Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Designing the Right Physical Workspaces

In my work as a human resources and leadership consultant, I’ve observed that many organizations have dedicated spaces where employees come together to receive training. Most of the time, these locations are basic conference rooms, which led me to wonder: what if companies could build facilities uniquely equipped to meet the needs of the human learner?

Seeking to find out what such spaces might look like and what best practices organizations would be smart to integrate, I spoke with Jonathan Webb, VP of workplace strategy for KI, a designer of 21^st century interior furnishings.

Alexandra: Jonathan, how should companies go about designing the right physical space for corporate training?

Jonathan: In some ways, the key to creating corporate training spaces is the same as designing offices: flexibility. Just as employees have different work styles throughout their 9-to-5 day, new hires in corporate training have different learning styles. So recruiters have to design training spaces not only to enable the variety of tasks or lessons at hand, but to support the variety of learners they're training in a given session.

What physical design concepts best facilitate human learning and why?

Jonathan: I think it entirely depends on what the goals are within each learning session. That's why it's important to align a company's training goals with the physical learning environment. Designing a flexible training space is vital to facilitating human learning. For example, if one training task requires an individual assessment, new hires may need walled-in spaces or privacy screens to focus. But if another goal of the training program is to build relationships among teams that will soon work together, trainees may move to larger, shared work surfaces.

If an organization doesn't have a big budget for renovation, what tweaks can it make help improve its training spaces?

Jonathan: Training facilities are often overlooked within organizations, but an organization can make some effective changes without knocking down any walls. When space is at a premium, designing workspaces that can be reconfigured to accommodate various learning styles and types is paramount. Flexible furniture on casters can be reconfigured quickly. Mobile whiteboards can double as space dividers and learning surfaces to provide excellent teaming environments. A mix of high and low tables, along with several pieces of lounge furniture, can often be assembled to allow various types of group work.

For the rest of the interview, head over to the DeVry WORKS website.

Strategies for Excelling at Product Development

Product development is one of the most challenging aspects of running a business, because it’s a rare situation in which your offering is already so perfect you don’t need to improve or evolve with the market. You can vastly save a great deal of time and stress in your efforts to create new products and services, or expand on or enhance your existing ones, with five specific strategies.

Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Shoes

Product development is most successful when it is directly connected to an unmet customer need. “If you can create a smooth, flawless experience with no interference or frustrations, it’s likely that people will enjoy using your product. Solve a problem and make lives easier,” said Ali Mahvan, CEO of social shopping company Sharebert. “You're not starting a company to build a product for yourself. You're starting a company to build a product for your customers. Customer feedback has driven every major design and experience decision throughout the building of the Sharebert app and is our number one metric for design.”

 Iron Out a Process

Torrey Tayenaka, CEO of video production company Sparkhouse, wanted to create animated explainer videos to market customers’ businesses, products, and services. Explainer videos are useful because you can produce them without actors and cameras, and while a product is still in the concepting stage. However, the idea is a relatively new one, so Tayenaka needed to build a process that could be easily understood and followed by his team and customers alike. “We took our time in developing a 12-step animation process that we always strive to communicate clearly,” he said.

Take the Airplane Window View

To excel at product development, you must be willing to take a step back and look around you even as you have the urge to charge forward. “We are constantly looking at the big picture, asking ourselves: do we know what we are creating, who we are creating it for and why we are creating it?” said Tayenaka. “If we understand those key points, we can always make sure the ship is headed in the right direction. But on the other hand, if we get too excited about features and specifics, we can lose sight of what’s really important.”

For more where this came from, check out the full piece at the AMEX OpenForum.

Leading a Team in the Future Workplace

 

 

When writing my brand new book Humanity Works: Merging People and Technology for the Workforce of the Future, I found a business world in the process of rapid transformation. I learned that one way to have a sustainable competitive advantage in a constantly evolving, virtual, global and automated environment is to master how to lead a team. Leaders who do this may well find that running their organizations at this time in history will be rewarding and full of opportunity.

But what exactly will the future look like? In order to be in a good position to take advantage of pending developments, owners may want to understand what's coming and master how to lead a team.

I asked Jeff Epstein, owner of referral software company Ambassador Software and Nathan Klarer, founder and chief operating officer at IT talent provider Datyra to weigh in on a few of the more pervasive trends and how leaders can go beyond them to cope successfully with the coming changes.

Flexible and Distributed Workplaces

The average employee in the 2030s probably won't be work in a single physical environment, but where and when it's most convenient and impactful.

 

“The idea of offices is already changing, with a switch to more 'WeWork-style' workplaces," says Epstein. “Shorter-term teams will be assembled to solve specific business problems, and will operate virtually."

Epstein is referring to what is known as a distributed workforce, which reaches beyond the restrictions of a traditional office environment and is often dispersed geographically over a wide area.“Teams are becoming more multi-disciplinary as distributed workplaces allow for talent to specialize," says Klarer.

In considering how to lead a team in the future, owners may have to account for changes in workplace dynamics.

“The most fundamental change is that real-time communication is commonplace," says Epstein. "Today, with a litany of communication tools, teams have access to information—and people—immediately, and people expect to chat with team members at any time."

This means that leaders will need to open their literal and metaphorical doors and devise ways to be more accessible to team members, providing guidance and direction outside the confines of traditional business hours without losing their own sense of balance and privacy.

For the rest of the piece, check out the AMEX OpenForum.

Using Design Thinking for Product Innovation

Most business owners would agree that product innovation is important to their success in today's world.

History is full of companies that were initially very successful but failed to innovate when the market changed, says Jeremy Brandt, founder and CEO of We Buy Houses, an online service that connects home sellers with potential buyers. And that informs the way his company operates.

“At We Buy Houses, we continuously identify ways to improve our products, taking technology we've built internally for ourselves and turning it into a commercial product for our clients," says Brandt.

“Agile and similar methodologies are great for consistently moving the ball forward," he continues. "Innovation is about coming up with new ideas, processes and products to stay ahead of the competition and in line with what the market needs. Once the innovation happens, it's all about execution, and that's where agile plays a huge role."

Design thinking is an agile product innovation methodology traditionally used by designers to solve complex problems. It is a solution-focused and action-oriented way of creating a preferred future.

Over the years, design thinking has taken on many faces, but the Institute of Design at Stanford University proposed a groundbreaking and now frequently used series of steps, which are:

Empathize

Empathize mode is the first step on your product innovation journey. Here you're trying to understand your customers' physical and emotional needs, how they think about the world and what is meaningful to them.

Observing what people do and how they interact with their environment can give you clues. You can engage your users by preparing some questions you'd like to ask, for instance:

• If you are standing in line at the grocery store, what app are you most likely to view first and why?

For the rest of the steps, head over to the AMEX OpenForum.

The Future of Agile Business

Considering the pace of change in today's world, agile business—the process of making quick decisions based on the information you have and the willingness to adopt new strategies as you go along—has gone from being a competitive advantage to a necessity for many organizations. 

I was curious about how modern business owners view the future of agile business, so I talked with Adelaida Diaz-Roa, co-founder of social travel network Nomo FOMO and Aaron Michel, partner at venture capital firm 1984 Ventures.

Both Diaz-Roa and Michel support agile business in their own enterprises. Diaz-Roa defines it as “having a work culture built around trust, speed, flexibility and transparency. It's about empowering everyone on the team to take risks to achieve the company's mission, knowing that their manager will support them if they fail." 

“Agile business enables a company to be more nimble, eliminate waste and reduce lead times," Michel adds.

Where Is Agile Business Headed?

Agile business got its start in the tech playgrounds of Silicon Valley, but it's becoming increasingly common in large corporations around the world. 

 

“Agile organizations are becoming flatter, trusting employees to act as business owners," says Diaz-Roa. “People operations are more important, leading to an increased focus on individual accomplishments."

For more thoughts of the future of agile business, visit the AMEX OpenForum.

How to Create an Agile Process

Many organizations pride themselves on having predictable policies and procedures that drive performance and growth. However, given the rate of change in today's business world, sometimes being inflexible can be a problem rather than a solution. Having an agile process can help.

Agile processes are plans that involve advance planning and organization but also allow you to quickly change course if needed. To learn how business owners create agile processes in the real world, I consulted Mary Ellen Slayter, CEO of Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based B2B content marketing agency Rep Cap and Matt Weinberg, president of interactive digital agency Vector Media Group in New York City.

Why Use An Agile Process?

An agile process can be advantageous because it mandates a close consideration of your business goals, but can also be adjusted as you gain more information or as circumstances evolve.

 

“The agile framework forces owners to make decisions quickly and communicate frequently," says Slayter. “The emphasis on testing frees you from best practices so you can pursue the surprising insights that are unique to your business. In the end, the risk is actually lower because you're making fewer big bets."

It's also important to realize what agile is—and what it isn't.

“Just because you're agile doesn't mean you don't have process," Slayter points out. “Agile is not about flying by the seat of your pants—it's dynamically deciding how to deploy your resources to achieve your goals."

For the rest, check out the AMEX OpenForum.

How to Know When To Take a Risk

Starting a business usually involves significant personal, professional and financial risks. But while most business owners and entrepreneurs are hardly strangers to business risks, it's often hard to know what constitutes a risk that's likely to succeed.

Adam Mendler, CEO of technology venture company The Veloz Group, says that an acceptable risk is one that's well-justified and offers a higher expected value than alternatives.

“Before taking significant business risks, it's important to identify, research and evaluate all your options—which may range from radical action to doing nothing," he says.

According to Dan Spalter, co-founder of roommate matching service Circle for Roommates good business risks should be taken with the big picture intention of improving pre-determined KPIs.

“Before taking any substantial risk, your team should try to find less risky means of achieving the same goal," he says. "If a safer alternative does not exist, a business owner should brainstorm creative ways to reduce the potential loss."

Both Mendler and Spalter have taken valuable business risks to drive their organizations forward, including the following:

Going All In

"The biggest risk was taking the plunge, leaving a corporate career to start something from scratch," says Mendler. "The entrepreneurial journey has been invaluable, though, as I have learned, grown and developed in ways unlike any others in my professional or educational careers."

Competing With Established Companies

Many owners are in the business of disruption. This means, however, that you're competing with organizations with multi-million dollar budgets, and the ability to take and implement your concept.

It may seem like there's no way to win in this scenario, but by being agile and innovative—and by taking calculated business risks that other companies won't touch—you can be competitive.

For the rest of this piece, check out the AMEX OPENForum.

Tapping Into Global Business Innovation

Before the internet, most innovation took place in small communities, with isolated breakthroughs eventually spreading throughout the world. Today, however, global business innovation is the norm.

Business owners pursuing growth may want to make a habit of looking around them—and not just at local competitors. How other companies around the world do business can affect your organization.

I spoke to two business owners to understand how they tap into global business innovation to power their companies.

Stepping Out of Your Communal Bubble

Fabrizio Moreira is the owner of The Moreira Organization, a nonprofit that develops world leaders. He has learned that everything a business owner touches involves a global team of talent—from manufacturing to storing data in the cloud.

“This global talent pool means you're competing with a lot of innovators who you ignore at your peril," Moreira says. “Many emerging markets are leapfrogging established markets because of need-based innovation and fewer existing infrastructure constraints," Bullen says. “Paying attention to what these markets are doing can help you identify opportunities in your own market as well as threats that may be down the line."

He seeks out intelligence on global business innovation by observing similar organizations operating in other countries, and finding ways to plug in and work with them.

Erik Bullen is CEO of MageMail and is actively involved in the start-up and innovation community, mentoring and advising for programs such as Techstars, MassChallenge and LaunchX. His ideation is regularly informed by other cultures, markets and industries.

“Many emerging markets are leapfrogging established markets because of need-based innovation and fewer existing infrastructure constraints," Bullen says. “Paying attention to what these markets are doing can help you identify opportunities in your own market as well as threats that may be down the line."

For more where this came from, check out the AMEX OPENForum.

How to Retain Millennials Today

It’s not unusual to hear HR professionals at large, publicly-traded companies lament: “No one wants to work here. I wish this was a nonprofit.”

On the surface, this makes sense. After all, nonprofit organizations are often an easier sell for millennials, who say they want the opportunity to do meaningful work on issues that benefit society. But as they get older, millennials who want to pay down debt and start saving are increasingly looking to employers who pay handsomely. And if they do accept a lower salary for a job, they expect that nonprofit environment to provide the most rewarding experience they can imagine. As we all know, however, even the noblest nonprofits are still organizations, and no organization is perfect.

AccessLex Institute is a nonprofit that advocates for policies that make legal education work better for students and society alike and conducts research on the most critical issues facing legal education today. The mission is intriguing, especially given how many young professionals consider and eventually enroll in law school. And sure enough, AccessLex never had much of a problem attracting millennial candidates for its open positions. The organization’s challenge has involved getting them to stay once new hires realize that nonprofit employment can be stressful and frustrating at times -- just like any job.

Assimilate Talent Strategically And Early

Based on nearly 15 years of working with millennials, I can confidently say that the most important thing organizations must do to retain millennials is to assimilate them strategically and early. First impressions matter a great deal and new millennial hires aren't likely to give a company a second chance if they don't like what they experience initially.

To that end, AccessLex set out to increase its retention of new millennial employees by creating a high-tech, high-touch virtual onboarding system. The tool was built based on what they learned was new hires’ biggest hurdle -- feeling disconnected from the culture. The organization’s internal research revealed that young employees would accept a job, come in for a few weeks and keep interviewing. If a better opportunity presented itself, nothing stopped the new hire from taking it. “We knew if we could make them feel part of the organization right away and get them to hang out with us for a year, we could actually keep them for much longer,” said Tanya Papahristos, Director of Human Resources for AccessLex.

For the rest of the piece, check out Forbes.com.

 

How to Implement a Forward-Thinking HR Initiative

Traditionally, the HR function has not been known for it. In fact, it’s typical for HR to be several years behind other industries – or areas of the same organization – when it comes to implementing new and more efficient ways of conducting business.

However, today’s HR leaders are working to change that.  Thanks to an infusion of younger and in many cases more agile workers into the profession, HR departments are leading the way in cutting-edge implementations that facilitate stronger employee experiences, better productivity, and longer retention.

Seek Relevance

If this sounds palatable to you, and you want to be the person who makes a difference in your organization, there are a few ways to go about it. The first is to understand that even the most forward-thinking initiative shouldn’t be developed in isolation. This means that you should first speak with your boss about the larger business and departmental goals you need to achieve, and where you should be focusing your attention to that effect. As you brainstorm, zero in on concepts that fall within this scope.

It’s also worthwhile to pay attention to the world around you. HR conferences like the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), HR Technology, Disrupt HR, and Work Human offer sessions to learn industry best practices as well as innovative new techniques for solving HR-related business problems. Every time I attend an event like this, I return energized and full of promising ideas.

Similarly, if you are part of a local HR community, reach out and learn what other organizations are doing. Visit other companies with similar challenges, attend networking events, and bring in expert speakers to get your team thinking about issues in a new way.

You can foster the birth of forward-thinking HR initiatives from within your own ranks too. Instead of relying on the same people all the time, seek out new blood. Invite skilled individuals from other departments to spend time in HR, and crowdsource ideas from your larger employee population through hackathons and MVP (minimum viable product) competitions to design HR-related products and services.

Leverage Technology

Many forward-thinking HR initiatives naturally involve technology, and the effective integration and use of people, processes, data, and devices in order to work strategically and effectively is an up-and-coming HR competency. At DeVryWORKS, we say that employees who can do this have applied technology skills, and recent research I conducted with DeVry University’s Career Advisory Board found that nearly half of HR and hiring managers believe there is an applied technology skills deficit in their current employee base.

One critical applied technology skill with particular relevance to HR is citizen development. According to Gartner’s IT Glossary, a citizen developer is a worker who creates new business applications using development environments sanctioned by IT. Over the last few years, most organizations have moved their HR systems into cloud platforms. These platforms are the perfect hosts for mobile apps and other tools that make it easier for employees to do their jobs and have a continuous, positive experience.  And now, you or members of your team can build applications without the programming expertise or coding experience that was mandatory previously.

That’s not to say that you’ll be instant experts. The key to developing a forward-thinking HR application that actually works is to engage with IT to understand the basic principles behind app design, and to use technology that has already been vetted and well-integrated with your company’s existing IT infrastructure.

For any technology-based initiative, you should establish a strong, ongoing partnership with IT. Meeting with that group regularly will allow your team to receive essential governance, guidelines, and best practices. Your initial effort will likely be most successful if the implementation is a pilot, meaning its scope is limited and it is launched with one business process or one team. Pilots are useful because they facilitate experimentation and continuous improvement with minimal disruption to the business.

Regardless of whether your planned project is a new application or a new employer brand, effective communication will make or break it. Make sure that at every step of the way, your employees are informed about proposed changes, that they understand how the initiative impacts their roles and responsibilities, and that they are encouraged to test and provide feedback. A team approach to innovation is the best approach to innovation!