The Art of the Elevator Pitch
Hollywood screenwriters typically get three to five minutes to pitch their movie ideas, but it takes only around 45 seconds for producers to know if they want to invest. Specifically, producers are listening for a logline: one or two sentences that explain what the movie is about. If there is no logline, more often than not, there is no sale.
This is a valuable lesson for innovators in any field. Business leaders are often asked: What does your startup or product do? What’s your idea?
If they can answer in one compelling sentence, they can hook their audience and influence people to invest in their work. Though mastering the art of the logline is challenging, there are steps leaders can take to do so: (1) Keep it short. (2) Identify the one thing you want your audience to remember. (3) Make sure your team is on the same page.
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Clark announced as Finalists for the Kildare Digital Champion Awards
How ‘non-verbal communication’ is going digital
We’re used to reading body language and silent cues in person. With remote work, subtle ways we communicate are changing – and workers need to know how to adapt.
For the most part, our learned social skills mean most of us have some level of fluency in interpreting others’ non-verbal communication; it also means we know how to tacitly communicate ourselves. Think about, say, your inherent knowledge to smile when greeting a client, make eye contact in conversation and hold confident body language during an interview.
“If you want to influence people in a positive way, then your attitude and how you are perceived using non-verbal communication is very important,” says Mi Ridell, an expert in body language based in Stockholm, Sweden. Annemieke Meurs-Karels, a non-verbal communication expert based in the Netherlands, says people often react more to what you do than what you say, “because it communicates the underlying message – what you really think and feel, and your intentions”.
However, while we’ve been trained on the importance of non-verbal cues in person, in the digital workspace, this kind of communication can seem less important. Many work conversations now happen via online chats, and even video meetings can go ahead with cameras off. Yet, even when remote work doesn’t seem to include tacit cues, non-verbal communication is still happening. Take that switched-off camera, for instance: a 2022 survey of 200 executives showed that 92% of managers believed that employees who turned off their cameras during meetings were less likely to have a long-term future at their company.
Non-verbal communication is a two-fold concept.
Part of the equation is how others perceive you, and the other component is how you understand others through their own non-verbal messages. It is not an exact science, since there’s plenty of ambiguity in how you might interpret someone’s signal versus how another person might, says Meurs-Karels; it often depends on your own experiences and relationship to the communicator. The same can happen to you when you’re the communicator, of course.
Yet, despite these subjective discrepancies, the experts says non-verbal cues carry a lot of meaning for both parties – and it’s important to pay attention to them in any work environment, whether in-person or remote.
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How to Help an Employee Figure Out Their Career Goals
It’s not always possible to help the people we supervise identify and work toward their career goals. But having a sense of purpose and a feeling of momentum in achieving our career goals is powerful — so when we can assist our employees in getting there, it’s a meaningful way we can make a difference in their lives and their professional success. In this piece, the author offers three strategies managers can use if they’re managing someone who is unsure of their career path: 1) help them analyse patterns, 2) expand their worldview, and 3) don’t steer too hard.
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https://hbr.org/2022/10/how-to-help-an-employee-figure-out-their-career-goals
Clarks Commitment to Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion
We are witnessing a global movement towards greater recognition of and appreciation for the value of diversity. Organisations globally are embracing initiatives to embed diversity, equality, and inclusion into the workplace with an effort to move beyond traditional unconscious bias training towards a focus on action and allyship.
As interest in this area is gaining momentum, Clark remains uniquely positioned to support broader adoption of DEI by employers throughout our recruitment processes.
For almost 25 years, we have been continuously innovating and improving our processes solutions with powerful and transparent technology and data science. Our approach is designed to help reduce common biases so that organisations can make the best and fairest decisions through application of the following principles:
- Fairness: our recruitment processes and systems are developed with the intention of providing a fair and inclusive experience for all candidates.
- Accessibility: Clark considers the accessibility of both our website, CRM, psychometric and aptitude assessment platforms, and the content itself.
- Research, Innovation, and Thought Leadership: we continually seek out information on the latest developments in best practice guidance working with master’s students from Maynooth University who carryout in depth research on our behalf.
- Partnerships: in our commitment to DEI, we work with communities of experts and have established partnerships, and this was at the forefront of our Keep Kildare Working Initiative during the Covid 19 pandemic and remains as a key priority during all our recruitment practices.
- Expert Services: our professional recruiters and HR associates are trusted advisers who help our clients maximize diversity, equality, and inclusion by leveraging best practices throughout the talent lifecycle while ensuring the candidates we represent get equal opportunities.
Research shows that diverse organisations are more likely to outperform those that are not diverse, with greater representation in terms of gender, ethnic, and cultural diversity leading to greater organisational success. Discover further steps that you can take to make your organisation a safer, happier, and more successful workplace.
For more information about how we can help you and your organisation recruit the best talent call Stephen Farrell O’Callaghan now on 045 881888.
Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development
Not only is the majority of training in today’s companies ineffective, but the purpose, timing, and content of training is flawed. Want to see eyes glaze over quicker than you can finish this sentence? Mandate that busy employees attend a training session on “business writing skills”, or “conflict resolution”, or some other such course with little alignment to their needs. Like lean manufacturing and the lean startup before it, lean learning supports the adaptability that gives organizations a competitive advantage in today’s market. It’s about learning the core of what you need to learn, applying it to real-world situations immediately, receiving immediate feedback and refining your understanding, and then repeating the cycle. In order to begin practicing lean learning, organizations need to move from measuring credits earned to measuring business outcomes created. Lean learning ensures that employees not only learn the right thing, at the right time, and for the right reasons, but also that they retain what they learn.
To find out more please click:
https://hbr.org/2019/10/where-companies-go-wrong-with-learning-and-development
Changing Company Culture Requires a Movement, Not a Mandate
Culture is like the wind. It is invisible, yet its effect can be seen and felt. When it is blowing in your direction it makes for smooth sailing. When it is blowing against you, everything is more difficult. For organizations seeking to become more adaptive and innovative, culture change is often the most challenging part of the transformation. But culture change can’t be achieved through top-down mandate. It lives in the collective hearts and habits of people and their shared perception of “how things are done around here.” Culture change needs to happen through a movement, not a mandate. To create a movement in your organization, start by framing the issue in terms that stir emotion and incite action; then mobilize more supporters by demonstrating quick wins. Broadcast these wins to an even wider audience by leveraging employees’ social networks, and using symbolism and pockets of innovation to keep momentum going. It’s important to start with actions, not new mission statements or company structures, because culture change only happens when people take action. Show people the change you want to see.
To find out more please click:
https://hbr.org/2017/06/changing-company-culture-requires-a-movement-not-a-mandate
Gratitude goes long way in fostering employee engagement
The nature of work has changed. So too has the working environment and the key to being successful in this changed landscape is re-imagining the workplace with employee recognition at the centre.
At one time employee recognition was a narrowly defined concept largely confined to pay rises, year-end bonuses and maybe the odd gift card. More recently, and particularly during and post-Covid, it has moved much more into the realms of interpersonal relationships including peer-to-peer awards, service milestones and celebrating significant life events.
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Making Joy a Priority at Work
Companies are making massive investments in technologies that can more closely link their people to each other, to customers, and to other stakeholders. Yet many struggle because their cultures get in the way — too many layers and silos, too many colleagues who prefer to stay in their comfort zones, bask in their KPIs, and resist new ways of connecting and working. This is a big problem. And joy can be a big part of the solution. Why? For two reasons. People intrinsically seek joy. And joy connects people more powerfully than almost any other human experience.
To find out more please click:
https://hbr.org/2019/07/making-joy-a-priority-at-work
How to Play to Your Strengths
It’s only natural to struggle with receiving negative feedback. In this article, the authors present a tool to help you understand and leverage your strengths, offering a unique feedback experience that counterbalances negative input.
This exercise, dubbed the Reflected Best Self (RBS), allows you to tap into talents you may not have been aware of and increase your career potential.
To begin, start gathering input from family, friends, colleagues, and teachers around what they see as your key strengths.
Next, search for common themes in the feedback to develop a clearer picture of these strengths. Next, write a description of yourself that summarizes and distills the accumulated information.
Finally, redesign your understanding of your ideal job description to build on what you’ve discovered you’re best at. Once you’re more aware of your best self, you can shape the roles you choose to take on — both today and in the next phases of your career.
To find out more please click:
https://hbr.org/2005/01/how-to-play-to-your-strengths