As we rush through our work during the year, it can be hard to focus on much other than hard data to tell us whether our staff is succeeding. Are productivity metrics improving? Have revenues increased? Have we met all our deadlines?

Analysis of such information is a critical element of management. However, there are other ways to evaluate whether your teammates are the right fit for the long term. As the end of the year approaches, it is a good time to take a step back, put the reports aside, and ask yourself some different questions to help you determine if you have the right team for long-term growth — as well as whom you should promote or release.

Related: 10 Ways to Spot an Exceptional Employee

1. Are you inspired by the person?

A first question to consider is whether the employee inspires you in some way — small or large. Do you see behavior or output that makes you proud to be at the business? Does the commitment or creativity impress you or perhaps help you to be more effective in completing your own work?

Every employee at the company has the ability to inspire you, no matter his or her particular rule. Keep an eye out for employees who inspire you to be your best — and be sure to reward those whose performance lifts the bar at the business.

2. Do you spend a disproportionate amount of time boosting their morale?

If you have spent any time in management, you will surely have experienced working with employees who may be productive and good at their work but who demand a disproportionate amount of attention for one reason or another. Lengthy talks about how to keep an employee happy and repeated requests for promotions or increased compensation are sure signs that the fit is wrong.

In some cases, the issue may be your own fault — for example, if your great employee celebrates a fifth anniversary at your highly profitable business and has yet to receive a pay raise. However, more often than not, when an employee’s requests for more become a regular topic of conversation, it is time to part ways. By keeping such an employee onboard, you risk wasting management’s time and mental bandwidth, and you risk an outbreak of negativity that could disrupt your culture.

Related: 3 Destructive Employee Syndromes No Boss Can Tolerate

3. Are you thankful for the person?

As you look ahead to 2016 and whether you have the right colleagues for the New Year and beyond, a final useful question to ask is — are you grateful to have the person on your team? Throughout the year, your brain is collecting data on each employee with whom you interact, whether you realize it or not. If you force yourself to think about how the employee makes you feel, your gut may be able to tell you more than any reports or individual bits of data can.

Chris Lester, CEO of Chief, a Washington, D.C.-based brand strategy, technology and communications agency, suggests asking yourself whether you can say, “Thank goodness this person is here” about each of your employees. If you cannot, take a hard look at that particular employee, ask what may be wrong, and take necessary action to address the issue. In some cases, a discussion with the person about what you have observed and what the business needs may be enough to get the person where you hope. In other cases, it is time to make an employment change.

Good employees come and go, but it takes a great team member to make a lasting, meaningful impact on a business. As you think about where your team is headed next year, spend some time asking the questions above in relation to each employee. The answers may surprise you — and they may give you more insight than any of your year-end reports ever could.

Related: Having Problems With a Key Employee? Remember: No One Is Irreplaceable.

Many business owners have heard that if they want to hire the most competent and talented employees, they need to relocate to New York City or San Francisco. That simply isn’t true. There is tremendous untapped talent all over the world — you just need to know where, and how, to look.

Related: 5 Ways to Effectively Lead Remote Teams

I’ve always gravitated toward location-independent business models that allow me the freedom to move and travel to new places (including Asia, where I started my first company). My current company has four full-time employees and ten part-time contractors, all of whom work remotely. Our team is based both internationally and stateside, and members live in Chile, Vermont, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Portland and other places.

In my experience, the following benefits of building a remote team far outweigh the challenges:

1.Specialization

By hiring remote workers, we get access to experts located all over the world, at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time employee from an expensive city like New York or San Francisco.

Also, we try to find “moonlighters” who are looking for part-time work, but have a full-time job as an expert in their field. As a result, we benefit from the knowledge transfer and training the employee is receiving at his or her full-time job.

2. Elasticity

Since most of our team is part-time, members don’t rely on us for their primary income. If we are busy, we can request more hours, or if we don’t need a specific service, we can scale down the workload and decrease costs.

3. Lower cost structure

My company is a bootstrapped startup that has had to make due with limited resources. I attribute our survival and success in part to the fact that we built a remote workforce.

By hiring contractors, you too can lower your payroll taxes, insurance costs and general overhead costs, like office space.

Related: Collaboration Tools of the Most Productive Remote Teams

4. Employee satisfaction

Our team members are able to work whenever and wherever they want. This allows them to take more vacations, travel and work when and from wherever they feel most productive.

I’m a big believer that location-independent businesses are the future of work and that most companies can benefit from building a remote workforce. However, I’d be lying if I said that this approach doesn’t come with its own unique challenges. That being said, through trial and error, I’ve developed solutions for some of the most common pain points associated with remote workforces:

5. Solutions for common paint points

Embracing a remote philosophy — Building a remote workforce means giving up control, to an extent. Many business owners rely on their presence in the office — and their ability to drop in on employees’ offices or cubicles unannounced — as a motivating factor to keep employees on task. Obviously, that isn’t possible when your team is spread throughout the country or world.

The single easiest way to give up control is to hire the right talent. Seek out employees who are motivated by doing great work, not by appeasing a hovering boss. Finding this type of employee takes longer, but it’s worth it.

Once you hire talented, self-sufficient and self-motivated workers, it is essential that you give them autonomy and motivate them to do their best work. Resist the urge to micromanage and remove bottlenecks that slow down or complicate their ability to get their work done. Provide employees with only the information they need to fulfill their responsibilities, and create clearly defined systems and processes so there’s no confusion about which employees interface with one other, and when.

For example, our content publishing process has clearly defined steps and responsibilities outlined for our writers, designers and content manager. This system allows us to publish more and better content faster without running into unnecessary roadblocks.

Fostering Communication –– One of the biggest challenges we still face as a remote team is making sure everyone understands our high-level goals, mission and vision of the company. It’s easy for employees to lose sight of their purpose when they’re working from home and not surrounded by a supportive team.

As CEO, my job is to remind my employees of the common goal we’re working toward, and why it’s important. Not only do I need to manage day-to-day activities, I also have to preach our vision and mission, so my team doesn’t get discouraged or lose sight of what we’re all working together to accomplish.

Creating accountability — Accountability can also be an issue for remote teams: As I mentioned, staying motivated can be difficult when there’s no boss or manager physically checking in on you. In the past, I have struggled with getting teams to adopt project management systems that allow them to update me on their progress and stay accountable. Adopting a project management system is something you must commit to as a team, especially in a remote culture.

Putting together a good tool set:

Good tools are essential for remote startup work. My own recommended list includes:

• Slack, for sending quick messages and managing all company communication in one place
• Basecamp, for tracking projects and assigning to-dos
• Gmail, for its various handy email features
• Google Stack, especially its Docs, Calendar and Hangouts features for easy sharing and collaboration on assets and content
• Skype, for video calls
• Working On, to share what each team member is working on in real time
• 15Five, for weekly communication on team member progress as well as a boost for morale, challenges and more
• Weekly Meetings, for bringing team members together to talk, even though we’re scattered around the world

Hiring and managing a team of remote workers can be challenging, but at this point, I can’t imagine running my business any other way. With the number of technological innovations and tools out there that enable geographically disparate teams to communicate with and update each other quickly and easily, there’s no reason why most businesses can’t make this model work.

Related: 4 Effective Ways to Manage a Remote Team

Posted by Seth Godin on December 04, 2015

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I once asked Mitch Kapor how he stayed productive. The tech veteran smiled and showed me an elaborate Microsoft Word document he used to keep track of all the people, places and projects in his life with keyboard shortcuts to move information around, so he’d know what to do when. Seeing him in action with it was a marvel, because for him, that document was clearly the best tool for the job.

Productivity has become something of an obsession for me over the last 20 years, first as an investment category at Menlo Ventures but increasingly as a personal need for myself, juggling professional goals with aspirations to be the best husband, father and friend I can be. I’ve drawn from experts and executives I’ve worked with over the years to crystallize my own approach into five essential principles.

Related: Become a Productivity Monster by Eliminating These 5 Time-Wasting Habits

1. Start with a prioritized plan.

If you start your day reacting to inbound requests, you’ll seldom go home with a real sense of accomplishment. Taking just a few minutes each morning to identify your day’s top goals and holding yourself accountable for completing them can dramatically impact the effectiveness of your day.

This isn’t to say priorities should be unbendable. My mentor and hero Steve Blank says it best adapting a famous military adage: “No plan survives first contact with customers.” An iterative, feedback-rich refinement process leads to optimal product, and your day should be no different. Optimize it by shifting priorities as needed and pushing some things off until later to maintain focus on what’s most important.

Prioritization scales across teams with profound results. Uber, the best executing company I’ve ever worked with, went from operating in one city to over 300 within five years. That would have been impossible without a meticulously sequenced playbook, and thoughtful leaders like Travis and Austin Geidt ensuring the most effective practices are learned, codified and replicated into a prioritized plan for each role.

2. Work off a to-do list, not out of an inbox.

Psychologist George Miller observed that most people can only remember about seven chunks of unrelated information. If you have more than seven to-dos in life, you come to rely on external systems for memory assistance. Too often, our e-mail or Slack inbox become our default systems, but since they are mostly populated by others’ requests, our personal agendas get starved out.

A to-do system should meet three criteria: 1. Your attention must return to it consistently, 2. It shouldn’t interrupt your important work and 3. It should be low friction to maintain. Cooley attorney Mark Tanoury keeps his to-do list in an email draft. Fellow Menlo partner John Jarve uses a legal pad with a system of stars. They’re two of the most effective people I know. The system matters less than your consistency in using it.

Related: The 7 Rules of Personal Productivity

3. Avoid multitasking.

“To do two things at once is to do neither.” — Publilius Syrus

For years, I labored under the illusion that multi-tasking helped me get things get done faster. But research shows we actually lose time and cognitive energy switching contexts. University of California Irvine professor Gloria Mark estimates an average of 23 minutes elapses before getting back on task.

Good To Great author Jim Collins is famous for going into “Monk Mode,” tuning out the world for several months while digesting and synthesizing information into a profound set of insights. While most executives can’t take months-long sabbaticals, they can still follow the Pomodoro method of focusing in 25 minute segments, or schedule inbox triage into three separate chunks.

4. Touch things once — and practice saying, “No thanks.”

When you pick up a piece of paper, act on it immediately or throw it away: This idea was first popularized decades ago, but the underlying principle is still applicable in the digital era. For messages or requests requiring your action which you can’t deal with immediately, turn them into to-dos, schedule time to work on them or delegate them to someone who can. Otherwise, reading and re-reading messages will cost you hours per week.

Related advice comes from Steve Jobs: “Focus is saying no to 1,000 good ideas.” Steve recognized the extremely limited bandwidth we each have in life, mandating thoughtful focus on few projects to make a real difference.

I realized this in a very personal way after founding Handle while still serving as a partner at Menlo Ventures. As much as I love the Menlo team and investing at the frontiers of technology, dividing focus between Menlo, running a company and spending time with my family was not giving anyone my best — leaving me an empty vessel, sometimes in tears as I commuted. As difficult a decision as it was, I took leave from Menlo to throw my professional weight behind my own startup.

5. Maintain your productivity habit every day — because today is all you have.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.” — Aristotle

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg observes how quickly we deplete our finite daily supply of willpower in trying to stay productive in the face of incoming distractions. Habits, once in place, are transformative. Brushing teeth, exercising and tackling hard tasks first all may be hard habits to start, but once they are formed, they get hard-wired into our brain.

For many of us, our default habit is showing up at work and allocating time based on the top messages in our inbox. Our good intentions and aspirations only manifest when we move towards them with our own thoughtful actions.

Even after devoting years of my work life to solving the productivity problem, I still live up to this standard far less often than I wish I did. But I’ll never give up. Because in the end, productivity isn’t just about being better at work. It’s about finding the time and being emotionally present for our favorite people and passions.

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” — Mother Teresa

Related: 11 Tweaks to Your Daily Routine Will Make Your Day More Productive

A lot of people spend their days in the office passing the time and not really achieving much. Often, that’s not their fault. The culture of working “9-to-5” runs deep in the world of business. So, it’s easy to do a lot of fake work that yields few results. Instead, people should focus only on those tasks that actually achieve something.

Related: Become a Productivity Monster by Eliminating These 5 Time-Wasting Habits

According to the Pareto Principle, 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of our work. So, the question becomes, how do we determine what that 20 percent is that we actually have to do?

To answer that question, let’s first identify a definition for fake work: According to Rodger Dean Duncan: Fake work is work “not explicitly aligned with the strategies and goals of the organization.“ So, to do profitable work, you have to understand how the things you do align with your company’s goals. Here are five criteria toward that understanding.

1. Align your tasks.

Make sure that everything you do fits into your workplace quarterly or yearly goals. One of the best ways for goal alignment is using the concept of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). First introduced by Intel, OKRs have gained a lot of popularity (for instance, Google uses them).

You must first have clear goals outlined at the company level; then, personal goals that directly related to them, can be set.

2. Prioritize.

Once your goals are aligned, it’s easier to decide what’s important and what’s not. Spending most of your time and energy on doing the important things (tasks that give you meaningful results), lets you maximize the effects of the Pareto Principle.

3. Ask for and give feedback.

The only way to actually distinguish what’s real work and what’s fake is to understand what goes on in your particular workplace. That requires exchanging ideas with both your manager and co-workers.

In this regard, it’s helpful to have a good internal communication system in place. Whether that means a system of regular meetings, the use of status reporting software or some other enterprise network service and talking and sharing ideas to make sure the work you do matters is a must.

Related: The 7 Rules of Personal Productivity

4. Divide your days into blocks of meaningful work.

In the office environment, we’re too often distracted by coworkers, emails and random outside factors. A friend of mine use to go to work every Saturday, because, “It’s quiet and I can focus on my work.” Some of these distractions are things we can’t avoid, but we must still try to have some level of control.

To get things done, try dividing your day into uninterrupted blocks of work. During these blocks, ignore your email, messengers and, if possible, even your phone. Some distractions can’t be avoided, but minimizing their amount still helps, as multitasking decreases productivity by 40 percent.

5. Take breaks.

When you experience — as we all do — energy levels dropping throughout the day and week, you may find it easy to take the easy way out: Sit at your desk, answer emails and daydream about the weekend.

In that context, it’s important to pace yourself so you don’t expend all your energy on Monday morning. Taking regular breaks from mental tasks improves productivity and creativity; skipping breaks, however, can lead to stress and exhaustion.

Avoiding fake work requires a companywide commitment. One person can do only so much. If you believe your company is not doing enough to be productive, make that clear to your supervisors, as they likely want to be more successful as well.

What ideas do you have for achieving that productivity goal?

Related: 11 Tweaks to Your Daily Routine Will Make Your Day More Productive

Everywhere I go, I hear people talking about money.

At one particular conference, I heard a group discussing how “Money Isn’t Everything” and “Money Doesn’t Make You Happy.” After noticing their poor thoughts, I knew that this was clearly the conversation to avoid.

Many people proudly preach their philosophies about money. Unfortunately, I find that they are seriously miseducated about personal finances. However, when it comes to having money, there’s a certain way of thinking about it.

Let’s dive deeper into the 10 phrases every millionaire should avoid:

1. I Work Hard for My Money

The majority of people think that they must “work hard” for their money. This forces them to grind, even when it’s completely unnecessary. You don’t have to work hard for money, but you must let money work for you. Money is never hard to come by if you can attract it. Instead, say this: Money easily comes to me from all directions. I am always prospering.

2. Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees

This person is basically stating they believe money must come from only one source, which is an erroneous thought that many people have. Instead of thinking that you can only get money from a particular place or person, believe that it can come from anywhere and at anytime. If you want to become a millionaire, you’ll most likely need multiple income streams.

Related: 5 Secrets to Monetizing Your LinkedIn Experience

3. It’s Too Expensive/We Can’t Afford It

This usually happens when a person meets an immovable price. The truth is that the price you may be seeing is exactly the limitation you need to overcome and often separates most people from achieving their goals. If you live by the price, you die by the price. In other words, if the price was always cheap, everyone would have it and no one would work for anything.

4. Save for a Rainy Day

When people talk to me about saving, they meekly chuckle and say, “Ya know, you gotta save for the rainy days.” What they’re basically saying is, “I expect disaster and my savings account will immediately diminish when it happens.” Instead, save for sunny days,which are days of prosperity — luxury vacations, homes, big investments, etc.

5. Money is The Root of All Evil 

This is a highly misquoted verse in the Bible. This makes people also believe that richpeople are evil. However, the proper quotation states, “The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” Money has no personality. Therefore, it cannot act in a good or evil manner. If money was evil, how would you have a device to read this article right now?

The lack of money is the root of all evil –Mark Twain

6. My Spouse Runs the Finances

This person clearly doesn’t take responsibility over their money and doesn’t deserve to have more of it. The other day, I heard a man say, “My wife keeps ALL of the money. I NEVER touch any of it.” It wasn’t a big surprise that this man was always in financial despair. Lesson: Always know what’s in your bank account, even if you trust your spouse. Check it everyday.

7. It’s Not in My Budget

There’s a lot of people who advocate that “money is tight” or that they’re “bootstrapping.” These absurd phrases repel wealth away from them entirely. If you close your wallet and force yourself to believe that a product or service cannot be acquired, you’ll probably never get it. Instead, ask, “How can I acquire this product or service?” or “What must I do to make this purchase happen?”

Related: 7 Truths Every Millionaire Knows About Business

8. Money Doesn’t Make You Happy

I always smile when I receive money. It really makes me happy. After all, I can take care of my family and buy many things that make life easier. When people say, “Money can’t buy happiness,” they’re referring to the people that they see on mass media, not the majority of actual millionaires who enjoy their lavish and happy lives. Truthfully, I was never happy when I didn’t have money. Been there, done that.

9. You Can’t Have Money if You Love God

This is a touchy subject, but I personally believe that money is the expression of God’s favor and abundance. Money can only be happily acquired through righteous deeds. If you believe that it’s righteous to be poor, just remember that King Solomon was the richest man that ever lived (according to Abrahamic religions). Moreover, diamonds and gold were made for God’s people, not his enemies.

10. Money Isn’t That Important

People often say, “It’s just money” and “I don’t do it for the money.” If it’s “just money” and you “don’t do it for the money,” why do you accept money when it comes to you? Money is very important and must be taught at home, school, work, and religious circles. Those who evade the responsibilities of money will cease to have any of it.

Money tends to react to your attitude about it. If you have mixed feelings about what money means to you, begin by jotting down your thoughts and refrain from using these phrases. Rewire your mind by assuming that you’re ready for true wealth. Find a great teacher to coach you. And remember, when the mind is ready the money will come. The world will only give you money when you’re ready for it.

Related: The 12 Skills Every Millionaire Must Have

Can going to school make you an entrepreneur? It’s a burning question for people deciding whether to jump straight into business or spend years — and a lot of money — on a degree from one of more than 2,000 U.S. colleges and universities that offer entrepreneurship courses. While there’s no shortage of opinions arguing both sides, there’s no consensus. So we sat down with two researchers to get their take.

Heidi Neck is the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., and director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Experience Lab. She is co-author of Teaching Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach.

What do students get from entrepreneurship programs?

Things are changing, and students are finding that what they learn has transferability to organizations of all types and sizes. When you look five or 10 years out, that’s when students have a greater propensity for starting businesses. We have a glamorized view of what entrepreneurship is; in profiles and magazines we’re seeing a small percentage of really successful entrepreneurs who are living the good life now. In the education setting, students realize just how difficult it actually is. I like the realism we can bring to it.

Are students failures if they don’t start a business right after graduation?

We teach entrepreneurship in the context of starting a business, but we have students who graduate and don’t start a business, and I don’t think that’s a failure of the program. They’re coming out with a more integrated mindset around business instead of some functional expertise. Some go into consumer products companies, some go into consulting, some go to Wall Street. Years back, students were afraid to say they were focusing on entrepreneurship. Now corporations are looking for students like that.

How has the view of entrepreneurship education evolved?

Historically, if you look back at the 1980s and ’90s, the focus was on small-business management and the traits of entrepreneurs. Now that researchers are giving up the idea that there are character traits that separate entrepreneurs from others, it has evolved into more of a process view: What is the process of starting a business?

I would say in the last five years there’s been more emphasis on acting in order to learn—getting out there, testing your ideas—not simply making a business plan. I like to say we’re teaching students how to practice entrepreneurship, which circles back to the question of the value of entrepreneurship education. We’re giving students an environment in which to practice different aspects of entrepreneurship where the cost of failure is not as great as it would be outside on their own.

Are there other advantages to studying entrepreneurship?

I think it’s meeting peers, which helps students with networking and with filling out their teams. Students are also looking to the faculty for guidance and access to faculty networks. The institution’s role is not only to connect them inside but to connect them to the appropriate networks outside. And of course there’s the alumni network. Our alumni are always coming back to find out how they can help in the classroom or to find students to bring into their organizations.

So you don’t really believe someone can become an entrepreneur by reading a book?

It all goes back to the practice. As we get more comfortable with doing something, we learn more about it. Doing it may tell a student that they don’t want anything to do with entrepreneurship, or that they would be more comfortable working in a corporation with an innovation arm. They won’t ever get that feeling by reading a book. I’m a huge proponent of doing in order to learn vs. learning in order to do. I think this generation is expecting to be engaged around entrepreneurial education, and if they’re not, there’s very little return on investment. At Babson, it’s a campus-wide thing. We don’t tolerate passive learners very well.

Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow at the Stanford University Rock Center for Corporate Governance, research director for Duke University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization and vice president of innovation and research at Singularity University. He is the author of The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent and Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology.

Is entrepreneurial education worthwhile?

I would have answered this question differently a while ago, but I realized living in Silicon Valley, you can skip school, because this is school. Everyone around you talks and walks and thinks about entrepreneurship. You can join a startup in downtown Palo Alto or San Francisco, and you’ll learn it on the job. If you live anywhere else, you’d better go to school, because you don’t have the people around you; you don’t have the sharing network you have here. It’s really that simple.

What’s the problem with entrepreneurship education?

Most of the schools are still backward. They are still teaching business plans and how to raise venture capital and stuff like that. That’s ’90s stuff. Now it’s about lean startups, iterations, using exponential technology, and it’s about building apps. If you can find the right school that teaches these things, you’re all set. But I would not go to a traditional school, and I would look at the curriculum. If they have “business plan” or “business plan competition” on there anywhere, dump it.

These days, people can learn most of it online. You have access to so many resources. You don’t have to go the traditional route anymore. I would do some education because you need it, but I wouldn’t go overboard and think, If I go to school for three or four years, I’ll come out an entrepreneur. No, you can’t.

Part of being an entrepreneur is having the ability to take risks and having a burning passion in your heart to change the world, and if you’re ready to take the risk, you’re a real entrepreneur. If you want to go to business school and take the traditional route, you’re hedging your bets. I’m not against going to business school, but for most people it doesn’t make sense. It’s not the risky thing to do.

Undergrad is foundational, and my advice is always to do a degree in whatever field you’re excited about. But you do an MBA if you want to join an investment bank, not if you want to launch a lean startup.

Are you saying some people are just born entrepreneurs?

No. Anyone can become an entrepreneur. You’re not born an entrepreneur. You could have advantages depending on where you’re born, but you learn by doing. That’s the best thing. You can learn a lot of things in advance, but there is no experience quite like doing it.

What kinds of people make successful entrepreneurs?

In my research we documented that the average and median age of a tech entrepreneur is 39. There are twice as many entrepreneurs who are older than 50 than younger than 25. Age provides a distinct advantage. The young may be able to build some silly social media apps, but you need experience to achieve success. That’s what I documented, and it hasn’t changed. In Silicon Valley, you meet lots of people in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Facebook is a bunch of “old” people. Google is a bunch of “old” people. It’s an advantage to have already achieved success in life. Learning on the job is the most valuable thing in entrepreneurship.

November 25, 2015