how they are doing is enough to say that you care about them.

Stay social as well. Having an afternoon virtual coffee of drink is a great way to stay connected and get to know your people on a more personal level. When we know some of the personal lives of our employees we are able to connect more and build trust.

Be careful to be considerate of what else is going on in the lives of your people. For example, their kids may be sitting beside them while they are on a Zoom call with you, so being conscious of what they may be hearing is important. Also be conscious of what’s going on in your own Zoom room. For example, I’ve seen people’s washing hanging up in the background. While I love my people I don’t really need to see their underwear hanging on the clothes airer while I’m talking to them — its distracting!

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

I always say to my clients that empowering people is 50% them owning something, and 50% you letting go of the outcome or solution. The latter is usually the hardest part. When we let go of having to control the outcome we feel vulnerable and it makes us uncomfortable, but it’s worth the discomfort as it makes our people feel engaged, trusted and empowered.

Another idea is to have a team lunch together virtually once per week. Ask everyone to make a healthy lunch and be prepared to talk about what they are having. You can also have a diversity appreciation lens to your lunch by asking people to make something healthy and be prepared to talk about the cultural background to their lunch.

Encourage your people to talk about their views and opinions openly and honestly, without judgement. When our people feel they can talk openly without fear we create psychologically safe environments which leads to increases of engagement, productivity and innovation.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would create the “It’s bigger than you” movement because one of the biggest lessons I have learned is that leadership is bigger than you. When we start to put the team or organisation ahead of our own interests, and we operate in a caring, considerate and supportive organisation, we want to do more than just our job. We want to create more than what is needed and we want to be more than we thought we could be, because we can see the future, feel the future and be part of the future, together.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying “I will try again tomorrow”. Mary Anne Radmacher author of Courage doesn’t always roar.

As I watched both of my parents endure and succumb to cancer, I saw their simple acts of courage facing into each day with dignity and faith. This quote epitomizes their courage and says to me that I don’t need to be standing on the highest mountain or in front of a thousand people, to be courageous. Courage is sometimes in the simplest of daily activities.

Thank you for these great insights!

Author Wendy Born: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.