What makes a good business leader

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Typically, any discussion of actively removing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the earth’s atmosphere to help reduce the greenhouse effect of manmade emissions has so far centered on carbon storage and capture. That usually means removing CO 2 from the waste stream at a high-emission generation point (for example, a power plant) and then putting it into long-term storage, such as by pumping it far underground. The problem with that approach is that it layers costs upon costs, with only very diffuse benefits. That makes it really difficult to get off the ground in any scalable way. What if instead, our elevated levels of atmospheric CO 2 were viewed as a business opportunity? That’s the approach that the folks at AirCapture LLC, based in Berkeley, California, are taking. Their mission is to use their Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology to pull CO 2 straight from the atmosphere, anywhere it’s needed for other industrial … [Read more...] about AirCapture And 3D Systems Partner To Make Decarbonizing Our Atmosphere Profitable

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin When we think of characteristics of a strong leader, “great listener” typically isn’t one of the first skills to come to mind, but maybe it should be. Particularly in this Covid-19 era as leaders are managing stressed, anxious employees often hesitant at best about the return to work, qualities like empathy and emotional intelligence will be in high demand – possibly separating leaders who succeed from those who fail. Arguably, one of the most necessary ingredients for this style of leadership is the ability to listen actively and authentically. No, not just vanilla, run of the mill listening that virtually anyone can do, but another level of listening. Let’s face it – when someone else is talking, very often we’re not really listening to their point or concern. Instead, too often we quickly decide that we know their point and immediately focus our mental energy into formulating our response. When we think about it, this … [Read more...] about Are You Really Listening Or Just Waiting To Talk? There’s A Difference

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The point of an employee engagement survey is to discover what drives your unique group of employees so that you can more quickly engage them. That's not a controversial point, but this is: The best time to discover what drives your employees is often during the Summer months. Many companies eschew conducting surveys during the Summer, as employee vacations abound and businesses often slow. But something else happens during the Summer; as urgent operational crises often become less frequent, you get a more stable and accurate glimpse into employees' motivations. Think of it like this: Imagine that your company gets slammed with an onslaught of customer orders in the Fall. On the one hand, that's a good thing. But on the other hand, it's likely to increase employee frustrations and burnout. Now, if you conduct an employee engagement survey during that time, are you likely to discover employees' underlying motivations or … [Read more...] about Summer Is Weirdly Great For Employee Engagement Surveys

If your employees feel like they're under constant scrutiny, you're less likely to retain them. When it comes to tracking worker productivity, especially in remote, hybrid, and asynchronous work environments , when bosses may not physically "see" their employees, some monitoring tactics are contentious. More than half of workers would leave their jobs if their employer insisted on recording audio or video of them, or used facial recognition to monitor productivity , according to a May 2022 survey of 750 technology workers by the Washington, D.C.-based business intelligence company Morning Consult. To Dan Pupius, the San Francisco-based founder of the remote workplace management tool Range , the Big Brother issue  is directly related to whether leaders ascribe to Theory X or Theory Y , which were coined by social psychologist Douglas McGregor at the MIT's Sloan School of Management in 1960. Basically, Theory X proposed that workers, by default, are unmotivated, … [Read more...] about Your Employees Hate Being Monitored. Learn How to Humanize Productivity Tracking

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Food prices are soaring as inflation, product instability, and supply chain delays are causing all sorts of havoc within the food industry. As a result, consumer packaged goods manufacturers and food & beverage companies have to rethink their strategies and offerings and even question how consumers consume as they try to navigate this uncertain time. The consumer packaged goods and food & beverage industries may have taken the hardest hits in recent years, reeling from constant disruptions. The lingering effects of a global pandemic were only the start. Continuing shortages of raw materials from Ukraine and Russia, production and processing delays, and fast-rising oil and gas prices have directly impacted food-related manufacturing, transportation of goods, and agricultural supply chains. Today, the business of producing and distributing food and beverage products is fraught with economic unease and supply chain … [Read more...] about When It Comes To CPG And Food & Beverage Companies – Investing In Purpose-Built Supply Chain Intelligence Matters