Daniel Ek, CEO, Spotify
Figure out what the top five most important stuff is, focus relentlessly on that and keep iterating. Less is more. Dennis Crowley, CEO, FourSquare Don’t let people tell you your ideas won’t work. If you have a hunch that something will work, go build it. Ignore the haters. Sarah Prevette, Founder, Sprouter Just do it. Get it out there, absorb the feedback, adjust accordingly, hustle like hell, persevere and never lose your swagger. Sarah Lacy, CEO, PandoDaily Follow your gut. it may be wrong, but you won’t regret it if you fail. You’ll regret it if you ignore your gut and fail. Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist Treat people like you want to be treated. Apply to customer service. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO, VaynerMedia Do work for your customers, not for press or VCs. The end user is what matters long term. Matt Mullenweg, CEO, Automattic Only reinvent the wheels you need to get rolling. Jason Goldberg, CEO, Fab.com Pick one thing and do that one thing — and only that one thing — better than anyone else ever could. Alexis Ohanian, CEO, Reddit Make something people want. Then give more damns than anyone else about it and you’ll make something they love. Chris Brogan, President, Human Business Works Buy@ericries’s book. Beyond that? Build a platform. This is the big year. Matt Howard, CEO, ZoomSaferStartup wisdom: The number one job of a CEO is to not run out of money. Brian Wong, CEO, Kiip Always be learning from others. Whenever you meet someone, you don’t want something from them, you want to learn from them. Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja, SCVNGR and LevelUp Something my dad taught me: Ask forgiveness, not permission! Hooman Radfar, Founder, Clearspring Give away the wins, own the loses. Your job is to curate greatness. Alexa Hirschfeld, CEO, Paperless Post Users and employees are key predictive indicators of a company’s success; press and investors generally months behind. Author: Peter Corbett (@corbett3000) is the CEO of the creative agency iStrategyLabs, and is the founding organizer of DC Tech Meetup.
“What does it take to be a great CEO or senior executive leader?”
"The most important quality of a CEO is to take risks, and take calculated risks. This is why you're at the top of the hierarchy, because you're able to do that. You're in an envious position and if you wish to stay there, you must do what others cannot." Adam Garcia, CEO at Ultimate Stock Alerts "I would say it is not one skill, but a mix of several skills that come together to make one a successful CEO. CEOs have to be smart, authoritative and knowledgeable in what they do. If they lack any of the required skills, they will fail in their capacity." Daniel Cohen, Online Marketer "The role of a CEO or a business owner is constantly changing, and is more dynamic today. If I had to pin down one important skill, I would say the ability to deliver. That's the most important thing. Everyone looks to the top and when you're sitting there you must deliver in your capacity. And trust me, it's a lot easier said than done." Josh Cartu, CEO at SandStorm Holdings "The role of a CEO is constantly changing, but I'd say at its core it remains what it was centuries ago, and it will continue to be so. CEOs are supposed to do what CEOs do, and that is to lead. But the tools are changing, and today's leaders must get used to the new leadership tools if they wish to excel in their roles, and the ability to adapt is their most important quality." John Hairabedian, CEO at Hgreg "A number of people think that all CEOs do is sit and sign papers, which is completely untrue. They're burdened with the heaviest of duties and have to make the toughest of decisions. And this I would say is their most important skill, the ability to make the right decision at the right time." Trevor Gerszt, CEO at GoldCo Precious Metals “It is important to understand that you can't know and do everything. Surround yourself with smart people. Listen to their opinions and once you have a complete view, make the best decision based on the information you have.” Patrick Redmond, Allied Van Lines, Allied.com “The most important skill is the ability to stay dedicated to the company’s vision. While running a business, there will be many opportunities that come along that are not part of your vision. These are only distractions. The company’s owner or CEO must have the ability to remain focused on the vision of the company without wavering.” Dr. Barry Burns, Forex Strategies at Top Dog Trading “You must ask yourself - Can I make a real contribution to society? This 'urge' to 'be able to contribute to society' will force or motivate you to think and think outside the box, till you come up with the real idea, and how to go about it. Business model is thereafter created around this broad objective and eagerness to achieve it.” Amit Goel, Co - Founder & Creative Director of Grocare India “Deep understanding of the customer is key to any successful business. The most successful companies have been able to identify a customer pain point well and have stayed focused on solving it. The entrepreneur/CEO has to play a key role in driving this relentless push for customer focus from the team and make it part of the culture. Every individual should be pushed to find the right answer for the customer first.” Ashish Goel, CEO & Co-founder, Urban Ladder “To be able to see things on a macro and micro level simultaneously could be one of the most important skills. To be a business owner, one must possess more than just one skills, of course. Multiplicity of thoughts and actions make a real business owner.” Purnendu Goel, Founder & CEO of Growell India The great thing about gathering the opinions of those that are in the trenches leading great organizations is that you can see certain commonalities as well as a variance in opinion on the priorities. Great leaders often agree on what it takes to successfully drive a team to achieve results, but their opinions on the most important aspects vary. What do you think the most important aspect is for being a great senior executive or business owner? Author: Brent Gleeson, Navy SEAL, speaker and leadership consultant. Follow Brent on Twitter at @BrentGleeson or view his website.
Consider the cliche job interview question — What’s your biggest weakness?* What’s the worst answer you can give?
“I’m a procrastinator.” Probably no quicker way to ensure you’re “not the right fit” for that job. No matter what the job is. Procrastination has become one of the ugliest words in modern work. It’s practitioners are stigmatized more than employees who make bad choices and blow up the company. They at least were doing something, the thinking goes.
But what if we’re thinking about it all wrong? What if the impulse to procrastinate is one of the more valuable tools we have?
Turns out it is. And learning to harness procrastination for good can teach you things about life and work that might otherwise take years. Procrastination, no matter how vilified, knows exactly when to rear its villainous head. Or as Nassim Taleb put it in his book “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” “Psychologists and economists who study ‘irrationality’ do not realize that humans may have an instinct to procrastinate only when no life is in danger. I do not procrastinate when I see a lion in my bedroom or fire in my neighbor’s library. I do not procrastinate after a severe injury. I do so with unnatural duties and procedures.” Put this way, it’s easy to see how your brain uses procrastination to show you what’s really important. Think about the last thing you procrastinated on. Was is a matter of life and death? Probably not. Likewise, think about the last task you were laser focused on, I bet it felt like a pretty significant undertaking. Think about the last time you applied for a job or promotion that you deeply wanted. Did you fool around or get right to it?
Procrastination can be thought of as a battle between two forces in your brain, both fighting to send you signals on how to behave. Let’s take a look at these two systems and what each does.
The limbic system The limbic system is a network in your brain that includes hypothalamus, the amygdala, and the hippocampus. It controls many emotions and actions essential to life, like eating. It is where emotion is regulated. It’s often characterized as the “feeling and reacting brain.” You feel thirsty, you have a drink. It’s a quick response to an immediate need. That’s limbic 101. The prefrontal cortex If the limbic system is the “feeling and reacting brain,” then the prefrontal cortex is the “thinking brain” This is where the complexities and nuance goes down. Language, problem solving, long-term planning. The PFC is what makes humans special. It is our most evolved brain region but also the one most susceptible to stressors. A tiring day at work will not make you forget to feel hungry, but it can temporarily wash away your ability to grasp complex problems in your prefrontal cortex. Ever wonder why you struggle to phrase something eloquently when you’re hungry and tired? The limbic system doesn’t like when you engage in complex tasks that have no short-term reward. It constantly fights for short-term dominance. While your prefrontal cortex bears the burden of doing what’s best for long-term gain. You might think the most successful people are all prefrontal cortex. That’s not the case. Entrepreneur and investor Paul Graham has written that some of the most successful people he’s encountered are terrible procrastinators. And he’s noticed three types of procrastinators, based on the activities they pursue instead of what they “should be doing.” Procrastinators are pursuing: A: Nothing B: Something less important C: Something more important “That’s the sense in which the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators,” he writes. “They’re type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.” Or put another way: “Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work,” Graham writes.
A better definition of procrastination
The two systems butt heads (no pun intended) and the result is procrastination. Your limbic system pulls you away from something complex, with long-term benefits, toward something more emotional with short-term benefits. Looking at it this way we can craft a better definition of procrastination. Most dictionaries define procrastination as the act of putting off or delaying something that should be done. This definition ignores a second, crucial step to procrastination: the act of choosing instead to do something emotionally rewarding for short-term gain. We often fail to see this because what we chose to do when we procrastinate is often so trivial that it seems like nothing at all. What’s usually said: “I procrastinated on the big project, I did nothing all afternoon.” What’s more accurate to say: “I avoided the big project because, while rewarding in the long term, it’s complex and strains my prefrontal cortex. Therefore I chose to watch cute cats on YouTube because it’s emotionally rewarding in the short-term.” Consider this then a better, more-full definition of procrastination: Putting off or delaying something complex, with long-term benefits, in favor of something emotional with short term benefits.
Ask yourself?
1. What are the long-term benefits of what I am putting off? 2. Can I do without those benefits? 3. Can I achieve the same benefits through some other task? 4. Can I replace those benefits with equally valued benefits that are achieved some other way? 5. Can I delegate or outsource the activity and achieve the same benefits?
Good procrastination and how to use it
Now that we understand where procrastination comes from, and have a better way of defining it. We can start to use it to our advantage. Taleb uses procrastination to decide if he’s really passionate about his work. If he found himself procrastinating on writing a particular chapter, he cut it from his book. “Why should I try to fool people by writing about a subject for which I feel no natural drive?,” he writes. Some people have the will power to interrupt procrastination and put themselves back on track. This is seen as success. Unfortunately, all they’ve done is wrestle their impulses into submission. They’ve done nothing to analyze the procrastination and figure out where it came from. Procrastination is a symptom, you need to find the source. Here’s your new challenge: Don’t just kill procrastination. Perform an autopsy and find out where it came from. Here is a series of questions to ask yourself the next time you find yourself procrastinating. 1. What are the long-term benefits of the task I’m putting off? 2. Can I do without those benefits? 3. Can I achieve the same benefits through some other task? 4. Can I replace those benefits with equally-valued benefits that are achieved some other way? 5. Can I delegate or outsource the activity and receive the same benefits? If you answer yes to any of 2-5, consider eliminating the task from your life and getting the benefits some other way. Otherwise, the exercise may give you the boost you need to buckle down and get back on task. Now that you’ve reflected on the long-term benefits, you might just be more motivated to get back to work. You might have learned something valuable about yourself. Now back to the cats. Read the original article on iDoneThis Blog Blake Thorne, iDoneThis Blog |
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