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Before You Automate a Broken Workflow, Map the Work First

Before selecting automation, make the real workflow visible enough for the team to improve it. A team is frustrated by a slow approval process. Emails are missed, documents are returned for correction and nobody can say exactly where requests are sitting. The proposed solution arrives quickly: buy a workflow tool, build an automated form or add AI. That may help. But there is a catch. If the team has not agreed on how the work happens today, automation can make the confusion move faster. An unnecessary approval becomes an automated unnecessary approval. Poor information reaches the next person sooner. Exceptions that used to be handled through a quick conversation become system errors. Before choosing the technology, map the work. Why This Matters Most workplace processes are less tidy than their procedure documents suggest. Over time, people add checks, spreadsheets, workarounds and informal handoffs. Each addition may have made sense at the time, but the whole proce...
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Turn Messy Project Updates into a Decision-Ready Status Report with AI

AI can help structure messy updates, but the final status report still needs evidence, judgement and human approval. A project can have plenty of updates and still leave leaders unsure about what is happening. One person reports that testing is “nearly complete”. Another says a dependency is “being worked through”. The project plan shows a milestone in two weeks, while the meeting notes mention a delay that has not reached the risk register. By Friday, the project manager has several versions of the truth and a blank status-report template. This is a good use for workplace AI, but only if AI is treated as a drafting assistant, not the owner of the project story. The aim is not to make reporting sound more polished. It is to turn scattered evidence into a short, decision-ready update that a responsible person checks and approves. Why This Problem Matters A status report should help its audience understand the project’s position and act where needed. Public project-stat...
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Use AI Like a Project Brief: A Monday-Morning Method for Better Workplace Answers

A simple project-brief structure can make workplace AI outputs clearer, safer and easier to review. You open an AI tool between meetings and type something like, “Summarise this,” “Write a project plan,” or “Help me improve this process.” The answer arrives quickly. It sounds polished. It may even be useful. But it is also a bit too broad, a bit too confident, and not quite grounded in the messy reality of your workplace. That is where many people get stuck. They treat AI like a search box or a very enthusiastic assistant, then feel disappointed when the output is generic. The better approach is simpler: use AI like you would brief a project team member. A good project brief explains the goal, context, constraints, source material and expected output. The same habit works well with AI. You do not need technical language. You need a clear working brief. Why This Matters AI is already moving into everyday knowledge work: meeting notes, project updates, service improvement...
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7 Ways to Build a Focused Team

This post originally appeared in Inc. Buzzing about which new startups will prosper and which will flop is a favorite pastime in Silicon Valley. But a new company's prospects aren't based on just what the company creates, says Stanford professor  Lindred Greer . They're also based on the people creating it and, more important, how they treat one another.  "Startup success is as much about managing the people as it is about creating the product," says Greer, an organizational behavior professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Based on her research on entrepreneurship and team dynamics, Greer will teach a new course at Stanford GSB this spring focusing on the unique team-dynamic challenges faced by early-stage startups. In a recent interview, she offered tips for managing startup teams. Be Aware of Culture in Early Stage Startups The culture of early stage startups forms the backbone of the culture the company will have in later years. Therefor...
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3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Diving Into Becoming an Entrepreneur

This post originally appeared in Inc . The pursuit of an entrepreneurial venture feels a lot like jumping off a high cliff into deep water. It's scary at first and there's no going back once you leap, but after you muster up the courage, it is one of life's most exhilarating experiences. Before you hastily rush into a triple backflip dive, it is best to do some homework and prepare. Is the water deep enough to attempt a safe dive? Has anyone jumped from this point before (and survived)? After I jump, is there a way for me to get back to land safely? Is getting hurt worth the risk? Entrepreneurship is no different. Success is about more than just quitting your job and leaping head over heels into your venture. You first have to do your homework. It's hard to define the right time to begin a new endeavor, and the reality is no time is ever going to be perfect. But before you take the plunge, here are three questions to consider. 1) Are you personally a...
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A Consultant’s Guide to Firing a Client

View image | gettyimages.com This post originally appeared in HBR. We all have limited time, and despite our best efforts at triage, email and meetings will probably always remain low-grade annoyances. But if you want to dramatically enhance your productivity, it pays to zero in on the biggest source of stress and wasted time: problematic clients. Some entrepreneurs and executives fight to hold onto business at all costs, recognizing that it’s easier to retain a customer than to win a new one. That’s true, but many business leaders are loath to fire clients, even when it’s the right move. I’ve been a consultant for the past nine years, and my client list today looks dramatically different than it did when I launched, in large part because of strategic decisions I made to let some clients go and take on others. Here’s how to recognize when it’s time for your business relationship to end. When you’re doing work you no longer want to do . In the early days of ...
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How to Think Differently

View image | gettyimages.com This article originally appeared in Inc.com If you spend even 10 minutes watching the talking heads on cable, or reading the op-eds on Sunday in your favorite paper, you realize those well-dressed people on television and commentators in the newspaper go to incredible length to try to "prove" every argument made before theirs was wrong. That's just dumb. You know why people attack everything that has come before. We live in a hyper-competitive environment when it comes to getting someone's attention, and so if you have something new, you may feel compelled to come up with a gimmick such as "everything you know is wrong" in order to get people to notice what you have to say. Well, let me try to get your attention a different way. I want to present you with a proven approach to dealing with uncertainty in all forms, i.e. what you should do when you don't know what to do. I know it works b...
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