There are many pillars upon which a competent business rests. See how even the most successful business operates with only 20% of its staff turning up for work, or only 20% of its IT systems functioning that day, and you’ll see just how quickly even the most titanic corporations can lose value quickly.
This is why it’s important to never take those pillars for granted. Included in this definition, often forgotten, is the network of suppliers you use. No business can function without a supplier of some kind, even the most self-reliant and self-sufficient firm that seems to construct most of their output themselves. Even those businesses that craft raw materials for other production capabilities will need to rely on tools, security, IT infrastructure and more from a separate source, and this applies to your business also.
This means that it’s important to consider the value of your suppliers, and to understand just how to build that business relationship effectively. This can help you both isolate the best and worst suppliers you may have to use, and that can be important.
Consider the following advice:
Customized Services
The best suppliers offer customized services to help you realize your ambitions as a firm in the best manner possible. This is because over and above the normal applications your firm may have for their product line, applications such as metal stamping, plastic moulds and storage solutions can add or subtract from your final product depending on how you use certain implements. When you realize this, you can hold onto those suppliers that are familiar with your firm and are willing to work with you to the best solution.
Loyal Goodwill
There’s a sense of goodwill that develops when you continue to use the same services. Perhaps this may even run two-ways. If you are known as a client that pays their invoices within a matter of days, if you have clear and consistent communication and you’re also forthright about your needs surrounding a new project, then you are both an exciting and dependable client to work for. If you appreciate your suppliers in return and practice goodwill from time to time, they will return that, potentially even placing you at the top of their priority list.
Supporting Your Local Businesses
Supporting your local businesses can be a worthwhile stance to take in itself. Sure, blindly supporting the businesses around you without any consideration for how they treat their customers or clients is not the way forward, but at the same time, if you have the choice between two suppliers and one is local and smaller and can fulfill your orders just fine? It may be worth utilizing them, to bond with the strength of community, and to abide by ethical business practices that may just return back to you. You never know just how this web of complex mutual support can truly improve and raise a local economy, and help you craft more thorough business ties.
With this advice, we hope you’ll never take your suppliers for granted.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/adult-blur-chair-1181352.jpg8011200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-11-01 16:00:092019-11-01 09:41:39Never Take Your Suppliers For Granted
Early in my business career, I worked as a team leader on a high-level project. I had what I thought were great ideas, and I was excited to jump in and get started. I immediately doled out assignments, telling everyone exactly what to do and how to do it. Unfortunately, one of my team members disagreed with the vision that I tried to share.
I didn’t spend the time I should have explaining my reasoning and collaborating with my team to ensure that we all felt we were moving in the right direction. As a result, this lone team member did all they could to sabotage the project, and it was ultimately a failure.
Since then, I’ve come a long way, leading many successful and profitable companies, and I’ve learned a few things about the best way to do it. In fact, I have come up with a set of 4 guiding principles that have been successful for me many, many times over.
1. Trust
Trust is perhaps the most important principle in leadership. If you build trust within your organization, then it will run smoothly. I’ve learned through experience that micromanaging doesn’t work. If someone can do the job, and build that trust with me, they deserve to play an integral part in the company. If they don’t build that trust, they probably don’t belong in our organization. While everyone needs self-discipline, it can’t come from the top down. It has to come from personal ownership and pride in what they’re accomplishing.
2. Vision
Clear business goals are almost always the key to success in both the short and long-term. You need a clear vision of where you want to go, what you want to accomplish and how you will achieve it. Stephen R. Covey, someone I admired greatly, said, “If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.” This is true in both personal and organizational goals as a whole.
3. Unity
As my opening example illustrated, if everyone in your organization doesn’t share a unified goal, you will have a much tougher time reaching it. If someone doesn’t believe in the vision, they won’t give their best effort to push for that final destination. That is why it’s critical to spend the time and energy necessary to truly sell your vision inside your organization. Build that trust, and keep the end goal in mind as you go, and everyone is more likely to get behind you.
In addition, implementing a good leadership team development program with the help of experts can help your organization achieve unity and leadership success.
A leadership team development program promotes continuous learning. This means providing opportunities for team members to learn new knowledge and skills and to develop their leadership abilities.
When team members are constantly learning and growing, it’s said that they’re better equipped to lead the organization into the future. With this, organizations can create a leadership team that’s united and focused on achieving the organization’s goals.
For instance, an enterprise transformation program is a comprehensive, customized program that can help large regional, national, and global organizations attain unprecedented, sustainable gains with shared goals and objectives. With this program, personnel can be leaders in the future.
On the other hand, accelerated coaching programs for executives are science-based one-on-one coaching, aiming to uncover behaviors and blind spots that impede their desired goals and performance.
4. Execute the Vision With Kindness
People respond to the best kind of treatment. As you move forward with your vision, keep kindness at the forefront of all you do. Employees that are treated with respect are employees that will continue to respect both you and your vision.
Be empathetic by trying to understand others’ perspectives, even if you don’t agree with them, to build trust and rapport. Also, be compassionate by showing that you care about their well-being for them to feel valued and appreciated. Treat everyone with fairness, dignity, and respect, regardless of their position or title, to create a positive and highly productive workplace.
In addition, make sure that everyone is treated right, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, to create a sense of equality and justice in the workplace. Show willingness to listen to feedback from your team members to improve as a leader.
I truly believe in these principles. Last year in one of my current ventures, we made building trust our internal priority for the entire year. We focused on extending trust to every employee in their role – giving guidance, then empowering them with what they needed to get their job done. From there – we let them find the best way to accomplish the company vision. Without the burden of micro-management, our sales improved by around 30%! It’s difficult to argue with that kind of success.
Building trust takes time and energy, but it is always worth it in the long run. With a foundation of trust, sharing a unified vision becomes easier. Respecting your employees can turn into expecting more from your employees – and because they trust you in return, they will rise to the occasion.
About the Author
Glenn Jakins is a serial entrepreneur with a multi-decade track record of taking creative ideas and turning them into successful products that change lives. With a strong background in logistics and operations, he has helped launch multiple 8-figure companies and been instrumental in the increase of tens of millions of dollars in sales for many more. Currently, in addition to other investment ventures, Glenn heads Humless as CEO, pioneering reliable power systems based on clean energy sources.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/analyzing-3385076_1280.jpg8531280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-11-01 12:00:512023-06-13 23:24:194 Guiding Principles That Serve as a Foundation for Leadership Success
Running an organisation is no cakewalk. Managing clients and delivering on the due deadlines is one just one side of the story. But, it also involves several costs-latent and glaring. You have your employees to think about. The salaries, the bonuses, appraisals, benefits and the like make for just one fragment of the entire picture. The other piece consists of paying for several utilities like workspace rent (if you do not happen to own a workspace), catering to the electricity bills and things like those. Thus, it is clear that running a workspace involves paying quite a price (like, literally). And, truth be told, half the amount on the bill comes from paying the electricity bill.
A workplace consumes several units of electricity. Some of the usage might also be unnecessary. But, we do not realise that because we are so caught up with our work that it becomes difficult even to catch a breath. And in the midst of this hullaballoo, where the Earth’s resources are being depleted, and we are facing a tremendous energy crisis, it is important that we gear attention towards the idea of sustainable living. In this article, we have tried to put across a few ways in which we can make our workplaces sustainable and green. The onus for doing so is not only on the employers or the owners of the workspace but also on the employees. Therefore, waste no more minute and read on.
Allow Nature To Light Up The Space
Now, this might not be possible throughout the day, but it is definitely a thought to be entertained. Most work hours begin in the morning and end in the evening. Thus, you could make use of the natural light for your work at least in the first half when the sun is shining brightly outside. Obviously, there is very little that you can do when the day is all gloomy. But, on the other days, try avoiding artificial light as much as possible. Switch the lights off and see how the amount on your electricity bill comes down. It is a great energy-saving tip, and you should definitely try it out.
Check For Cheap Power Plans
More often than not, we fail to live sustainably and end up spending more energy than usual due to our ignorance and inability to acquire new knowledge. There are several cheap power plans available around you; but, you yet go for the one that you stumble upon first without any research. There’s even sites you can visit that compare business electricity prices quickly, so there’s no excuse for not doing any research. Remember that there is no glory in being inane and uninformed. Check for the plans and subscriptions around you and only then choose a befitting one for your workplace or household. Check https://strøm365.no/stromleverandorer/akraft/ to find more cheap power plans for your office and be an aware consumer.
Try To Talk Your Employers Into Choosing Laptops Over Desktops
If you are an employee, you must try to talk your employers into switching over to laptops from desktops. Desktops need a continuous source of electrical energy to run, which obviously is not a brilliant idea when you are trying to cut down on the consumption. But laptops can run on batteries for a minimum of eight hours. Therefore, you must see to it that you have the option of working on laptops in your office.
If you are an employer, then you must try to replace the desktops with laptops so that your employees do not have to come over to you to talk about the move. You could be one step ahead of them already.
Do Away With Outdated Electrical Equipment
Be it air conditioners, ovens or desktops, keep tending to them, upgrade or replace them when the parts start ageing. Old electrical systems use more than the usual units of electrical energy. Therefore, if you keep using the old models and decide against upgrading the parts, you are going to receive a severe blow on your bill. You could also consider recycling your old electrical parts or appliances to make use of everything at your immediate access and reduce wastage as much as possible.
Get Some Plants To Brighten Up The Space
Now, we know that this is not directly related to the entire ‘saving energy’ drill, but we are looking at making workspaces sustainable and green. Therefore, try getting some plants that can thrive under the shade and brighten up the space. It is always alleviating to look at some greenery during stressful work hours.
Conclusion:
People make saving energy sound like a big deal when, in reality, all it requires is some conscious actions on our part. Small gestures can amount to significant differences, and we must only understand that before it is too late. Our planet can stretch itself beyond normal. But, everything has a threshold. Therefore, we need to act now before we are beyond damage reparations of any kind.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-1560821630-1a7c45c3286e.jpg7001050StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-10-31 20:00:502021-03-29 13:41:41Ideas To Make Your Workplace Sustainable and Green
If just being the smartest person in the room was enough, then no smart person would ever fail.
But failure lurks around every corner for all of us. It’s hard to believe in our youth, but time reveals how little ‘d’ democratic failure can be. It stalks all of us sometimes, and it finds us often in life unless we figure out how to thrive and how to avoid the land mines.
It takes wisdom to figure that out. And though a handful of us get wisdom early in life, most of us acquire it from a struggle or two or ten. Many times, these difficult moments are of our own making. As we successfully work through those trying moments, wisdom imprints itself and becomes a guard rail against ever failing like that again, whatever it may be. There is safety in wisdom.
When we studied wisdom for our new book, we found many interesting qualities that it has versus knowledge. For example; Knowledge may change as times change, right? What we learned in college may not apply anymore in the current business environment. New technologies and new leadership styles are needed to succeed and win. Those changes are moving at an ever-increasing pace, and so knowledge can be quite fluid. It requires us to chase it and try to catch it to keep from falling behind.
Wisdom, on the other hand, turns out to be static and true in all generations. Get wisdom and you can use it for a lifetime.
So, how do you get knowledge and wisdom?
The knowledge part is easy. Your childhood and young life are filled to the brim with school of one kind or another. You are taught by people who know more than you and who most likely care about you. You go to college and we are surrounded by doers and achievers who understand the competitiveness of the world and how to win by outdoing other doers. You listen. You make notes. You read books. You get knowledge.
Then, you leave college, go to work, and use your knowledge to start making money, usually without a great deal of wisdom and foresight. For example, nobody in college told you that money and power can be dangerous if you let them become your primary focus. See also ENRON. A room full of the best and the brightest decided to take their chances and ignore the sirens going off in their heads. The carnage of that decision was strewn across the media. Billions of dollars lost. Suicides and jail time. Bad things tend to happen when we only have knowledge without wisdom.
Our research regarding wisdom took us back to purportedly the wisest man in history, Solomon. As we studied his life and teachings we wondered over and over again why he is not mentioned and written about more often. He was a smart businessman. He was historically wealthy, probably in real money the richest individual ever on this planet.
If you remember the story, Solomon was offered anything he wanted by God himself. He didn’t choose money or fame. He chose wisdom. And, interestingly, the other things he didn’t ask for just came as part of the deal with that request. He got very famous and rich. And wise.
As we read through the book of Proverbs that he penned we found a lot of wisdom, not surprisingly. Though written millennia ago, most of it sounds like something you would say this very day to someone you were counseling to keep them from making a big and costly mistake.
For example, be careful what kind of company you keep. Bad company corrupts good morals. Did your mother ever tell you that? I’ll bet she did, and she was right. Groupthink is a real thing. It’s why gangs can get their members to kill other gang members and rot in jail for it. It’s why a terrorist can be talked into blowing themselves up for a cause. Bad decisions don’t usually come upon us like a tsunami. They happen by inches. Hang out with people who consistently tell you a lie and pretty soon you start believing it. The business pages are filled with cautionary tales about this one piece of wisdom alone.
Solomon talked about money corrupting us, too. He understood firsthand the perils of great wealth and the pitfalls that had to be avoided. Bottom line: It’s OK to have money. Don’t let it have you.
And, the same can be said for power. Being in charge is an opportunity to do good, to serve others in your organization and community. It’s not there for you to use and take advantage of for your own gain. People don’t follow narcissistic leaders unless they are forced to. But they will follow a servant leader into hell and back every time.
Get the picture? We spend a lot of time and money getting educated and acquiring knowledge. We should spend at least that much effort acquiring wisdom because together the two are the jet fuel that leads to a great and profitable life.
About the Authors
Drew Hiss launched his outsourced payroll and HR technology solutions company, Checkdate Solutions, in 1994. He merged Checkdate Solutions with payroll industry leader Paycor, stepping away from the company in 2008 and serving on its board for eight years.
Drew founded Acumen in late in 2015. Acumen is a catalytic iron-sharpening-iron environment forged from the fiery furnace of entrepreneurial battle, marketplace survival and integration of the timeless wisdom of the ages.
Dan Cooper co-founded ej4, a video-based online training company, in 2003 and was its CEO until selling it in 2012. He then took his leadership and technology experience to work on and in the Sparklab startup business accelerator as well as leading change management and profit building initiatives for mid-market companies.
Today, he is the President and partner of Acumen, an accelerator community experience built for CEOs and Owners of strong and growing companies. Dan is also a certified Executive Coach credentialed through the International Coaching Federation.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/Sharpen-on-Desk-Image.jpg10551595StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-10-31 18:00:362019-11-01 20:39:11Why You Need Both Knowledge and Wisdom
Power generation is one of the most important industries in the world. Our world needs power, and it is crucial for us to generate enough to power our homes and cities efficiently. There are many different types of power such as oil, gas, wind, solar, and nuclear; and all of these are generated in different ways and have their own purposes.
1. Coal power plants emit something called Fly Ash, and this substance is 100 times more radioactive than a nuclear power plant of the same size.
2. William Kamkwamba powered a whole village with a homemade windmill. After reading about windmills at his local library, he built a windmill out of scraps and powered his entire village in Malawi.
3. Denmark is one of the most efficient wind power users in the world, and in 2013 on the 28th October, wind power was generating enough energy to power 122% of the county’s needs.
4. The UK is known for its love of a good brew. There is a power station inside a mountain called Dinorwig station whose sole purpose is to cope with the spike in power usage during the ad breaks on TV when people switch on their kettles.
5. Sweden asks for trash for Norway to use their Waste-To-Power plants, because they are so good at recycling that they never have enough to use.
6. Nuclear power is always associated with disasters such as Chernobyl, but they actually save lives every single year. Lower air pollution caused by less coal usage has saved over 1.8 million lives between 1971 and 2009.
7. In 1963, all private power companies were bought by the Quebec government. This has since led to the ability for them to focus on renewable energy sources, and right now hydroelectricity accounts for 96% of power in Quebec. As well as this, energy rates are some of the lowest in North America.
8. Hydroelectricity powers 99% of all Norway, this is the highest rate in the world.
9. The Titanic was a tragedy, and it should be known that engineers stayed on the ship to keep the power running to allow others to escape. No engineers made it off the ship.
10. If you are ever locked up in Brazil, you can reduce your sentence by riding on an electric bike to power a nearby village.
11. Termites might be America’s best hope for renewable energy in the future. It has been found by The U.S. Department of Energy that termites produce 2 litres of hydrogen every time they consume a sheet of paper. They are efficient and they could be a great way to power the country.
12. France produces a lot of nuclear energy, and because it is in surplus of the needs of the country, they export it to others and make a generous profit.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pinwheel-4550711__340.jpg340604StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-10-31 17:00:112019-10-31 16:36:59Interesting Power Generation Facts You Should Know
A VETERAN OWNED SMALL BUSINESS | Call or text now for a FREE consultation: +1 (770) 765-3692 | Website Login
Business Programs
Never Take Your Suppliers For Granted
/in Tactical Execution/by StrategyDrivenThis is why it’s important to never take those pillars for granted. Included in this definition, often forgotten, is the network of suppliers you use. No business can function without a supplier of some kind, even the most self-reliant and self-sufficient firm that seems to construct most of their output themselves. Even those businesses that craft raw materials for other production capabilities will need to rely on tools, security, IT infrastructure and more from a separate source, and this applies to your business also.
This means that it’s important to consider the value of your suppliers, and to understand just how to build that business relationship effectively. This can help you both isolate the best and worst suppliers you may have to use, and that can be important.
Consider the following advice:
Customized Services
The best suppliers offer customized services to help you realize your ambitions as a firm in the best manner possible. This is because over and above the normal applications your firm may have for their product line, applications such as metal stamping, plastic moulds and storage solutions can add or subtract from your final product depending on how you use certain implements. When you realize this, you can hold onto those suppliers that are familiar with your firm and are willing to work with you to the best solution.
Loyal Goodwill
There’s a sense of goodwill that develops when you continue to use the same services. Perhaps this may even run two-ways. If you are known as a client that pays their invoices within a matter of days, if you have clear and consistent communication and you’re also forthright about your needs surrounding a new project, then you are both an exciting and dependable client to work for. If you appreciate your suppliers in return and practice goodwill from time to time, they will return that, potentially even placing you at the top of their priority list.
Supporting Your Local Businesses
Supporting your local businesses can be a worthwhile stance to take in itself. Sure, blindly supporting the businesses around you without any consideration for how they treat their customers or clients is not the way forward, but at the same time, if you have the choice between two suppliers and one is local and smaller and can fulfill your orders just fine? It may be worth utilizing them, to bond with the strength of community, and to abide by ethical business practices that may just return back to you. You never know just how this web of complex mutual support can truly improve and raise a local economy, and help you craft more thorough business ties.
With this advice, we hope you’ll never take your suppliers for granted.
4 Guiding Principles That Serve as a Foundation for Leadership Success
/in Management & Leadership/by Glenn JakinsI didn’t spend the time I should have explaining my reasoning and collaborating with my team to ensure that we all felt we were moving in the right direction. As a result, this lone team member did all they could to sabotage the project, and it was ultimately a failure.
Since then, I’ve come a long way, leading many successful and profitable companies, and I’ve learned a few things about the best way to do it. In fact, I have come up with a set of 4 guiding principles that have been successful for me many, many times over.
1. Trust
Trust is perhaps the most important principle in leadership. If you build trust within your organization, then it will run smoothly. I’ve learned through experience that micromanaging doesn’t work. If someone can do the job, and build that trust with me, they deserve to play an integral part in the company. If they don’t build that trust, they probably don’t belong in our organization. While everyone needs self-discipline, it can’t come from the top down. It has to come from personal ownership and pride in what they’re accomplishing.
2. Vision
Clear business goals are almost always the key to success in both the short and long-term. You need a clear vision of where you want to go, what you want to accomplish and how you will achieve it. Stephen R. Covey, someone I admired greatly, said, “If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.” This is true in both personal and organizational goals as a whole.
3. Unity
As my opening example illustrated, if everyone in your organization doesn’t share a unified goal, you will have a much tougher time reaching it. If someone doesn’t believe in the vision, they won’t give their best effort to push for that final destination. That is why it’s critical to spend the time and energy necessary to truly sell your vision inside your organization. Build that trust, and keep the end goal in mind as you go, and everyone is more likely to get behind you.
In addition, implementing a good leadership team development program with the help of experts can help your organization achieve unity and leadership success.
A leadership team development program promotes continuous learning. This means providing opportunities for team members to learn new knowledge and skills and to develop their leadership abilities.
When team members are constantly learning and growing, it’s said that they’re better equipped to lead the organization into the future. With this, organizations can create a leadership team that’s united and focused on achieving the organization’s goals.
For instance, an enterprise transformation program is a comprehensive, customized program that can help large regional, national, and global organizations attain unprecedented, sustainable gains with shared goals and objectives. With this program, personnel can be leaders in the future.
On the other hand, accelerated coaching programs for executives are science-based one-on-one coaching, aiming to uncover behaviors and blind spots that impede their desired goals and performance.
4. Execute the Vision With Kindness
People respond to the best kind of treatment. As you move forward with your vision, keep kindness at the forefront of all you do. Employees that are treated with respect are employees that will continue to respect both you and your vision.
Be empathetic by trying to understand others’ perspectives, even if you don’t agree with them, to build trust and rapport. Also, be compassionate by showing that you care about their well-being for them to feel valued and appreciated. Treat everyone with fairness, dignity, and respect, regardless of their position or title, to create a positive and highly productive workplace.
In addition, make sure that everyone is treated right, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, to create a sense of equality and justice in the workplace. Show willingness to listen to feedback from your team members to improve as a leader.
I truly believe in these principles. Last year in one of my current ventures, we made building trust our internal priority for the entire year. We focused on extending trust to every employee in their role – giving guidance, then empowering them with what they needed to get their job done. From there – we let them find the best way to accomplish the company vision. Without the burden of micro-management, our sales improved by around 30%! It’s difficult to argue with that kind of success.
Building trust takes time and energy, but it is always worth it in the long run. With a foundation of trust, sharing a unified vision becomes easier. Respecting your employees can turn into expecting more from your employees – and because they trust you in return, they will rise to the occasion.
About the Author
Ideas To Make Your Workplace Sustainable and Green
/in Managing Your Business/by StrategyDrivenRunning an organisation is no cakewalk. Managing clients and delivering on the due deadlines is one just one side of the story. But, it also involves several costs-latent and glaring. You have your employees to think about. The salaries, the bonuses, appraisals, benefits and the like make for just one fragment of the entire picture. The other piece consists of paying for several utilities like workspace rent (if you do not happen to own a workspace), catering to the electricity bills and things like those. Thus, it is clear that running a workspace involves paying quite a price (like, literally). And, truth be told, half the amount on the bill comes from paying the electricity bill.
A workplace consumes several units of electricity. Some of the usage might also be unnecessary. But, we do not realise that because we are so caught up with our work that it becomes difficult even to catch a breath. And in the midst of this hullaballoo, where the Earth’s resources are being depleted, and we are facing a tremendous energy crisis, it is important that we gear attention towards the idea of sustainable living. In this article, we have tried to put across a few ways in which we can make our workplaces sustainable and green. The onus for doing so is not only on the employers or the owners of the workspace but also on the employees. Therefore, waste no more minute and read on.
Allow Nature To Light Up The Space
Now, this might not be possible throughout the day, but it is definitely a thought to be entertained. Most work hours begin in the morning and end in the evening. Thus, you could make use of the natural light for your work at least in the first half when the sun is shining brightly outside. Obviously, there is very little that you can do when the day is all gloomy. But, on the other days, try avoiding artificial light as much as possible. Switch the lights off and see how the amount on your electricity bill comes down. It is a great energy-saving tip, and you should definitely try it out.
Check For Cheap Power Plans
More often than not, we fail to live sustainably and end up spending more energy than usual due to our ignorance and inability to acquire new knowledge. There are several cheap power plans available around you; but, you yet go for the one that you stumble upon first without any research. There’s even sites you can visit that compare business electricity prices quickly, so there’s no excuse for not doing any research. Remember that there is no glory in being inane and uninformed. Check for the plans and subscriptions around you and only then choose a befitting one for your workplace or household. Check https://strøm365.no/stromleverandorer/akraft/ to find more cheap power plans for your office and be an aware consumer.
If you are an employee, you must try to talk your employers into switching over to laptops from desktops. Desktops need a continuous source of electrical energy to run, which obviously is not a brilliant idea when you are trying to cut down on the consumption. But laptops can run on batteries for a minimum of eight hours. Therefore, you must see to it that you have the option of working on laptops in your office.
If you are an employer, then you must try to replace the desktops with laptops so that your employees do not have to come over to you to talk about the move. You could be one step ahead of them already.
Do Away With Outdated Electrical Equipment
Be it air conditioners, ovens or desktops, keep tending to them, upgrade or replace them when the parts start ageing. Old electrical systems use more than the usual units of electrical energy. Therefore, if you keep using the old models and decide against upgrading the parts, you are going to receive a severe blow on your bill. You could also consider recycling your old electrical parts or appliances to make use of everything at your immediate access and reduce wastage as much as possible.
Get Some Plants To Brighten Up The Space
Now, we know that this is not directly related to the entire ‘saving energy’ drill, but we are looking at making workspaces sustainable and green. Therefore, try getting some plants that can thrive under the shade and brighten up the space. It is always alleviating to look at some greenery during stressful work hours.
Conclusion:
People make saving energy sound like a big deal when, in reality, all it requires is some conscious actions on our part. Small gestures can amount to significant differences, and we must only understand that before it is too late. Our planet can stretch itself beyond normal. But, everything has a threshold. Therefore, we need to act now before we are beyond damage reparations of any kind.
Why You Need Both Knowledge and Wisdom
/in Entrepreneurship/by Drew Hiss and Dan CooperIf just being the smartest person in the room was enough, then no smart person would ever fail.
But failure lurks around every corner for all of us. It’s hard to believe in our youth, but time reveals how little ‘d’ democratic failure can be. It stalks all of us sometimes, and it finds us often in life unless we figure out how to thrive and how to avoid the land mines.
It takes wisdom to figure that out. And though a handful of us get wisdom early in life, most of us acquire it from a struggle or two or ten. Many times, these difficult moments are of our own making. As we successfully work through those trying moments, wisdom imprints itself and becomes a guard rail against ever failing like that again, whatever it may be. There is safety in wisdom.
When we studied wisdom for our new book, we found many interesting qualities that it has versus knowledge. For example; Knowledge may change as times change, right? What we learned in college may not apply anymore in the current business environment. New technologies and new leadership styles are needed to succeed and win. Those changes are moving at an ever-increasing pace, and so knowledge can be quite fluid. It requires us to chase it and try to catch it to keep from falling behind.
Wisdom, on the other hand, turns out to be static and true in all generations. Get wisdom and you can use it for a lifetime.
So, how do you get knowledge and wisdom?
The knowledge part is easy. Your childhood and young life are filled to the brim with school of one kind or another. You are taught by people who know more than you and who most likely care about you. You go to college and we are surrounded by doers and achievers who understand the competitiveness of the world and how to win by outdoing other doers. You listen. You make notes. You read books. You get knowledge.
Then, you leave college, go to work, and use your knowledge to start making money, usually without a great deal of wisdom and foresight. For example, nobody in college told you that money and power can be dangerous if you let them become your primary focus. See also ENRON. A room full of the best and the brightest decided to take their chances and ignore the sirens going off in their heads. The carnage of that decision was strewn across the media. Billions of dollars lost. Suicides and jail time. Bad things tend to happen when we only have knowledge without wisdom.
Our research regarding wisdom took us back to purportedly the wisest man in history, Solomon. As we studied his life and teachings we wondered over and over again why he is not mentioned and written about more often. He was a smart businessman. He was historically wealthy, probably in real money the richest individual ever on this planet.
If you remember the story, Solomon was offered anything he wanted by God himself. He didn’t choose money or fame. He chose wisdom. And, interestingly, the other things he didn’t ask for just came as part of the deal with that request. He got very famous and rich. And wise.
As we read through the book of Proverbs that he penned we found a lot of wisdom, not surprisingly. Though written millennia ago, most of it sounds like something you would say this very day to someone you were counseling to keep them from making a big and costly mistake.
For example, be careful what kind of company you keep. Bad company corrupts good morals. Did your mother ever tell you that? I’ll bet she did, and she was right. Groupthink is a real thing. It’s why gangs can get their members to kill other gang members and rot in jail for it. It’s why a terrorist can be talked into blowing themselves up for a cause. Bad decisions don’t usually come upon us like a tsunami. They happen by inches. Hang out with people who consistently tell you a lie and pretty soon you start believing it. The business pages are filled with cautionary tales about this one piece of wisdom alone.
Solomon talked about money corrupting us, too. He understood firsthand the perils of great wealth and the pitfalls that had to be avoided. Bottom line: It’s OK to have money. Don’t let it have you.
And, the same can be said for power. Being in charge is an opportunity to do good, to serve others in your organization and community. It’s not there for you to use and take advantage of for your own gain. People don’t follow narcissistic leaders unless they are forced to. But they will follow a servant leader into hell and back every time.
Get the picture? We spend a lot of time and money getting educated and acquiring knowledge. We should spend at least that much effort acquiring wisdom because together the two are the jet fuel that leads to a great and profitable life.
About the Authors
Drew founded Acumen in late in 2015. Acumen is a catalytic iron-sharpening-iron environment forged from the fiery furnace of entrepreneurial battle, marketplace survival and integration of the timeless wisdom of the ages.
Today, he is the President and partner of Acumen, an accelerator community experience built for CEOs and Owners of strong and growing companies. Dan is also a certified Executive Coach credentialed through the International Coaching Federation.
Dan and Drew are the authors of a new book, Sharpen: A Guidebook for Business Ownership and Adventures in Leadership.
Interesting Power Generation Facts You Should Know
/in StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective/by StrategyDrivenToday we are going to explore the latest power generation technologies and share some interesting facts about power.
1. Coal power plants emit something called Fly Ash, and this substance is 100 times more radioactive than a nuclear power plant of the same size.
2. William Kamkwamba powered a whole village with a homemade windmill. After reading about windmills at his local library, he built a windmill out of scraps and powered his entire village in Malawi.
3. Denmark is one of the most efficient wind power users in the world, and in 2013 on the 28th October, wind power was generating enough energy to power 122% of the county’s needs.
4. The UK is known for its love of a good brew. There is a power station inside a mountain called Dinorwig station whose sole purpose is to cope with the spike in power usage during the ad breaks on TV when people switch on their kettles.
5. Sweden asks for trash for Norway to use their Waste-To-Power plants, because they are so good at recycling that they never have enough to use.
6. Nuclear power is always associated with disasters such as Chernobyl, but they actually save lives every single year. Lower air pollution caused by less coal usage has saved over 1.8 million lives between 1971 and 2009.
7. In 1963, all private power companies were bought by the Quebec government. This has since led to the ability for them to focus on renewable energy sources, and right now hydroelectricity accounts for 96% of power in Quebec. As well as this, energy rates are some of the lowest in North America.
8. Hydroelectricity powers 99% of all Norway, this is the highest rate in the world.
9. The Titanic was a tragedy, and it should be known that engineers stayed on the ship to keep the power running to allow others to escape. No engineers made it off the ship.
10. If you are ever locked up in Brazil, you can reduce your sentence by riding on an electric bike to power a nearby village.
11. Termites might be America’s best hope for renewable energy in the future. It has been found by The U.S. Department of Energy that termites produce 2 litres of hydrogen every time they consume a sheet of paper. They are efficient and they could be a great way to power the country.
12. France produces a lot of nuclear energy, and because it is in surplus of the needs of the country, they export it to others and make a generous profit.