Quick Studies How Spotify Recruits Talent Bring on the right people by putting potential hires through an interview process that tests their skills and cultural compatibility.
Quick Studies How Lenders.com Manages Remote Teams When working with remote teams, over-communicate in real time whenever possible. More frequent check-ins upfront can avoid hassle down the line.
Quick Studies Lessons from 4 Leaders Who Failed to Make Change Everyone likes to point to Steve Jobs’ return to Apple as proof that company turnarounds can be wildly successful. In fact, Yahoo!’s beleaguered CEO, Marissa Mayer, has mentioned it to employees as a reminder that even the best turnarounds take time. But now that activist investor Starboard Capital has gained seats on the board, time’s up—it’s increasingly likely that Yahoo! will be sold, and Mayer removed as CEO.
Quick Studies How Facebook Runs Design Critiques Critiques don’t have to be critical. By setting up a meeting where everyone involved has a clearly defined role, your team will feel empowered to constructively tackle the problem being addressed.
Quick Studies Pixar’s Four Rules for Fostering an Innovative Culture Counterintuitively, strong leadership often means giving up control. To get the best results from your team, focus on creating an environment where people feel empowered to take risks.
Quick Studies How eShare’s Offer Letter Improves the Onboarding Process Learning the ins and outs of a new position can be stressful and overwhelming. Give your employees the best possible shot at success by making the onboarding process a little easier, and reap the reward of them sticking around longer.
Quick Studies The 12 Questions Product Plan Asks to Get Better Customer Feedback Whether your team is creating a new product or feeling out of touch with what users want, ask these 12 questions when you need rapid and thorough feedback from your customers.
Quick Studies How Location Labs Retains 95% of Their Employees If you’re clear on what your company has to offer, and find talent that aligns with your goals, you’ll get happy employees who want to stick around.
Quick Studies Why Tesla Is a Model of Long-Term Strategic Planning A great strategy doesn’t have to feel like playing three-dimensional chess. Identify one or two critical issues in a situation, concentrate action and resources on them, and set clear metrics to make sure you’re moving towards your end goal.
Quick Studies Why Spredfast Starts New Hires on Fridays Try starting your employees on a Friday in a group orientation setting. This takes the pressure off existing employees who are trying to juggle work with onboarding, which in turn leaves a better first impression on the new hire.
Quick Studies How Lyft’s Culture Made Hypergrowth Possible Review your core company values and reinvigorate the hiring process to attract and retain the talent that will carry the company through periods of hypergrowth.
Quick Studies Always Be Innovating: Lessons from Apple and the S-Curve When launching a new product, keep in mind that it will go through the S-Curve: slow acceptance, explosive growth, and finally, a plateau. While the rapid growth phase may feel like it’s time to celebrate, it’s really a signal that your organization must invest in R&D to find the next opportunity or risk stalling out.
Quick Studies Future “Thinks Wrong” to Encourage Creativity Given that people’s brains are wired to find the most obvious path to a solution, coupled with the fact that culture emphasizes being right, it’s no wonder thinking creatively is so daunting. Tricking their brains into overriding fears and biases will help the team break out of the status quo.
Quick Studies How Next Big Sound Conducts Learning Reviews While playing the blame game may serve as a quick way out, it will only sabotage your organization from within. So when something goes wrong, don’t blame individuals for failure, but rather, investigate the conditions surrounding the incident. Human error is a symptom, not a cause, of a systemic issue.
Quick Studies How FiveStars Realized Its Company Culture Had to Change If you think your team’s culture is hampering productivity or notice that employees aren’t happy, ask yourself if unclear values or contrasting ways of working are causing discord. Define your team’s core values and make them explicit, implementing company-wide strategies to maintain them.
Quick Studies Why Etsy’s All Hands Meetings Create an Open Culture Use rituals like an all-hands to find ways you can encourage your team to bring their whole selves to work.
Quick Studies How Medium Uses Day-Long Retreats to Tackle Big Design Projects Regularly setting aside time for your team to work on large projects is more efficient and motivating than trying to fit work into already busy schedules.
Quick Studies BP: Why Companies Fail to Learn from Past Mistakes Even if mistakes are not life-threatening, they are still costly: they stifle innovation, kill profits, and endanger the job security of your team. Make sure that new products or processes are “safe to fail”—that is, they won’t hurt the business—and reward people for speaking up about safety.
Quick Studies How Best Buy’s CEO Managed a Corporate Turnaround Best Buy’s turnaround emphasizes the importance of staying positive and encouraging employees to get the momentum going: start first, obsess over strategy later.
Quick Studies How Google Used Simple Psychology to Promote Employee Wellness If you want to encourage health and wellness at the office, make healthy food choices easier and more enticing. Combining this strategy with support and resources will help employees lead healthier lifestyles.
