From CEO to visionary: Evolving your entrepreneurial role

8 EO members share lessons from their best and worst business partnerships

25 March, 2022

Contributed by Kym Huynh, an EO Melbourne member, EO Global Communications Committee member, and co-founder of WeTeachMe. Kym is fascinated by entrepreneurs and their journeys, so he asked EO members from various chapters to share their experiences. Read his earlier posts on what EO members wish non-entrepreneurs knew about entrepreneurs and how EO members define success and the impact of core values.

Choose partners with opposite skill sets

The best business partnership for me occurred when partnering with people who had completely opposite skill sets.

I previously owned a construction company. My partner focused on construction, margins, operations and managing suppliers whereas I focused on strategy, business development, HR and finance. It worked so well. I’ll never partner with someone who has a similar set of skills to me.

— Ron Lovett, EO Atlantic Canada, founder of Connolly Owens

Depth has benefits over breadth

The most powerful gift my business partnership gave me was the experience of depth rather than breadth.

Because I had someone who both relied on me and gave me much, I did not have the option to jump ship whenever I wanted a new experience.

This partnership taught me that one gains the most out of life when one goes deep. Some of my learnings from this—resilience and how to live a life of meaning—are priceless.

—Tui Cordemans, EO Melbourne, founder of Koh Living

There is no blame. Only learning.

Nick Bell and I have been business partners for 10 years, and friends for much longer. The key to our success is that our friendship is stronger than our business partnership.

We’ve had disagreements, but:

We are prepared to not let ego drive our decisions
We are prepared to let the other take the lead; and
If one of us is wrong or fails, we consider it part of the journey.

Categories: Entrepreneurial Journey Lessons Learned Partnerships WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Tags: Ai-Ling Wong Alex Louey Andrea Grisdale Appscore Connolly Owens david fastuca EO Atlantic Canada eo melbourne eo new zealand IC Bellagio Just Life Group Just Water Koh Living kym huynh locomote Ron Lovett The Decorateur Tony Falkenstein Tui Cordemons weteachme

Why it’s ok to ditch perfectionism and focus on GETMO to achieve balance

9 March, 2022

Contributed by Cindy Norcott, EO Durban, a motivational speaker, author, entrepreneur, business coach and philanthropist. She is the CEO of Pro Talent and Pro Appointment, as well as the founder and chair of The Robin Hood Foundation. In observance of International Women’s Day week, we’re sharing Cindy’s journey. She’s a woman entrepreneur whose second book, How Does She Do It? explores practical wisdom and a humorous take on the lessons learned from balancing business, life and family across her 28-year entrepreneurial journey.

How did you find peace with “the messy and very imperfect” aspects of entrepreneurial life?

I am grateful that I am not a perfectionist. Because I wear many hats, I soon learned that the quickest way to contentment is to lower my standards and not sweat the small stuff. I never aim for perfection. Rather, I focus on “GETMO” — good enough to move on.

I often joke that I am a terrible mother and that my children thrive on neglect. Running many businesses, projects and organizations simultaneously, I empowered my young daughters to be independent from a very young age. They made their own lunches from the time they started school. That horrifies most people, but it’s the way it was in our home. I cook badly, and that is ok. We have simple meals. I don’t have time to be a helicopter parent.

As an entrepreneur, there are often very busy and demanding seasons where work is the main focus, and other elements of my life have had to take a back seat. As a motivational speaker, the world always sees the end product — me on a stage, composed, serene and professional. What they don’t see is me at midnight, in pajamas with my hair tied up and glasses on, reading, writing and preparing speeches. I also host big, glamorous and fun events. But again, very few people see us setting up, packing goodie bags and clearing up afterward. For every success that any entrepreneur has that looks easy and shiny, there is a lot of hard work, mess and many unglamorous elements behind the scenes.

Categories: WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION

Tags: Cindy Norcott entrepreneurs' organization EO Durban GETMO How Does She Do It? The Robin Hood Foundation

How to revise performance evaluations to improve hybrid and remote team management

4 March, 2022

Contributed by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of the boutique future-proofing consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, which helps forward-looking leaders avoid dangerous threats and missed opportunities. A best-selling author, his newest book is Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams. We asked Dr. Tsipursky how leaders can better manage their teams by revising their performance review process. Here’s what he shared:

The pandemic forced leaders to reconcile with the need for effective hybrid and remote team management strategies, including in performance evaluations. Research shows the benefits of replacing large-scale quarterly or annual performance reviews with more frequent, brief reviews focused on task performance, effective feedback and coaching. To survive and thrive, leaders need to benchmark to best practices on performance evaluation for hybrid and remote team management in our new normal.

Hybrid is our future

During the pandemic, two-thirds of all US workers worked remotely some of the time, and over a half full-time. Surveys show that between two-thirds and three-quarters of employers intend to permanently switch to a mainly hybrid schedule of one to three days in the office combined with a minority of fully remote employees.

The question is: If a large majority of employees work most of their hours at home, how will their performance be measured?

Performance evaluation in the new normal

Too many managers and companies still rely on “time in the office” as a primary measure of evaluating performance. This has led to employees focusing more on “time logged” rather than their actual contribution to the company.

As survey responses show, many employees and top leaders feel concerned about the possibility of hybrid and remote work undermining their career growth. To allay these concerns, employee performance evaluation systems need to stop relying on time worked.

The companies I helped guide through this transition shifted to regular, weekly or biweekly performance evaluations of team members by team leaders. Some added an occasional 360-degree evaluation component by one’s teammates and other stakeholders once every month or couple of months.

Categories: Best Practices Coaching PEOPLE/STAFF

Tags: best practices Disaster Avoidance Experts Dr. Gleb Tsipursky entrepreneurs' organization lessons learned

Will we meet at EO’s Global Leadership Conference (GLC) this year?

2 March, 2022

Contributed by Marina Byezhanova, an EO Canada Bridge member in Montreal and the founder of Brand of a Leader, a personal branding agency that builds and scales the personal brands of entrepreneurs who inspire and make an impact. We asked Marina about her experiences at EO’s Global Leadership Conference. Here’s what she shared.

I was hugging a complete stranger on the bottom of an escalator in Frankfurt, Germany, thousands of miles away from my home in Montreal, Canada. We were at EO’s epic signature event of the year—the Global Leadership Conference (GLC), and the energy was incomparable.

Do you know that hard-to-describe feeling you get when you come together with fellow EOers? That feeling of instamacy, palpable energy, and the conviction that we can—and will!—make the world a better place? GLC 100X’s that feeling, bringing together thousands of EO members from all over the world.

The 2017 event in Frankfurt was my first GLC, and I was soaking up the EO experience. We enjoyed world-class speakers who shared more golden nuggets than my hand was able to capture on paper, socials that made it hard to wake up in the morning but left us with incredible memories, and the connections that were being formed there to last us all a lifetime.

Life-changing connections

It’s the connections made at GLC that are impossible to describe unless you’ve lived and experienced them yourself. To me, one of those connections happened as I was riding an escalator on my way from one learning session to the next. A fellow EOer standing next to me struck up casual small talk and asked me where I was from as he caught sight of my Eastern European last name on my badge.

I shared that I was living in Canada, but I was born in Ukraine. His eyes lit up. “Me too!” he exclaimed. “I live in Detroit, but I was born in Ukraine also. Which city?” I shared the name of my not-so-well-known hometown of Kharkiv, and his eyes widened. “I don’t believe you! I come from Kharkiv too!”

A hug at the end of the escalator ride later, we formed a connection that has remained for years ever since. I am thankful to Vlad Gendelman from EO Detroit for checking in with me during the pandemic, as my business was crashing and burning, and as I was pivoting at dizzying speeds, and for fostering other priceless introductions to fellow EOers.

Next-level learning opportunities

GLC was formerly open only to members in leadership roles, but the pandemic changed that. As we all suddenly became comfortable with online learning and virtual events, EO’s ever-so-innovative Global Learning Team has brought us mind-blowing online learning content over the last two years. Wouldn’t you agree? They also re-imagined GLC, making it a hybrid event, now accessible to all members through the virtual platform.

I must admit, I was skeptical when I logged onto the virtual platform for last year’s first-ever virtual GLC. After all, I’d come to cherish the in-person GLC experience, having attended the conference in Frankfurt, Germany; Toronto, Canada; and Macau, China—and even facilitating a session for 50+ EOers in Macau! How would the virtual experience ever compare to that?

Incomparable EO energy in a virtual/hybrid format

And yet, as always, in true EO fashion, the learning team blew me away. They somehow recreated the incomparable EO energy in the virtual format. All of a sudden, I found myself dancing to the beats played by DJ Jenny La Femme (a fellow EOer!), blasting from the virtual platform. All of a sudden, I was connecting with fellow members from across the globe in the chat, and we were all messaging each other at what felt like the speed of lightning. All of a sudden, my handwriting speed was once again lagging behind all of the learning I was consuming from world-class speakers.

GLC 2022 is a hybrid event. The learning team, with its usual ambition, decided to bring members together in Washington, DC, as well as in Barcelona, Spain, and to make the event accessible to all members through the virtual platform.

Can’t-miss speakers

The GLC speakers list is slowly coming out, and I am blocking off my calendar to make sure nothing gets in the way of my learning from Daniel Pink or from my getting inspired by Platon or Jose Andres. And yet, as impressive as the speaker list is going to be (and it’s the EO event of the year—of course the speaker lineup will be off the charts!), do you know what I am most looking forward to?

You guessed it! I most look forward to making connections that only happen when you #MeetAtGLC—virtually or in person.

I hope to meet you there!

Learn more and register for EO’s 2022 Global Leadership Conference, 23-26 April 2022!

Categories: Entrepreneurial Journey Inspirational LEADERSHIP members

Tags: Brand of a Leader Daniel Pink entrepreneurs' organization EO Canada Bridge GLC Global Leadership Conference Jose Andres Marina Byezhanova MeetAtGLC Platon vladimir gendelman

THE EO BLOG

INSIGHTS FROM

LEADING ENTREPRENEURS

Categories

Search