General IT, Software Development, Workplace Automation

4 key Data tools to advance your IT or software and data career

Leave a comment

Whether you are a system administrator or you write real time avionics control software for military jet fighters there are some common tools that will enable you to do your job better and handle many scenarios with ease.

They may not be part of your standard day to day tool chain but they can enhance your corporate value and situational agility.

1. Excel

No matter where you go Microsoft Excel seems to be there (or Google’s Sheets).

Excel is a swiss army knife of data manipulation, analysis, computation and modeling. There are a lot of use cases for software and IT staff where excel can be your goto tool.

I use Excel regularly to

  • Clean and normalize data
  • Rearrange data to suite some new need or analysis.
  • Summarize data quickly with Pivot Tables.
  • generate executable code for putting into other programs.
  • Automate tasks (yeah VBA ….)
  • Advanced analysis and optimizations
  • Convert data formats
  • Modeling
  • and more…

The filtering in the data view or (tables) is hard to beat for super fast analysis and getting quick answers. And the newer versions support PowerQuery/PowerPivot which gets you beyond that annoying 1 million row limit!

Technical employees would do well to maximize their understanding of this very powerful tool (and its web kin).

2. SQL (Structured Query Language)

If French is the language of love, then the language of data bases is SQL.

SQL is how you ask a database questions. In the simplest example you can select data from the table you are interested in.

SQL is harder to learn for beginners but is very powerful. With SQL you can not only select data you want from a database but you can do complex computations, transformations, data summarizations and ranking, data partitioning and joining together of data from separate tables. 

There are several very popular powerful databases that you can download for free to learn such as MySQL or Postgres

Knowing basic SQL WILL enhance your value to an organization and give you new opportunities for advancement and assignments.

3. Python and the Python Data stack

If SQL were a bulldozer then Python and the Python Data stack is a whole fleet of earth moving construction equipment.

Python is a very approachable yet extremely powerful programming language for those new to programming and is easy to learn. Python has tons of built in capability and loads of add on libraries that make the most sophisticated analysis and data mining doable.

Python can help you automate the boring stuff and make tedious data work quick and easy. And python runs on all the popular platforms like Windows, MacOS and Linux to name a few.

I use Python in many ways to automate tasks, connect disparate data sources, perform analysis, build synthetic data sets, serve web pages, send emails,   process tons of data and generally enhance my life.  I also use python do automatically generate Excel spreadsheets too.

Adding Python to your personal skill repertoire is a huge value add for your technical skills.

4. PowerBI

Microsoft PowerBI has quickly become one of the most powerful and popular Business Intelligence packages. If you need to connect to a variety of data sets and perform analysis and publish dashboards of results PowerBI is your tool.

PowerBI is Excel overdosing on steroids.

With powerful data connection tools, data modeling and programming tools and a bevy of visual presentation widgets to make impactful analytic dashboards PowerBI is a data powerhouse.

Businesses are embracing PowerBI for its power, cost and flexibility to allow data connection, gathering, computation, transformation, presentation and communication to staff, employees and customers.

Conclusion

All four of these tools are widely available and used, not expensive, and very powerful. They will definitely give your skill set a boost and your productivity too!

Small Business Growth

10 Easy Tactics For Small Business Growth

Leave a comment

How do you grow your business? That is a question that occupies the minds of most business owners. Especially during these uncertain times with the effects of the COVID-19 crisis everywhere. 

When you are the person in the foxhole and the bullets of everyday operational issues are flying all around its hard to

Continue reading 10 Easy Tactics For Small Business Growth →

Crisis Management, Personal Growth

Managing yourself during a crisis – Part 1

Leave a comment
“If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs…”

That is the beginning line of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.

How do you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs?

When the news is all bad and everyone else is starting to panic and lose it how do you keep your head about you?

Continue reading Managing yourself during a crisis – Part 1 →

Development, Employees, General IT, Hiring, Leadership

The 3 components of value for an IT/Software Development employee

1 Comment

How do you assess the value of an individual job?

How do you assess the value of an individual employee?

What makes you valuable to the job market?

What makes you valuable to a specific company?

How does value correlate to salary? Or does it?

Continue reading The 3 components of value for an IT/Software Development employee →

Employees, Leadership, Personal Growth, Security

5 reasons there is no security in any job and where to find it anyway

2 Comments

“I can’t find a job”

“I have a great Job”

“I’ve been let go from my job”

“I hate my job”

“I need a job”

“I was laid off from my job”

“I lost my job”

“I didn’t get the job”

We have all heard these statements and more like them regarding that thing we all love to hate, a job.

A job can provide the income and benefits we all need. A job provides a sense pf pride when we do well.  And it provides a sense of identity for what we do. All of the are good things.

And many times we look for security in a job.  But, in reality, those who are ‘let go’ understand that there is no security in a job. What feels like a great secure job one minute can quickly be eliminated by corporate changes or economic events. 

So why are jobs at their core really no security at all?

It’s not you it’s them

Job by definition means “someone else”.

If you have a job someone else is paying you. Someone else is managing you.  Someone else is setting the agenda. Someone else is deciding the larger issues of employment. Someone else is taking the risk to provide goods and services to the market place. Someone else is in control.

Someone else.

Not you.

Granted, you can quit. However, if you still need a job, you are in the same boat as before, relying on someone else.

5 Truths about jobs

  1. Jobs exist to benefit the company
  2. Jobs exist to help the business make money
  3. Jobs exist to further the company goals
  4. Jobs exist because the owners want them to be
  5. Jobs are not there for you.

Certainly you benefit as a byproduct of doing a good job through salary, bonuses and other benefits. If you do well you can get promoted to a new job. 

However, you are not the purpose of the job. You are the doer of the job. And if you don’t do it, someone else will. We are all replaceable.

Job Value Equation

A job is an equation that has to be balanced. It goes something like this:

(Real Value you deliver to the company) > X * (Your total cost to the company)

Where rarely X is 1. Many times it is much greater.

If a salesperson simply makes their equivalent salary in sales for the company they won’t be around long.

If that equation fails to balance then you may be invited to attend work elsewhere.

So where does the job security come from?

So if you can’t trust a company to provide job security then where does it come from?

Well, it comes from you.

Employment security is derived from your inate abilities, skills and attitudes that are valuable to any employer. Those are the things inside you that will get you another job.

What are they?

  • Your skills
  • Your mindset and attitude
  • Your ability to Learn
  • Your work ethic
  • Your work culture acumen
  • Knowing and growing your value

Takeaway

Ultimately we are the stewards of our own selves. One of the best job related investments you can make is in yourself.

Invest in your training, self improvement and growth.

As William Earnest Henley said in the classic poem Invictus:

“I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.”
 

You are the captain of your self and you are responsible to do those things to grow and improve. The world won’t do it for you.

In this, you take steps toward building your own security. 

So captain, where are you sailing?

Employees, Leadership, Personal Growth

5 simple ways to improve your leadership

Leave a comment

Leadership is a set of highly integrated skills that, in many ways, are better learned in real life on the job than in other types of educational scenarios. 

Here are some simple ways to augment your leadership training I have found to be effective in my career. Their only real cost time and attention. 

Coach a team

Coaching a team helps you practice preparing, planning, communicating and making decisions in real time.

When my son was younger I coached his youth soccer teams for several years, even though I was not a soccer player in my own athletic pursuits. I had to schedule practice, communicate with parents and players, actually train, evaluate and coach the players to improvement and manage games.

I learned to communicate more simply and cleary and repeatedly – all of which are key skills for any level of leadership.

I learned to train our players in routine and I learned to use fun and competition to encourage effort. These concepts also apply directly to coaching your employees. 

Grow Plants

I am not a green thumb. Growing plants for me is not easy. I have to be persistent. However, I have noticed that growing plants can instill habits that serve well in leading organizations.

Plants require a certain consistency in checking and care. Plants require observation, diagnosis and corrective action. 

When plants are cared for you are rewarded with food or beautiful flowers or greenery.

Plants are a lot like organizations. Organizations need constant care and feeding. They also sometimes need observation, diagnosis and corrective action. I have a row of plants on my office credenza which are constant reminders to me of the care and attention needed for organizational health.

Teach Kids

Working with kids are great ways to practice your communication and your ability to think and plan ahead.

Managing a room of small children makes you think ahead and plan. You will become better at anticipation and acting to head off issues and problems.

Teaching kids also forces you to communicate clearly and repeatedly to make your message clear and understood. 

Kids also ask very direct and penetrating questions much like employees or customers. You get to practice forming clear, concise answers in a low risk environment.

When you teach kids you also get to deal with those times of kids are acting out or causing problems. Dealing with these situations in real time trains you on to think, act and reason quickly to regain control of the situation.  

Watching kids grow and learn and develop is also very rewarding. Much in the same way an organization grows and achieves goals and objectives. 

Teaching kids is amazing practice for leading an organization.

Serve

The best leadership is lived out by serving your organization. Practice service, meeting the needs of others.

Serving forces focus on another, specifically meeting their needs. It’s so easy to get so self absorbed as to be of little use to the people around us. Service puts the pause button on our self focus and invites us to focus on others for a time.

Service helps build your generosity muscles, giving time, emotion, experience, encouragement or resources for the good and help of others.  

And, as you serve, especially if you are working with those less fortunate than you, it builds your own sense of gratitude.

As an organizational leader the qualities of service, focus on others, generosity and gratitude are key to building your people and building their trust in you as a leader. 

Reflect

Have a time of daily reflection where you can quietly, calmly think about the events of the day and your reaction to them. 

What went right? What went wrong?

What could I have reacted better to?

How could I have handled that situation better?

Was my work today in line with my character, plan and goals?

What did I learn today that will change what I do tomorrow?

This type of reflection builds a feedback loop for continuous improvement and better planning for tomorrow. 

 

I have found these ways helpful in my leadership development, when I was willing and humble enough to learn the lessons these environments were trying to teach me. 

What are your simple ways to improve leadership capability?

Customer Engagement, General IT, Security

7 deadly sins of IT

Leave a comment

I happened to overhear yet another conversation where some non-IT folks were discussing how they could get around IT. They were justifying their actions based on the lack of responsiveness of IT in general to their needs.

This is a common theme I have seen. Technology vigilanties bending the rules to get around the very team that supposed to help them solve technical problems.

Much of this attitude comes from the 7 deadly sins of IT.

Tech speak is not your first language

Nothing communicates implicit condescention more than using vocabulary and phrases that are are unknown to your audience. Technology is filled with words and acronyms that non tech professionals and employees don’t know or understand.

If you are fluent in tech speak and your immediate customer is not you can confuse them quickly and easily.

I have seen IT folks deliberately tech speak to the non-initiated for their own fun and sport.

The deadly sin here is that instead of being a problem solver and technical guide, the IT personnel who engage in this behavior lose influence with their customers. Their customer can’t understand them. What customers can’t understand they won’t value. Customers will find other ways around IT to get their problems resolved. Hello shadow IT.

Would you like IT attitude with that?

Most IT folks are pretty smart. After all they are dealing with computers and networks and software which can be pretty complex stuff. It can be a pretty heady vocation.

Being smart as evidenced by your sagacious problem solving and astute solutions is one thing. But having the attitue that you (as an IT worker) are smarter than everyone else because you are in IT is another deadly sin.

The thing is most employees bring their own type of ‘smart’ to their job. Just because they don’t know tech stuff per se doesn’t mean their smart is less valuable. It’s just different.  A business requires different types of ‘smart’ in order to succeed and grow. IT smart is just one of them.

Ignoring the customer

Another deadly sin is creating solutions while all the time ignoring or not involving the customer.

Too many IT groups still operate under an “IT knows best” pattern. This leads to ignoring the customer in the pursuit of solutions that IT deems necessary.

The result is that the customers needs are not met, and they are forced to look elsewhere to get the solutions they need. More shadow IT.

Means and not the end

IT is a means to an end and not the end. Unless the revenue generating product is IT, then, of course, IT is the end.

In most companies IT is needed as a means to an end, such as to improve productivity, or speed production or aid compliance. IT is a utilility that helps the business get it’s job done, faster, cheaper and with higher quality.  And it should be a responsive utility to get the best results.

Too many times entrenched IT interests believe themselves to be the end. This deadly sin results in empire protecting and dedicated adherence to the status quo. Both of which are suffocating to a business. This jurrassic mindset will go extinct just like the dinosaurs, hastened by a flood of easy to use, online, inexpensive and disruptive services.

It’s the paradigm stupid

IT camps can also fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy. Unchecked this deadly sin can yield the ‘we have to do it this way’ attitude.

Your business needs may call for new thinking or a different solution. But, because of previous investment in systems and personnel, you try to meet that need with what you have always done. Even if that’s not what will work.

When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, the old saying goes.

We have high standards

Standards are necessary. They reduce variation, expenses and help with more consistent results and experiences. We all need standards. We all get it.

The deadly sin comes in when IT uses standards like Wonder Woman used her bullet bracelets. Too many times IT teams do not respond to needs because they are outside of ‘standards’. In these environments standards are used to deflect requests, dodge opportunities and dampen ideas.

Standards end up being static snapshots in history. And in the wrong hands are used to stifle innovation and responsiveness.

Indecent exposure

The capability of technology we have today is really amazing. Modern software, mobile phones, the internet and all of its technology are unbelievable tokens of progress. Sometime just getting a technogy to work correctly is an amazing feat.

And IT has its share of amazing feats.

The deadly sin comes in when we don’t also consider security while doing amazing technogy.

We all see the news stories. There are lots of bad actors that take advantages of lax security and wreak havoc on businesses. Malware, ransom wear, data breaches, identity theft, internet disruptions are all the work of bad folks taking advantages of systems that have flaws uncorrected leaving the users of that technology exposed and vulnerable.

 

The seven deadly sins exist in many IT teams. If they remain unchecked they can damage business. Don’t let that happen to your business. What will you do about it?

Employees, Leadership, Personal Growth

You’re Fired – 6 ways to deal with being let go

6 Comments

“You’re fired.”

“We are letting you go.”

“You are being transitioned.”

“You’re being furloughed.”

“We are laying you off.”

“We’re going in a different direction.”

“We aren’t renewing your contract.”

It doesn’t matter how its said. It always means the same thing.

Your job with that employer is over.

Your paycheck stops. Your benefits are over. Your daily routine changes. You have to leave fellow employees you have become close with. Your future becomes uncertain. Your financial situation may be put in distress. You may feel emotionally traumatized. Your focus is suddenly and violently redirected. And you have to deal with a range of emotions.

And at the end of the day the reason is almost meaningless unless you did something wrong.

When you are let go, here are things you can do to cope and start moving on.

Believe in yourself

It is easy to become fearful or worse, angry and bitter, when you are terminated. When this happened to me a few years back, I immediately imagined losing our house, not being able to send my kids to college, not being able to buy food etc. You can easily go to a dark place very quickly.

However, those emotions are counter-productive to your progress.

Remind yourself  of your talents, characteristics, experience and knowledge that you have gained.

You got the job in the first place. You have proven you can learn and grow. And you can do it again.

Let that boost your confidence as you begin the process to re-group and find a new job.

Refresh your faith

When bad circumstances happen to us we need to return to our true foundation, our faith in God.

Remind your self with scripture that God has a plan for each of us and a job change, even un-planned, can be a part of a greater process for your development and growth. God can use trying times to deeping your faith and lead you to even better circumstances and personal growth.

Renew your committment to prayer, scripture reading and engaging with your church community. In doing so you will find encouragment and motivation to move ahead.

Engage your family

When this happened to me, my family was unbelievably supportive. We all sat down and talked through what had happened. Even with the kids. I involved them all in the process  of reacting to and beginning to move on to something else.

My family helped me process what had happened. They talked to me. They helped me brainstorm ideas. They helped me with new contacts for potential jobs. They encouraged me. They prayed for me.

If you, because of fear,  embarrassment or anger, shut off your family from participating in the process you are eliminating a strong source of support and encouragement.

Embrace your network

In today’s environment, the importance of your network cannot be overstated. It is most likely that your next job will come, directly or indirectly through your network.

You should always be building your network. And when you are let go from your job, lean on your network. Inform them.

I recommend you send individualized messages to people in your network. Ask them if they know of any opening or any one in their network who may know of any openings.

The day it was announced that I was let go, I notified 61 people in my network individually that night. I received lots of support and numerous leads which I immediately started following up. And that immediate effort got my mind off of the negatives of the situation and it got my transition off to a good start.

Resist making network wide posts. These are easier and may invoke sympathy from your connections but do less for you than individualized direct messages and conversations where you can reconnect with people you know and get advice and leads.

Become future focused

Its easy to spend a lot of time focusing on what happened and why and try to assess blame. It can be cathartic to work through that for a time. However, only thinking back will not prepare you for the future.

Decide to discipline your mind to leave the past behind and to focus on your future. Learn what you need to and laser focus on your activities needed to move you forward.

You now have a new opportunity.

You have a chance for a clean slate, a start over in a new job or even a new career if you so choose. Focus on that. Pour your energy and effort into that. Your new future awaits.

Mind your intake

Make sure you monitor what you read and listen to.

Focus on content that helps you move forward.

It is easy, especially during difficult times to succumb to allowing too much negativity to influence and further drag you down. 

When I was let go, I watched very little news media. The last thing I needed was to be reminded of how high the unemployment numbers were. Most of the news is negative anyway and it won’t help your frame of mind.

Focus your content consumption on leads, connections, industry information for your area, skill building, motivation and renewal.

Take time to read some of the books on your reading list to grow your knowledge or skill set.

Take some online courses on Udemy,  Coursera or LinkedIn Learning to brush up on or gain a new skill. 

Find a meet up in your area that has subjects of interest. 

All of these types of content will help you, and make you more informed for the next interview you have. 

Make it a game

When this happened to me I started tracking my own stats like a baseball player would.

I made a spreadsheet and tracked the number of emails/messages, phone calls, resumes submitted, jobs applied for  and recruiters I had engaged with. These numbers became my job search KPI’s. I was tracking the activities that I know would eventually result in me finding a new job.

Having my own personal job search KPI numbers I could update and review each day motivated me to keep going, to keep making the calls and sending the emails etc.

Takeaway

Putting effort into these activities will help you re-focus and transition after the jolt of being let go.

Put all your effort into that. The momentum of this effort will help you deal somewhat with the pain and frustration of the situation.

Look forward and embrace a better future.

Note: Observant readers will notice I actually have seven ways not six. Well, I edited this post after I published it and didn’t want to change the title. So you get one for free. Who doesn’t like a free bonus?

 

General IT, Small Business Purchase, Technical Debt

5 Simple Ways to Boost Technology Value Before Sale

Leave a comment

This article first published at the Axial Forum here: 5 Simple Ways to Boost Technology Value Before Sale and is reposted here with permission.

During M&A, seemingly small technology concerns can have material impacts on the ultimate valuation of your business. When selling your business, how can you improve your technology’s value and speed up the due diligence process?

Here are 5 simple tips.

(Note that these tips don’t address more significant technology issues like embedded technical debt, un-found software defects, or key security risks. Those types of issues need to be discussed and evaluated separately.)

1. Clean the garage

Ask any realtor: a clean and orderly house is easier to sell and will do so at a higher price than one that is disorganized or in disrepair.

Every company accumulates old technology that is no longer needed or used. Clean it up. Take a Friday, buy pizza and sodas for the technology teams, and have a spruce up day.

Sell or dispose of old printers, laptops, phones, computers, or servers that are no longer being used. Get rid of the accumulated boxes, old manuals, broken mice, computer monitors that only show green, and outdated cables and connectors.

Eliminate everything but what you know you have definite need and direct use for. Resist, with great aggression, the notion that “this may have value someday.” It won’t, especially not for your business’ new owners.

2. Take inventory of the technical assets

Know what you have and what the new owner will be taking over. You should already have an inventory of your technical assets, but if you don’t, create one now. This can be as simple as a Word or Google Doc, or an Excel spreadsheet that lists servers, software systems, infrastructure elements, employee devices, etc.

The inventory list also needs to show the purpose of the asset. If the server called “acmeacct” is the host server for the corporate accounting database then say that. If you have a Cisco router that interfaces with the WAN circuit to the remote office in Columbus, OH, then put that as the purpose. I recommend having hardware and key software systems listed on the inventory sheet.

An up-to-date inventory list will speed the work of the technical due diligence and improve the perception of the acquiring team.

3. Draw pictures

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If you don’t already have them, create a few high-level drawings of the overall technical layout and architecture of the technology in the business. Those drawings will communicate, far better than any other medium, the technical relationships and dependencies for your acquiring team. Include the names of the assets, physical locations, and other pertinent high-level details on the drawings. Be sure and use the same names on your drawings as you do in your inventory lists.

The drawings don’t have to be professional CAD drawings. Simple PowerPoint block diagrams or even hand drawn pictures, as long as they are legible and accurate, will suffice for most businesses.

4. Police your policies

The state of your technology policies and procedures will communicate volumes about your operational condition to the acquiring team. Clearly written, accessible, and organized policies increase compliance and will improve the buyer’s perception of the value and capability of your organization. Password and security policies, backup policies, and software deployment procedures should all be documented. Especially if your business engages in regular credit transactions, the lack of security will increase perceived risk in the minds of the acquiring M&A team.

Before due diligence starts, review and update any policies or procedures that are out of date. Document missing procedures and communicate them to the organization.

Organize the policies and procedures and title them appropriately in a common place – this could be a shared folder on a company server, a list of Google documents, or a defined location on the corporate intranet. Every employee should know where these live and how they are accessed.

5. Rectify the roles and responsibilities

Acquirers will view your company’s employee base as a key asset during M&A. Certainly any good HR department will have a list of employees and job titles. But that list does not communicate responsibility or system expertise from a technical perspective.

The technology teams should have their own roles and responsibilities list that communicates what each team member is responsible for and expert in. When possible, the list should include the names of systems used in the other documents to facilitate better overall understanding by the acquiring entity.

Disruption, Leadership, Small Business Growth

7 ways to turn your growing startup into a shrinking shutdown

Leave a comment

Starting a company is hard. Growing it is harder. A lot conspires against a business that makes growth hard.

However, some of the main reasons for business difficulty are self-induced.

Here are 7 avoidable ways that a growing startup can turn into a shrinking shutdown.

Stagnate Products

Every product has a life-cycle.

Every product has an end date.

Markets move along.

Customer needs evolve.

Competitors improve.

Regulations change.

Disruptive ideas challenge the way things are done.

Keeping your product  the “same old same old” in a dynamic market environment is like leaving the milk out overnight. It spoils and nobody wants it. Customer interest wains. Sales dwindle. Revenue decreases.

Certainly, you can extend the life of a product by adding new features and making customer requested changes. But, astute owners understand no matter how good your product is now, or how much market share it commands, you should be planning for its decline.

Become Arrogant

Companies that create a market leading product become susceptible to ‘market arrogance’.  In your own little microcosm of success, you ridicule new entrants to the market, dismiss competitors, and ignore  potential disruptors.

During my time with Motorola, market arrogance (among other things) led to ignoring the move digital cellular. Motorola was the analog cellular king and didn’t believe digital had a future. Nokia did and became a market leader in a few short years. Motorola eventually recovered for a time with the introduction of the RAZR but later declined due to missteps in the smartphone category.

Market arrogance blinds you to the very thing that will unseat you.

Wise market leaders understand that humility and a little paranoia are 2 keys to inoculate a company against market arrogance.

Forget strategy

Your strategy is the high-level plan to achieve corporate goals. It is the activity that maps direction to vision.

Companies who choose to ignore strategy are abandoning achievement and giving up on goals. They are adrift.

Leaders who ignore strategy have abdicated their responsibility.

Companies who ignore strategy can only hope for random results at best. The more likely result is consistent decline.

Perceptive business leaders know that strategy sharpens focus, provides direction and helps align the organization for achievement.

Abandon Vision

Hand in hand with strategy is the vision.

Vision is the destination, strategy is the map to get there.

When a company abandons its vision, the purpose degrades to simply making money. We all need money to live. However, as author Dan Pink writes in his book Drive, money in and of itself, is not a sustaining motivator, especially in today’s culture.

Smart owners understand the vision has to be re-communicated regularly, refreshed as needed and it has to be the driving motivator for the organization.

Eliminate employee development

The most important asset of any business is the employees who show up everyday and do their job. You don’t see this asset listed on any balance sheet.  But without them, the company won’t be able to operate.

Employee development is the way to care for that asset. It is the way the company invests in its future. It is a long play for your employee base.

Abandoning development is akin to saying ‘there is no future here’.

Intelligent owners know that investment in employees through training and development pays dividends back to the company in many ways.

Ignore customers

In today’s business environment, customers expect a dialog.

Many customers have a lot to say and can provide excellent feedback regarding your products or services. Customers whose feedback is heard and understood can be wonderful advocates for your company. However, if customers feel ignored they will migrate to your competitors.

Companies that engage customers and value feedback gain insight to markets that is otherwise unavailable. Companies that ignore customer feedback miss important clues as to where the market may be going.

Adroit leaders know that customer engagement builds loyalty, advocacy, and improves results.

Think the same

Thinking the same means you and your organization have stopped learning.

Same thinking is stale thinking. Same thinking blocks insight and dampens learning. Same thinking is fragile. Same thinking won’t allow you to continue to grow and succeed.

One of the only truly sustainable competitive advantages is an organization that can learn and learn fast and apply what they learn in the marketplace.

Great leaders know that both success and failure should lead to learning. And learning changes thinking.