The Versatile Leader Roundup (Curated Content)
Articles I Discovered Recently About Every Function Under The Sun
“Pour over” coffee is best because the all of the variables affecting extraction are within your control. Just like a great cup of “pour over” coffee, learning about the interrelated areas of your business is also 100% within your control. Below are some recent or rediscovered articles about several areas of business (finance, IT, HR, entrepreneurship, legal, and more).
But first, a story…..
When I was in the seventh grade, my English teacher, Ms. Dillman (now Elshire), had this special program called the “Reading Wheel.” The reading wheel consisted of a pie shaped drawing, mimeographed of course (it WAS the 80s!), with a different subject in each slice. Fiction, nonfiction, sports story, biography, science fiction, and the list goes on. I don’t even remember what the actual prize was for completing each reading wheel, but I finished several over the course of that year and discovered a lot of books that I would have never read otherwise. Ever since then, I have approached life and career a lot like a reading wheel. And thus, somewhere in the back of my mind, that was probably the driving force behind PrepOverCoffee. To provide busy leaders and future leaders with great information to fill in their career “reading wheels.”
I’ll be back later this week with more written by me, but I hope you enjoy the exposure to the topics below as much as I enjoyed those reading wheels back in seventh grade. Thank you, Ms. Dillman!
Follow me @PrepOverCoffee on Twitter as well for more articles and info.
If you are a new subscriber to PrepOverCoffee, don’t forget to take a look at the launch page for evergreen content released prior to your subscription. Also, for more searchable, category based review of content, check out the index.
Career, Culture, Leadership and Relationships
Great leaders are confident enough to seek the insights of others. But sometimes, asking for feedback does not give you the valuable information you need to improve. Here is a great approach for making a feedback conversation more dynamic.
Stop asking for feedback (ask for advice instead)
Corporate Governance
Hey fellow GenXers, I have rediscovered Dilbert. For those with a sense of humor about ESG, check out Dilbert Does ESG. It started with a tweet from Scott Adams, and became a number of daily strips.
Click through each day (there is an arrow on the site), starting with Our Company Has Low ESG Scores.
Finance & Accounting
Automating the boring stuff can make any organization more attractive to talent. Learn a bit more about how Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is used to automate various repeatable processes, and how it benefits organizations well beyond IT.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Finance
HR/Talent/People
This was new to me, but originally published in 2019. There are some great tips here for managing difficult team members.
How to manage a stubborn, defensive or defiant employee
Legal/Compliance/Regulatory
Another oldie but a goodie! “Getting to Yes” was the textbook used in my negotiation class in law school, and it still holds up all these years later. An aggregation site recently put this back in front of me, and it is an excellent summary of great negotiation principles for any profession.
Marketing/Communications
When you are an expert in your field or on your product, you often don’t notice the jargon that you use. Writing for customers and different audiences can benefit from some basics, like:
5 tips for writing amazingly jargon-free product copy
Innovation/Entrepreneurship
As Juliet once lamented about her Romeo, “what’s in a name?” A conversation that happens a lot with new business founders involves naming the company. Check out Entrepreneur’s take on this - and click the embedded links for tips on how to make sure you can truly be confident the name is available (not just legally, but for social media, etc).
How to choose a strong business name to amplify your brand
Technology and Delivery
As the world moves away from waterfall (“linear”) project delivery toward agile (“iterative”) project delivery and product teams, some of the “old school” fundamentals will help your teams avoid making the same mistakes over and over. This even works for “non-IT” projects, so if you are in legal, product development, HR, finance, or any type of organization - you can still achieve exponential improvement through scalable (meaning not too much effort for your needs and capacity) project closure. Stay tuned, as PrepOverCoffee is working on a guide to all the methods of delivery for project sponsors and non-IT staff, including how to incorporate some great practices for your own organization.
Want more like this? Don’t forget to check out the main PrepOverCoffee page filled with evergreen content, and there is also a searchable index.