News You Can Use: 7/3/2019


Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash

  • Transitioning From Solopreneur to a Team Leader

    Additionally, self-awareness is the key to entrepreneurial success. For starters, it helps you realize your strengths and weaknesses. Knowing this allows you to surround yourself with the right people. Ideally, they complement your strengths and pick up the slack in your weaker areas.

    Furthermore, being self-aware can assist you in aligning the strength of your team to the business. It guides you in developing your authentic brand and will aid you in making faster and more efficient decisions. Self-awareness reveals you to you — and helps you keep your emotions in check.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/335357

  • The DO MORE mindset is ruining the planet
  • I used to believe in hustle porn, and now I think it’s the antithesis of the American Dream

    But something has happened in recent years to our idea of a good work ethic in this country. Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit, dubbed it “hustle porn.” At a November 2018 web summit in Lisbon, he said, “This idea that unless you are suffering, grinding, working every hour of every day, you’re not working hard enough . . . this is one of the most toxic and dangerous things in tech right now.”
    **
    There is nobility in hard work no matter the profession. One should take pride in a job well done. But we shouldn’t encourage a culture that is all work and no play. We shouldn’t equate liberty with exhaustion, and we shouldn’t worship at the altar of professional achievement and money.

    We need corporate leaders to build cultures that embrace the values on which our country was founded. I’m talking a culture that values excellence and keeps work in its rightful place, but also encourages employees to tend to their own mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. I’m talking about a culture that trusts that employees will be more productive when they take care of themselves first.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90366162/hustle-porn-and-the-american-dream

News You Can Use: 5/15/2019

  • Google walkout organizers demand company investigate HR department

    In a Medium post from the official walkout account, the employees released a series of demands. On the list: meeting previous demands made during the November walkout, having Alphabet CEO Larry Page address those demands, reversing alleged retaliation against organizers, and opening an investigation into the company’s “abysmal handling of employee complaints.”

    “Google seems to have lost its mooring, and trust between workers and the company is deeply broken,” the post reads. “As the company progresses from crisis to crisis, it is clear Google management is failing, along with HR.” The post demands that an investigation be conducted by a third party and that the results be released publicly.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/8/18536996/google-walkout-organizers-hr-retaliation

  • New study shows human development is destroying the planet at an unprecedented rate

    In the most comprehensive effort undertaken to date, some 145 expert authors from 50 countries working with another 310 contributing authors spent the last three years compiling and assessing changes in global biodiversity over a 50-year period for a study conducted under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

    They found there are now 1 million species that are threatened with extinction; that more than one-third of the world’s land surface and 75% of all freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production; that 60 billion tons of renewable and non-renewable resources are extracted globally every year; that land degradation has reduced the productivity of global land surface area by 23% and roughly $577 billion worth of crops are at risk from pollinator loss annually; and, finally, that up to 300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of the loss of coastal habitats.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/new-study-shows-human-development-is-destroying-the-planet-at-an-unprecedented-rate/

  • We’re Running Out of Water
  • Slack’s head of workplace design thinks open floor plans “suuuck”

    At Slack we’ve done a lot of different things. We do have open offices—we’re actually making them smaller, the desk per square foot smaller, and swatches of open office much smaller. We also have a variety of privacy phone booth options, small quad and double rooms, and one-person rooms. Some of them are bookable, some are not bookable, so people can really drop in and book them.

    We also have the luxury of having a human right now. Her role is space and room planning, so if you need a space you can air a complaint. And we have a human being who has purview into all your rooms and spaces and is able to help you.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90341688/slacks-head-of-workplace-design-thinks-open-floor-plans-suuuck

  • Why AT&T Was Right About HBO. In a Word, We’re Talking … ‘Silos.’

    Now, consider the impact of silos on a startup. Whatever their cause, silos of all types — to my way of thinking — end up encouraging stagnation and stunting growth. When each department looks out for itself, employees come to fear outside opinions and new ideas because they threaten the security of the walled-off group.

    Silos are part of the reason Microsoft lagged behind when the world went mobile. They also played a part in some of Google’s big stumbles, such as the demise of Google Plus.

    Now, think again about startups: It’s not enough for a startup to grow; it has to be able to handle that growth. Silos tend to spring up when management fails to recognize that a company is no longer a handful of scrappy entrepreneurs but an increasingly large, successful organization. To ensure that growth doesn’t kill your startup, it’s important that you be proactive when it comes to breaking down these walls –before it becomes too late.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/333544

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