01 November, 2015

Happiness is not something ready made - It comes from your own actions. Dalai Lama


Happiness is not something ready made - It comes from your own actions.  
Dalai Lama 


You cannot pursue happiness directly. Happiness is a result of doing something that is meaningful to yourself. It is rarely something easy that makes you happy, nor is it something that you take from the world that makes you happy. Huge difficult challenges that stretches you and make the world a better place will make you a lot happier than any titel and money can ever do.

What is meaningful is for you to decide. It changes with time and age but it does not change character. It is not about easy - it is not about taking.

If you want happiness from your job find a place where you can grow, where you are challenged and where you are part of something worthwhile and bigger than yourself.

Subscribe to the articles of Claus Aasholm here.

21 October, 2015

Autosistants - The Automated Assistant List - WIP



Autosistants - The automated assistant list:


Apple - Siri

Amazon - Echo

Facebook - M

Google - Now

Microsoft - Cortana

IBM - Watson
Watson is built to mirror the same learning process we use. Available through the cloud, Watson is a significant element of the IBM cloud strategy. The services of Watson is offered to business customers helping them analyse and make sense of dark data. It speaks many languages and is constantly improving its cognitive capabilities to interface to humans in a natural way

Samsung - S Voice

Others:
Maluuba
Mya
Hidi
Saera
Silvia
Sirius
Vlingo
Voice mate

Read about Autosistants here.


20 October, 2015

The Unicorn List - WIP




Unicorn is the popular name for a startup company that has a valuation higher than 1B USD. A high valuation is not the same as having a lot of cash to burn, but often this is the case. More importantly is it a sign of a very strong belief from investor circles that the company not only has a viable business model but also have the potential for hyper growth.
Established companies should watch out for these companies as they disrupt and destroy existing markets and companies. Unicorns are normally build around a new business model that does not respect traditional market boundaries. They exploit asymmetrical flaws in the traditional value chains like sharing assets with low utilisation (Cars are used less than 4%) or connecting users with suppliers in networked models.
The Unicorn list will be continuous updated:

  • Actifio (US) - Data backup and protection
  • Adyen (Holland) - Payment Services
  • AirBnB (US) - Private room renting
  • AppDynamics (US) - Application performance management
  • AppNexus (US) - Monetising content for publishers


  • Avant (US) NEW - Personal Loans
  • Box (US)
  • Cloudera (US)
  • CloudFlare (US)
  • CreditKarma (US)
  • Deem (US)
  • Delivery Hero (Germany)
  • Docker (US) NEW - Application platform
  • DocuSign (US)
  • Dropbox (US)
  • Eventbrite  (US)
  • Evernote (US) 
  • FanDuel (UK)
  • Fanatics (US)
  • Farfetch (UK)
  • Funding Circle (UK)
  • Gilt (US)
  • Good Technology (US)
  • Home24 (Germany)
  • Houzz  (US) - Home Improvement
  • Insidesales.com (US)
  • Instacart (US)
  • Intarcia (US)
  • Jasper Technologies (US)
  • Jawbone (US)
  • JustFab (US)
  • Kabam (US)
  • Legendary (US)
  • Lookout (US)
  • Lynda (US) (Now LinkedIn)
  • MagicLeap (US)
  • Mongo DB (US)
  • Nutanix (US)
  • Palantir (US)
  • Pinterest (US)
  • Powa (UK)
  • Pure Storage (US)
  • Qualtrics (US)
  • Razer (US)
  • Rocket Internet (Germany)
  • Shazam (UK)
  • Skrill (UK)
  • Slack Technologies (US)
  • Snapchat (US)
  • SoFi (US) NEW - Student loan refinancing
  • SpaceX (US)
  • Square (US)
  • Stripe (US) - Mobile payment 
  • Sunrun (US)
  • SurveyMonkey (US)
  • Tango (US)
  • Tanium (US) NEW - Endpoint Security
  • Thumbtack (US) NEW - Access professionals for projects or teaching
  • TransferWise (UK)
  • Uber (US)
  • Unity Technologies
  • Vice Media (US)
  • Ve (UK)
  • Wework (US)

09 July, 2015

Corporate lies that support mediocrity: People are motivated by money


I will be the first to declare myself guilty of living corporate lies. I have both received the lies as an employee and passed it on to subordinates. 

The lies are about the concept of work and reward and have not changed much over the last decades despite huge leaps in technology and understanding of human decision making processes.

This series of posts are not about bad companies doing bad things, nor is it a post of lazy employees that cannot handle the truth. Rather it is a series of posts that look at the lies that companies and employees are sharing. Lies that keep businesses and people locked in mediocrity.

It is also a call for a new way of collaboration between humans and corporations that benefits both. A way that is not based on wrong assumptions and that creates value for all parties

Corporate lie: People are motivated by money

The economic theory of the economic man that is rationally trying to maximize utility has been a foundational principle of modern society together with Milton Friedman’s theory of shareholder value: Businesses and people alike only behave in rational and selfish ways and are trying to maximize monetary return. We have accepted this as a fact in business despite the world being full of unselfish and irrational behavior

“We care about you and we are going to reward you with promotions and pay increases”

With the introduction of scanners able to record brain activity, there have been advancements in understanding of how humans are making decisions. This has confirmed that humans are not rational - but we already knew that.

If humans were rational there would be no obesity, smoking or alcohol and drug abuse. There would be no wars, crime, hate and violence. Human decision making are affected by emotions, bodily states, chemistry, social settings and sensory input.

Plenty of research as far back as Maslow motivational models has documented that money is a hygiene factor that needs to be satisfied to prevent demotivation. More money does not create more motivation once that point is reached. As the author Daniel Pink puts it: “Get money out of the way”.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that money does not motivate, companies and employees are conspiring to pretend that it does. Companies pretend they will pay more for more effort and employees pretend they work hard and will work harder for more money. Both are lies.
“What people think they deserve is different from what motivates them”
Gallup has demonstrated that despite high satisfaction rates, only 13% of worldwide employees are engaged – that they give their best at work. Most employees just do enough to not get fired. Gallup has found no link between pay and employee engagement whatsoever.
“You can be satisfied with what you get at the same time as wanting more”
Most employment is firmly within companies in mature industries. They are locked in a fierce commodity battle with similar looking competitors in a race to zero.

They cannot afford to give automatic pay rises, especially when they know they get nothing in return.

At the same time the command and control hierarchy with promotions and pay based on seniority does create not many opportunity for promotions – unless somebody dies.

In the US this is very visible. For 15 years there has been no growth of median household incomes, even though the economy as a whole has grown.

You cannot blame companies for not paying people more when they don’t get anything in return.
“Employees are just plankton for the corporate whale”
The sooner this false assumption is addressed the faster the company and its people in it can rise above mediocrity. When you truly motivate people you also create financial results.

Engagement research shows that employee motivation is created by:
  1. Purpose. Not only the purpose of the company but also the department and the employees ability to make a significant contribution. Are we successful and making the world a better place. Are we proud of what we do.
  2. Fairness. How the company treats its stakeholders. How fair is the distribution of value. How fair are promotion and pay processes.
  3. Culture and leadership. Creating no blame learning environments where mistakes are ok. A non-conformist innovative environment where it is ok to challenge status quo. A low command and control structure.
  4. The way work is organised. Can the employee chose, influence and design the job? Does the employee have influence, responsibility and autonomy.
  5. Personal Growth. An environment of challenges, honest feedback and opportunities for personal growth.

23 June, 2015

What if your next job was not about salary?



Somewhere down the line, we made a mistake. We forgot that work is not about uncomfortable toil in return for tangible financial reward. It used to be so in the industrial age but those days are long gone.

Unfortunately most corporations still create non engaging jobs and most employees keeps accepting them. According to Gallup only 13% of world wide employees are engaged.

So how come companies still think we are motivated by money and most of us still behave like we are?

What if jobs were not only measured against the tangible reward that were offered but by the intangible benefits that the job might involve? Would companies create different jobs and would employees take them rather than high paying jobs?

These are the central questions in this brilliant article by Lynda Gratton of London Business School. Her recommendation is to include the intangibles into the job description:
  • How interesting and engaging the job is
  • The challenge and growth opportunity of the job both from a personal and skills perspective
  • The job being non-routine and in danger of being automated.

I would like to add:
  • Is it a job with independence, choice and responsibility
  • How meaningful the job is to the corporation.
  • The job makes the world a better place by tackling some of the large issues in society.

If you think your next job is about money then you should be ready to accept a routine, boring, controlled, non-developing, meaningless job without responsibility.

Is this your next job? 

Maybe this is your current job?

04 June, 2015

Honest Feedback is vital for Employee Engagement


If you want to create Employee Engagement you should invest in creating a culture of giving and receiving feedback. This is often confused with creating an environment of being friendly and although this is important it is more important to create relationships strong enough to be able to handle the truth (How to create a frame of honest feedback).





Gallup research has shown that a manager that gives mainly positive (based on strengths) feedback has more engaged employees versus managers that give predominantly negative feedback. What is more interesting is that giving no feedback is significantly worse that giving negative feedback.


As a leader you are responsible for growing your people which sometimes involves giving negative feedback. Research has shown that direct and honest feedback on wrong answers in tests has a bigger impact than feedback on what went well. 






When people are encouraged and allowed to grow employee engagement increases. To grow people need feedback that also means negative feedback.
Knowing that negative feedback also creates employee Engagement should be sufficient to encourage leaders to have difficult conversations with their people – ignoring the conversations are too expensive.

In the book “Crucial Conversations” the authors introduce the concept of the Fools choice: “The choice between friendship and honesty.” 

It is a fools choice because no friendship can be based on dishonesty so a crucial conversation is necessary to give honest feedback

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" Martin Luther King Jr.

18 May, 2015

How are you engaging your customers?



To create satisfied customers doesn’t really make you successful anymore – apart from creating value you also need to engage your customer to grow your revenue.

Customers are not just looking for the same product or service they have only cheaper or with an extra feature – they are looking for something radically useful or something that creates meaning for them.

Every market matures and in every mature market the product/service looks more and more alike. It will be based on the same technology made on the same factory or delivered after the same principles. Not much room for differentiation other than price that shrinks the pie for all market players. All products will eventually satisfy customers but not necessarily engage them.

To engage customers you will need to go beyond the product or service itself. It is not about what you do, it is about why you do it and how you do it.

 "Always start with why" Simon Sinek


Customer engagement is an emotional relation between the customer and one or more actors associated with the company. It is certainly possible to create an emotional relationship between a customer and a product/service brand as is seen with luxury items and cars; however this is not possible in most markets.






Relationship with the product itself

When products and services become more alike it becomes more important how it is made and what the overall purpose of the producing company is. It is not anymore about transactional selling but more about a relationship and eventually being part of a movement.
Relationship with the company

Customers don’t buy from you just because you want a lot of money but they might want to buy from you if your company is trying to support society or making the world a better place. The low priority of CSR in many companies, will not work in the future. It does not inspire customers or employees. The new hyper growth companies predominantly from the US, all has a strong purpose in the centre of their activity. Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook and similar are not in the business just to make money – they want to make a difference also. This engages not only employees but also customers.

Relationship with touch points

The rise of the internet and social media has made many companies forget that their employees are vital in creating engagement with customers. Unfortunately only 13% of all employees worldwide are engaged and hence capable of creating customer engagement. The service aspect has also been neglected even though there is a higher probability in creating an engaged customer through a service issue than there is through a normal successful delivery.

The massive advertising on social media that looks the same as the old newspaper advertising can create awareness but is not successful in creating engagement. Most companies miss the point of having their senior managers’ active on social media (Only 28% of CEO has social media accounts). CEO’s have an opportunity to engage in conversations about purpose and sustainable production that can catapult engagement. Leaders like Tim Cook (Apple), Elon Musk (Tesla) Eric Schmidt (Google) are all very active in engaging both customers and employees.

Relationship with other stakeholders

The most important consumer buying decisions are heavily impacted by people close to the consumer and different interest groups. You cannot ignore Greenpeace, Amnesty international or trade unions anymore. The company need to include all stakeholders into their strategy formation and make it transparent. A transparent company does not need to hide behind a brand.



The link between Employee and Customer engagement


Gallup has shown that there is a strong relationship from Employee Engagement over customer engagement to financial results. Companies that manage to engage both customers and employees have 240% better results on performance related parameters.

"Companies that engage both customers and employees have 240% better results on performance parameters." Gallup