Tag: do the work

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Why Didn’t Anyone Show Up To My Presentation?

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Here’s something that happens at every office: You work hard on a big presentation. It’s got everything a great presentation needs: Actionable advice, clear takeaways, and data to back up your big points. You send out the calendar invite to a large group of co-workers — maybe an office listserv full of people who could use your advice.

Then when presentation time comes, only a fraction of the invited employees show up.

Why? What went wrong?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this problem lately. It’s something we struggle with at BuzzFeed, and something I hear echoed in conversations with friends who work in fields from media to medicine. Why aren’t people showing up for valuable presentations?

Three things are usually at play:

1) No one is holding them accountable — This is the big one. If you’re inviting people on a more personal basis — emailing 2-3 people at a time, or reaching out to folks on a 1-to-1 basis — they know that you personally want them there, and that you expect them to be there. When you reach out to a big team/group/listserv, it’s more impersonal, and people often feel like their attendance isn’t necessary. They also know that if they don’t show up, there won’t be any pushback — you won’t follow up to ask why they didn’t make time for your presentation.

2) They don’t know what’s in it for them — WIIFM isn’t just a silly acronym — it’s also an important part of any good presentation! Every time someone gets an invite to a presentation or a training, they should have an expectation for what they’ll be getting out it. If there’s nothing in it for them, why would they show up in the first place?

3) They don’t believe presentations are valuable — If you’ve been to a handful of sub-par presentations at your office, you’re less likely to think of them as valuable — and much more likely to think of them as a waste of time. And that’s a shame! A great presentation can change the way you work and give you the skills to produce amazing things. In a perfect world, people would LOVE going to presentations — they’re opportunities to make you better at the things you do every day!

So what can you do to improve your presentations? I’d start here: When you send out the calendar invite, let everyone know what they’re going to get out of your talk and why it’s so important. Follow up with people in person to make sure they understand why they should come — and create the expectation that their attendance is important. And lastly: Knock your presentation out of the park, and give them great advice that they can use!

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That photo of a presentation comes via the University of the Fraser Valley’s Flickr.

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It’s OK To Break Your Routine.

A photo posted by Dan Oshinsky (@danoshinsky) on

I’ve written lovingly about routines before, and how building good habits can help you do amazing things. A good routine can keep you focused and productive. But I’ve also learned that sometimes, routines can make work feel monotonous.

So what can you do? Here’s an idea: Break your routine just a little bit.

It can be a small thing. Like last night: The work’s been good for a few straight weeks, but I was still feeling a little bit sluggish at the end of the day. Maybe it’s the changeover from daylight savings times, or may it’s just the weather. Whatever it was, I had a good day at work, but I needed a little pick-me-up.

My change? It was as simple as taking a different way home. I got off at a different subway stop, and walked past Radio City and 30 Rock. And just that little act — just a slightly different route home — was enough to throw a jolt into my day. I started thinking about how I’m coming up on three years in New York City. In fact, it was three years ago to the week that I interviewed with BuzzFeed. I remember sitting around waiting for a job offer I wasn’t even sure would come. And walking through Midtown, I had to remind myself: I made it here! I’ve built out a pretty awesome team, and some amazing products, too. I’ve been a part of building a remarkable media organization.

Just a small tweak was enough to help me snap out of it. But your little tweak could be easy, too: Grabbing coffee at a different time during the day to break your routine; grabbing a new co-worker every day for a quick walk around the block; eating lunch with different people at your office. Sometimes, even a small change is enough.

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Shit Happens.

The work never goes like you want it to.

Oh, you had big plans? Shit happens.

Oh, you had goals/ambitions/dreams? Shit happens.

Oh, things were supposed to go a certain way? Yeah… shit happens.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t make plans — you should! It’s good to anticipate problems, and to try to get ahead of the work. But the work always gets weird along the way. You learn that something can’t work a certain way, or should actually work a completely different way. Your team takes a hit. Something breaks.

Things always go wrong. It’s just the way it goes.

So are you willing to push through it? Are you willing to keep working, even when things suck?

The best don’t use those bad breaks as an excuse. They find a way to get the work done anyway.

Good luck. Keep doing the work.

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My Favorite Question To Ask Candidates In A Job Interview.

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If you’re interviewing for a job on my team, be ready to answer this question: What tools or apps do you use to work?

When I’m hiring, I’m looking for people who are going to be able to work well with my team. If a candidate has the right work habits already, I’m confident that we can teach them the skills and give them the confidence to do great work. So that’s where my question about tools comes in — because the tools you use to work secretly reveal a lot about your work personality.

I’ve learned that:

◦ People who use a to-do app (and there are a million good ones) are typically detail oriented.

◦ People who save lots of links with an app like Evernote, Pinterest, or Delicious usually have lots of big ideas.

◦ People who swear by a calendar app like Google Cal or Sunrise are often very punctual.

◦ People who love an inbox app (Boomerang, Sanebox, Rapportive, Mailbox, etc) are almost always super organized.

This question isn’t everything — I always follow up with more questions about why that person loves an app so much, and what they use it for. But it’s a great way to dig into the mind of a candidate and catch a glimpse of how they work, and that usually gives me a good idea of whether or not they’d be a good fit for my team.

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That photo at top comes via Unsplash and photographer Todd Quackenbush.

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The Hard Thing Is That There Are Always More Hard Things.

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It’s fall, which means I’m already thinking about plans for 2016. The new year is less than 90 days away, and there are a ton of big decisions to make between now and then.

As I think about the state of my four-person team at BuzzFeed, these challenges come to mind for 2016:

-We need to grow our team.

-We need to find a way to train new team members in the way we work — how to launch stuff quickly, mess around with new ideas, and use data to make informed decisions.

-We need to maintain the industrious spirit of a small team while growing into a (slightly) bigger one.

-We need to continue to grow our subscriber base.

-We need to launch new products.

-Some of those products will be launched in other countries.

-And some of them will be launched in languages other than English.

That’s a lot — and the secret is, it’s just the stuff that’s in front of me right now. In three months, we’ll have almost certainly knocked a few things off that list… but a new challenge or two will be added to it. Maybe we’ll add our first team member in a different city. Maybe we’ll be forced to make unexpected cuts to our lineup of newsletter products. Maybe we’ll have challenges implementing new types of advertising into our newsletters, or struggle to communicate with other teams here at the company.

Something new will come up. It always does.

And that’s the truly hard thing about working in a startup like BuzzFeed, I’ve found: There are always new challenges to face. Once you’ve mastered one challenge, another one presents itself. Sometimes, old challenges show up again in new ways!

The hard thing is that there are always more hard things to take on, and you have to be mentally prepared to taken on challenge after challenge. It’s why it’s so important to have those moments during the day to think, and it’s why it’s doubly important to have a great team behind you. The challenges will always keep coming. Make sure you have the time to center yourself, and make sure you have the team to take on what’s next.

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Yes, that’s an incredibly obvious “mountains beyond mountains” metaphor of a photo at top. It’s from Unsplash and photographer Nitish Meena.

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Don’t Follow The Leaders.

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Here’s a very smart thing that someone told the New York Times this week:

“So if everybody is essentially doing the same thing, is anybody likely to get ahead?

That quote happens to be about — of all things — the surprisingly high-stakes world of convention center hotel construction. But it could just as easily be about the race to build the biggest car-sharing app (here in New York, I walk past ads for a half-dozen Uber competitors a day) or the biggest social network or the next big whatever. When one company launches a feature, their competitors follow right behind. When someone launches a new app, a thousand spin-offs are sure to come, too.

Everybody is doing the same things. So how do you get in ahead in a world like that?

We live in a world of copycats, but you don’t have to be one of them. Here’s my advice: Don’t follow the leaders.

When others zag, find another path and zig. It’s OK to ignore everyone else — there are thousands of niches out there, and there are opportunities for people who will do stuff that no one else is doing. Let everyone else compete on the same ideas while you compete on yours alone.

I’ve always tried to remind myself: It’s hard to run your own race, but it’s even harder to run someone else’s. So give yourself permission to be different. Your way may work, or it may not — but in the end, at least it’ll be your successes or your failures.

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That photo of birds flying together comes via Unsplash and Rowan Heuvel. 

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How To Write A Great Email.

When someone asks me what I do, I usually tell them (with a wink, mind you): Oh, I’m the guy who’s been sending you all those emails lately!

But in many cases, that’s actually true! My team at BuzzFeed now sends tens of millions of emails out a month. I’ve personally written about 1,500 newsletters — it could be more, but I lost track somewhere along the way.

Over the past 3 years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about email.

And a lot of people aren’t using email the right way.

Email can be an amazing tool — when used correctly. Just keep these six rules in mind before you send your next email:

1) Should you even send this email? — Oftentimes, the answer is no! If you need to pass along a lot of information via links or attachments; if you’re looking for the recipient to take specific action; or if you want to pass along a quick, personal note, email is great! Otherwise, have that conversation in person or over the phone. It can be really, really hard to convey tone over email, so having tough conversations IRL is a much better idea.

2) Make your subject line clear — I love to send emails that are super specific. I write a lot of subject lines with questions: “Can you send me _______ by the end of the day?” Or emails that convey the message right up front: “I loved your recent article!” Nobody should open an email and not know what they’re about to read.

3) Take advantage of that “preheader” space — That’s a term we use to refer to the snippet of preview text you’ll see on your phone or in Gmail. Your recipient can read the first 5-10 words of your email — so skip the greetings and the “Hope all is well!”-type messages and get right to the point!

4) Personal emails are the best kind of emails — A personal email is a great way to make people feel like their work is actually important. And when people feel appreciated, they’re more likely to write back, take action, or help! If possible, I try not to send mass emails. I’ve found that an email that goes out to a group of 10+ recipients gets far fewer responses than an email that goes out to only 1-3 people.

5) Use bullets or numbered lists — Remember: More and more people are reading emails on their phone, which means readability matters. If you’re writing emails in a giant block of text, your recipient might skip through the whole thing. Take advantage of bullets and lists that can make your email much easier to read.

6) Make your “ask” as clear as possible — One of the reasons I love email is because it allows you to ask a specific person to take a specific action. But the recipient should know exactly what action they should take, and also how you’ll hold them accountable. When I need to get a specific thing done, I usually ask over email.

If you make your ask very clear — and if you follow these other five rules — you’ll discover what email truly can be: An engine for helping you get a ton of stuff done.

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It’s All Process.

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I just finished “The Best Team Money Can Buy,” a really good new read on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ quest to win a World Series. It focuses in on Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers’ star left-handed pitcher, and one of the most dominant players in the game. (How dominant? He’s won the Cy Young award for pitching three of the last four years. The other year, he finished second.)

And when he’s pitching well, he’s basically unhittable:

What makes Kershaw so good? For one, the book details, Kershaw does an unusual series of things on days when he pitches. He leaves for the ballpark at the same time. He warms up at the same time. He throws the same number of warm-up pitches at the same time. He even eats at a same time. Everything is geared around keeping things exactly the same on game day.

Baseball writers like to use certain words for guys like Kershaw. They call him “superstitious” or “quirky.”

I’d put it another way: Kershaw’s a guy with a very, very specific routine.

Routines are a wonderful thing for people who do complex work. For Kershaw, a routine takes away a lot of the decisions he has to make before pitching. He doesn’t need to think about when he should eat or what kind of stretches to do beforehand. His routine is already fully built, and it allows him to keep his complete focus on the actual work — instead of the other decisions that could distract him during the day.

Here’s another way to think about it: Routines are processes for doing the work, and when your work is hard, it’s even more important that your routine be solid.

Totally unrelated example: I just finished a GQ cover story on Stephen Colbert, where he talks a lot about the process of creating his new late night show. Here’s my favorite part:

And then he talked about the Food Network show Chopped. The reason he loves Chopped is that it’s a show that is wholly about process, about creation within a limited range of possibilities. “This show,” he said, meaning The Late Show, “is Chopped. Late-night shows are Chopped. Who are your guests tonight? Your guests tonight are veal tongue, coffee grounds, and gummy bears. There, make a show.… Make an appetizer that appeals to millions of people. That’s what I like. How could you possibly do it? Oh, you bring in your own flavors. Your own house band is another flavor. You have your own flavor. The audience itself is a base dish, like a rice pilaf or something. And then together it’s ‘Oh shit, that’s an actual meal.’ And that’s what every day is like at one of these shows. Something is one thing in the morning, and then by the end of the day it’s a totally different thing. It’s all process.”

That’s the power of routines. They get you to a place where you can create the results expected of you — and then allow you to show up the next day and do the work all over again.

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That photo of Clayton Kershaw comes via Flickr’s Arturo Pardavila III.

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No.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about 10 things that will save you time at the office. But there’s one more I didn’t write about in that post, and I want to touch on it now:

It’s the word “no.”

I haven’t always been good at saying that word. I really like saying “yes.” I like being helpful to other teams at work, I like offering my time when I can, and I like working on new projects. I try to say “yes” to things as much as possible.

But I’ve also learned that “yes” can lead to trouble — if you say it one time too many.

There are three resources at my disposal that other people want: My time, my skills, and my team. As a manager, my job is manage those resources and make sure my team doesn’t overextend itself. So that means that more and more, I’m saying “no” to projects.

Don’t get me wrong: I want to be able to say “yes” to everything. I love helping people, and I’m lucky to be a position where I can help others do better work. But I’ve learned that there are times when you have to say “no.”

I’m still not great at saying that word, but I’ve learned a few things that have helped me say it better:

1) Be direct — I wrote it in that earlier post, and I’ll say it again: Being direct will save you time in the long run. Most co-workers initially request help via email, and that’s a place where you can be straight with people. I send a lot of these types of emails: “No, I can’t help right now. Sorry!” You’re not a jerk for saying that — you’re just being up front with people.

2) Saying “yes” when you don’t have the resources is even worse than a “no” — If you can’t actually help the person but say “yes” anyway, you’re making things worse for everyone. You’ll end up holding up their work, and on top that, it’s just plain rude. Don’t say “yes” if you can’t commit.

3) Try to find another way to help — If I can’t say “yes,” I’ll often meet with the person anyway just to listen and see if I can offer some advice. At the very least, maybe I can point them towards someone who can help.

I still don’t like saying “no,” but I’m learning how important it is to prioritize my three big resources: Time, skills, and team. Sometimes, you have to say “no” to keep those a priority.

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That photo of a closed door comes via Buzac Marius for Unsplash.

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Let’s Make Yesterday Count.

by Thomas Brault

When I first started working, there were really only two types of days: good days, and bad days.

But over time, those two categories spawned a whole new set of days. There were good days that were slow, and good days that were fast; good days where a dozen great things all seemed to happen at once; good days where it felt like months of work paid off on the same day.

But there were plenty more good days where nothing obviously good happened — where no big work seemed to get done, but that still definitely qualified as a good day.

Those are actually some of my favorite days, but they’re hard to recognize in the moment. They’re the days where you’re doing lots of work to set up another day. For me, that might mean working with someone on my team to brainstorm a big new idea, or building out the tech back-end for a project. It could even be a day where I’m working on spreadsheets or other monotonous work that just has to get done.

It’s that kind of work that frees you up to do the exciting stuff another day, like launching a project or hiring a new member of the team. Those are the days when you lay out the framework. The next day, or the day after that, you’ll start building something big on top of it.

So when I get to those exciting days down the road, I try to remind myself to make those yesterdays count. I’ll tell myself: You’ve already put in the hard work. Now make something awesome with all of it.

Great work is built on a whole lot of yesterdays. When a big work day arrives, take a moment to appreciate how many good days you’ve already put in to get to a day like this. And then go out and do the work to make those yesterdays count.

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There’s probably a symbolic meaning to that photo, but I mostly picked it for this post because it looks cool. (Hey, not everything has to have a deeper meaning!) It’s by Thomas Brault for Unsplash.

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