Makeover Your All Staff Meeting

When executives want to communicate important messages or engage employees, they hold town hall or all hands meetings. Gathering everyone together is meant to convey the importance of the topic and get the biggest bang for your communication buck. Yet, employees often rank these meetings as some of the least effective. Don't give up on bringing everyone together. Instead, give your all staff meeting a makeover. Make your message resonate by explaining what's in it for everyone. Forego the PowerPoint presentation in lieu of a more personal communication. Make the conversation two-way and engage your people in a discussion. 

Lastly, don't hog the stage. Even charismatic leaders can sound like broken records. Staff often want to hear from others in leadership for a fresh perspective.

Harvard Business Review

Get Your Idea Approved

When you have a great idea, don't assume that others will share your enthusiasm for it. Whether a recommendation or proposal is approved is often less about the value of the idea itself than how it is presented. Here are three things you can do to give your next proposal a fighting chance:

1. Build allies. Meet with stakeholders before you need their formal approval to generate interest and pre-sell them on the idea.

2. Keep it simple. Don't weigh your proposal down with tons of data and analysis. Too many details can distract an audience. Be straightforward and concise.

3. Highlight the benefits. Your audience will want to know what's in it for them. Be sure to position the idea in terms of the benefits they stand to gain.

Harvard Business Review
http://hbr.org/

4 Steps to Getting Unstuck

There are times of the year — or the week, or the day — when you simply have too much to do. You may buckle down and focus, or like many people, you may get overwhelmed and freeze up. Next time you are stressed out by how much you need to accomplish, take these four steps:

1.Make a list. Write down everything you need to do on a piece of paper.

2.Do the quick hits. Take 15 minutes, no more, to do the fastest things on your list: a quick email response, the 2-minute phone call. Use a timer to keep you focused.

3.Turn off distractions. Now spend 35 minutes focused on the tougher things on the list with your phone and email alerts switched off.

4.Take a break and repeat. Take a 10-minute break and start again. Before long, you'll have crossed enough off your list to restore your calm.

Harvard Business Review
http://hbr.org/

How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution in Six Months by Daniel Isenberg

Daniel Isenberg is the Professor of Management Practice at Babson College, Founder and Executive Director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project, and author of the Harvard Business Review article, "How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution ".(by http://www.huffingtonpost.com/) 


How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution in Six Months

 1. Revolutions start local. Start with quick wins that make sense in that specific location. You don't have years to wait for measurable results before scaling up, just know you are on the right track.


2. Revolutions need participants. The "shot heard round the world" will be a town-meeting-style, entrepreneurship stakeholder workshop to create excitement and commitment, and to learn.


3. Revolutions require resources. In parallel, connect the community's entrepreneurial support resources.


4. Revolutions need revolutionaries. They may be under the radar, languishing in non-entrepreneurial positions, or channeling their entrepreneurial spirit in non-productive ways, but they are present. Find and enlist them. Use your positions of power to help them find new customers, investors, advisors, and business partners.


5. Revolutions need a call to action. Ask people with the hunger to create to come forward with their ideas and then "flood the zone".


6. Revolutions need an inner council. Convene a small band of revolutionaries to advise you, many of them entrepreneurs. Listen to them. Share your concerns openly.


7.And last but not least, revolutions need leadership. Public leaders and their co-instigators have a key role to play in sparking the revolution and keeping the torch lit.


The most important deliverable in these first six months is to engage, excite, and empower the entrepreneurship stakeholders, demonstrate commitment, and show your constituents that you mean business.

Reference

Harvard Business Review

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/07/how_to_start_an_entrepreneuria.html