Tag: managers

Why Bad Leaders Focus on Perfection

May 25, 2022May 24, 2022by johneadesLeave a comment

There is this common belief that you have to be perfect in order to be excellent. While it’s accurate great performances like a presentation, recital, or sales pitch can often look perfect, they never are. Regardless of the size, there are always incremental ways to improve.

However, most people act and think like they are falling short because they aren’t perfect.

Take my 10-year-old son, John Ellis, as an example. His third-grade class was assigned a book writing project culminating in a publishing party where each student read their book in front of students, teachers, and parents. Then, for weeks leading up to the party, he wasn’t sleeping right. After multiple attempts to get to the root of his sleeping issues, he finally came clean the night before the big event, “I just want it to be perfect.” As the tears started to come down his face, I quickly realized it wasn’t the project causing the tears and sleepless nights; it was the thought of perfection.

I will tell you the hard truth that I had to tell a crying 10-year-old; perfection isn’t possible, and if achieving perfection is your only measure of success, you will miss the point of what you’re doing altogether.

Perfection isn’t possible, and if achieving perfection is the only measure of success, you will miss the point of what you’re doing altogether.

Unfortunately, the mindset of wanting and needing things to be perfect doesn’t stop with kids; it is an epidemic among leaders and professionals.

What is Perfection?

Perfection is defined as the action or process of improving something until it is faultless or as faultless as possible. While the definition isn’t all that scary, no one currently living is faultless or even close to it. The word perfection comes from the Latin word perficere, meaning “to complete,” which has nothing to do with being faultless.

Perfection is cruel because it seems attainable, but in reality, it’s impossible. It’s even more impossible over long periods of time versus small moments in time.

The reality is that perfection doesn’t help you; it hurts you. It creates unrealistic expectations that further prevent you from performing at your best. Instead of focusing on perfection, pivot to opportunities.

The reason is that a perfection mindset is outcome-focused, yet an opportunity mindset is process-focused. That’s important because the best leaders and performers are processed-focused instead of outcome-focused.

The best leaders are processed-focused instead of outcome-focused.

The truth is the bigger the stage, the bigger the opportunity to demonstrate your work.

Striving to Get Better Versus Demanding Perfection

Most managers and leaders get perfection wrong by not understanding the difference between striving to get better versus demanding perfection. This is a massive problem because striving relentlessly to get better and demanding perfection are two different things.

Striving relentlessly to get better creates a scenario for consistently elevating the standard of what is possible. Conversely, demanding perfection causes anxiety, depression, and people who never meet their potential. If that weren’t bad enough, it causes team members to burn out and quit both themselves and their jobs.

So whether you are a team leader or simply trying to perform at a higher level, I want you to write down the following somewhere you can see it throughout the next week.

You have to be willing to be imperfect even to get close to perfection.

Said differently, you have to be willing to be imperfect to get better. You have to be ready to struggle, fail, learn, and overcome to perform at your best.

Closing

Becoming the leader or professional who constantly strives to get better versus demanding perfection won’t be easy. No one wants to make mistakes, errors, or fail at something they care about. But if we have learned anything over the last few years, it’s that we can change and adapt. We can reject the cultural narrative that everything is perfect and instead choose progress.

Since you are reading this, I know you are the kind of professional to choose excellence instead of perfection. You are the kind of leader to coach your people to strive to get better versus demanding perfection.

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About the Author John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, a leadership development company helping executives and managers to lead their best. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Management & Workplace. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.

How to Create a Coaching Culture in Your Organization

June 22, 2021June 24, 2021by johneadesLeave a comment

Getting managers and executives to act like coaches is a battle worth fighting.

A Manager, by definition, is a person responsible for controlling or administering all or part of a company or similar organization. If you felt a little uncomfortable reading that description, you aren’t alone. Just the thought of “controlling” or “administering all” of something, especially when it comes to people, feels all too “1950’s workplace” for me as well.

Grace Hopper said: “you manage things; you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership.” Not only is Hopper right, but you can’t control the growth and development of someone else.

Most managers want to help grow the skills of others, but their lack of follow-through and coaching keeps this from happening. Instead, leaders embrace their responsibility in the growth process and inspire and coach others to meet their full potential.

Leaders know they can’t control the growth of team members, but they can inspire and coach for it.

Coaching is a skill that anyone, regardless of role, can adopt and develop. I define coaching this way in the Coaching for Excellence Program, “coaching is improving the current and future performance of others to achieve higher levels of excellence.”

Coaching is improving the current and future performance of others to achieve higher levels of excellence.

By getting in the mindset to coach, bringing specific attributes in each interaction, and coaching team members differently based on where they are in their development, anyone can play a role in helping someone else achieve higher levels of excellence.

Having a Coaching Culture Improves Performance

When one or two people are doing something positive, small changes happen. When the vast majority of people are doing something positive, transformation occurs. This is precisely what happens when organizations adopt a coaching culture. I defined culture in Building the Best as “The shared values and beliefs that guide thinking and behavior.” When everyone in an organization believes that part of their job is helping others improve, organizations thrive.

Don’t just take my word for it. In one study, 51% of organizations with a strong coaching culture reported revenue above their industry peer group, and 62% of employees in those organizations rate themselves as highly engaged.

What Holds Companies Back From Adoption

Like many things, most people and organizations start with great intentions, and coaching is no different. But when immediate results aren’t realized, people default to their old way of leading.

When immediate results aren’t realized, people default to their old way of leading.

An ICF Global study in 2020 found the three top obstacles to building a strong coaching culture inside an organization are: Limited support from senior leaders (50%), inability to measure the impact of coaching (42%), and a lack of budget for coaching activities (38%).

While each organization is a little different, the commitment to coaching separates those who adopt and sustain it versus those who do not.

How to Create and Maintain a Coaching Culture

If you or your organization is committed to creating a coaching culture, here are a few strategies to adopt.

1. Start with Coachable People

It is a lot easier to adopt a coaching culture when the talent in the organization is coachable. This requires starting at the beginning of the talent development lifecycle and hiring people excited to listen, learn and grow within their role and the organization.

It’s easy for someone to say they are coachable, but I look for proof. A good barometer is when someone demonstrates their desire to get better and is willing to put in the work and effort.

“Being coachable is how you show the world you desire to get better and are willing to listen while putting in the work and effort.”

Hiring coachable people is precisely where Human Resources and Hiring Managers get the opportunity to rise to the occasion. There are many methods to ensure you hire someone who is coachable, and looking at a resume isn’t one of them. The ticket is asking candidates tough situational questions;

Can you tell me about a time when someone challenged you in the past and how you responded?
Can you tell me about a time when you helped someone else improve?

2. Promote Managers and Executives Willing and Able to Coach

Nothing will hurt the development of a coaching culture more than executives at the top who aren’t coachable. When you have professionals at every level of an organization, from the CEO to interns, who are coachable, performance skyrockets.

For decades professionals have been promoted because of success in previous roles, without thinking much about their leadership skills. Sir Richard Branson, the CEO of Virgin Airlines, evaluates both when promoting, “I like to take chances on people, and whenever possible, promote from within – it sends a great message to everyone in the company when someone demonstrates a passion for the job and leadership skills at every step along the way is rewarded with a leadership job.”

“Individual contributor results are important, but they aren’t an indication of how someone is going to do in a position of leadership.”

Creating a coaching culture requires promoting people who remain coachable and are willing and able to teach and mentor others.

3. Equip Them With Tools and Training

Bob Nardelli said, “without a coach, people will never reach their maximum capability,” and I couldn’t agree more. While some people are wired with a better predisposition to coach, anyone who wants to be a more effective coach needs tools, methods, training, and experience to improve. This is precisely how you mold any skill.

I believe that in just a few years, most thriving organization’s employee development strategy will have a coaching program or certification for managers and executives to refine their coaching skills.

Closing

Each organization and its leaders are going to go about developing a coaching culture in slightly different ways. Whether they leverage external coaches, internal coaches, or elevating the coaching from managers, their people need help and support to achieve higher levels of excellence.

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About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, a leadership development company helping executives and managers to lead their best. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Management & Workplace. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.

How Great Leaders Overcome the Current Talent Shortage

May 25, 2021May 25, 2021by johneadesLeave a comment

There is no shortage of challenges facing leaders today. Leading remote teams, communicating the company return to the office policy, navigating a rapidly changing market, and handling a constricted supply chain, just to name a few. While these are all legitimate constraints, there is one challenge rising above the rest, acquiring talented professionals.

Don’t just take my word for it; the stats regarding acquiring talent in the short term are staggering. According to the Allegis Group’s Global Workforce Trends Survey, 79% of respondents in North America experience challenges acquiring critical talent. In addition, Randstad Sourceright’s 2021 Talent Trends Report found, 40 percent of human capital leaders report that talent scarcity has negatively impacted their organization – the highest total in the past five years.

As jaw-dropping as these statistics are, the talent shortfall appears to be here to stay. A recent Korn Ferry study found by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people, resulting in $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues.

The Problem Isn’t Isolated.

The talent shortage isn’t just forcing some teams or businesses to have to close or pause operations; it’s also contributing to the rising employee burnout problem. When a team is short on staff, it causes team members to work longer and harder to pick up the slack. The managers of teams in this situation might not recognize it, but leaders certainly do.

Managers care about short-term productivity regardless of the price. Leaders care about the long-term price of productivity.

Most managers focus solely on results. Leaders recognize results matter, but they see a world beyond just immediate outcomes.

Since the talent shortfall is here to stay and the problem isn’t isolated, what can you do to thrive in this challenging environment?

Recruit Year-Round, With Everyone

Coaches in NCAA Division 1 college athletics know that to be great over a long period of time, they must recruit year-round and not just during open recruiting periods. The same is true in the workplace.

Mark Wojcik, Founder & President at HireLevel, told me, “Be consistent and be flexible. Be consistent in your interview process and your communication. Be flexible with requirements and with candidate qualifications. Because at the end of the day, great leaders can harness great potential.”

Great leaders can harness great potential.

Instead of waiting until the need is extreme, every single team member, from the CEO to a front-line employee, should feel responsible for attracting talented people to the organization consistently.

Look for “Cultural Cofounders.”

In the middle of talent crunches, it’s easy to forget about hiring for a good culture fit and settle for the thinking that “any warm body will do.” While it might help you in the short-term, this will no doubt hurt your team in the long run.

On a recent episode of The Masters of Scale podcast with Reid Hoffman, Workday’s CEO Annel Bhusri talked about personally interviewing their first 500 employees for what he called “cultural co-founders.” The idea was, “if we hired the right first 500, it would give us the next 5,000 because they would be with the company for 10+ years to uphold the culture and attract the people that fit our culture well.”

“The best leaders hire for culture fit and for people who desire to get better.”

While this might seem extreme, if you are going to create a development and people-first culture, you better be sure to hire the right people who fit your culture and desire to progress.

Be Proactive for Talent Outside Your Vertical

W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne coined the terms red and blue oceans to denote the market universe in their book, Blue Ocean Shift. The idea being, Cutthroat competition turns the ocean bloody red. Hence, the term ‘red’ oceans. Blue oceans denote all the industries not in existence today – the unknown market space, unexplored and untainted by competition.

While seeking talent isn’t a perfect fit to their idea, there is excellent value, seeking talent in professionals outside your traditional vertical. For example, I have been helping an upstart in the automotive industry seek talented customer service and salespeople. Instead of looking for people with experience in the automotive industry, we are looking for people who have hospitality service experience, because technical knowledge is easier to teach than a servant’s heart.

Find an alternative industry where talented people have developed great leadership skills and be proactive in getting them to make the switch. It might be precisely what they are looking for, and no one is reaching out to them.

Closing

There is nothing easy about the current talent shortfall, especially in specific industries like hospitality and manufacturing. However, if you recruit year-round, look for cultural cofounders, and focus on the untapped people outside your vertical, you will be on your way to a more talented team.

Lastly, as I tell my team all the time, “if it were easy, everyone would do it well.”

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Why the Best Leaders Use Purpose to Improve Engagement

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021by johneades1 Comment

There is this common belief that disengaged employees are bad employees. The reasons are numerous, but a few common behaviors include; laziness, boredom, uninspired, and limited productivity.

While it’s undoubtedly true these aren’t the habits that produce excellent results; it doesn’t mean a disengaged employee is a bad employee forever.

Take Mark, the CEO of a medium-sized manufacturing company, as an example. Thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit and relentless work ethic, he and a small team grew his business from nothing to $15M in revenue over ten years. But as the company saw revenue plateau for three consecutive years, Mark began to lose interest.

He started working fewer hours, stopped holding daily huddles with his management team, and found himself just going through the motions. You could say he was lazy, bored, and uninspired, thus he became disengaged from an outside perspective.

Thanks to his team and external coaching help, Mark began to recognize what his disengagement was costing his own company and how it was negatively affecting his people. Through a lot of hard work and soul searching, he rediscovered his passion and purpose and committed to new habits to replace the stale ones. Mark has transformed his leadership approach in just six short months and has breathed new life into the business and his team.

He also provides an example that disengaged employees aren’t bad employees, and no one is immune to becoming disengaged, even the CEO.

Disengaged employees aren’t bad employees permanently, and no one is immune to becoming disengaged.

How Disengaged Are We?

Now before we get into the state of engagement in the workplace, we must level set on a common definition of employee engagement. While there are tons of great definitions of employee engagement, I have come to define it this way, “Employees who are emotionally committed to the success of the team or organization, demonstrated through their actions.”

When employees are engaged in this way, they are more productive, happier, and fulfilled in their professional careers. This makes it hard to imagine why anyone would sign up to be disengaged, but unfortunately, it’s more popular than the latter.

To give you an idea of how unengaged the workforce is today, Gallup research found only 39% of employees are engaged, and 14% are actively disengaged.

Managers are Most Important

While the current engagement statics are no doubt a bit gloomy, I am an optimistic thinker. Instead of seeing it as a problem, I see it as an opportunity, much like many of the great leaders I have studied. Great leaders look for opportunities in problems.

When you look at employee engagement through the lens of an opportunity instead of a problem, clarity emerges. The opportunity present is for managers to take personal responsibility instead of pawning it off on HR or relying on the bi-annual company-wide engagement survey. While Human Resources professionals are key and engagement surveys are essential, research indicates that managers affect 70% of team engagement variance.

So if you have a title that comes with the responsibility of leading others at work, know the actions you exhibit today will reflect the engagement you get tomorrow.

The actions leaders exhibit today will reflect the engagement they get tomorrow.

How to Drive Higher Levels of Engagement

Most bad leaders assume that disengagement will take care of itself if you throw money at people (If only it were this easy!). In Adam Grant’s book, Think Again, he wrote, “Research across industry, shows once people are earning enough to meet their basic needs, paying them more doesn’t stop them from leaving a bad job and bad bosses. In most companies, if the pay were the carrot, that would have already solved the engagement problem.”

Grant is correct; while pay is essential, it won’t solve the problem. One key action leaders can leverage to drive higher engagement levels is to connect the team’s activity to a deeper purpose.

Connect your team to a deeper purpose for higher engagement levels

Shared Purpose

Employees don’t get burned out because of their work; they get burned out because they forget WHY they do their work. Because of this, leaders of high-performing teams are constantly reminding their people of the deeper purpose behind the work they do.

One of the most prominent mistakes managers make is believing it’s not their job to connect their team to a deeper purpose. Don’t fall into this flawed thinking. Embrace the responsibility that you are the connector of cause.

On a recent episode of the Follow My Lead Podcast, Rodney Showmar, the CEO of Arkansas Federal Credit Union, said, “Engaged professionals don’t get up every day to do a function; they get up every day to fulfill a purpose.” Showmar and his team do a phenomenal job connecting every single one of their 350+ employees to “making a difference in people’s lives.”

A deeper purpose like Showmar articulates has been instrumental in achieving higher levels of success for his organization. Do not go another minute without being clear on why your team is doing what it’s doing. It’s easy for people to get lost in the monotony of their everyday work without considering how their work impacts the larger organization and customers.

If you’re unsure how to communicate this to your team, start by answering these three complicated yet straightforward questions:

What do you do?
Why do you do it? (Hint: it’s got to be more than making money)
What positive impact does our work have on others?

It’s easy to skim past these questions, but I’m challenging you to pause. Reread them and ask yourself if each member of your team could answer it with clarity. If the answer is no, you have some work to do.

Closing

Disengaged employees aren’t bad employees. Before judging them, use your empathy skills and recognize disengagement can happen to any of us. Then look in the mirror and ask yourself, “What can I do to get them emotionally committed to the success of the team?” There is a good chance the answer to that question has nothing to do with money but instead reconnecting them to the purpose behind their work.

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About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, a leadership development company helping executives and managers to lead their best. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Management & Workplace. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.

How Great Leaders Always Help Their Team Excel

February 24, 2021February 25, 2021by johneades1 Comment

When it comes to someone developing into the best version of themselves, we’ve been tricked into believing a common myth: It’s the idea that people develop into this version of themselves on their own.

We have all thought this or even tried it. If you just read enough, practice enough, watch enough or get enough reps, your growth and development will take of itself.

There is one big problem with this idea; you are only going to be able to take yourself so far on your own, and it’s not going to be the best version of yourself.

This is where leadership comes in. At the core of leadership is helping someone to become the best version of themselves and excel.

Why Most Managers Don’t Do It

There are many reasons leaders stop short of helping their team members excel; one of the most common is the fear of losing top talent. (Even writing that sounded bad!) This week, one of the most important people in my professional journey left the company after 5+ years of working together. It was a mutual decision to allow her to take a great position and challenge herself in a new company. While it will be hard not having her on the team, it’s the right thing to do for her. If you take nothing else away from this article, please remember this:

Losing talented people is a challenging part of leadership, but it’s also the purpose of it.

When you look at exceptional leaders, it is not uncommon to see most of their most talented people take a similar path with an upward trajectory. Take Nick Saban, for example. For the last 15+ years, the college football world has raided his coaching staff to find head coaches. The kind of wisdom and development these future leaders have experienced in their previous roles under Saban is well known. Not only does Saban embrace this, but he also looks at it as a critical part of his job.

So how do you mimic Nick Saban and help your people become the best version of themselves and excel? Here are four tips to keep in mind:

You Can’t Do it For Them.

I know this sounds counterintuitive, but you have to start with the correct mindset that you can’t do the work required to become the best version of themselves for them. In a recent episode of the Follow My Lead Podcast with Rob Siegfried, CEO of The Siegfried Group, he shed light on this exact subject.

“The transformation process has to come from you. Leaders can help someone transform themselves (with development opportunities), but we can’t transform for them.”

Create Opportunities for Development

If you settle for the same opportunities, output, or effort people give on a day in, day out basis; there won’t be much growth happening. It would help if you challenged people with development opportunities. There is a big sign in my gym with a quote from Fred DeVito that reflects the importance of this, “if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you!”

Development opportunities come in many forms, such as industry events, distributing books, sharing blogs, bringing in a speaker, and many others. Instead of getting caught up in how you do this for your team, the key is that you are doing it.

Build a Love Tough and Thick Skin Culture

Last year, I went to Kansas City to help develop managers’ leadership skills at Amsted Rail. Part of the day included a tour facility and learning the process of building steel train wheels from start to finish. They use extreme heat to mold the steel into circular wheels. Without the heat, the wheels would never become the best version of themselves, and I have found that this process can apply to future leaders as well.

To become the best version of yourself often takes some heat, such as “love tough” and “having thick skin.” The best leaders recognize this, and they make sharing the truth in a constructive way a big part of their culture.

All improvement starts with the truth.

The danger of this kind of approach is if the people you are trying to develop don’t know you care about them, you risk your tough love having the opposite of your intended effect. So keep in mind the wise words of one of my mentors, “rules without relationship leads to rebellion.”

Be an Uber Coach

One way a leader separates themselves from being a manager is the mindset they take to coaching others. A coach, by definition, is one who trains and instructs. Coaching comes from the word “carriage,” meaning to take someone from point A to point B.

In our Coaching for Excellence workshops, I teach leaders to embrace the mindset of an “Uber Coach.” Much like an uber driver, leaders must be willing and able to coach team members anyplace and anytime when needed or required.

Coaching once a year in a performance review isn’t coaching, it’s negligence

If you are going to help your people become the best version of themselves, you must coach them like crazy. While outside professional or executive coaches can provide tremendous perspective, they can’t coach daily. If you lead a team, it’s your responsibility to make coaching your people a top priority.

Closing

Doing these things as a leader will not work on 100% of the people you pour into. But it will work on the individual who has come to a point in their journey where they cannot move forward anymore without the help of someone else- you. That is when your efforts will propel them into becoming the very best version of themselves, allowing them to move onwards and upwards to bigger and better things.

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About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, a leadership development company helping executives and managers to lead their best. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Management & Workplace. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.

5 Leadership Predictions You Need to Know for 2021

January 12, 2021January 14, 2021by johneades1 Comment

While Covid-19 wreaked havoc on the workplace in 2020, it fast-tracked changes that would have taken five years and crammed them into five months. Leaders were tested in ways they never imagined possible. They showed flexibility and adaptability to not only survive the brutal year. Now the calendar change has turned their attention to what’s ahead.

It’s finally 2021, which means a new round of leadership predictions. Last year’s predictions aged reasonably well, such as managers having to learn to lead remote teams. Others not so much, such as large organizations looking like universities (it’s getting closer, but not there yet.) This time around, I look at some current trends continuing because of Covid protocol and some contrarian perspectives to help you lead your best in 2021.

1. The Coaching Rage Infiltrates Managers

The boom in professional coaching is real. Organizations and individual contributors sought professional coaches to help boost performance in 2020. Thanks to companies like BetterUp and Soar, the cost of professional coaching is no longer out of bounds for leaders below the C-Suite. This trend doesn’t slow down in 2021 thanks to technology, the gig economy, and HR Executives looking to develop leadership skills earlier in employees’ careers.

However, it doesn’t stop there. More managers will start acting and behaving like professional coaches to their team members. The signup rate from the first two Coaching for Excellence virtual workshops shows me managers are putting on their coaching hat much more often than they used to.

Key Takeaway: Expect managers to look for professional coaching certifications and companies to offer internal coaching programs.

2. Character Counts Again

You might think this is a result of the 2020 US Presidential elections, but you would be wrong. The character test in both political parties is at an all-time low. I defined character in Building the Best as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.” The time is now for leaders to do what is right and measure themselves against right and wrong.

Scott Olster highlighted Adam Grant in his Linkedin 2021 predictions, “As we strive to overcome a global pandemic and an economic recession, the character of leaders, will matter as much as their competence. In 2021, servant leadership will be a competitive advantage.”

While being a servant leader doesn’t guarantee results, it does guarantee an edge in recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent.

This blend of high character and servant leadership will continue to be a competitive advantage in the marketplace. While being a servant leader doesn’t guarantee results, it does guarantee an edge in recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent.

Key Takeaway: Low character leaders won’t last, and servant-minded professionals will get their opportunities to lead.

3. The Same Person at Work and Home

It’s almost crazy to think we used to be one person at home and another person at work. Not only has this been going away, but it’s also finally getting fast-tracked. People want to talk about their hobbies, kids, families, and side projects.

However, it doesn’t stop there. With the Pandemic having a severe impact on our mental and physical health, leaders will have no choice but to embrace the whole person at work.

This means leaders must get to know their people personally to uncover irregularities in behavior. Expect companies to invest in gym memberships, in-house therapists, and embrace faith beliefs in the workplace.

Key Takeaway: Empathy will win over judgment in 2021

4. Less Tolerance for Average

It might seem strange for me to follow up on the last prediction with this one. However, the reduction of the workforce and organizations trimming duplicate roles in the last year proves the future isn’t going to tolerate average.

The only way for a team to thrive is to have each team member choose excellence.

The only way for a team to thrive moving forward will be to have a team full of people choosing to be excellent. Too many professionals are living out their careers by accident instead of excellence. Unfortunately for professionals making this kind of decision, the leaders and companies that desire excellence won’t tolerate them in their organization.

Key Takeaway: Don’t go through your career by accident; choose excellence.

5. In-Person Events are back by Q3 or Q4 and Bigger Than Ever.

How good of an ending would this Pandemic have if we returned to a semblance of normal human interaction? One of the ways this will happen is by going to industry conferences and having an entire company in one room together to celebrate achievements.

While anyone who says they can predict this Pandemic’s future would be lying, expect the hospitality industry and live events to come back raging when people feel safe again.

By no means is our new virtual workforce going away. There is too much financial incentive for companies, and most employees love remote work flexibility. However, when companies and teams do get together, they will go all out.

Key Takeaway: Patience is a virtue. We will be human again.

Which predictions do you agree or disagree with?

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