Not every year at every company is valued equally.
Just like a year in a dog’s life is equivalent to seven human years,
the same can be said for experience in certain companies.
Unlike many Monday morning armchair pundits writing about corporate
life, I can talk from experience having worked for Amazon on their
Fashion Leadership Team during explosive growth. We had acquired
Zappos and Shopbop, created MyHabit, and were sowing the early seeds
of private label offerings and breaking the mold at Amazon by
innovative marketing strategies.
That year was the equivalent of ten years at another company. I
secured a seven figure investment in 48hours, got to sit the other
side of the table from Jeff Bezos and be a part of watching his
brilliance at work while laying the foundations for what became one of
the fastest growing profitable divisions of Amazon.
Everyone asks me what it was like to work at Amazon and if all the
stories are true, I wrote about this at the time in my INC Magazine
column that you can read here.
The two biggest challenges that Amazon faces is how they appropriately
scale back their strategic appetite to meet the reality of their
hiring capacity and managing the risk of having Bezos associated with
the Washington Post. If I was on the Amazon board I would tell him to
extract himself from that investment as the political ramifications
are too risky having both roles.
Meanwhile ask yourself, are you at a company where your learning is at
the rate of dog years or even Amazon years? If not perhaps it’s time
to consider how you define and find your perfect next executive role.
You can download a free teleconference I recorded here to explain just
how.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
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The Best Way To Return From Vacation
As retailers pile up back packs and school supplies in every aisle,
there are still a few weeks of summer left for many, so start planning
now how you and your team will return from your vacation mode.
Too many people celebrate the end of summer with last day of summer
parties when really they should be celebrating the start of something
new!
Here are three tips to accelerate happiness and results when returning
from vacation:
1. Reset the view on the horizon
* Ask if everyone in your company is looking out at the same horizon
and seeing the same view of the future.
* Use the day after your vacation to tell your story of the future and
inspire your team where your company going.
2. Adults hate routine change too
* Children hate routine change but so do adults, habits easily form
that make people miserable. Use this time of year to reflect on which
routines are working for you in your work life and whole life —decide
which you want to change.
* Celebrate the start of new routines, don’t throw an end of summer
party, throw a start of the new school year party or start of new
project party to connect with new friends and reconnect with old ones.
3. Be Thoughtfully Ruthless!
* After all of that relaxation and fun, now is the perfect time to be
thoughtfully ruthless with your time, your energy and resources.
- Are you spending time with people who energize and inspire you?
- Do you need to ruthlessly attack your calendar so it doesn’t control you?
- Does everyone on your team understand and believe where you are going?
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here
to get them in your inbox each Monday morning:
http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/
How To Boost Your Productivity Before Your Next Vacation
If you have ever been in a store just as it is closing, you will see customers frantically running around trying to grab their last minute items, which often leads to them forgetting the one vital item that they had to purchase. Don't let your last day at work be just as chaotic.
As you count down the hours left in the office before vacation, are you wandering the hallways wishing your employees 'seasons greetings' and asking them about their holiday plans, or are you locked away in your office scrambling to complete your to-do list and achieve that elusive inbox zero?
Follow these four ways guaranteed to allow you to smoothly sail into your holiday vacation:
1. Stop trying to achieve the impossible.
While inbox zero may look visually appealing for a few seconds, does anyone really care? Decide what is time-sensitive and what you have to address before you switch into holiday-mode.
2. Be clear if it is shutdown time.
When I worked for British car manufacturer Land Rover, vacations were simple, the factory shutdown, nobody worked and vacations were clearly defined. Now it is down to each company and leader to set what is expected during vacation time. Let your team know if you will be on the ski slopes out of cell phone range and who makes decisions in your absence. How you behave on vacation sets the expectation for your team.
3. Don't just run out the door.
Don't frantically work right up until you run out the door. Complete an end of work ritual: wrap up your projects, send those last few emails, and review your calendar for your first week back.
4. Schedule your first day back now.
Instead of frantically trying to achieve everything today, plan your first day back from vacation now and schedule in your outstanding tasks to the day you return.
I recommend to the executives I work with that your last day at work before vacation is most productive if it is meeting free. By being ruthless, in a thoughtful way about not booking meetings, it gives you space to wrap up your work, talk with your team, and plan your return.
Schedule in meeting free days now before all of your future vacations and watch how your productivity soars.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val