Why You Should Say Good Morning, Every Day By: Lucielle Gallo

Date February 28, 2021

Posted by lg1385

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It may seem trivial, or maybe expected, but saying “Good Morning” can make all the difference in how your teams’ day goes.

An opportunity to combat problems before the day begins.

It may feel overwhelming, but giving that opportunity for your team to let you know any struggles they may be facing is a great way to plan your day. Instead of being interrupted in the middle of a project, you can structure your day around the support your team needs, and your own tasks for the day based on what they tell you in the morning. Too often I would be in the middle of my day, and someone would need help or guidance on a matter. While I am happy to help, I would often wish I had known about the problem two hours ago before starting a new project. Understanding problems in the morning gives you an opportunity to delegate, find out more information, and plan out how you want to execute. Additionally, your team will feel supported and comfortable addressing concerns with you.

Where are you?? Your team needs to know.

How often have you gone straight to your office, turned on your computer to get your day started? In today’s environment, leaders may be working remotely, or on a different work schedule than the team. Letting your team know you are in the office or working remotely gives them reassurance you are available when they need you.

Create a space for meaningful connections.

The days can be stressful, busy, and before you know it they are over. Starting your day with interactions gives you a clear and present mind to connect. Teams have higher trust in their leaders when there is a meaningful connection in place.

One day on my morning rounds I went over to a member of my team to say good morning, I could tell they were stressed and not in the mood to be at work. I asked if there was anything I could do to make their day easier or help with their workload. She responded that work was fine, she was just stressed because her car needed to be fixed and she did not know when she would have the time. I offered her the ability to take her lunch early to drop off her car, that way the shop would have time to work on it throughout the day. She was so appreciative, and when she came back from dropping off her car, her mood was completely different. Had I not spent time that morning with her, her mood would have been off all day and therefore affected her work.

This gave me the opportunity to show empathy, and help my team member which creates trust in her. Without direct interactions and dialogue, how do you expect to create that connection?

The power of positivity is endless.

Have you ever heard a smile is contagious? Try it, smile and those around you will too. Your energy spreads to those around you. As a leader creating a positive space is so important for your team. Your team spends their entire day at work and deserves a positive environment to be in. Going around and saying “Good Morning” with a positive attitude will start the day off right! Creating work-life balance is important, and the environment you are in for 8 or more hours of the day plays a big part. Imagine being in a negative and consuming environment all day, do you think when five o-clock hits, your mood will suddenly change. Most likely you will bring that negativity home, and before you know it you are in a constant cycle of it. Creating a positive space allows the opportunity for your team to go about their day positively, then go home with that positivity, and come in the next day positive. That positive effect will help your team uplift each other, do good work, and be positive with your clients.

Challenge yourself to a week of morning rounds and saying good morning! See how your team reacts, and how your day plays out.

Reflect on your mood, around your team and how it affects them. Do you notice your team relying on your tone and how they proceed for the day?

How The Internet Almost Took Down Wall Street By: Andrew Quinlan

Date February 26, 2021

Posted by aq182

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I’ve been trading stocks and options contracts for over a decade and have never seen anything like what happened last week. Companies that were written off as dead started coming back to life. Gamestop, AMC theaters, and Blackberry just to name a few. It didn’t make sense at all, these companies were closer to bankruptcy than they were to making a comeback. So why were they rising? What was causing this sudden interest in these dying companies?

A group known as Wall Street Bets gained a large following on the internet via many different platforms, Reddit being one of their largest. They often post content about stocks and memes related to finance. Some of their users claimed they were tired of Wall Street and hedge funds making billions of dollars at the expense of the general public. The group had been organizing a movement to buy as many shares of Gamestop as possible for two reasons. First, there is nostalgia associated with this company and all of the others that Wall Street was “trying to kill”. They grew up buying video games at this brick and mortar store when they were children. Secondly, it was the stock with the highest percentage of shorted shares.

This topic was chosen for the blog assignment because it is a current even that showcases teamwork and leadership. It also demonstrates how teamwork and leadership can be conducted online without ever meeting the team members face to face. In a world where this pandemic has forced people to quarantine, I felt that it was perfect because it highlights leadership and teamwork within this online community. As you’ll see in this summary of the events, the online leaders of Wall Street Bets gathered a team and unified them to fight for one purpose. That purpose was to stand up for the general population and show the large institutions that they will not be manipulated anymore. Thousands of people supported this movement and joined this online team. After a few days, there were then hundreds of thousands team members who were ready to start buying shares. These strangers came together over the internet to fight for this shared idea of standing up to the hedge funds.

If a stock has shorted shares, that means that shares were borrowed and sold to watch the company slowly go out of business. When shorting these shares, the hedge funds and large institutions would have to buy back shares at a much lower price in order to realize profits. When the Wall Street Bets group started pumping money into Gamestop, the share prices continued to rise. Eventually, this created a short squeeze, meaning that the hedge funds were required to buy back the shares. This added to the already large volume of purchases being made the Wall Street Bets group and the price continued to rise even faster. Then people all over the country heard about this movement and decided to join in, buying Gamestop at whatever price they could get it at. This is a dangerous game and many of them knew they could lose money doing this. However, there were thousands of comments online that the people need to stand up to the hedge funds. To make a point that we the people will not be manipulated by large institutions and hedge funds anymore.

During the height of all this purchasing, the hedge funds had enough. They told Robinhood, the trading app of retail investors, to halt the buying of these stocks but continue to allow the selling. Hedge funds had the power to do this because, as it turns out, they owned a portion of the company. What also became apparent was that the large institutions have been using the data from Robinhood to make a profit from retail investor trades. Naturally, many people were upset and believe that there needs to be some new rules moving forward to make things more fair for general public investors.

There are a lot of questions being asked such as is this movement by Wall Street Bets considered market manipulation? Should short selling be allowed? It’s an interesting concept because it does not exist anywhere other than the stock market. You can’t sell a car before owning it. You can’t sell a television or refrigerator before owning it. So why should we be able to do it with shares of stock?

This whole fiasco also opened up discussion about the future of Wall Street. Is there another venue for investments that may be better for the public? A platform where the assets are truly traded freely and there is no institution overwatching the transactions. One candidate for this is cryptocurrency. Many people on the internet claim that they feel safer with their money in cryptocurrency because it is a decentralized network, not able to be manipulated by the government, large institutions, or hedge funds. There is also the argument that if people lose trust in the banking system and stock market, that they may become a thing of the past. As the gold standard and use of tangible money are starting to fade away, cryptocurrency may provide an investment like electronic gold and electronic transactions that will be more efficient than current methods. If there is a large movement into cryptocurrency from investing in traditional stocks then we could potentially see these currencies skyrocket in value.

Financially, a cryptocurrency market boom would be great, but it is also what people are fighting for. Freedom and equality when it comes to investing. The large institutions and hedge funds have a large advantage when it comes to trading in the traditional stock market. Cryptocurrency would be a fresh start where all investors have an equal chance to make significant returns on their investment. I think last week’s events with these nostalgic companies was the exclamation point on this underlying issue. It has showcased the importance of truly free markets and equality for every person. Would you consider cryptocurrency a useful form of currency in the future? Would you invest in it? Why or why not?

This whole fiasco has brought up many points about investing that were previously not addressed. I anticipate that there will be changes to the stock market to prevent this from happening again. However, I feel that there should be less restriction on trade. The market is supposed to be a free market that is based on demand of who wants to buy at certain prices. This also brings up new opportunities for teams. If such a powerful movement can be formed through a reddit forum, can this teamwork and leadership style be harnessed easily through the internet? I think that these events have proven that teamwork may be even stronger in an online format. Teams have a tradeoff of quality and quantity. Too many members and the quality of the team starts to fall apart. However, in the instance of these stock market events, a high quantity team all working toward the same goal was able to achieve success. Similarly, a quality team with 3-10 members can benefit from this online platform. For example, members will be able to get more done at home and then join meetings. It adds more flexibility to their schedule. Leaders can also benefit from this online platform because their messages are now received in video format as well as text. In the workplace, face to face meetings occur but team members may forget or not be paying attention while the leader is speaking. If this occurs and the message is in an email or written format, the team member can go back and look up the needed information. Do you think that the online platform will prove to be more efficient than face to face in the workplace? If so, do you think some companies will continue with working remotely even after the quarantine is over?

-Andrew Quinlan, D.O.

5 Ideas to Build a Cohesive Team and Retain Talent By: Shannon Harrod

Throughout my 12 years of experience in the Information Technology industry I’ve had the pleasure of working with several different leaders that I either reported directly to or had the opportunity to be mentored. I’ve worked for some great leaders and others who honestly weren’t so great, but reality is that I learned so much from both. I learned what I appreciated from the good ones and what I really wanted different from the others. While working as a team leader on several teams I found certain aspects that helped myself and fellow teammates become more cohesive. Along with this, while working for ‘not so great’ leaders helped me really understand what it meant for myself and others to want to stay working for the team. Today my team is one of the highest performing teams where I work and the first to be the most self-managed team within the IT department. Below are five tips from my own experiences that have worked for us and I hope you are just as successful.

1) Create annual themes based on annual priorities/initiatives to help inspire high performance and bring the members together as a team by having something in common. For example, pirates, sharks, lions, eagles, etc. For example, pirates can promote taking risks, thinking outside of the box. Sharks are fierce, eagles are kings of the sky, lions represent leadership. Use memes and creative ways to incorporate the theme into team emails or meetings. signing an email with RAWR! Get into it. Be cheesy. This can create laughs and allows the group to know it’s okay to have fun while at work. Extra idea (which I do with my own team): Send small theme related gifts to the team to show appreciation and help them to continue the theme going daily such as coffee mugs or pirate flags. It’s a known fact that happy people work harder because this can make work more enjoyable and in result help you retain good talent.

Photo by Shannon Harrod

2) Hold non-work-related team events monthly or quarterly for team bonding. This allows the team to get to know each other more personally helping to humanize each member especially if the team if fully remote and from different backgrounds or cultures. For example, coffee/tea breaks for 30 minutes once a month. Hire a company to host a team building event, run a 10K together, or purchase online game packs such as Jackbox to play fun and funny games. My personal favorite is Drawful. These games are good for all ages and cultures as well. Extra idea: Have team members take turns on coming up with a fun activity for the team each month. Go in alphabetical order to be fair.

Photo by Shannon Harrod

3) Self-managed team meetings are great opportunities for the team to work together. Randomly be unable to attend the meeting to naturally force the team to decide who will run the meeting. This only works of course if they are very familiar with how the meeting is ran. Such as a daily status meeting. They may take turns on presenting and recording the notes on behalf of the team. The important part is to let it be their decision on who will run the meeting and not an appointment by the manager. It can take time for them to do this very comfortably, but ultimately this helps them to get more comfortable with each other as a team and of course allows the manager to be able to attend other meetings from time to time. This can also boost team confidence because they will be proud, they did it on their own.

4) Host periodic retrospectives on how the team is performing. Try not to contribute unless necessary or be the last person to provide feedback from the manager perspective. Make it simple asking the team, what went wrong, what went well, and what could they do to improve. Use a shared whiteboard or have someone scribe the responses on behalf of the team. At first it may be difficult to get a new team to contribute openly. Call team members out who aren’t’ contributing to try to get their thoughts. If you notice specific team members aren’t contributing over multiple retrospectives, talk with them in your 1-1s to find out how you can help make it more comfortable for them. Reassure them their contributions to the teams’ goals and successes is valued and that the team would love to know their perspective. Another good idea is to make sure the meeting rules is set from the beginning that there are no bad ideas, and all opinions are considered and captured. When you end up getting action items out of each retrospective make sure to assign them so that they get addressed. Over time you’ll find how quickly the team progresses and makes them more engaged in retrospectives because they experience the changes for the better of the team. This will make the members feel empowered and again more cohesive because they all feel confident in their roles and contributions. Another maturity point is the team will hold each other accountable when certain members are impacting the work of others. You just need to be careful and moderate to ensure the conversations don’t become a bullying session.

Image by Shannon Harrod

5) Celebrate as a team for project successes and birthdays. Keep a team shared calendar and asked all members to add their birthdays. Make sure you do something fun to celebrate that person with the team. A fun idea is to create a Jib Jab and send it out to the group with everyone’s face on it singing happy birthday. For team wins, do something fun, such as send snacks/coffee to the team members prior to an all-night project that is planned. Another idea is to allow the team to leave early on a Friday unexpectedly so they can relax and start the weekend early. It is very likely they will talk about it amongst each other and sharing their appreciation of the support and ‘free’ time off.

Photo by Shannon Harrod