Bryan College Station Charter Chapter https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/ Mon, 04 Mar 2024 01:55:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/09/cropped-ABWA-siteicon-32x32.png Bryan College Station Charter Chapter https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/ 32 32 Five Ways to Make Joy a Core KPI by Liz Matthews & Amy Jo Martin https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/five-ways-to-make-joy-a-core-kpi-by-liz-matthews-amy-jo-martin/ Mon, 04 Mar 2024 01:48:42 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/five-ways-to-make-joy-a-core-kpi-by-liz-matthews-amy-jo-martin/ Are you happy at work? Here’s how to boost the often-overlooked KPI of joy. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are foundational to most jobs. These useful measurements help companies understand progress over time. But beyond revenue growth and profit margin, there’s one KPI some managers overlook: JOY! How happy are your employees? Perhaps more importantly, what’s […]

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Are you happy at work? Here’s how to boost the often-overlooked KPI of joy.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are foundational to most jobs. These useful measurements help companies understand progress over time. But beyond revenue growth and profit margin, there’s one KPI some managers overlook: JOY!

How happy are your employees? Perhaps more importantly, what’s your own level of joy in your job? At Dell Technologies and at Renegade Global—a consulting practice that helps people invest in their personal brand and growth—we see the people in our businesses, not just the professionals.

Make Play Nonnegotiable!

Play goes hand in hand with curiosity, which in turn fuels engagement. When you prioritize play, you combat opposing feelings of burnout and even depression.

Diversify Your Sources of Happiness

There are different kinds of happiness: “rock star,” which you might experience after a big win; “flow,” which happens when you’re caught up in something you enjoy; and “higher purpose,” which occurs when you focus on something bigger than yourself. You need all three.

Avoid the Three Ps (Perfectionish, People Pleasing & Personalizing)

Of the common pitfalls people tend to fall into at work, three Ps top the list: perfectionism (seeking an unattainable standard), people-pleasing (never putting yourself first) and personalizing (making things “about you”). Be sure to give yourself—and others—the grace to make mistakes. Prioritize your own needs and remember that not everything is personal.

Overcome Difficult Conversations

Effective communication is an art form. When you have a difficult conversation ahead, consider the following steps:

  • Vent to a neutral third party (not colleagues) to release tension.
  • Empathize with the other person’s perspective.
  • Rehearse what you want to say.
  • Ask for what you need—then stop talking.
  • Check in weekly.

Here at Dell and within Renegade Global, we have seen great results with weekly check-ins, asking questions such as:

  1. Which activities did I love?
  2. Which ones did I loathe?
  3. What are my priorities?
  4. What help do others need from me?

With these tips in mind, you can transcend clichés about work-life balance and make joy a core Key Performance Indicator of your job.

Authors:  Liz Matthews is a Senior Vice President of Global Brand, Dell Technologies, and Amy Jo Martin, CEO and founder, Renegade Global

 

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Why I Joined the American Business Women’s Association by Ka’Ryn Holder-Jackson, Ph.D. https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/why-i-joined-the-american-business-womens-association-by-karyn-holder-jackson-ph-d/ Wed, 14 Feb 2024 16:27:33 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/why-i-joined-the-american-business-womens-association-by-karyn-holder-jackson-ph-d/ To view the complete video, “WHY I JOINED ABWA” – Click the link and/or copy and paste the link into the internet search field:  https://youtu.be/iqHYOG_rmcg About ABWA Member, Dr. Ka’Ryn Holder-Jackson Dr. Ka’Ryn Holder-Jackson is a dynamic innovative business executive; her expertise is leadership training and development, strategic planning, and organizational development. An articulate, diplomatic, […]

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To view the complete video, “WHY I JOINED ABWA” – Click the link and/or copy and paste the link into the internet search field:  https://youtu.be/iqHYOG_rmcg

About ABWA Member, Dr. Ka’Ryn Holder-Jackson

Dr. Ka’Ryn Holder-Jackson is a dynamic innovative business executive; her expertise is leadership training and development, strategic planning, and organizational development. An articulate, diplomatic, interpersonal communicator with an uncommon ability to influence, motivate, inspire, and communicate with diverse constituents,

A native of San Francisco, she is a graduate of San Francisco State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, the University of Phoenix, where she earned a Master’s of Business Administration and Capella University where she earned a Doctorate in Human Services.

Ka’Ryn presently serves as the Executive Director of ACCEL San Mateo County Adult Education Consortium where she leads a Ka’Ryn leads a coalition of regional education, training, business and industry partners bridging the gap between employer demand for an educated and skilled workforce and the supply of workers with the necessary skills for a 21st century labor market.

As a former Associate Director for the American Diabetes Association, San Francisco Bay Area, Ka’Ryn received honors as the recipient of a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition in 2015 from the Honorable Barbara Lee 13th Congressional District of California, In Recognition of Dedication to Educating the Community About Diabetes & the Importance of Health Care.

Ka’Ryn has over 20 years’ experience serving in Executive Management in corporate, for profit, not-for-profit, non-profit, and education Sectors.  She is the CEO of A’Ryze Consulting; a Certified Executive Coach, Speaker, Trainer, Corporate Facilitator, and has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry and is a licensed financial services representative.

Awards & Recognition:

  • 2023 Top Ten Business Woman, American Business Women’s Association
  • 2019 Woman of Distinction, American Business Women’s Association
  • 2018 Commendation Board of Supervisors of San Mateo County, California
    for Leadership in our Communities
  • 2015 Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the Honorable Barbara Lee 13th Congressional District of California, In Recognition of Dedication to Educating the Community About Diabetes & the Importance of Health Care.

 

 

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Change Your Thinking and Create a Culture That People Don’t Want to Leave…By Jessica Rector https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/change-your-thinking-and-create-a-culture-that-people-dont-want-to-leave-by-jessica-rector/ Wed, 10 Jan 2024 20:22:12 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/change-your-thinking-and-create-a-culture-that-people-dont-want-to-leave-by-jessica-rector/ 5 Steps To Turn Negative Thoughts Into Positive Actions Do you have a Negative Nancy (NN) or Toxic Tim (TT) that you’re keeping longer than you should? Would you let them go if you weren’t so short staffed? One Negative Nancy or Toxic Tim infiltrates the whole company and it spreads throughout, affecting everyone. Think […]

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5 Steps To Turn Negative Thoughts Into Positive Actions

Do you have a Negative Nancy (NN) or Toxic Tim (TT) that you’re keeping longer than you should? Would you let them go if you weren’t so short staffed? One Negative Nancy or Toxic Tim infiltrates the whole company and it spreads throughout, affecting everyone.

Think of it like this: You attend a meeting that NN was in. When you leave, you approach Positive Polly and share with Positive Polly, “It’s so frustrating dealing with NN. Why is she still here? All we do is constantly listen to her babble and unhappiness.”  Before you know it, you become a Negative Nancy, and Positive Polly sees the impact the original NN has made on you and the team. It only takes one person thinking negatively to bring the whole environment, culture, and team down. In order to help you, Positive Polly shares the following.

You have 60,000 thoughts a day and 80% of them are negative. These come in the form or doubt, worry and stress and are linked to poor attitudes, declining engagement, and poor performance.  Most people think they are positive and optimistic, yet negativity shows and they don’t recognize it. In fact, 95% of your thoughts are repetitive. So, all of the negative thoughts keep getting repeated, impacting how you show up, speak out, lead, and live.

Your thoughts are the fundamental foundation of everything you do and everything you don’t do, yet often times you don’t think about them. When was the last time you thought about what you thought about?  If you’re like most people you think the same way you’ve always thoughts, resulting in the same behaviors, actions, and results. If you want to change relationships, communication, interactions, your confidence, you must first change how you think. Once you change that, then everything else will change as well.

Here is a five-step process to help you change your thoughts to invoke different actions, behaviors and results and develop a positive work environment.

ONE:  Identify – Recognize Your Thoughts. There’s an exercise to help you very specifically identify your negative thoughts. It’s called the Stand up/Sit down exercise. This is a great exercise to do as a team. Have someone read a set of statements. For every statement you agree with, you will move your body. Everyone starts in a stand-up position. For example, if the first statement is “If you’re ever thought you’re not smart enough,” and you agree, you’ll sit down. If you disagree with the statement, you’ll remain as you were. If the next statement is, “If you’ve ever thought you don’t have enough time,” and you agree, you’ll move (either stand up or sit down depending on what you did for the first statement). This repeats for every statement read (there should be about 15 statements read). During this activity, you can expect to hear laughter evoke from your group, as they are moving for most of them, which shows that negative thinking arises without you consciously knowing. And you have a lot more of them than you believe.

TWO:  Write It.  Once you’ve identified your negative thoughts, it’s important to write them down. Something happens in your brain when you write things down. They tend to become real, and you remember them more. So, when you write down your negative thoughts, you become more mindful when they arise. Follow the rest of the process with just one of your negative thoughts. Once you have mastered one, work on another (you don’t want to overwhelm you or burn you out on doing too many at once).

THREE:  Triggers – What are your triggers for your negative thinking? Triggers can be a place, situation, mood, experience, or thing. If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone and walked away saying to yourself, “Why do I even bother,” then you also know a trigger can be a person too. And many times, it is a person. Write down all of your triggers. When you’re aware of your triggers, you can be on the lookout for them. When they come up, as they will, you are armed to not allow the negative thoughts to follow.

FOUR:  Reframe – List all the ways to reframe the negative thought. There are two ways to do this reframing. First, you can say the opposite of the negative statement. Instead of staying I’m not a good enough leader, you can say, “I’m an awesome leader.” The second way is to ask questions. For instance, what courses do I need to take to become a better leader, what leadership book should I read to improve my leadership skills or who can mentor me into being a better leader. Your brain is constantly talking to. If you say you’re not a good enough leader, your brain will validate it with all the ways that it’s true. If you say you’re an awesome leader, your brain will validate it with all the ways that it’s true. So, listening to the positive part of your brain will make all the difference in your work and life.

FIVEl  Action – Once you have your reframing options, pick one to take action on. Nothing changes until you take action on it. Small action makes a huge difference. If you want to know the best leadership book to read, you may initially think you do not know any, however, your brain can solve that dilemma. It’ll reply with ideas to look up leadership books on Google, put a post on Facebook asking your friends for their recommendations or look up Amazon book reviews. Then it’s time to decide which action you will take (which book to order and order it). Small consistent action is key to eradicating negative thinking.

The more you work through this process the more positive thoughts you have. You’ll soon recognize negative thoughts in others and can help them master their own mindset. You’ll become the Positive Polly and help develop a positive work environment that no one wants to leave.

About the Author:

Jessica Rector, MBA, author of the #1 best-selling “Blaze Your Brain to Extinguish Burnout” and nine other books, helps organizations, leaders, and teams Say Yes to eradicate burnout and enhance mental health.  As a burnout trailblazer, her research is used in her consulting and speaking and often shared on her podcast, “The Say Yes Experience.” For how Jessica can help your organization and team, go to www.jessicarector.com

 

 

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What To Do About Burnout When You’re Not Burned-Out, By Jessica Rector https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/what-to-do-about-burnout-when-youre-not-burned-out-by-jessica-rector/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 17:46:51 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/what-to-do-about-burnout-when-youre-not-burned-out-by-jessica-rector/ What To Do About Burnout When You’re Not Burned-Out , 3 Ways To Keep Burnout From Spreading Like Wildfire By: Jessica Rector Burnout is impacting every company, position, and industry. Consultant and author, Jessica Rector shows that even if they don’t have burnout, your employees are impacted by it when someone else does. Her three tips are: • Start a dialogue• Create awareness• Implement a program

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3 Ways To Keep Burnout From Spreading Like Wildfire

Burnout is impacting every company, position, and industry. With 90% of the workforce experiencing burnout in the last year, you can no longer afford to ignore this epidemic. It’s affecting teams, leaders, and the whole organization…even you.

Even if you’re not the one in burnout, it still impacts you.

Think of it this way. How do you feel the next morning when you don’t get quality sleep the night before? Grumpy? Groggy? Foggy? Impatient, irritable, unfocused? Lack of sleep impacts your perspective, attitude, how you respond to others, and how you react to situations.

The same thing happens with burnout. It doesn’t stay self-contained.

When a team member, let’s say Burnout Betty, has burnout, it impacts how she leads, communicates, listens, focuses, thinks, interacts, her behaviors, energy, mood and disposition.

It literally impacts everything. When one person is in burnout, it also trickles out to others, because burned out people burn others out.

Even if you don’t have burnout, you’re being impacted by it when someone else does or is on the brink of it. You have the power to do something about it.  What can YOU do?

START A DIALOGUE—Begin talking about burnout is the best place to start. Even though burnout is rampant in the workforce, there’s still some stigma around it. People often fear, if they admit they have it, what will others think, do or say. Will my leaders think I can’t do my job? Will they take away responsibilities or will they lose trust in me?

If Burnout Betty (BB) isn’t focused, she becomes distracted, unproductive, and making more errors. She will do the same work multiple times, miss deadlines or forget to meet a client. Those are best case scenarios. BB will easily cut corners leading to cybersecurity attacks, safety issues and possible injuries.

When BB misses deadlines, makes mistakes, or has to redo work, how does that impact you? You might have to stay longer, do some of her work, or maybe your work gets pushed back waiting on her to get her part to you, which means missing dinner with your family, being absent at your kids’ activities, or not meeting your deadlines.

Lean into your storytelling skills. Share your burnout story with BB. When you were in it, what led to burnout in your life, and the strategies you implemented to move past it.

When people are in burnout, they tend to pull away and isolate themselves. When you tell your burnout story, they will start to engage. The more you talk about burnout, the more it reduces this stigma. In the process, you allow others who are experiencing it to not feel alone and to know that someone, somewhere gets it and understands. You create a safe place of compassion and empathy.

This lets others know it’s okay to feel burned out. You can still love your job and be burned out.

CREATE AWARENESS AROUND BURNOUT—Burnout doesn’t discriminate. It’s impacting your people. The more your team knows what to look for and what to do to prevent it, the less likely they will find themselves in it. Develop a keen eye, because you can’t change something you aren’t aware exists.

Since burnout impacts mental health, Burnout Betty is easily frustrated or irritable, making it harder to communicate or interact with her, because others don’t want her mood to affect them. One Burnout Betty, Negative Nancy or Toxic Tim can bring a dynamic team to a halt.

Talking to BB can leave the most positive person in a negative state, because she doesn’t listen or she’s in a bad mood. So, every conversation takes longer than it should, which means less time for you to tend to your daily tasks.

Build a task force of people who want to be the eyes and ears in your organization in regards to burnout. They can gather information, ask questions to BB and other team members, and start creating a strategy to combat this epidemic. Then take the information they gather, and do something now to help them prevent it.

This allows BB to know that she is being heard and understood and that she matters. One of the biggest qualities people want in their company is to know they matter. When BB knows she matters, she feels supported, knowing she will get the help she needs to combat burnout.

Hint: Time off is great, but vacation won’t cure burnout. Once you create awareness around it, share with your people day to day strategies that work to help alleviate burnout.

IMPLEMENT A BURNOUT PROGRAM—This is the key, fundamental element. Talking about it is a great beginning, but it’s imperative to do more. The only way to prevent and address burnout is to be intentional and strategic with it. Workplace wellness programs aren’t enough; 97% of them don’t specifically address or help with burnout, which is also why 80% of employees aren’t actively involved in wellness programs.

As a leader, you have to do your part to help your people with burnout. If you want long term results, your organization MUST implement a continual program (not a one and done) to help people like Burnout Betty with burnout and others to prevent it.

A long-term strategy is where the magic happens with burnout. Burnout is a slow crawl, and working through it is multi-layered. Whether it’s an online course, bootcamp or Train the Trainer certification, burnout training is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s imperative if your company wants to keep their top talent and create a happy, thriving workplace and culture.

The most successful burnout programs have these key components: accountability, support, encouragement, and Q&A.

Burnout doesn’t go away on its own. With most industries incurring staff shortages, it’s up to you, as a leader, to invest in your people if you want to keep them. Since the #1 reason why people leave organizations is due to burnout, it’s a huge opportunity for you to end the burnout epidemic by starting the dialogue, creating awareness and implementing a burnout program in your company.  It’s a win-win for everyone.  What will you do to help your people end burnout?

About the Author, Jessica Rector

Jessica Rector, MBA, author of the #1 best-selling “Blaze Your Brain to Extinguish Burnout” and nine other books, helps organizations, leaders, and teams Say Yes to eradicate burnout and enhance mental health.  As a burnout trailblazer, her research is used in her consulting and speaking and often shared on her podcast, “The Say Yes Experience.” For how Jessica can help your organization and team, go to www.jessicarector.com

 

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Creating a Resilient Company Culture: Navigating Change and Thriving Amidst Challenges by Margaret Graziano https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/creating-a-resilient-company-culture-navigating-change-and-thriving-amidst-challenges-by-margaret-graziano/ Sat, 16 Sep 2023 21:13:06 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/creating-a-resilient-company-culture-navigating-change-and-thriving-amidst-challenges-by-margaret-graziano/ In an era marked by immense volatility and complexity, characterized by technological advancements, business consolidations, fierce competition, and economic fluctuations, you may find yourself in an unprecedented time of change. Amidst this tumultuous landscape, the challenge is this: How can organizations cultivate a culture that thrives, adapts, and responds effectively to the unpredictable?

In her latest article, “Creating a Resilient Company Culture: Navigating Change and Thriving Amidst Challenges,” author and consultant Margaret Graziano shows your readers that the answer lies in fostering an emergent culture - one characterized by change management prowess, response agility, and a positive environment with fulfilled employees. Graziano’s tips to understanding and influencing company culture including:

• Start with the leader
• Cultivate the leadership team
• Assess environment and employees
• Achieve resilience through emergent culture

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In an era marked by immense volatility and complexity, characterized by technological advancements, business consolidations, fierce competition, and economic fluctuations, you may find yourself in an unprecedented time of change. The aftermath of the pandemic continues to linger, with burnout, stress, and overwhelm persisting among individuals and teams. Amidst this tumultuous landscape, the challenge is this: How can organizations emerge stronger from the trials of recent years? How can they cultivate a culture that thrives, adapts, and responds effectively to the unpredictable? The answer lies in fostering an emergent culture – one characterized by change management prowess, response agility, and a positive environment with fulfilled employees.

Understanding Culture

When more than two people come together, whether as a couple, a family, or a company, they form a human system. Within this system, culture serves as the driving force or energy. Culture possesses the power to create and destroy, providing guidelines for interaction, conflict resolution, motivation, and progress. The objective of examining and shaping organizational culture is to channel the collective energy of individuals into a productive force – one that mirrors the synchronicity found in natural phenomena, such as the coordinated movements of a school of fish or flock of birds.  This is called an emergent culture.

Influencing Culture

Effective impact on company culture entails understanding and influencing the energy inherent within the human system. To initiate this process, focus on the following areas:

Start With The Leader

All culture begins with the CEO; the leader of the organization.  What is their vision? Who are they as a leader? What are their values? Are they operating and living congruent with all of those markers, no matter how challenging or stressful the circumstances may be? Having a CEO who can answer those questions clearly and can live in alignment with them consistently is the foundation on which a company’s culture gets built.  If the CEO is frazzled, overwhelmed, and in survival mode, that is going to set the tone for the entire organization.  Whatever energy the CEO brings to the company and to their life will be the energy that other people pick up on and assimilate to in order to fit in and make it.

Thus, the CEO must be conscious.  They must be awake and aware of what they’re emanating through their words and their actions. They must ensure that they have a clear vision, bolstered by positive moods and inspiring language that rallies people around their vision and engages them into action.  Human systems are guided by behaviors, beliefs, actions, what’s said, what’s unsaid – all of that equates to the energy of the human system, and energy is culture.  So, what kind of culture is the CEO creating?

Cultivate the Leadership Team

The leadership team further propagates cultural attributes throughout the organization. Behaviors exhibited by this team tend to cascade down to various departments. Similar to the CEO, leadership must demonstrate consciousness and accountability for their actions. This includes acknowledging their role in shaping the culture and undertaking personal growth to support a healthy, high-performance human system.  By focusing on the following key elements, the leadership team can contribute to a thriving culture:

  • Achievement. The company knows what they’re here to do, why they’re doing it, and how they’re measuring it.  Organizational achievements are individual achievements, and vice versa.  Achievements are specific, measurable, attainable results that are bound in time.
  • Self-actualization. Each person is conscious. They know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and they’re responsible for them and the impact they have on others. They’re doing their own development and personal work just like the CEO is.
  • Affiliation. People are partnering, collaborating, sharing ideas, and problem solving on an interdepartmental level. Cross-functional teams are committed to the noble cause and vision for the organization and are coming up with ways to problem solve together to fulfill the vision.
  • Humanistic Managers. Managers authentically care about their people.  They are aware of what’s going on in their employees’ lives, what their goals are, and how they want to grow.  When an employee knows to their core that their manager has their best interests at heart and they want them to thrive, difficult conversations to improve performance can happen.  Mentorship, coaching, and caring for people comes with humanistic management, and it supports employees who grow and thrive.

Assess Environment and Employees

Employee behavior provides insights into the prevailing environment. Key considerations include whether they experience autonomy, trust, and support in their roles. Ask these questions to assess the environment that your employees are navigating:

  • How well do employees handle changes and upsets and challenges in the market?
  • Do people feel the freedom and trust to share new ideas, take risks and have space to fail?
  • Is there space in the time at work to ideate, innovate and co-create?
  • Are the meetings inspirational and motivating or just a laundry list of getting things done?
  • Is everyone clear on what the noble cause is?
  • Is the right architecture or systems in place for people to work effectively together?
  • Is the leadership team dismantling anything getting in the way of employees taking the ball and running with it?
  • If there’s a problem, are the employees the ones to solve it?
  • Are people being given the autonomy they need?
  • Are people held accountable to their agreements and promises and measures?
  • Can you have difficult conversations?

Achieving Resilience Through Emergent Culture

In times of uncertainty, organizations with the ability to adapt and pivot harness their power. Such resilience hinges on a healthy human system and a shared commitment to the company’s purpose. Leadership needs to exemplify responsibility, optimism, and collaborative problem-solving across departments to overcome obstacles and realize the company’s vision. This approach cultivates an emergent culture, capable of navigating challenges effectively.

While creating an emergent culture demands considerable dedication, care, and focus, the rewards are boundless. With a culture founded on change management skills, response agility, and employee fulfillment, organizations can not only weather storms but also soar to new heights.

About the Author, Margaret Graziano

Margaret Graziano is the founder and CEO of KeenAlignment, as well as a Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author for her book “Ignite Culture.”  She has been recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women Leaders. Magi’s groundbreaking work is driven by her power to uncover and catalyze human potential. Go to https://keenalignment.scoreapp.com to take KeenAlignment’s Culture Assessment and see if you have an Emergent Culture.

 

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The Secrets of Visionary Thinkers: 2 Simple Steps to Crushing Subconscious Assumptions by Susan Robertson https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/the-secrets-of-visionary-thinkers-2-simple-steps-to-crushing-subconscious-assumptions-by-susan-robertson/ Mon, 17 Jul 2023 21:51:45 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/the-secrets-of-visionary-thinkers-2-simple-steps-to-crushing-subconscious-assumptions-by-susan-robertson/ When we think about famous visionary thinkers, we subconsciously assume that they have some magic characteristic that the rest of don’t have or can’t achieve.  But in reality, the only magic they have is an intuitive understanding of how to avoid some very common creative thinking blocks.  One of those blocks is the Curse of […]

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When we think about famous visionary thinkers, we subconsciously assume that they have some magic characteristic that the rest of don’t have or can’t achieve.  But in reality, the only magic they have is an intuitive understanding of how to avoid some very common creative thinking blocks.  One of those blocks is the Curse of Knowledge, a cognitive bias, or mental shortcut, that all humans share.

Stuck Inside the Box:  The Curse of Knowledge

You’ve probably heard the term “Thinking outside the box.”  And you’ve probably, at some point in your career, been asked the think outside the box.  But without any understanding of why the box is there or how it was created, it’s hard to know how to break out of it.  The reality is that we each create our own “box”, through this Curse of Knowledge.

To understand this concept, imagine for a moment that your task is to think of new ideas for salad dressing. Try to come up with a few in your mind right now – don’t skip ahead!

Chances are, the ideas that came to your mind were incremental variations of existing flavors or ingredients.  You may have thought of fruit-flavored dressing.  Or spicy, chipotle dressing.  Or perhaps dressing that’s flavored like your favorite cocktail.  Or your favorite dessert.

All really interesting ideas, IF you are only looking for ideas that don’t change the current nature of salad dressing, nor the way it’s currently manufactured, packaged, sold, or used. The task was to find NEW ideas for salad dressing.  That challenge was not limited to simply new flavors, but your brain likely limited your thinking to mostly just new flavors.

Here’s why incremental ideas tend to be the first, and sometimes the only, kind of ideas to emerge. All humans rely on past knowledge to subconsciously try to shortcut problem-solving. We instantly – and subconsciously – call on everything we know from the past to come up with solutions for the new problem. While this ability to call on past learning is an incredibly useful trait in many situations (it’s one of the reasons we’re at the top of the food chain), when you’re looking for new ideas and solutions, it actually becomes a significant barrier. It limits your thinking to nothing but slight variations of what already exists.

The minute you saw the words “salad dressing”, your brain made a bunch of instantaneous assumptions that you’re likely not aware of.  Those assumptions were probably things like:

  • Salad dressing comes in a bottle.
  • It’s liquid.
  • It’s stored in the refrigerator.
  • It’s used on lettuce.
  • Salad is eaten from a bowl or plate.
  • Salad is eaten with a fork.

Using the salad dressing challenge again, now assume one of the above “facts” does NOT have to be true. What ideas could you come up with then?   You might think of ideas like:

  • Salad dressing that you heat in the microwave (not cold).
  • Dressing for fruit, or for meat (not used on lettuce).
  • A powder whose full flavor is activated when it contacts the moisture of the lettuce (not liquid).
  • Salad dressing in the form of a wrap, so you can eat the salad on the go (salad isn’t served on a plate).
  • Salad dressing in the form of an edible skewer (salad isn’t eaten with a fork).

As you can see, the nature of the ideas that arise after crushing the imbedded assumptions is dramatically different from the ideas that came before.  That’s because your brain is no longer limiting your creativity with artificial guardrails that may not actually exist and that you weren’t even consciously aware of.

Interestingly, the more expertise you have in an area, the more of these limiting assumptions you have subconsciously imbedded in your thinking.  So, as an expert in your field, you likely have MANY imbedded assumptions that you’re not aware of, but that are likely impeding your creative thinking in a significant way.

The Cure: Assumption Crushing™ Process:

Fortunately, there is an antidote to the curse of knowledge.  Assumption Crushing™ is a technique that involves consciously surfacing and challenging our hidden assumptions.

Assumption Crushing™ Step 1:   Surface your subconscious assumptions by generating a long list of statements that start with things like:

  • Well, in our business everyone knows…
  • We have to…
  • Our product is/does/has…
  • Well, of course …
  • We could never…

Be sure to list some really obvious, superficial, or seemingly trivial “facts,” observations, processes, etc.  Sometimes breaking the obvious ones can lead to the most innovative ideas.  For example, the fact that salad dressing is liquid seems fairly trivial.  But breaking that assumption led to some truly breakthrough ideas.

Assumption Crushing™ Step 2:   Once you’ve come up with a long list, pick one that may not have to be true, and start to think of new ideas based on breaking that one. Then pick another and do it again.  And again.  You’ll amaze yourself with the innovative ideas you come up with.

Remember that the Curse of Knowledge is based on experience and expertise.  Many people often assume that the best way to get new thinking, new ideas, and new solutions is to bring together a bunch of experts on the topic.  But the reality is that all those experts will have a very similar set of subconscious mental frameworks.  (They’ll all have essentially the same Curse of Knowledge.). A better way to generate new ideas is to invite a few experts, and then several other people with different experiences, knowledge, and perspectives.  Those non-experts will help force the experts to confront and overcome their curse of knowledge.

The Curse of Knowledge is a formidable adversary that exists in our brains all the time and hinders our visionary potential. By embracing Assumption Crushing™, we can shatter the chains that confine our thinking and unlock the path to visionary breakthroughs.

About the Author:

Susan Robertson empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to more nimbly adapt to change, by transforming thinking from “why we can’t” to “how might we?”  She is a creative thinking expert with over 20 years of experience speaking and coaching in Fortune 500 companies.  As an instructor on applied creativity at Harvard, Susan brings a scientific foundation to enhancing human creativity.  To learn more, please go to: SusanRobertsonSpeaker.com.

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Why Innovations Should Be More Like Easter Eggs by Susan Robertson https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/why-innovations-should-be-more-like-easter-eggs-by-susan-robertson/ Mon, 03 Apr 2023 19:05:47 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/why-innovations-should-be-more-like-easter-eggs-by-susan-robertson/ Every year in the spring, Amy B., a buyer for a large retail chain store, hosts an Easter egg decorating teambuilding party, where she and a bunch of her suppliers spend an entire afternoon coloring and bedazzling hard-boiled eggs. None of them bring their kids—they do this for the sheer pleasure of out-of-the office bonding, […]

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Every year in the spring, Amy B., a buyer for a large retail chain store, hosts an Easter egg decorating teambuilding party, where she and a bunch of her suppliers spend an entire afternoon coloring and bedazzling hard-boiled eggs. None of them bring their kids—they do this for the sheer pleasure of out-of-the office bonding, creating interesting and attractive objects. The group is always amazed at the creativity of the resulting eggs. (And in case you’re wondering, no, none of them are artists.)

So why, as adults, don’t people exercise their inner child-like creativity more often? And what is it about the Easter egg party that allows them to so freely generate and express such range and diversity of ideas? There are several factors—all of which also apply to innovation.

Each egg represents a very low commitment.

It is cheap in both time and materials to try any idea they think of, so they try lots of ideas. If one doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter—it’s just one egg. Similarly, in your innovation work, you need to consider and try out many ideas, to ensure that only the best ones move forward. As innovation projects proceed through a company, they get more expensive—in money, time, and labor—at each successive phase. Developing Fail Fast, Fail Cheap methodologies allows you to try out lots of ideas early on, while it’s still cheap.

They leverage not only individual creativity, but also use the power of the group.

Someone will think of an idea to try, and then toss it out to the group. Then everyone contributes ideas for how best to accomplish it. No one ever says, “Yes, but that won’t work.” Everyone just thinks of ways to help make it better. The resulting final solutions are nearly always significantly better than what the person would have tried originally.

In many companies, the “Yes, But” phenomenon is all too common, and can be very damaging to creativity and innovation. Most ideas aren’t perfect when they’re first conceived, but teams act like they should be. They point out all the problems in an emerging idea before they ever attempt to find out if there’s anything good about it. For innovation and creative problem solving to thrive, it’s critical to create an environment that nurtures ideas rather than stifles them, so you get the benefit of the best thinking of the entire team.

They are willing to start over when something clearly isn’t working.

One woman brought eggs that were not naturally white; instead, they were brown. It wasn’t clear that dyeing them would work very well, if at all. And, in fact, the first few attempts didn’t work. So, she scraped off all the color on her unsuccessful eggs several times. But when she chose red, yellow, and orange colors and left them in the dye bath long enough, she got some of the most uniquely rich and vividly colored eggs anyone had ever seen.

Unfortunately, in large organizations, too many innovation projects that aren’t quite hitting the mark proceed too far. It’s important to recognize when an idea isn’t working, and then be willing to start again when you need to.

Reframing the goal results in more divergent ideas.

The woman with the brown eggs also tried other methods of decorating the eggs, not just coloring them with dye. Once she reframed the problem from coloring eggs to decorating eggs, everyone else also began creating the most innovative and unusual eggs of all. This reframing of the problem is a critical step in effective problem-solving and innovation. This is because the way a problem is stated affects the potential solutions you will think of. So when addressing any obstacle, it’s a good idea to question the way the challenge or problem is worded, to see if you can reframe it to get to different and better solutions.

So the next time you find yourself with eggs to decorate—or a challenge to meet—keep these tips in mind to help you think more creatively and come up with more innovative solutions.

  • Fail fast, fail cheap. Test many possible ideas.
  • Leverage individual and group creativity; “Yes, and” instead of “Yes, but”.
  • Be willing to start over when the idea isn’t working.
  • Reframe the opportunity to expand your thinking.

About the Author:

Susan Robertson empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to more nimbly adapt to change, by transforming thinking from “why we can’t” to “how might we?” She is a creative thinking expert with over 20 years of experience speaking and coaching in Fortune 500 companies. As an instructor on applied creativity at Harvard, Susan brings a scientific foundation to enhancing human creativity. To learn more, please go to: SusanRobertsonSpeaker.com.

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Gather, Grow And Refill Your Team’s Energy Tank With These Four Steps By Laurie Guest https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/gather-grow-and-refill-your-teams-energy-tank-with-these-four-steps-by-laurie-guest/ Thu, 30 Mar 2023 19:22:46 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/gather-grow-and-refill-your-teams-energy-tank-with-these-four-steps-by-laurie-guest/ There’s never a perfect time to pause your day-to-day work and focus on the internal team, but when you do make the effort, the dividends are immediate. Setting aside an hour, a half-day, a two-day retreat or anything you can manage as a team will provide the opportunity to gather together, grow as a team […]

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There’s never a perfect time to pause your day-to-day work and focus on the internal team, but when you do make the effort, the dividends are immediate. Setting aside an hour, a half-day, a two-day retreat or anything you can manage as a team will provide the opportunity to gather together, grow as a team and refill your collective energy tank in order to bust out of service fatigue and return to delivering excellent customer service in every interaction.

Refill the Team’s Energy

Your first step to regaining the capacity to do your work at your fullest potential is to heighten self-awareness and lean into the responsibility that you must refill your tank. Just like a video game avatar who seizes every opportunity to grab more energy for their harrowing journey ahead, you also need to seek out and embrace the chance to replenish yourselves wherever you find it. The good news is there are easy, actionable ways to find and create more energy for yourself and your whole team. It starts with committing to a “Gather and Grow” mentality that brings a team together (virtually or in person) and facilitates the kind of growth that fills your team’s energy tank and returns your business to a thriving state in the marketplace.

This four-step G.R.O.W. process will show you exactly how.

G – Game On!

Gaming at work might not be an intuitive way to encourage your team to spend their time. But gaming on the job is an easy way to bring hearts and minds together in pursuit of your common professional goals. Friendly sales competitions, staff meetings with moments of levity, and experiential outings with your team are all impactful ways to bust out of service fatigue.  To take your workplace gaming to the next level, consider uniting over a cooperative strategy that can break the boredom or monotony of a day. You can boost teamwork qualities through games that bring a team around a collective purpose and goal. These types of efforts are shown to reduce stress and help participants cope with work-related fatigue.

R – Rule Reminders

It seems every business needed to adjust rules, policies, and offerings over the last two years to accommodate the global crisis. Process procedures changed for everything from hotel housekeeping to checking out books from your local library! Frequent change without strong internal communication leads to trouble. Making time to “accuracy audit” will help your team find their footing again when it comes to customer instruction.

Conducting an accuracy audit is easier than it sounds, and it’s the perfect agenda for the next time the team gathers together. Does your website match the current offerings? Do all members of the team know the current rules, even if they only work a few hours a week? Is everyone clear on the current processes of your organization internally and externally? Francis Ford Coppola, the famous film director, was once asked what his secret to success is. He answered, “The first thing I do is make sure that everyone is set is making the same movie.” You are the director of your workplace set. Get all the characters on the same page.

O – Optimism

The dedication to sincerely working toward a better tomorrow is imperative for personal and professional growth. That’s not to say that finding the silver lining in every situation is easy. Far from it. However, when a crowd gathers, its members can feed off each other’s attitudes, mindsets, and perceptions, the good and bad vibes quickly dominoing from one person to the next. For example, observe any boat-rocker on staff who starts a rumor laced with a little over-the-top emotion and see how fast the fire spreads ill-will among the team. Disaster!

However, only you can prevent forest fires! Take the time to gather regularly (even if in a virtual format) and stay in positive communication to decrease the chance of an unnecessary negative spark. Strive to provide frequent updates, truthful status reports, and lead by example with your own optimistic attitude.

W – Warm Welcomes

The odds are good that when your team gathers the next time, there will be new faces on board. Don’t underestimate the power of a warm welcome. No one likes the feeling of being the “new kid in school” and your compassion and kindness (regardless of your position at the company) can go a long way to get new staff off to a great start with the team. Remember to share those unwritten rules everyone else knows about (like, “Use any coffee mug except the purple one with the smiley face. That’s Sandy’s and you all know not to touch it.”) Consider assigning a first-week buddy to each new team member to help shave the learning curve and make them feel at more at home.

Making the time to G.R.O.W. (group gaming, rules review, optimistic outlooks, and warm welcomes) will reboot the energy tank of your organization and make sure everyone is busting out of Service Fatigue with full power and a positive outlook.

About the Author, Laurie Guest

A Hall of Fame keynote speaker and author, Laurie Guest, CSP, CPAE, is an authority on customer service excellence. Laurie blends real-life examples and proven action steps for improvement. She is the author of two books and is writing a third on the topic of service fatigue. To learn more or connect with Laurie, visit www.LaurieGuest.com

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All Video is Video Content Marketing: Five Rules For Greater Reach by Patrick McGowan https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/all-video-is-video-content-marketing-five-rules-for-greater-reach-by-patrick-mcgowan/ https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/all-video-is-video-content-marketing-five-rules-for-greater-reach-by-patrick-mcgowan/#respond Thu, 26 Jan 2023 22:25:46 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/all-video-is-video-content-marketing-five-rules-for-greater-reach-by-patrick-mcgowan/ Being on video and watching videos is today’s business norm. A recent survey showed 76% of consumers watched a video before purchasing a product. Social media influencers promote products through video-based storytelling. You login to video meetings daily with prospects and customers. The reluctant say about video meetings, “It’s not going away.” Strategic leaders, though, say, “Video is how we do business now.”
In his latest article, “All Video is Video Content Marketing: Five Rules For Greater Reach,” video marketing author Patrick McGowan shows your readers how in today’s business world all video is video content marketing. Whether it’s a livestream or a self-produced YouTube short, your readers’ videos still need to follow a handful of rules. These rules include:

• Differentiation
• Distribution
• Surprise

Patrick McGowan, MBA, consults, trains, and coaches business executives and teams to have more power, presence, and credibility on-camera in a video-first market. He pulls together three-decades in marketing, innovation, and leadership. McGowan started Punchn to address the challenges and insecurities we all face when on camera. He is the author of “Across the Lens: How Your Zoom Presence Will Make or Break Your Success.”

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Being on video and watching videos is today’s business norm. A recent survey showed 76% of consumers watched a video before purchasing a product. Social media influencers promote products through video-based storytelling. You login to video meetings daily with prospects and customers.

Since 2005, the year YouTube launched, video has increasingly grown in prevalence, production value, and consumption. Then in 2020 video marketing took a massive leap forward with the pandemic-induced use of video conferencing, podcasts (with video), and livestreams.

Today, YouTube is the most used social platform for research purposes among business-to-business decisions makers with 50.9% of users. And every day more than 300 million people participate in a Zoom meeting.

The reluctant say about video meetings, “It’s not going away.” Strategic leaders, though, say, “Video is how we do business now.”

In today’s business world all video is video content marketing. Zoom is not a phone call with video. Whether it’s a livestream or a self-produced YouTube short, your videos still need to follow a handful of rules.

Positioning

Some marketers consider the word brand to be a four-letter word. The job of marketers and business leaders, they say, is to position a company or product in the market.

The brand becomes how customers define it, and, hopefully, they define it based on your considerable efforts.

The best marketers see this work of positioning to be the first and most important activity. They have learned to be comfortable with discomfort, because good positioning feels limiting. Good positioning is uncomfortably narrow.

It’s a single, narrowly defined target buyer. Your videos—live and recorded—will improve once you know who you are producing them for and what their motivations are.

Differentiation

What makes you different is what gets people’s attention. Not different for different sake, but a viable, propositional difference which appeals to your ideal buyer.

It’s a noisy, messy, and chaotic market. You want to be a brand which means you can charge a premium. If there is nothing to distinguish yourself from the competition, then you’re a commodity and you can only compete on price.

Your differentiation needs to be relevant and clearly expressed on all your video channels, especially video meetings. The first step is to shift responsibility for video meetings from operations to marketing. The next step, especially with a hybrid workforce, is to make sure that everyone who shows up on video is well trained and that their presence represents the value of the brand.

Distribution

Where to post your videos is determined by positioning and differentiation, not trend or fashion. A fishing guide once said, “You’re not fishing unless you have fish under your boat.” Or as Maverick said to Goose in the first Top Gun, “Target rich environment.”

Distribution can include everything from the social media platform (LinkedIn, TikTok) to the video distributor (YouTube, Vimeo) to the livestream platform. It answers what and how of your video content strategy.

Regardless of platform, you want all your videos to do one thing: direct interested parties to your website. There they learn more about you and begin to fall in love with you.

Distribution isn’t a benign decision. It says a lot about who you are and the people you’re trying to reach.

Story

Stories draw prospects in and customers closer. A well-told story engages the right people into a deeper, more meaningful conversation.

The right story you want to tell elevates the customer as hero. It captures your positioning and differentiation. How you will tell your story—written, audible, or visual—will be determined by the platform you choose and the audience you want to reach.

Tiktok is both a genre of video and a distribution platform. The audience consumes video through a spontaneous scroll. How you tell your story on TikTok may not work on LinkedIn.

Additionally, your video meetings, podcasts, and livestream productions express the story of your brand. The way you show up on video tells a story. But is it the right story? Your video meetings and podcast presence need to set the tone and timbre of future engagements.

Surprise

Better video is an act of kindness. Do everything you can to be more present across the lens.

We all spend enough time in front of a camera. When you show up on camera with a better-than-expected presence, you surprise people. Surprise is one ingredient in being unforgettable.

When you are not present, people check out. When you are present, people respond. Presence is what you say before you say a word.

Your presence should communicate confidence, power, and credibility. This will surprise some people. When combined with confidence, you’ll be more persuasive.

Conclusion

Video content is a critical component to your digital content marketing strategy. All video—whether meetings, podcasts, e-learning, or social media—deserve careful review and attention.

Video is a powerful and compelling medium. These five rules provide the framework you need to begin to evaluate what you’ve already produced and what you plan to produce.

Say to yourself, “Video is how we do business now.” Go and do it!

About the Author

Patrick McGowan, MBA, consults, trains, and coaches business executives and teams to have more power, presence, and credibility on-camera in a video-first market. He pulls together three-decades in marketing, innovation, and leadership. McGowan started Punchn to address the challenges and insecurities we all face when on camera. He is the author of “Across the Lens: How Your Zoom Presence Will Make or Break Your Success.”

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Optimizing Cloud Costs By Susanne Tedrick https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/optimizing-cloud-costs-by-susanne-tedrick/ https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/optimizing-cloud-costs-by-susanne-tedrick/#respond Thu, 15 Dec 2022 18:23:23 +0000 https://bryancollegestation.abwa.org/optimizing-cloud-costs-by-susanne-tedrick/ Optimizing Cloud Costs:  4 Keys to Ensuring the Most Value For Your Budget Perhaps you are one of the business leaders considering moving your servers to “the cloud.” After doing due diligence, you choose a provider and consider the work complete. Right? Not quite. It’s not enough to handpick a provider. Whether it’s called cloud […]

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Optimizing Cloud Costs:  4 Keys to Ensuring the Most Value For Your Budget

Perhaps you are one of the business leaders considering moving your servers to “the cloud.” After doing due diligence, you choose a provider and consider the work complete. Right? Not quite. It’s not enough to handpick a provider. Whether it’s called cloud cost management, cloud optimization, or a different term, it’s crucial to optimize costs by selecting the right products at the lowest possible price. The following are key practices for doing just that.

Use A Cross Department Approach.

It’s tempting to just put several trusted IT engineers and developers in charge of technology decision-making, but it will likely mean a product(s) that won’t work well across company departments. For instance, a cloud product that IT likes because it works well for them, may be a poor fit for accounting.

Instead, maximize business value by getting engineering, finance, technology, and business teams to collaborate on data-driven spending decisions. Forming a “best practices” or a “center of excellence” group ensures that everyone at the company, not just a select few, takes ownership of cloud usage.

Utilizing a cross-department approach is the idea behind the evolving cloud financial management discipline known as FinOps, so named as it combines Finance and DevOps to stress the importance of communication and collaboration between business and engineering teams.

Understand Current Utilization

Overprovisioning, the act of deploying, and paying for, resources that a firm does not need, represents a technical challenge at any organization. Understanding current utilization can help avert this problem. Purchasing a top-of-the-line cloud server might sound tempting, but is it really what your company needs? Does your firm’s workload require a heavy-duty-server, or would it be a nice-to-have that wil

l cost more than is necessary? On the flip side, if corporate workload is progressing faster than the current server can handle, an upgrade to a top-of-the-line product might be a wise purchase. Understanding current utilization brings a level of accountability to cloud expenditures.

Leverage Automation 

This practice takes utilization a step further. Does automation need to be ongoing, 24/7? Or can automation be “leveraged” more efficiently, and thus save money? If the automation is not needed, operations aren’t as efficient as they could be.

Rather than running all day, every day, automation might be better utilized during a specific high-traffic time of the day – for instance, when many credit card transactions come in early each morning for processing. If automation is only needed during early morning hours, it does not make sense to have this feature operating 24/7. In a case like this, it makes sense to “leverage” automation with the provider.

Utilize The Payment Model That’s Right For Your Company

The options usually involve purchasing in advance versus paying as you go. If your company has a steady workload that does not change much over time, a fixed price paid in advance to a cloud provider makes a lot of sense.

On the other hand, perhaps your firm is a recent start-up with very uneven workflow, maybe depending on the time of year or current economic climate. In such cases, paying as you go would be a better choice.

Summary

Utilizing a FinOps approach and forming a central best-practices group – thus creating a cloud center of excellence – will result in greater team collaboration; “ownership” of cloud usage; decisions driven by the business value of cloud; take better advantage of variable cloud costs, and maybe even increase revenue.

About the Author, Susanne Tedrick

Susanne Tedrick is a certified Microsoft Technical Trainer. In her work, Susanne delivers skills-based, outcome-driven training on the Azure platform for some of Microsoft’s leading enterprise clients Susanne is the author of the critically acclaimed “Women of Color in Tech” and the upcoming “Innovating For Diversity”. For more information, please visit:  www.SusanneTedrick.com.  A portion of this feature was excerpted from the FinOps Foundation

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