Channeling back-to-school vibes in your business

From a business and client perspective, September is one of our favorite times of year.

Why? Because there’s a “back to school” vibe that’s palpable. Refreshed by the sunshine, summer festivals, and music, the maximum amount of time spent outside, and perhaps a vacation or two, we notice that our clients are bursting with ideas.

It's like the business equivalent of showing up to school in your backpack and favorite outfit, ready to take on the world (or at least the grade you happen to be in).

If that’s how you’ve been feeling lately, a reminder: sharing those ideas with the people you work with day-to-day—whether it’s your employees or your vendors and collaborators—gives them the best chance of turning from ideas to action.

Because for companies like ours, there’s no better feeling than letting our clients know we can absolutely help bring that idea to life. Your existing relationships might make that easier than you think—all you gotta do is ask.

Rebuilding that connection habit

Remember life pre-COVID? Even if you were a remote-first culture, you still built in time to visit your clients in person. Meet with your team regularly. Travel to conferences.

Now, don’t get us wrong: remote work and being able to connect virtually is a beautiful thing. It saves time. It certainly makes us more productive. But doesn’t it also seem it’s gotten so much easier to just…not have those in-person connections? Connections that could make our businesses—and relationships—stronger?

That's the thought we had as we attended the “Bridging the Gap” conference in Chicago, an event for accounting and financial services firms. Not only did we meet a ton of people IRL we had previously only connected with via Zoom, but we also started to build relationships with people we had never met.

We forgot how electric these in-person meetings can be. There’s a biological exchange that we get from being in the same room with people that we don’t get virtually—almost like a second language that we all speak.

The conference got us thinking: as businesses, we need to retrain our connection muscles again. To be more intentional in gathering with the people who are closest to us in our businesses. We’ve got a few ideas to do just that.

Plan with purpose. We’ve talked before about the book The Art of Gathering: Why We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker. In the book, Parker talks about getting crystal clear about why you’re meeting. You may think you know the answer to that question—We’re getting the team together for a strategy session! We’re checking in on customers!—but as Parker says, “A category is not a purpose.” Instead, she urges those planning events—both large and impromptu—to be specific about what they want to accomplish and achieve.?

Build in time to connect. Often, we look at our calendars and try to squeeze in those in-person meetings and get-togethers. After all, your work has to get done, and that’s the most important thing, right? In reality, connecting with people in person is part of the work. So, flip the script and schedule those networking events, team breakfasts, and in-person client meetings into your calendar just as you usually block off time for deep work or Zoom calls. When you’re intentional about making the time to connect, it’ll feel less stressful to actually do it. Think about this as its own habit to build. Maybe you start with the goal of one in-person event a week, or three per month, and build from there.?

Truly get to know people. It’s one thing to see people in person, and it’s another to really see them. In his book How to Know a Person, David Brooks poses the kind of questions that are essential for all of us as we’re rebuilding this part of human connection: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to? It’s not just about connecting with your clients, vendors, and employees face-to-face—it’s about getting to know them better as people, so you can anticipate their needs.?

Protecting your company after the CrowdStrike fiasco

Last month’s defective CrowdStrike update didn’t just affect airports, hospitals, and enterprise systems—it affected small business owners, too. We’ve heard countless stories of organizations that couldn’t run payroll, pay vendors, or provide their services to customers because of the outage. Hacks, outages, and breaches are nothing new in our interconnected world, but still: it’s more than a little unnerving to know that your company is potentially one action—an action that feels seemingly out of your control—away from losing both revenue and those customer relationships you’ve worked so hard to build.

If you’re wondering how to take enhanced measures to make sure you’re not affected by the next big outage, this piece from Cyber Risk Alliance has several strategies for making sure you’re protected in both the short- and long-term.

Sum Stuff for Your Radar

The Light Phone ?

What it is: The average person spends five hours a day (which comes out to six days a month, or 12 years over a lifetime!) on their smartphone—and if you lead or own a business, your average is probably even higher.? If you’re like us, you might be asking yourself: “What could I do with that time instead of staring at my screen for that long every day?” This phone might help you find those answers.

Why we like it: This "dumb phone" is sans?all the time-wasting games and seductive social media apps that suck you in without even realizing it. It gives you all the utilities you need (phone, directions, podcasts, music, calendar, notes) without all the other distracting stuff.

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

What it is: This book by physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall answers the eternal question: “Why do good teams kill great ideas?” The answer, as it turns out, is hidden in the mysteries of group behavior—specifically something called “phase transitions.”

Why we like it: Sometimes it feels like if we just focus on the?behavior?of our teams, or our organizations, change will happen and new ideas will be more readily embraced. While this is true to a certain extent, Bahcall shows that small changes in?structure, rather than behavior or culture, can bring us collectively closer to our next big idea.

Equal parts practical lessons and true stories about how some of the biggest transitions in our society have occurred, this book has great examples of how to structure your own organization to power more breakthroughs.

Adding it all up...

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The new year might begin on January 1, but in our opinion, September offers the chance for another reset. After a busy summer, it’s the chance to get clear on what’s important and what you want to focus on for the rest of the year and beyond.

So, be sure to build in those healthy habits this month—whatever those habits might be: make a commitment to seeing more people in person, especially the people you love spending time with both personally and professionally. Reduce the distractions that keep you from doing the things you love, whether that’s tapering down phone usage or your news consumption.

Because, real talk: It’s going to be a tough couple of months with the election talk swirling—and all of the economic and general uncertainty an election year brings. Let’s take care of ourselves, our health, and our families, as well as commit to doing great work and do our best to embrace the crispness (and natural reset) that fall brings.?