The science of scenario planning — a structured process of thinking about and anticipating the unknown future — can help organizations plan ahead for a wide range of plausible outcomes.

The scenarios explore how the world may develop over the course of the next three to five years. They consider possible variances in two “critical uncertainties:” the severity of the pandemic as it plays out and the level of collaboration between countries. It also considers variants in the efficacy of the healthcare response, the level of social cohesion involved in that response, and the economic consequences of all of the above.

Here’s a quick overview of the four different scenarios, each with its own appropriate name.

1. Picture this: gobal governments collaborate and communicate swiftly and effectively. Health systems step it up. Society complies with quarantine regulations. In other words, we come together to collectively eradicate the illness sooner than anticipated. In this best-case scenario — dubbed “the passing storm” — the public learns to trust our existing global institutions again. That said, the committee predicts this series of outcomes will broaden the gap between socioeconomic classes because those who the pandemic affected most negatively — namely, small businesses and the low- to middle-income population — will struggle to rebound.

2. Next up, “good company.” In this scenario, as governments struggle to handle the pandemic effectively, corporate responsibility improves. As such, there’s a larger shift in company mindset toward serving customers, employees, communities, shareholders, and the planet at once. Private-public sector partnerships step up with cross-industry innovations to solve problems for the greater good. Enhanced software, tools, and healthcare expertise come from businesses, augmenting the public perception of social media and the tech giants.

3. In the “sunrise in the east” scenario, the West handles the disease more slowly and less consistently than the East, causing the global center of power to shift to China and East Asia. The East becomes the leader in global coordination of health systems and business as their strong centralized governmental response — including direct foreign investments intended to mitigate the pandemic — becomes the gold standard. The public learns to accept greater surveillance as a necessity in properly functioning societies.

4. Finally, “lone wolves.” (Spoiler: Please feel free to move on to another article if you prefer not to learn about the worst possible hypothetical outcome.) The virus mutates, causing the pandemic to last longer than expected all across the globe. An uptick in deaths, social unrest, economic freefall, and paranoia follows. Countries isolate themselves with big governments and extreme surveillance, backed by the latest technologies. They don’t work together and put strict controls on foreigners and imports.

The PDF includes many more details on how these four scenarios impact society, technology, environment, economy, and politics. To hear the study’s authors discuss these scenarios, listen to this podcast in Deloitte’s Resilient series.

Now, if you must take a deep breath, please go for it.

“These are efforts to spark new ideas about the future…if they don’t challenge your expectations, they are not doing their jobs.”

The study leaves leaders with key questions to ask after digesting the scenarios:

• Which of your previous expectations need to be rethought?

• What might consumers value differently in these worlds?

• What are the biggest threats to your current business in these worlds?

• What new providers, models, business models, and ecosystems might emerge, and who will be well-positioned?

• What capabilities, relationships, and assets are most important in these worlds?

Ultimately, those who can play out the implications of each of these scenarios for their business will put themselves in the mindset of adapting and thriving versus merely recovering or surviving — a positive outcome regardless of which scenario the future most closely resembles.

If you’re looking for more resources, check out Salesforce Care: tools and support to help companies of any size navigate this time.

The post 4 Possible Pandemic Outcomes Every Company Needs to Consider appeared first on Salesforce.

For example, the other day, my colleague and I were half-way through recording a training session when my four-year-old son came waddling in, yelling at the top of his lungs that he needed someone to play with — pronto. While I felt apologetic to my colleague about having to restart the recording from scratch — 32 minutes into it — I also felt overcome with love for my sweet little man. Working from home while parenting is messy, unpredictable, exhilarating, and exhausting.

As part of our Leading through Change series, we are committed to sharing our learnings with our greater Salesforce community. Managing a remote team from afar can be a daunting task in itself. Here are some personal anecdotes from our leaders at Salesforce on how they’re navigating this work-life balance.

7 tips on how to be inclusive of working parents

Tony Prophet, Chief Equality Officer

“Now more than ever, it’s important to practice inclusive leadership and empathy. Start your meetings with a focus on the health and safety of your colleagues and their family. Simply asking, ‘How are you doing today?’ can go a long way. When scheduling calls, be extra mindful about the time windows such as mornings and lunch hours, which can be particularly busy times for working parents.

As a leader, do your best to make those with childcare responsibilities feel heard and validated. If you’re comfortable, talk about your own challenges and even invite your kids to stop by and say hi to underscore the point. For me, it’s been a journey of discovery as we’re now homeschooling my nine-year-old who often is a guest on my calls.

And lastly, don’t make presumptions on childcare workloads based on gender identity. For example, many kids have two dads or two moms, or some may be single parents — this issue transcends gender identity. Seek to understand how each team member may be personally impacted and how you can better support them.”

Jody Kohner, Senior Vice President of Employee Engagement

“I think the most important thing we can do for our kids right now is model a positive attitude. Remind them that we will get through this, together. It won’t last forever. And, we’ll be stronger as a family unit because of it. It’s not easy, and every day is definitely not a good day. But I also find silver linings in being able to step away from my work and hug them through their tears, fears, and frustrations. I am mindful that these are precious moments, and if they were all grown up, I wouldn’t be able to kiss-away their tears so easily.

I am also lucky to have a boss and colleagues who trust me to focus on what is most important in each moment, and understand that I, like every other working parent, am doing the very best I can. I try to bring this same level of grace and understanding to my colleagues, family, and friends.

Bret Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer

”These difficult times really shine a light on the importance and value in the moments with our family. For example, I’ve been able to share my passion for music with my kids. We’ve pulled out my old college guitars and have been rocking out together every night. I love it.

As leaders, it’s important that we recognize that things aren’t business as usual. Give your employees the space and permission to not only manage having their kids at home, but also really enjoy the moments they have together. Be flexible about working hours, listen and be empathetic to their needs, and support them in finding the right balance between work and home.”

Cheryl Sanclemente, Senior Director of Corporate Communications

”Working from home with kids is hard. In my case, I have a ‘threenager,’ a yappy dog, and a husband (who is also working remotely). Send help! I have a newfound appreciation for all the stay-at-home parents and caretakers out there.

During this difficult time, it is near impossible to juggle everything — I personally feel like I’m not measuring up as a colleague or as a parent. So it is more important than ever that we lead with compassion — for others and ourselves — as we adjust to this ‘new normal.’ I have made sure to tell my team to prioritize their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families. That means no non-essential meetings, flexibility, and cross-team collaboration. It has been a true honor watching the team come together to support one another during this time.”

Sarah Franklin, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Platform, Trailhead, and Developers

”I would say that it’s important for companies to be flexible and give parents permission to make a schedule that works for them, and to respect the schedule. It’s super important to over communicate within teams on deliverables and expectations. More is better than less during this time. Do your best to stay on time and be respectful of others’ schedules as they also navigate multiple priorities.

Lead with empathy and grace during this time. We’re all flexing new muscles here. On a personal note, I have also changed my schedule to not take meetings between 1–5 p.m. to split childcare and help my children with distance learning.”

Leah McGowen Hare, Vice President of Trailhead Evangelism

“It is tough being a working parent, it is hard being a teacher, and it is a challenge being a homeschool parent. But, being all three at the same time is nearly impossible. I have boy and girl twins in middle school and a sophomore college student at home. Having the kids on a schedule is super helpful. I still have them make their lunches the night before, so they do not expect me to make lunch as I most likely will be in a meeting.

As for my team, I remind us to be kinder and more patient with each other. We’re reimagining what it’s like to work during this time and how we can all stay connected. We have to remember we are living in a new time and to stay grounded in gratitude. I created a daily gratitude Quip document where my team can share what they are grateful for. This has been an excellent way to get to know them all better, understand what they are experiencing, and build a sense of hope as well as humility during these uncertain times.”

Colin Fleming, Senior Vice President of Brand, Content, and Customer Insights

”This unprecedented situation affects each team member in unique ways, and there is no perfect policy you can write that serves all. It all starts with permission to prioritize personal and family wellbeing, and be sure you are visibly setting that example yourself. Ensure you have protected time with your family and trust your team to find the right balance.

Take this time to lead with compassion and understanding. No two schedules are alike, and by seeing a glimpse into how each of my team members are approaching this situation — we feel even closer and united as a team like never before. Seek out the positives during this time of uncertainty and be a beacon of light.”

Now is the time to step up, lead with empathy, and be an inclusive leader. At Salesforce, Equality is a core value and we strive to create a workplace where everyone feels seen, valued, and heard. Learn more about our journey toward equality for all.

Our Leading Through Change series provides thought leadership, tips, and resources to help business leaders manage through crisis. Check out some of our most recent articles:

• Here are five ways we help our employees navigate work now

• Here’s how to put a crisis comms plan in place

• Here are ways to maintain customer relationships when you can’t meet in person

The post How to Be Inclusive of Working Parents During Times of Crisis appeared first on Salesforce.

As Jody illustrates, it’s important to keep your organization up-to-date on your response to COVID-19. To help you in that effort, here are a few free Quip templates that we can vouch for:

• Update your employees on your response to the pandemic including the measures you’re taking to protect their well-being

• Manage daily email communications to your customers and employees

• Track team meeting discussion topics, notes, and action items for recurring meetings

• Maintain a single source of truth for projects so the owner can maintain a high-level view of their project, key stakeholders can drive their deliverables, and everyone can stay updated together

The post Video: An Overview of the New Programs We’ve Rolled Out, Responding to the Pandemic appeared first on Salesforce.

Yet, it’s awe-inspiring to see individuals and teams, all across the world, finding and building solutions to common challenges. Many are taking their business offerings and turning them into solutions for social good. For example, companies like Unilever announced they’d be giving away free sanitizer, soap, bleach, and food. AstraZeneca donated 9 million face masks to support healthcare workers worldwide. Audible announced they’d make hundreds of audiobooks available for free.

Businesses are finding ways to help everyone make it through this situation posed by COVID-19. We’re doing the same, with our focus on Salesforce Care. Salesforce Care gives teams the resources to create solutions that can be deployed quickly and at no charge for at least 90 days. As part of that effort, our employees have also created a free AppExchange app to help with business continuity.

The Salesforce Labs Crisis Response app gives customers a central hub to manage crisis situations. It helps companies ensure employees are healthy and taken care of, while reducing workplace anxiety by mitigating workforce and business impact during times of crisis. A cross-functional team of Salesforce employees — from solution engineering, emerging tech, customer success, product marketing, Salesforce Labs, and creative — recognized the importance of a centralized crisis hub and took the challenge head-on to create a solution that can be deployed to do the following:

• Address the workforce impact. Track employees’ health and safety status and monitoring locations, all in one centralized hub

• Respond quickly to employees’ needs. Institute outreach and assistance programs to address the well-being of the workforce and provide the best possible care

• Keep employees in the loop effectively. Deploy a crisis-centric employee portal to disseminate news and information and collect updated employee status.

• Ensure business continuity. Activate continuity plans and measure overall business impact to manage future business operations

• Optional: For those in healthcare, shorten patient wait time by implementing an intelligent solution that transforms images of state-issued IDs into text within Salesforce. This reduces manual data entry and provides an accurate data trail, especially for services working with drive-up care. Additionally, use artificial intelligence to understand how employees are feeling based on communication channels to respond with empathy and direct them to the appropriate resources.

Get access to the free crisis response app here. For more resources, check out the AppExchange COVID-19 page, a dedicated resource center with solutions and content to help respond to the needs of your employees, customers, and community during this time.

For more tips on navigating change, read other articles in our Leading Through Change series.

• Here are five ways we help our employees navigate work now

• See how you can maintain customer relationships when you can’t meet in person

• Learn why you need a crisis comms plan

The post Deploy a Crisis Response App to Support Your Workforce and Business Continuity appeared first on Salesforce.

Last month, due to the unprecedented situation with COVID-19, we spent 10 days pivoting Salesforce World Tour Sydney into a fully virtual event. This annual conference is Salesforce’s largest in the Asia Pacific region, attracting around 10,000 onsite attendees and taking more than six months to organize. Our reimagined event attracted almost 13,000 registered attendees and 80,000 Salesforce Live views.

As other companies face similar challenges, they too are pivoting flagship events to virtual spaces. This article is for those who are making the difficult decision to transform large-scale events from in-person to online. We share what we learned and how our experience can help you.

1. Know the facts and assemble your team

Despite the hurdles we faced on the path to this monumental shift, we realized there was an opportunity to do something special. Live streaming and conferencing tools are more available than ever before, and online events are far more affordable to produce. There’s also no indication online gatherings are a passing trend: Cisco predicts by 2022, 82% of all internet traffic will be video.

Derek Laney, Salesforce’s Head of Solutions and Product Marketing, Asia Pacific, says his team has been talking about doing online events for years. He was excited to replan the conference, despite the challenge ahead.

“There was no precedent to what we were doing,” he says. “So there was no reason for us not to try something new.”

Let’s start with four things to keep in mind as you strategize:

• Get leadership buy-in with visuals

• Develop new teams as needed

• Scrum often

• Ruthlessly prioritize and reprioritize every day

The Asia Pacific (APAC) Marketing Team oversaw the creation of a series of work streams for World Tour Sydney. Each one focused on a different aspect of the event: content, engagement, and communications. Other subgroups covered online streaming, live demos, customer management, and more.

Regular scrums ensured everyone knew what deliverables were most pressing. There were meetings with headquarters in the U.S. every morning and with the local APAC team in the afternoon. “With the time difference, we had people working almost round the clock,” says Renata Bertram, Vice President, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Marketing.

Bertam adds getting buy-in from the very top right from the start was an important part of their success. “We learned early on the importance of creating visuals to help people understand what the event was going to look like and what our production values would be,” she says. “For example, we built slides that replicated looking at a presentation through a screen.”

Ruthless prioritization was key. “I stopped answering everyone’s questions so we could focus on prioritization,” recounts Laney. “We didn’t want to be overwhelmed with the amount of challenges that we had to solve.”

2. Create a shortlist for session content

Our World Tour Sydney team procured a broadcast location and then set to work on content programming. A war-room team was assigned within the first few hours.

On day one, we determined which of the event’s 150 sessions would translate best to a virtual format. We came up with a plan for the top 30 sessions and all the people needed to deliver them. Laney recommends working with the wider team on a need-to-know basis to stay on target and move fast.

“It’s okay if there’s ambiguity around what the process is,” he says. “Not to say that we kept anything confidential, but we needed to focus. Opening up ideas to a larger group can create distraction.”

To avoid clashing interests, event leaders should determine the right time for open collaboration and the right time to be directive.

3. Figure out how to keep your online audience engaged

Next, we unwrapped all the elements that were in place for the physical event. Piece by piece, we determined how to change direction with the resources on hand. A key part of this was outsourcing. Many of our suppliers were able to pivot to create an engaging online experience. Our audio visual production partner, for example, had extensive television experience. That meant it could quickly create a compelling multichannel digital experience.

We also considered what we could repurpose. Digital content developed to project onto the back wall of an exhibition hall was used as engaging backdrops for online sessions. The builders for the exhibition stands shifted their work to constructing studios where the content team could film sessions.

Bertram says there should be an engagement experience work group focused on keeping the interest of people who were going to spend a day attending sessions and meeting people at a physical event.

“Streaming content is relatively easy, but how do you build in two-way interaction?” says Stuart Frank, Director of Strategic Events Asia Pacific.

The initial live event was meant to include an expo hall, so our team built a digital experience inspired by the act of browsing booths. Attendees from around the world could explore 18 virtual rooms based on Salesforce Customer 360. A company expert hosted each room, sharing demos with visitors and answering questions in real time. As this video shows, the experience let visitors engage with content in a way that was more active than watching a video and less formal than a scheduled meeting.

Alena Fereday, a Community Cloud solution engineer with Salesforce who helped create the digital experience provides this tip: “For people wanting to try something similar, we suggest building a working experience quickly so you have time to refine it. It made all the difference.”

Social media can also share highlights and preserve an element of two-way, live interaction. Although we didn’t get to it for the Sydney event, our social team is working to add interactive activities such as contests, Q&As, polls, and other fun moments into the mix.

4. Prep the team for Live AV

Being on camera on a set is very different from being in front of a live audience. Speakers used to a live environment are now in a feedback vacuum, so they must project confidence to engage the audience. Show speakers what the set and overall experience will look like for viewers.

Encourage presenters to rehearse in front of a camera as early as possible. Then give them the opportunity to see what they look like while presenting. They can empathize with the viewer’s experience and change their delivery.

A few other things we learned:

• Shorten the duration of sessions, because attention spans are shorter online.

• Try a conversational format with multiple people talking to each other. A variety of speakers makes for more engaging discussion.

• The camera only sees a one-by-one meter square, so the detail of what’s in that area is really important. Think about what’s going to make it into that space and how it will appear to viewers.

• Ensure that content is accessible for the visually challenged and hearing impaired. If you plan for a global audience, consider translation services for captioning.

5. Keep internal and external stakeholders briefed

We decided to communicate directly with sponsors, partners, and customers about our pivot. “There’s nothing worse than hearing secondhand news that will materially impact your business,” Frank says.

For the most part, many stakeholders are in the same situation and will understand your decision. Since they have a stake in your event’s success, collaborate with them on shifting content programming if needed.

Finally, when you are pivoting events, remember to consider your sales team. The in-person event was a significant opportunity for them to gain new leads, connect with existing accounts, and win new deals. But now what? It’s important to keep them in the loop so they can plan accordingly.

You can hold briefings and post updates on internal channels. Build slides and renderings that replicate what you’d see on screen so the sales team knows what the event will look like. Record a quick one-minute explainer video to give employees a chance to sample the experience. And demonstrate the production quality so sales can relay progress to their clients.

Executing a strong game plan can allow you to shift your in-person event strategy to a virtual one. And think of it this way: you’ve now rewritten your company’s event playbook and replaced it with a modern, forward-looking one your customers can adapt to. “What we did was born out of necessity, but what has come out has the potential to change the game in what we do,” says Betram. “There is an appetite out there to engage this way.”

Our Leading Through Change series provides thought leadership, tips, and resources to help business leaders manage through crisis. Check out some of our most recent articles:

• Here are five ways we’re helping our employees navigate work now

• Ways to maintain customer relationships when you can’t meet in person

• You need to have a crisis comms plan in place

The post How to Turn an In-Person Event Into a Compelling Virtual Experience appeared first on Salesforce.

While we often can’t control the societal crisis at hand, we can control our response to it.

Here are five tips to help you formulate a plan that communicates the impact of a situation and next-steps to your customers.

1. Show that you care. People seek connection during times of uncertainty. Companies in our communities play a role in this. Consider a message to customers to show you’re aware of the issue and offer helpful resources. Social media, email, or your online community are particularly accessible mediums for a brief and immediate message.

2. Be proactive in your communications. Your customers count on you even more than usual during a crisis. Proactively announce changes or impacts to your business. Do not make customers hunt for the information they need – instead, bring it to them. Proactive communication will free up staff to focus on tasks other than answering the same customer questions over and over again.

   Create communication that is appropriate within a variety of channels, including email, SMS, push notifications, social, IVR systems, chatbot introductions, homepage modals, and headers, and dedicated web landing pages. Establish a parallel approach designed to inform customers and employees in equal measure as appropriate.

3. Offer a shoulder to lean on. Show your humanity with an authentic, sensitive response. For example, Walgreens and CVS are waiving prescription medicine delivery fees during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Small businesses are also stepping up. I received an email from my local deli offering free delivery for customers over the age of 70 within a five-mile radius of the business. Their message also directs recipients to share the email with “friends and family who may like having food delivered to avoid going out.”

4. Inspire your audience. In times of need, those who are not affected are often in a position to assist others. You can be a catalyst by allowing corporate citizenship to shine. Do all you can to help. Share a donor portal; communicate your philanthropic position; assist with collection coordination; donate products, services, money, or time; and communicate how your brand’s community can get involved.

5. Audit your content queue. Review your entire messaging stream, including social media, promotional and transactional emails, push notifications, and SMS, to identify communications that need to pause or shift as a result of the situation. Otherwise, there is a risk of damaging your brand if a message comes off as insensitive, incorrect, or seeking to capitalize on a tragedy.

These communications must be a company-wide effort. Develop a cross-functional “Go Team” with experts from public relations, social, email, mobile, website, design, data/IT, philanthropy, stores/field, logistics, supply chain, and customer service to coordinate teams and efforts.

Then, create a plan that documents responsibilities throughout the organization as they relate to customer-facing communications. Establish a crisis strategy and craft templates for communications. And if there’s time, do a practice run to make sure your plans and strategies are sound.

The US Department of Homeland Security shares key resources for preparedness, response, and recovery. Take these resources and extend them into your communications as well to your design. This will allow you to be agile while supporting your customers during a time of need.

Our Leading Through Change series provides thought leadership, tips, and resources to help business leaders manage through crisis. Check out some of our most recent articles:

• Here are five ways we’re helping our employees navigate work now

• We’re helping businesses manage through crisis

• See how we pivoted a live event into an online experience

The post How to Communicate With Customers During Times of Crisis appeared first on Salesforce.

1. to provide thought leadership, tips, and resources from Salesforce and our community of Trailblazers to help business leaders manage through crisis; and,
2. to provide a forum for community and conversation with peers.

In this series, we’ll share content that’s universally helpful regardless of your role in the organization, as well as guidance specific to CEOs, CMOs, CIOs, CROs, VPs of Commerce, service leaders, and for vertical industries. For example — we’ll share tips on employee communications, customer communications, solving for revenue challenges, and maintaining customer relationships in a work from home era.

For twenty-one years we’ve listened to customers share their greatest opportunities and toughest challenges. And with twenty-one years of insights from the Trailblazers among us — those business innovators who have experienced personal and professional transformation, we’ll draw from our experience, and these relationships, to share the best insights with all of you.

Now, I’d like to also hear from you. Please drop me a line (cmo@salesforce.com) to let me know what you’re grappling with, what questions you have and ideas for how we can share learnings from our customers to help inform your approach. Your input will directly affect our Leading for Change Series content, community, and conversation going forward.

While these are challenging times for all of us, I’m confident that, together, we’ll also see new opportunities to connect with our customers and new ways to do business. Please share this series with anyone in your professional circle who might benefit from the wisdom and perspective of peers.

Stephanie Buscemi

Chief Marketing Officer, Salesforce

The post Helping Business Manage Through Crisis appeared first on Salesforce.

What does it mean to be a leader? Research suggests that effective leaders have good communication and team-building skills. They exhibit empathy and emotional intelligence. They’re open-minded and have a continual desire to learn. And they’re willing to take responsibility for team decisions and do what’s best for their organizations.

Quality leadership is essential. Employees who work for effective leaders tend to be more productive and have better morale, which can improve a company’s bottom line. Even though leadership is important, not many organizations invest seriously in their team member’s professional development. That means you may need to take the reins to develop your leadership abilities.

Read on for tips to help grow your leadership skills. Then take action on what you learned. With consistent practice, you’ll become the leader you’ve always known you could be.

How to Become a Leader at Your Organization

Ready to grow your leadership skills and stand out in your organization? Adopt these six practices to become a better leader.

1. Know thyself

Take stock of your strengths and weaknesses and identify what areas you need to improve. Be honest with yourself and acknowledge your shortcomings. Also, solicit and listen to feedback from other people. Analyze past performance reviews and ask a few trusted coworkers to identify your strengths and areas for improvement.

Rank yourself in these key leadership traits.

• Your ability to influence others and inspire them to take action
• Your emotional resilience
• Your ability to make practical, forward-looking decisions
• Your ability to connect and engage with others
• Your ability to keep your ego in check while engaging with others
• Your ability to solve problems

2. Master your challenges

Once you’ve taken stock of your current leadership skill set, identify areas for improvement and set SMART goals to help you improve in those areas. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Here are some examples.

• If your empathy skills need work, commit to asking your team members a set number of questions about themselves each week. Note their responses and make decisions with their input in mind.
• If your public speaking skills aren’t up to snuff, set small goals to practice a specific presentation. For instance, first practice your speech in front of a family member, then a friend, then a colleague, and so on. You’ll gradually improve your speaking confidence in the process.

By pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, you’ll increase your confidence and grow your leadership qualities.

3. Find mentors

Leaders aren’t born in a vacuum; they’re inspired and coached by other leaders.

Study leaders you admire to help you identify which leadership attributes you want to embody. Then practice those qualities to learn what works for you in your workplace.

If possible, seek out a mentor inside or outside your organization who’s willing to offer you guidance in the form of personal check-ins and performance feedback. If a personal mentor is not an option, study leaders you admire by reading their books or blog posts, listening to their talks, and following them on social media.

To get started on your mentor search, make a list of leaders you admire and start following their work. Then reach out to a few people to ask them if they’d be willing to mentor you. But remember, most leaders are busy. Don’t feel hurt if you don’t get responses.

4. Grow your network

A mentor can help you grow your network, which is another important step on the path to leadership. But don’t limit your network to people who are above you on the corporate ladder. Aim to interact with people from all levels of your and other organizations.

Cultivating relationships with a broad variety of people will challenge you to improve your “soft” skills (more on that below), which will make you a more effective communicator. It will expose you to new ideas and perspectives, which can improve your ability to solve problems. And it will help you develop a network of supporters who can offer mentorship, collaboration opportunities, or recommendations as you grow your career.

Not sure how to grow your network? Start by making a list of people inside or outside of your organization who may add value to your career. Also include people you may be able to offer guidance to. (Networking should be mutually beneficial, not a one-way street.) Then, ask those people if they’d like to connect in person or online. The more you practice reaching out to people, the more comfortable it will feel.

5. Improve your soft skills

Soft skills are also referred to as people skills — or the attributes needed for effective interpersonal communication, teamwork, and productivity. These include:

• Adaptability
• Assertiveness
• Conflict resolution
• Conscientiousness
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking
• Empathy
• Listening skills
• Motivation
• Open mindedness
• Positive attitude
• Team-oriented mindset
• Time management
• Work ethic and drive

Soft skills are more difficult to define than hard skills, which are technical, measurable skills you can acquire through certifications or other training. Examples of hard skills include accounting, using a particular database, and coding.

So how do you improve your soft skills? One strategy is to research each soft skill and practice behaviours that exemplify it. To keep the process manageable, commit to working on each soft skill for a specific period—for instance, three weeks. During that period, focus on modelling one skill in your interactions. For example:

• To grow your communication skills, practice speaking clearly and directly, and encourage others to ask follow-up questions to ensure everybody’s on the same page.
• To grow your listening skills, listen more than you speak and repeat back your understanding of what people say to let them confirm or clarify. Don’t assume you know everything, and keep an open mind about feedback you receive.
• To adopt a positive attitude, be open to change, look for the silver lining in situations, and focus on solutions rather than problems. View challenges as an opportunity to grow or innovate.

6. Pursue training or education

Leaders must expand their knowledge of their industries to make informed decisions for their teams or organizations. This means they need to constantly acquire new skills.

Soft skills are crucial. But leaders must also grow their hard skill set. Even if you don’t have the time or money to pursue a formal degree, commit to developing new skills by earning certifications and pursuing additional training.

Trainings can be profession-specific or skill-specific. For instance, if you’re a salesperson, you may want to look into the Certified Professional Sales Person (CPSP) credential or the Certified Sales Executive (CSE) certification or train in specific software, a la Salesforce’s Trailhead training. Or you may want to earn certifications in areas such as executive leadership from Cornell University or other respectable organizations.

Onward and Upward

At the end of the day, becoming a leader requires you to act like the leader you want to be — regardless of whether you hold a leadership title.

Behave as you would if you were in a leadership role, and you’ll stand out to your peers and management as a person with leadership qualities. You’ll feel more empowered and improve your chances for promotion, and you’ll enrich your company’s culture in the process. And that’s worth doing whether it comes with a salary increase or not.

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Hiring top talent is tough, which is why, over time, most hiring managers develop their own system of interview techniques and questions to grill would-be employees.

When it comes to specific interview questions, I’ve got collections of them sitting in an Evernote file that I’ve been carefully curating over time.

While many of these questions may be considered mainstream, such as “Tell me about a time when…” or “How would you approach a situation where…,” I do like to mix it up with a few abstract queries that I seem to ask with a fair bit of consistency.

1. What’s your superpower?

I tend to see teams as a collection of super heroes, much like the Justice League or the X-men. Each team member brings his or her own unique set of skills: things they’re simply better at than their peers. For example, someone might be a killer negotiator, while someone else is consummate solution or product expert. Someone might be outstanding in the deal qualification process, another may be adept at quickly connecting with executive stakeholders, and someone else may simply excel at being what I call “the best friend.”

Regardless of what their superpower is, asking a candidate to describe it (or how his or her current manager would describe it) is a great technique for three reasons:

• It helps you understand what strengths and diversity the person could add to your team.
• It highlights the candidate’s degree of self-awareness.
• It provides the opening for a related line of evidence-based questions. For example, “Oh, so you’re awesome at connecting with executive stakeholders? Tell me about an especially challenging instance where you had to make such a connection.”
• A fourth reason I like this question: it tends to be a fun ice-breaker question that puts candidates at ease.

2. What’s your kryptonite? While it’s always interesting to ask a candidate about how they’d use their superpowers to win, it’s even more interesting to ask what they would do to win if they were up against themselves. This technique works well after you’ve gotten them to describe their superpower and a situation they were especially proud of. For instance, “If I were your competitor, what would/should I have done to steal it from you?”

This technique works well for three reasons:

• It helps you understand the candidate’s degree of awareness of his or her weaknesses, whether they’re personal, professional, or organizational.
• It highlights how familiar the candidate is with the competitive landscape in his or her business or industry.
• It will help you identify potential areas for coaching and development.

3. If you were a plant, what care instructions would you come with?

I usually introduce this question with a build-up that goes something like this: “Suppose I were to call your current manager and ask him to describe you in the same way he’d describe a plant he wanted me to take care of while he went on vacation. You know like, ‘Oh, Steve likes to be watered three times a day, indirect sunlight in the morning, and he really perks up when you play Mozart!’ Essentially, what would your current manager tell me to do to help you perform at your best?”

Do you crave autonomy? Do you need constant encouragement? Are you hesitant and seek advice when faced with new situations or do you dive in and ask questions later?

This technique is great for three reasons:

• It provides specific insights into how you’ll need to manage this person for maximum effectiveness.
• It provides insights into the affinity the candidate has toward his or her current manager and why, which is also helpful for you.
• As with the previous technique, it helps you identify initial areas of focus for coaching and mentoring.

The interview process can often be a grueling one for both the hiring manager and the candidates, but injecting a little fun and creativity into the interview questions can not only help you secure the right talent, it can also help you set him or her up for success starting from day one on the job.

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This article by John Rampton is part of our Blogtober event, which features blog posts written by industry influencers in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Highly successful entrepreneurs often go to the beat of their own drum. They have to. Statistics show the vast majority of new businesses fail, which means entrepreneurs must do things differently than other business people. And to the entrepreneur, these habits seem perfectly normal.

Personally, I’ve started, bought, grown, and sold several companies, and have been named as one of the most influential online marketers in the world. Someone recently told me that my habits are different from others. I prefer “unique” over different. When I reflected on this, it became clear that my habits are similar to those of many other highly successful entrepreneurs. Perhaps these habits will help you as well.

1. Get a lot of work done between 5am – 7am.

General Electric’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, gets up at 5:30am. Ursula Burns, Chairwoman and CEO of Xerox, wakes up at 5:15am. In fact, a number of top-level executives and entrepreneurs wake up before dawn.

While others are sleeping, I find this is the best time to get most of my thinking time in. During “normal” business hours, there are multiple disruptions that do not provide the right environment for thinking about ideas, problems, and opportunities. However, in the early morning hours, even the crickets are in bed so it gives me a great chance to only focus on my thoughts. There is no email or phone calls. It’s just my brain and I. Many other successful entrepreneurs have done the same by choosing these quiet, dark hours to do some of their best work. This also frees up time during the day to only focus on those immediate needs and daily tasks rather than becoming frustrated by trying to do both.

2. Use the Tony Hsieh of Zappos method for answering emails in one fell swoop.

Hsieh created the Yesterbox system of email management, and has noted that he likes to organize his emails into various categories and create a separate inbox just for those emails that require his attention but that are not pressing. Just about every entrepreneur has his or her own method for dealing with an overwhelming inbox. I have found that it helps me to save all those emails that just take seconds to answer for the end of the workday rather than using that time during the day when I have other projects, decisions, and people who require my immediate attention. This process has been proven to be a time “maximize” in terms of getting things done.

3. Conduct meetings while walking with staff.

Some people, like Fran Melmed, the founder of context, a communication and change management consulting firm, have switched to walking meetings for the health benefits. Some rely on them because they encourage more open, honest communication, and increase creativity. And while traditional sit-down meetings are generally reviled, walking meetings are considered productive.

I’m an avid believer in the need to exercise and move often during the workday. I even require that staff take two 15-minute walks each day. These walks have become the time in which I also conduct meetings and even performance reviews. They can be informal meetings or discussions about projects and progress. For both myself and the rest in the walking meeting, we’ve all accomplished exercise and a meeting (which, let’s face it, most find tedious during the best of times) in one go. Other successful entrepreneurs have also noted that they like to conduct meetings while doing other things just to maximize their time.

4. Plan your schedule even down to the minute.

Entrepreneur’s article “How to Manage Time With 10 Tips That Work” lists a number of excellent tips for planning your time wisely. Some people may read these tips and think they’re extreme, but for entrepreneurs, time management is absolutely necessary.

My calendar would probably drive other people crazy because I have my schedule planned down to the minute, allotting 17 minutes to a meeting or 23 minutes for a lunch. I do this because I want to make every minute count in a day. In those other few minutes to a half hour or hour, I could plan a snack or a quick walk. This helps me get in more rather than looking at things by more regimented blocks of time where most people have to admit that they waste considerable time while they then wait for the next half hour or hour to strike.

5. Take power naps.

Thomas Edison believed in power naps over nightly sleeping. Winston Churchill and Leonardo Da Vinci felt the same way, with Churchill keeping a bed in the House of Parliament and Da Vinci scheduling a 20-minute nap every four hours.

While some may think naps are for lazy people, I beg to differ. Because I like to work at all hours of the day or night, I strongly believe in the power nap as a great solution for those periods in the day where energy wanes. I recommend this to my staff too because it really does help me recharge and re-fire the brain to work even harder. Other entrepreneurs also believe that naps help them get their focus back and offer a better way to increase productivity then that Monster energy drink or twelve espresso shots.

6. Make lists for everything.

Andrew Cohen, the Founder and CEO of Brainscape, wrote a list of lists entrepreneurs need to use. There are 20 lists in total in his article, which he organizes into “people lists” and “to-do lists”. He writes, “There is absolutely no way an entrepreneur can succeed without obsessively maintaining updated lists of all resources and projects that will contribute to his or her endeavor’s success.”

I used to make paper lists or use Post-It notes to prioritize what I had to get done. I’ve always found lists to be a useful device for organizing and accomplishing work. Plus, I get the satisfaction of crossing things off. However, most of all, a list helps me order what I need to think about and do. While I see many lists in my head, it has helped me to write it down and look at the list. Now, I use digital lists through apps on my phone and on my computer to do the same thing so my desk is a lot neater but my lists are still hard at work, keeping me on task and providing an overview of everything that I have going on.

7. Multitask across communication platforms.

With all the technology available, a whole new level of communication has been born: multicommunication. “Multicommunicating can be a beneficial process, because when used effectively it can increase efficiency and productivity.”

I don’t just have one conversation at a time. If anything, I have multiple platforms open, including Skype, Twitter, email and my online project collaboration too. It doesn’t mean that I’m not listening to anyone because I’m in touch with every conversation. Since these mostly involve typing to each other, no one will think I’m not listening to them. This helps me accomplish more but also keep the communication lines open, which means that many other people are also continuing their workflow.

8. Meditate.

Marc Benioff, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Salesforce, turned to meditation after stress from his previous job became overwhelming. The CEO of Executive Management Associates, Nancy Slomowitz, started offering meditation classes to employees and ended up reducing her company’s insurance costs. A number of business leaders believe meditation is a competitive advantage in the business world and have made it part of their company’s culture.

Like my power naps, meditation helps draw me back to a central place and provides a way to de-stress so that I can continue to respond to needs and issues at work in a calm, focused manner. Meditation also offers a way to reflect and think through the clutter that gets me to look at something differently. I’ve often found answers to stubborn problems during or after meditation.

9. Think backwards.

Courtney Klein, the co-founder of SEED SPOT, wrote the article “Think Like a Social Entrepreneur: Wrong, Backwards, and Fast.” In it she talked about how Jon Irons of SitGreen founded his company by identifying a problem, then finding its solution by considering the most desirable outcome.

I, too, start with the end result or the outcome that I want to have rather than the original concept to help me flush out a product or service solution that is disruptive. It’s all about reverse engineering to determine the steps to get there. In fact, thinking backwards works so often that it’s near impossible to think forwards anymore.

10. Tell stories.

Amy Cuddy, in her TED Talk, cried as she talked about teaching someone sign language. It’s a moving talk, and it showcases her passion for her work.

That level of emotion isn’t always necessary, and I’m not necessarily talking about sitting-around-the-campfire type stories, but they are stories all the same in terms of providing an authentic experience that my staff and the customer base can understand and relate to. Stories are a way to teach without feeling like it. They entertain and inspire while subconsciously people are learning from these stories about what to do or what NOT to do. I feel like it also brings the staff closer and makes them more comfortable around me.

11. Cut corners.

While this habit sounds like it requires the QC team on it, it’s formally called “business process reengineering”. What it means is that every time something gets done, I visualize ways to shorten the process to complete that project or task. Those corners are simply things that take time and resources that no longer have to be used while not impacting quality.

I’m certainly not alone in these habits; other highly successful entrepreneurs have the same or similar habits as I do. I wouldn’t change these habits for anything. I will continue to use them to pursue life as an entrepreneur no matter what type of idea I pursue. I encourage you to test these habits to see which work for you and to see if they impact your life as they have mine.

John Rampton is the founder of Palo Alto, California-based Due, a free online invoicing company specializing in helping businesses bill their clients easily online. You can connect with him @johnrampton.

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