Feb 28, 2012

Feedforward

Have you ever been in the delicate situation of giving a negative feedback? Have you ever encountered people taking your feedback personally and striving to bring arguments and be defensive? Constructive feedback...yeah yeah...



Yesterday's edition of Business Cocktail, with Mihai Stanescu (Business Coach), was truly enlightening, and among all the things discussed, I want to share with you now the feedforward concept.

Have to admit I know this concept from 2 years ago, from another Business Coach (Serge Pegoff). Me and my team had a coaching session then and it was really useful. Now I find myself not using it anymore, but I hope repetition will "stick" it better.

So what is feedforward?

It is the way of using your observations from past to give suggestions for improvements for the future. The verbs should only be future tense and with no examples from the past.

More about the concept on the website of its creator (Marshall Goldsmith): http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/cim/articles_display.php?aid=110

Note to self: Use feedforward more often in the future, instead of feedback.


Feb 17, 2012

Entrepreneurship is the perfect outsourcing

(This is the first post from a series on entrepreneurship conspiracy.)


Of course they promote and encourage entrepreneurship. They = the smart people from big companies, followed by smart media. Then there are just sheeps, but we don't talk about them here.

Think about it.

Their option A: They employ you. They have to pay regularly for you. And they don't know what you will bring to them, beyond your to-do list. Yeah, they do want to develop, to innovate their business. They get you in a system that has to run, but most likely lose your entrepreneurial spirit inside "the factory".

Their option B: They encourage you to stay out, "look how nice is to be an entrepreneur". You work on your own, with your (or acquired somehow by you) resources. You take all risk. If you fail, keep on going, don't quit. If you get it right, they will come to you and buy you (you get your million(s) for exit). And they get to pick at any time whatever innovation they want to bring in the business, like a child in a candy shop. And they know what they are paying for after careful selection and audits.

So, what do you think they prefer? :)

Go be an entrepreneur, work in your own conditions and on what you love, risk, innovate, fail, succeed, exit!

I am not saying it is a win-lose situation, it is still win-win, but let's also be realistic. It is their perfect outsourcing.

Feb 8, 2012

How to deal with tech media

While attending  Startup Week  last October in vienna, I saw Mike Butcher (Editor at TechCrunch Europe) on stage presenting how to (and not to) approach tech media when you are a startup. Now it is online, so check below the slides and the video. Enjoy and see you on TechCrunch :)