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    Linked: Employees’ email still drives most of the data loss at organizations

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    A good chunk of these breaches are not someone actually trying to steal data, but just someone trying to either make something more easily accessible outside of the office or taking information when they leave related to things like contact information, maybe some documents they’ve written themselves that they want to keep, etc.

    It’s likely that these folks aren’t actively trying to commit some sort of corporate espionage, they just aren’t really thinking about what they do. It might just be that the once-per-year required video just isn’t enough to make it top of mind every day.

  • Linked: The death of ‘mandatory fun’ in the office

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    This has always been the key, but I suspect too many employees lacked the power to say it. Some of my best friends are people I met at work. I met my wife at work. Clearly, I am not against interacting with coworkers. I am, however, against anything that forces me to interact in a certain way with a group of people I didn’t choose to interact with.

    That is just time spent doing a thing that isn’t important to me after we have spent the last couple of years learning how important it is to dedicate time to the important things.

    Figure out what is important to your people and they will participate. Waste their time with frivolous nonsense, and they won’t. It’s really that simple.

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    Linked: L&D’s Role in Attracting Top Talent

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    The folks from this survey understand two things.

    1. The skills they have today won’t be enough to be successful tomorrow. Technology is changing the work we do at an ever-increasing clip. If they are in a job that isn’t keeping pace, or giving them the opportunity to keep pace, it’s going to end badly for them.

    2. If an organization isn’t recognizing the need for their talent to continuously learn it is not only offering a job without the kind of future they are seeking, but it’s probably not offering itself the kind of future it needs. People see this. Your top people know it’s true. They see a sinking ship long before you do. A ship that keeps doing what it’s always done without growing and adapting to change is sinking. Maybe not today, or the next year, but eventually, they know.

  • Linked: 4 Great Ways To Grow Your Career Even When You Work Remote

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Ask yourself a simple question, if the best way to grow your own career in a remote environment is to intentionally identify the culture and then deliberately try to use your time to network internally, learn new skills, etc. why would we, as leaders, not do what we can to make that easier? Why put all the burden on a new hire to learn the ropes and find the best people to connect with or the best places to learn when that is information that we have and can share with them?

    What intentionality can we include as part of bringing in new people, or connecting the people and knowledge that already exists within the team?

    Leaving it up to chance is not the way to go. It was never really the best way to go but in an office, it might have been a little harder to notice. Everything must be intentionally created with remote teams—communication, connection, knowledge-sharing, etc.

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    Linked: How long your meetings should last

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We aren’t strategic about meetings. We don’t plan for the meeting enough, we schedule the meeting in order to plan. We should start planning before the meeting, and figure out what we want from the other folks before we invite them, and tell them. Those of us who think more creatively by ourselves ahead of meeting with others will also bring much more to the meeting when you share the agenda and expectations ahead of time too.

    If you take anything away from this, remember that it’s OK to not invite everyone to every meeting, and it’s OK to use all of the other tools we have to collaborate instead of having a meeting.

    Your calendar will thank you.