Resources to help you build mental resilience

Brought to you by Ascension Associates

Are you looking for resources to help you build mental resilience for your personal and professional life?

Check out these resources by Ascencion Associates, established in 2018 by Larraine Chang as a Hong Kong-based boutique management consultancy supporting clients in Asia and beyond through sustainable business model design, leadership development, team coaching, strategy facilitation, and executive search.

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Special Offers to the FSI Community

Ascension Associates offers a 10% discount for FSI community members for its MasterClass series (per class ticket price around 250HKD). For more information on upcoming classes and events, please directly reach out to Larraine Chang at lchang@ascension-associates.com.

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Remote control.

When it’s done correctly, working remotely can be a boon to workers’ personal and professional lives. Cutting out the commute gives workers extra flexibility to manage family needs and other important priorities. Meanwhile, studies show that remote workers are happier and more productive than their office-bound counterparts (while saving money in office space and furniture costs.) Here are Quartz’s recommendations on making the most of remote work.

Be transparent

Trust is the bedrock of a successful remote working relationship. Your manager needs to be confident that you are meeting your commitments even when out of sight, and you need to feel secure that you’re being held to the same standards as in-office colleagues. At the start of your arrangement, have a detailed conversation with your manager about both of your expectations regarding work hours, scheduling, and deliverables. It sounds obvious, but the only way your boss can know what you’re producing from a remote office is what you produce. Confirming those expectations upfront ensures that you both understand the metrics by which you’ll be evaluated.

Become a member to keep reading this story and unlock unlimited access to all of Quartz.

The post How to work from home: tips for telecommuting — Quartz at Work appeared first on Foundation for Shared Impact.

Time to focus.

To be human is to procrastinate.

Exceptions exist, but most of us can identify at least one area of our imperfect lives (whether it’s our health, home, work, or relationships), where, for no justifiable reason, we routinely delay doing that thing (or series of small thingys) that would improve the present moment or future.

Procrastination also appears to be as old as we are—academics have traced a history of philosophers grappling with the problem—so relying on a few hacks to deal with it seems naive. People love hacks, but they’re really only handy for treating procrastination as a symptom, the way small nudges—like hiding the cookie jar—can help people stick to a diet, without, arguably, changing their fundamental relationship with food.

Become a member to keep reading this story and unlock unlimited access to all of Quartz.

The post How to stop procrastinating appeared first on Foundation for Shared Impact.

Why should I use Zapier?

Routine tasks slow down our work and drag our productivity. With the help of Zapier, even if you do not know how to code, you can still achieve productivity through automation. Zapier helps to integrate apps and build workflows for automating repetitive tasks, ranging from sending emails, tracking notifications, to organising data in spreadsheets.

Use cases of Zapier

• Automate your accounting process, e.g. updating and creating invoices
• Monitoring your brand or any sites on Social Media, e.g. social media listening whenever your account is tagged
• Automating emails
• Getting notifications and alerts, e.g. sending monthly reminders for your team’s Slack workspace to submit annual reports, reminding employees that they have used up a certain percentage of your budget, etc.

Navigating through Zapier

The Zapier Homepage

Go to Zapier to create an account. Once you are logged in, you will see the dashboard displayed below, allowing you to either connect apps right away and create your own workflow, or to use the recommended workflows.

The sidebar on the left links you to the sub-pages of Zapier.

On the top, you see the Make A Zap button – click this to start building workflows.

Setting up a Zap

Zaps are the automated workflows that help you do your routine work. Each zap contains a trigger and one or more actions.

• Triggers are app events that start Zaps.
• Actions are events that Zaps perform after they are triggered.

There are numerous events that you can select from:

1. Events in other apps such as Airtable, Google Sheets, Gmail… etc
2. Events happened within Zapier apps, which includes but does not limit to:

• Schedule from Zapier
  • This function allows you to set the frequency at which your Zap runs, it can be every hour, week, or month, it also let you choose an exact running time for the Zap.

• RSS from Zapier
  • For those who don’t know what is a RSS feed, click to open the toggle:
    • RSS is an online file that contains details about every piece of content a site has published.
    • RSS feeds are typically coded in XML format. To turn an RSS feed into something readable, you need an RSS reader.
      • RSS reader turns the codes into what you’d see on a website.
    • Benefits of using RSS:
      1. Rather than having to visit each site individually to see if new content has been published, you can see all of the new content from all of the sites you’re interested within a single interface. And guarantee no repeats of old content!
      2. You can push those details via RSS to your email newsletter tool so you don’t have to copy and paste those details in manually
  Common ways to use RSS by Zapier as a trigger app:
  • Add new RSS items to a spreadsheet – a convenient way to track anything
  • Post new RSS items on social media – automate schedule for posting our company’s expertise
  • Get daily blog posts delivered to you in Gmail
  Common ways to use RSS by Zapier as an action app:
  • Create your own RSS feed when there’re updates in a site – make this Zap when the site you’re interested don’t publish their updates in RSS feedsClick to find out more on customizing your own RSS super-feed
  How to set up a RSS event in Zapier:
  1. Choose RSS by Zapier as your trigger or action app.
  2. Select an event, it can either be when there is a new item in your RSS feed or new items in multiple feeds. Then click continue.
  3. Set up the trigger by filling in the required fields as listed below:
  • Feed URL: this is the URL that you will use to subscribe to the RSS feed.
  • Item Title: this is the name of the item added to the RSS feed.
  • Source URL: this is the URL for the site that the RSS feed pulls new items from.
  • Content: this is the body of the item.

• Webhooks from Zapier (only available on paid plans)
  • For those who don’t know what are Webhooks, click to open the toggle
    • Webhooks are are automated messages sent from your apps when something happened in your apps
    • Example of how it works between two different applications:
      • When an event happens on the trigger application, it serialises data about that event and sends it to a Webhook URL from the action application. The action application then send a callback message, often with an HTTP status code like 302 to let the trigger application know if the data was received successfully (or 404 if not).
  Common ways to use Webhooks from Zapier:
  • Webhooks can be used to sync customer data in other applications, e.g. when a user changes their email address, you can ensure that the change is reflected in your CRM system as well
  • Send webhooks whenever RSS feeds are updated
• Paths (only available on professional plans or above)
  • Allows you to run multiple branches of actions which leads to different outcomes
  • Uses conditional ‘if… then…’ logic
• Format (only available on starter plans or above)
  • To chance the formats of dates and times
  • To find & replace, or capitalise texts
  • Use numeric data to execute formulas and functions

Manage Zaps

Organise Zaps

Click Zaps on the sidebar of the main page, and you will be redirected to a subpage that shows your folders and the zaps in it in two side-by-side columns.

There are two types of folders – private and shared.

• Private folders are only visible to you, you can click on the + button to create new folders to sort your zaps for different workflows.
• Shared folders are used only when you have a Zapier for Teams account, to share folders with your team and collaborate on zaps.

Figure 4: Organizing Zaps into folders

View Zap History

Zap history keeps a record of every automation, which is useful for troubleshooting Zaps.

In the Task usage tab, you can see the total number of tasks used by each Zap, the time it has last ran, and the number of issues in the Zaps if there is any.

In the Zap runs tab, you can check the statuses when your Zaps run every time. In the example shown below, all three Zap runs have ‘Success‘ as their statuses, meaning that the Zaps ran and completed successfully. Other statuses include: filtered, stopped, waiting, playing, holding.

By clicking the checkbox on the leftmost of each row of zap run, you will be able to see the Replay, Delete, and Download options to deal with your zaps.

• Replaying Zaps
  • When there are unsuccessful zap runs, we can replay zaps to retry the failed steps. You will also want to replay Zaps that are held when there are no task quotas left.
  • Note: replays are only available in paid plans.
• Deleting Zap runs
  • Note: deleting Zap runs will not deduct tasks that the zaps run has already automated, meaning that it will NOT help if you have reached your task limit already.
• Downloading Zap runs
  • When do we want to download Zap runs?Zapier only stores a maximum of one month of Zap run data or the last 10,000 Zap runs, whichever comes first, in your account’s Zap history.To keep long-term records of your Zap data, you might prefer downloading your Zap history regularly for backup.
  • After clicking Download then Genereate and email CSV, your Zapier account’s email address will receive a CSV file which is available for you to download

To view details of each individual Zap run, click on the individual Zap runs. You can see the data that has gone in and out of each step of the Zaps. The number of total tasks used will also be shown at the bottom of the page.

Note: the number of tasks that can be automated in a given billing cycle is limited. Once you’ve reached your full task limit, Zapier will hold new Zap runs.

To check the number of tasks you have left for the month, click your profile’s icon on the top right-hand corner of the page and select Settings, then go to the Billing and Usage subpage.

Troubleshooting Zaps

Things might not always work as expected, and your Zaps might run into problems sometimes, such as missing data, incorrect data, or maybe malfunctioning Zaps. If these things happen, do not panic, follow the instructions below to fix your Zaps!

If your Zap’s trigger test fails

When setting up a trigger step, you are required to test trigger data. However, sometimes it may show that no test data is found. There are 3 suggestions for you to follow to solve this problem:

1. Check if your app account is still connected to ZapierIt is possible that the connection is expired if your app hasn’t been used in ant Zaps for a while. Click on Please reconnect it here to enter your API keys.

2. Check if your trigger options are valid
   • It is important to make sure all the required fields in the set up trigger section are all filled.
   • Note: if you have just added or renamed or deleted an field option in your trigger app, the changes might not be updated immediately. Reload fields options in the set up trigger section after a while.
3. Check if your Zap is using an instant trigger
   • For some triggers, Zapier can only identify data that is recently created. In this case, you will need to prepare a new set of refreshed data in your trigger app in another tab (without saving), go back to the Zapier page to test the trigger, then immediately switch to the tab you’ve just opened to save the data.

If there is missing data in your action app

There are many causes for this problem, but the most common reason is that your Zap trigger is not sending data.

Two things to check:

1. Check if your fields are correctly mapped in the Zap
   • Make sure you have indicated a specific value to be used in the fields, see the snapshot below for an example where a specific value ie. ‘Enrollment Percentage Completed’ is selected to be used in the ‘Course Completion Percentage’ field, this means this field is mapped. Comparatively, nothing is selected in the ‘Thinkific ID’ field, meaning that it is NOT mapped and no record will be created regarding this field.

2. Check if your mapped fields are pulling empty data
   • Go to Zap History and click on the recent Zap run. Click into the Data In section, you should see a page as shown below:

In this example, the red curly brackets around the data indicate that the ‘name’ field mapped over from the trigger was empty, or does not exist in the same it did when you set up the Zap. To resolve this, click into your Zap to edit it. Then retest the trigger by loading new test data in the Zap trigger, then by remapping the affected fields in the choose actionstep.

If your Zap is not running

Please check if you have reached your task limit for the billing period. You can wait until the next billing period for the task number to reset. Depending on which paid plan you have, by then, you can either manually or automatically replay the held Zap runs.

If all the above cannot solve your problem, click here to find other solutions from Zapier’s homepage.

Additional Resources

• Zapier’s intro guide (Youtube link)
• Zapier’s How-to & Templates
• Alternative solution that provides similar service – Automate.io

PS!

At FSI we’re always seeking to improve, so if you have any feedback on this guide/template, please do not hesitate to let us know.

The post Guide to Zapier – automate your workflow appeared first on Foundation for Shared Impact.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to Zoom
  • Major functions on Zoom
• Starting a Meeting or Joining a Room
  • (1) Start a new Meeting
  • (2) Join a meeting via ‘Meeting ID’ or ‘Personal Link Name’
  • (3) Schedule Meetings in advance
• Zoom User Guide and Features Inside the Meeting Room
  • (1) Settings
  • (2) Send invitations to others to join you in the meeting room
  • (3) Recording
    • 3.1 “Record on this Computer”
    • 3.2 “Record to the Cloud”
    • 3.3 Syncing the Zoom Recordings with Google Drive
  • (4) Share Screen
  • 5) Breakout Room
    • 5.1 Enabling Breakout rooms in the settings on Zoom Desktop
    • 5.2 Breakout Room in the Meeting Room
  • (6) Polling
  • (7) Assigning Co-host
• Zoom Subscription Plans
  • Optional Add-On Plans
• Alternatives to Zoom
  • Google Meet
  • Microsoft Teams
• Additional Readings:
• PS!

Introduction to Zoom

Post the outbreak of Covid-19, almost every organisation encompassing companies, schools, and governmental bodies, adopted flexible working environments whereby the workers are given a choice to work remotely. Virtual communications have become the key to effective team/project management, and there is no doubt that Zoom can be a significant solution to communications problems.

Major functions on Zoom

The major features of Zoom are:

1. One-on-one meetings 
   • Host unlimited one-on-one meetings.
2. Group video conferences 
   • Host up to 500 participants (if you purchase the “large meeting” add-on). The free plan, however, allows you to host video conferences of up to 40 minutes and up to 100 participants.
3. Screen sharing 
   • Meet one-on-one or with large groups and share your screen with them so they can see what you see.
4. Recording 
   • You can record your meetings or events too.
5. Breakout Rooms 
   • You can create multiple smaller meeting rooms in a large meeting for smaller group exercises.

Starting a Meeting or Joining a Room

(1) Start a new Meeting

A new meeting room will open immediately if you click on the ‘New Meeting’ icon

(2) Join a meeting via ‘Meeting ID’ or ‘Personal Link Name’

The host(s) would have sent you the invitation that includes either ‘Meeting ID’ or ‘Personal Link Name’. Join the meeting by clicking ‘Join’ after adding the meeting information.

(3) Schedule Meetings in advance

When you schedule a meeting, you can automatically sync your linked calendar (e.g. Google Calendar) to show the meeting.

Zoom User Guide and Features Inside the Meeting Room

Now let’s explore what you can do once you are in the meeting room!

(1) Settings

1. Video Settings

Click on the arrow beside the video icon → Press ‘Video Settings’ to see a number of adjustments you can make!

Here, you can:

• Adjust camera settings
• Change the name displayed on participants’ videos
• Change the maximum number of participants displayed per screen in ‘Gallery View’: 25 or 49

2. General Settings

Once you have opened the video settings, you can see that there are several other tabs on the left-hand side. Click on ‘General’:

Here, you can choose:

• Whether you want to use dual monitors
• Adjust and choose the screen theme and modes
• To display your meeting duration
• Etc.

3. Audio Settings

You may want to check your audio settings before you start the meeting to ensure audibility.

Here, you can:

• Adjust Speaker and Microphone volumes
• Test your Speaker and Mic
• Choose the level of suppression of background noise
• Etc.

4. Share Screen Settings

Share screen is one of the best features on Zoom that you are highly encouraged to use in order to make sure you are on the same page with other people in the meeting.

Here you can:

• Adjust your window size when screen sharing
• Mode of sharing when sharing applications
• Whether you want to see sharing options every time you start screen share
• Etc.

5. Background & Filters Settings

Remote working allows you to work wherever you are, but you or your team members might not want others to know where they are or what their home looks like! So Zoom offers various options for ‘virtual backgrounds’ where you can either blur your background as seen below or completely personalise it by uploading your own images!

6. Recording Settings

You might want to record the meeting for future use, and Zoom provides you with various options here too! Major change that you are most likely to make in this setting is regarding the save location of the recording files.

7. Security Settings as a Host

If you are a host, then you will see the ‘Security’ button at the bottom.

Here, you can:

• Lock the meeting so no one can enter afterward
• Enable waiting room where new participants will not be allowed in the meeting until you or another host allow
• Allow or ban Participants’ options such as share screen, chat, renaming, start the video, unmute, etc.

(2) Send invitations to others to join you in the meeting room

Once you host a meeting, you can invite your team members/attendees to the meeting.

Click invite on the bottom right → You can either send them invitation emails or simply through any other messenger applications by copying the invite link or invitation. 

(3) Recording

Recording the meeting is very important for future use and reference, yet super easy, just click on the ‘Record’ icon next to ‘share screen’ in the meeting room.

3.1 “Record on this Computer”

This option is called ‘Local Recording’ and is available for both free and paid users.

However, the following features are not available in the local recording:

• Display timestamp in the recording
• Display participants’ names in the recording
• Record Active Speaker, Gallery View, and shared screen separately
• Audio transcription
• Shared screen recording layout with active speaker thumbnail or without any thumbnails (local recordings will always show a thumbnail gallery view with the shared screen)
• Record using the iOS or Android app

3.2 “Record to the Cloud”

If you are a paid user, then you can use ‘Zoom Cloud Recording’!

The recorded meeting will be saved in your account’s cloud storage, and you can easily find it on the web.

→ You can share it with others by clicking ‘share’ on the right-hand side of each recording!

Click ‘Copy Sharing Information’ on the bottom left, and send it to whoever you would like to share it with!

3.3 Syncing the Zoom Recordings with Google Drive

You can also automatically save your recordings to Google Drive using Google Drive Desktop and Zoom Local Recording.

(1) Install ‘Google Drive Desktop’

https://www.google.com/drive/download/

(2) You will be able to see that your Google Drive is synced with your Desktop

(3) Go on Zoom App → Recording Settings → Click on ‘Choose a new location’

(4) Choose your Google Drive and a proposed folder you would like to save the recordings in

→ Click on ’Choose’

(5) Completed! Now your local recordings will be saved in the Google Drive

(4) Share Screen

Since you are in a virtual meeting, it is crucial to ensure that everyone in the meeting is on the same page! In this regard, Zoom offers an easy and reliable feature ‘share screen’ where all other participants will be seeing your real-time screen.

Click ‘Share Screen’ at the bottom

→ Choose a tab/page/application that you would like to share in the meeting.

Now, other members in the room are seeing what you are seeing on your device!

5) Breakout Room

This is one of the best features of Zoom. When you are in a large meeting but want to have smaller team exercises/meetings/discussions, you can create multiple breakout rooms and assign participants.

*Breakout Rooms are available for (unpaid) Zoom Basic Users too!

5.1 Enabling Breakout rooms in the settings on Zoom Desktop

(1) Sign in to Zoom Desktop and Press your account icon on the top right 

→ Click on the account (highlighted in blue below)

(2) Click on ‘Settings’ under the ‘Personal’ Tab on the bar on the left-hand side

(3) Find the ‘Breakout Room’ feature under ‘In Meeting(Advanced)’ options, and enable it

5.2 Breakout Room in the Meeting Room

Once you have enabled the Breakout Room feature on Zoom Desktop, it will automatically show up on your tap bar in the meeting.

*if it doesn’t appear, check the ‘More’ option on the ribbon.

Click on the ‘Breakout Rooms’ icon and create breakout rooms with your proposed options.

→ You can edit each room’s name, and assign participants to the rooms

• As a host, you can join the rooms to see how your members are progressing!

→ You need to ‘Open All Rooms’ when you first create the breakout rooms → it will turn into ‘Close All Rooms’

→ If you click on ‘Close All Rooms’, it will stop all breakout rooms after a 60-second countdown, and returns all participants back to the main meeting room.

*If the meeting is being cloud recorded, it will only record the main meeting and none of the breakouts will be captured, regardless of what room, the meeting host is in. It is currently only possible to record in breakout rooms with local recording. The host must allow specific participants to record locally and it will only record the room the participant who is recording is in. Multiple participants can be given permission to record locally.

(6) Polling

Zoom also offers a polling function for the meetings/webinars for paid users!

You are very likely to use this function for votes or to acknowledge participants’ thoughts on whatever you’d like to know.

Enable polling in the settings on Zoom Web

1. Go to settings on Zoom Web

2. Find ‘Meeting Polls/Quizzes’ and enable it

3. Polls/Quizzes icon will be on the icon bar in the meeting from now on!

Creating Polls

1. Go on Meetings on Zoom Web, and click on the scheduled meeting you’d like to create polls for.

2. Scroll down to find the ‘Poll/Quizzes’ and click ‘Create’

3. Customise the questions/answers and save.

Launching/Ending polls

1. In the meeting, click on the ‘Polls/Quizzes’ icon

2. Press ‘Launch’

3. The poll will pop-up on participants’ screen

4. After confirming whether all participants have completed the polls, end the poll

5. Download the results

(7) Assigning Co-host

As a host, you can share hosting privileges with the participant(s), allowing the co-host to manage the administrative side of the meeting

• Host: The user that scheduled the meeting. They have full permission to manage the meeting. There can only be one host of a meeting.
  • Host Privileges (Expand the toggle to find out)
    • Start/End the meeting
    • Create or Edit polls
    • Mute/Unmute participants
    • Stop participant’s video / Request participants to start video
    • Promote participant to host or co-host
    • Administrate who attendees can chat with
    • Remove attendees
    • Rename participants
    • Mute controls for participants
    • Assign participants to break-out rooms
    • Cloud recording
    • Allow/Forbid participants to start local recording
    • Live Streaming
• Co-host: Shares most of the controls that hosts have, allowing the co-host to manage the administrative side of the meeting, such as managing attendees. The host must assign a co-host during the meeting.
  • Co-hosts cannot do the following:
    • Start/End the meeting
    • Promote participant to host or co-host
    • Live Streaming

To assign a co-host, click on ‘more’ next to the participant, and press ‘Make Co-host’

Zoom Subscription Plans

Zoom has multiple plans for you to choose from. Access the link below to see the most up-to-date Zoom plans:https://zoom.us/pricing. Please see below our summary of the major comparisons as of March 2022:

Optional Add-On Plans

If you own a Zoom license, you can apply for additional add-on plans to fit your special requirement!

1. Large Meetings Starts at US$600/year, and you can increase interactive participants up to 500 or 1,000 in a meeting.
2. Cloud Storage Starts at US$480/year, and you can increase your cloud storage. There’s a wide range of options up to 3TB/month
3. Audio Conferencing Starts at US$1,200/year, and you will be billed based on the rates per call per country. All paid plans come with local toll numbers, but this plan allows you to add Call Out, Global toll-free, and ‘local dial-in’ for premium countries.

Alternatives to Zoom

Zoom is evidently one of the best real-time video communication tools, but there are other options you might want to consider using; Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

Google Meet

• Similar functions to Zoom but most are chrome extensions compared to Zoom’s built-in functions.
• Screen sharing and polling are available
• Breakout rooms and recordings are only for paid users; cloud space of 15GB vs 1GB on Zoom
• The free plan provides a group meeting duration of 60 min vs 40 min on Zoom
• Maximum number of participants up to 250 in all paid plans vs 1000 participants on Zoom
• Completely compatible with Google Calendar

Microsoft Teams

• Integrated with all Microsoft365 Apps; Shared docs and files
• Screen sharing and breakout rooms are available for free
• Recordings are only for paid users; cloud space of 1TB per license vs 1GB on Zoom
• The free plan provides group meeting duration of 60 min vs 40 min on Zoom
• The maximum number of participants range from 100 to 500
• Suitable for project teams where numerous files are shared and adjusted by the number of members

Additional Readings:

• https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360034967471-Getting-started-guide-for-new-users

PS!

At FSI we’re always seeking to improve, so if you have any feedback on this guide/template, please do not hesitate to let us know.

The post Guide to Zoom appeared first on Foundation for Shared Impact.

Introduction

Airtable is a data management and automation tool that can help you enhance your operational efficiency on a personal and/or organizational level. Should any of the below use cases of Airtable be relevant to you, view our tutorials on the basics and applications of Airtable.

Collect, manage, and view the data of your stakeholders, event, and programs etc. for more efficient stakeholder communication, event management, and impact reporting
Consolidate and connect the data and information related to your stakeholders and programs in one place
Segment your stakeholders
Create survey forms to enhance your impact assessment or reimbursement forms for your employees
Accumulate data and build visual dashboards for impact reporting
Share project updates with your team or external parties
Automate email correspondences and event reminders etc. for your stakeholders and project updates for your team
Manage your editorial or marketing calendar

Integrate external software with Airtable to serve a variety of purposes.

Please note that the video recordings are retrieved from FSI Academy’s Capacity Building for the Social Impact Space webinar held on 4 May 2023.

1) Introduction – Why Airtable?

2) Basic Terms & Navigating Views on Airtable

3) Create Linked Fields

4) Automate your workflow

5) Using extensions & connect your Airtable with other apps

Please share any feedback you may have!

What did you find helpful, or how can we improve? What other kinds of resources do you think we should be providing?

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Please let us know your email if you'd like us to follow up with you or contact you separately!

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The post Guide to Airtable – Data Management & Automation appeared first on Foundation for Shared Impact.

Becoming an effective leader

This guide is intended to provide an overview of what makes an effective leader of any organization or company. Furthermore, it is designed to show characteristics and behavioral patterns that a leader should have. This will allow you to evaluate for yourself whether the role of a leader suits you, or which skills you can adopt or break in order to get the best out of your team. It is especially interesting for a leader of a young company, as the right leadership contributes to more motivated and productive employees, financial growth, and stability of a company.

Leadership vs. Management

Leadership is not the equivalent of management. Particularly in startups, where things can easily go wrong, traditional management is often no longer sufficient for the company’s success; leadership is needed. While managers maintain the balance in the company and ensure order and stability, leaders create new approaches and explore options. Managers oversee day-to-day operations and the ongoing work process, while leaders gather and develop ideas and communicate a vision to the outside world. Leaders also initiate change, motivate and inspire employees, and develop long-term perspectives. In other words, the leader has an eye on the future and focuses on change and creation.

Jobs of any Leader

1. Make Decisions

As a leader, you have to make quick and efficient decisions every day, for which you often have little information. You have to stand up for these decisions and represent them to third parties. If the leader does not make decisions, the whole team cannot continue to work.

2. Be the Leader you would have needed earlier

High-performing and motivated people attract high-performing and motivated people. For this reason, it is an important task for managers to give their best. In addition, it is also important to get the best out of employees by creating an environment in which they can do their best work. This includes coaching, mentoring, and communication.

3. Doing things

If you can’t make decisions, you don’t motivate others; and if you don’t deliver results, you may not be cut out to be a leader. Getting things done is one of the most important priorities of a leader, as it can be used to measure how well his leadership is working in the company and team.

Most important Skills of any Leader

In addition to jobs that every leader should be able to accomplish, there are several traits that make an effective leader. Effective in this context is defined as employees feeling comfortable and working productively. This can be achieved through collaboration and effective communication between employees and leaders, and various skills that a leader should have internalized.

1. Create a Culture of Teamwork

• Include employees or members in the decision-making process
• Give direct feedback about the performance and also ask for feedback about your leadership (regular feedback sessions)
• Encourage everyone to take risks, and be supportive even when they fail
• Connect with your team members by focusing on getting to know their personalities, interests, strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, and preferences
• Cocreate your culture and put it into writing
• Clarify how you want to work together
• Build trust through social gatherings and 1:1 sessions

2. Engage in honest and open Communication

• Create an environment where openness and honesty are encouraged
• Ask people to share their views and talk about obstacles in their way
• Use helpful communication tools that help teams understand and communicate about work and workflows. Without consistent communication, employees are more unproductive and unmotivated, resulting in lost time and effort.

Note that there are software and tools that you can use to aid your team’s open communication and interaction. Learn about the tools by reading our other guides:

• Guide to Slack
• Guide to Notion – Building your workspace

3. Encourage Personal and Professional Growth

• Invest financially and emotionally in the success and growth of your employees and members
• Employees and members grow by giving them challenging opportunities and guiding them as needed

4. Stop giving Orders

• Let your employees or members do things differently if they believe in their approach and let them learn from their mistakes
• Instead of ordering, start asking the right questions like ‘What do you think of this?’ or ‘Do you think these things will work?’
• People are more likely to accept an order if they have participated in the decision

5. Be open to new Ideas

• Good leaders have the emotional intelligence to understand and accept that change is inevitable
• Encourage your employees and members to bring new ideas and perspectives to the table. By doing so, you empower your team to become more innovative and invested in company growth
• The concept of design thinking is essential for thinking outside the box and giving free rein to your own creativity. The idea is that no idea is reprehensible, as it can lead to the desired goal in further steps.
  Read this article to learn more about the importance of Design Thinking.

6. Set clear goals and expectations

• Set SMART short-term and long-term goals. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based
• Monitor and measure your goals
• Revise your goals regularly as necessary
• Set not only general goals for the company but also specific goals for the employees, so that they know exactly what they have to do

7. Understand your own motivation

• You need to have an overriding purpose for your business and be able to share it with others because your vision can be a key motivational tool and help your employees feel more involved
• Enthusiasm is contagious. That’s why you have to be motivated yourself in order to motivate your team

Choose the most effective Leadership Style for your Team

• You need to have an overriding purpose for your business and be able to share it with others. Your vision can be a key motivational tool and help your employees feel more involved.
• Enthusiasm is contagious. That’s why you have to be motivated yourself in order to motivate your team

It’s usually clear what kind of employees or members you need – but it’s not always clear what kind of leaders you need. A leadership style refers to the methods leaders use to connect with, motivate, and guide their employees. In this regard, it is much more difficult to lead a start-up company that is new to a market that is notorious for being highly competitive and oversaturated. Your company is young and fresh in a notorious market for its strong competition and oversaturation. But how should you run a startup?

The following 3 out of the 6 leadership styles according to Goleman are the ones that should best be applied in a startup. Try to identify which one will work best for your team!

1. Visionary

What does visionary leadership look like?

• A visionary leader thinks big
• Primarily concerned with the company’s mission, which can be used to unite and inspire employees
• Setting big goals
• Encourage the team to think freely about achieving goals → Design Thinking

When is the visionary leadership style effective?

• When a big change is coming and a clear vision is needed to move the company forward
• Works well for people who want to bring about change or you find yourself in a constantly changing work environment

2. Democratic

What does democratic leadership look like?

• Listen to the employees’ perspectives when making decisions
• Aim for reaching a compromise
• Collecting employee feedback
• The leader still holds the authority to make the final decision

When is the democratic leadership style effective?

• When the skills and experiences of the team members are diverse

3. Pacesetter

What does the pacesetter leadership style look like?

• Most focused on achieving goals
• Setting high standards
• Well for achieving goals fast and allowing the business to grow and develop in the desired direction

When is the pacesetter leadership style effective?

• Effective in teams that are already highly motivated and have clear measures for success and growth
• For a short-term period in temporary projects

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What is Clockify?

Introduction

Clockify is a great time management tool for a team to stay organized and efficient, especially when the team members are working remotely. Clockify allows you to track our time spent based on tasks. This function helps you guide future timelines and generally helps you to identify and improve in areas where we may be slow – and celebrate areas where we are extra efficient in.

If you’re using Notion, Jira, or other collaborative platforms, Clockify smoothly integrates with them to make the platforms more seamless and less tedious to utilize. We are not recommending this tool to create any “big brother” system that seeks to track every move of your employees – which it simply doesn’t anyways. Instead, it is meant to help reduce distractions, save time, ensure better planning, prioritization, and support from the management team, and more. Ultimately, research also shows that it enhances teamwork and workflow.

Where to download Clockify

• Mobile app: Android and iPhone
• Desktop app: Windows, Linux, and Mac
• Browser extension: Chrome

How to Use Clockify

Web App Key Functions

• Timesheet – shows you a weekly overview of tasks and allows you to modify the time spent on the task. It also shows the total amount of time spent working on tasks for each day.

• Time Tracker – this is where you log the time for the task you are currently working on. Clockify gives you two options:
  1. Track your tasks with a timer (by simply pressing ‘start’ after inputting the name of the task you’re working on)
  2. Manually add the start/end time for the task.

• You can integrate Clockify with other apps such as Notion, Google Calendar, etc. (See more about this below) You should see a timer button (like the one below) on the site page. Simply click on it to start the time for the task.

• Calendar – gives a weekly overview of tasks with time blocks for each day. You can drag blocks to adjust the time spent on the task.
  • To connect your Google calendar, navigate to Calendar. Then click the link icon beside Teammates.
  • Select Connect Clockify to your Google account.

• Dashboard – shows you an overview of the total time you’ve spent working each day/week and the percentage of time you’ve allocated to your tasks.

• Reports – Summary, detailed, weekly, and shared reports can be generated in this tab. Various filters such as team, department, project, etc. can also be applied.

Integrating Clockify with Other Software

Note that to integrate Clockify with other software, the user should first have a Clockify account and should already be part of the team.

Jira

• Install Clockify for Jira
• Generate API Key to start timer – In order to start the timer on the task/issue, each user has to first generate their personal API key and paste it in the “Clockify API Key” field on Jira

• To Get API Key, navigate to your web app account, click Profile Settings. Click Generate, then copy API key to your Jira ticket. Note: You only need to do this once.

• Start the timer – The timer can be started on Jira or via Clockify apps on browser, mobile, or desktop. To start timer in Jira, click the Start/Stop Clockify field in the specific Jira ticket, click START TIMER then enter details such as Project, Tasks and Tag.

• Stop the timer – The timer can be stopped either on Jira or via the Clockify apps on browser, mobile, or desktop. If the timer was stopped on Jira, a time log will be created and added to the “Time Spent” field (if enabled).

• Add time manually – You may either log your time manually on Jira or open the Clockify web app to do so.

Google Calendar

• Connect Google Calendar – When you go to the Calendar tab on the Clockify web app, click on the connect button and connect to Google Calendar.

• Once connected, you should be able to see both events on your Google Calendar and tasks tracked on Clockify.

• Track Time for Google Calendar Events – You can start a timer by clicking on the event, or copy the whole event as a time entry. You can also click or drag&drop to directly create a time entry.

Notion

Note that the user should have the Clockify browser extension installed.

• Start the timer – Once you have opened your Notion task page on your browser, you should be able to see the Clockify timer button. Simply click on it to start the timer. Clockify will automatically log the task name as the one you have set on Notion.

• Stop the timer – The timer can be stopped either via the Clockify apps on browsers, mobile, or desktop.

Other tips for your team

For employees

• Make it a habit to check your Clockify at the end of the day to fill in missing gaps and/or fix your schedule throughout the day
• As with any new habit, it’s difficult to transform the Clockify tracker into a habit the first couple of days, but once you start to use it more, it should almost become like “second nature” to start/stop times.
• Clockify should only be used as a general estimate of what you do each day – hard to track if someone’s working on urgent or “pop-up” tasks throughout the day. A general rule of thumb, if it takes more than 15 minutes, it should deserve its own time entry.
• The best time to categorize time is when you record it. If you do it right then, you’ll save yourself from much of the hassle later of having to recall this.
• If you sometimes forget to start the timer while working, set up reminders, so the app can send you a notification if it notices the timer isn’t running during your work hours (https://clockify.me/help/time-tracking/idle-detection-reminders#reminders)
• The biggest nuisance with using a timer is starting and stopping it. When you go on a break or are away from the computer, you have to remember to stop the timer. If you constantly go away from a computer but forget to stop the timer, you can enable idle detection. (https://clockify.me/help/time-tracking/idle-detection-reminders#idle-detection)

For your HR team

• The HR team can have a regular audit time once a week to check if all time recorded by your employees is labeled and reported properly.
• The HR team should have admin access to create Projects, Tasks, and Departments for your employees to correctly select the appropriate tasks they’ve completed & record their time.
  • Use Projects to break up the task types that your employees will be working on, and also to assign Departments that will likely work on such Projects. For example:

• Assign Tasks to each Project.
• Set internal guidelines on what time to track, the minimum time to track and record per day, and how to select the projects & tasks. (e.g. Minimum 9 hours including the break, but making task items “breaks” and “trainings and certifications” projects not billable i.e. not counted as working hours)

Other Resources & Links

• Clockify’s helpdesk: https://clockify.me/help/
• Link to Clockify’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClKn0rMofAHHbswCgKhWHUA

• Clockify’s official tutorial video

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The post How to Use Clockify – Time Tracking Tool appeared first on Foundation for Shared Impact.

What is Slack?

Slack is a flexible and accessible communication tool for your groups and individuals in the groups. You can create multiple channels to communicate with different groups within your organisation or use direct messages to communicate with individuals. In a nutshell, it can replace email and instant messaging for your team, and keep all those communications together in one app.

• Slack can be an effective tool for day-to-day communications but may be less ideal for major decision-making discussions or large-scale projects. Learn more about Slack in this guide and consider its applicability to your team!

Main Features of Slack

Channels

You can create multiple channels for subgroups within your organisation! After the setup, you will see two channels already; #general and #random

(1) #General channel includes everyone who joined your slack team. This is suitable for making announcements and ensures that your messages reach out to everyone!

(2) #Random channel is for whatever you wish to do with everyone in your slack team. You can use it as Q&A board, for team jokes, etc.

Creating a New Channel

(1) Click on the + icon next to ‘Channels’ → Press ‘Create a channel’ → Set the new channel; you can choose between public and private channels.

• If a channel is public, anyone can search the channel’s name from their Slack dashboards to join the channel.
• If a channel is private, uninvited members won’t be able to see the messages in the channel.

(2) Add people to the channel → Completed!

Replying in a Thread

If a big team continues to communicate in one channel, the conversation is likely to be chaotic with multiple topics and members. You can keep the strings of communication organised by using the ‘Reply in thread’ feature!

Messages under threads are not displayed in the main chatroom unless you tick the option to “Also send in #[channel name]”.

Instead, you will see “ # replies’ under the first message, and threaded messages will pop up on the righthand side if you click on ‘# replies’.

Tagging

If you tag a person or a channel, they will receive push notifications for that message.

To tag:

• an individual member, use @username
• a channel, use #channelname

Direct Messaging

The one-on-one message feature is called ‘direct message’ on Slack. You can find it on the tab bar on the left-hand side, and send private direct messages to an individual.

Schedule Your Message

Slack allows you to save drafts of messages, and also to schedule your message to be sent later. Instead of pressing the “Send” button, click on the arrow on the right-hand side to access the option.

Sharing Files

File sharing is essential for effective communication within an organisation, and here’s how you share files on Slack.

(1) Click on + icon in the chatbox → click on ‘Upload from your computer’ → Choose the file you want to share and press ‘Open’ and send.

(2) Now, everyone in the channel can see and download the file you’ve shared. To download the file, just click on the download icon.

Pinning Messages

It may be tedious and time-consuming to scroll up to find certain information buried in hundreds of previous messages. In Slack, if you know that you or others will be coming back to a specific message or document, you can pin it to the channel which is separately stored and can easily be accessed!

(1) Click on the ‘more actions’ (the three dots) on the message you want to pin.

(2) Click on ‘Pin to channel’ → Done! Now, users can find the message on ‘pinned messages’ tab underneath the #chatroom name.

Saving Messages

Another way to remember important messages and information is to save a message.

(1) Hover over the message that you want to save, and this menu box will appear → select the bookmark tag.

(2) The bookmarked messages will be accessible in the “Saved items” section, accessible on your left-hand-side bar.

Advanced Search Functions

Slack’s search function is well-advanced and you can narrow your search with numerous built-in modifiers on Slack!

Settings (Customise your Slack!)

You can customise the interface however you want! You might wonder why that’s important, but you will understand once you realise how much time you spend looking on the page!

Simply, click on your company/project name in the sidebar → click on ‘Preferences’

Don’t be surprised by how many things you can change to make your life easier! You can change the theme, customise the sidebar and how it shows stuff, notifications, etc.

Apps for Slack

Compatibility with external services is what makes Slack a strong communication tool. There are many apps you can download from [Slack App Directory] and the apps will definitely contribute to more effective communication.

Installation process

In order to download & connect external apps on Slack, you need to access the Slack App directory.

(1) Click on + icon next to [Apps] tab

(2) Search for the tools/apps you want to download and click on ‘Add’

(3) You will be redirected to the Slack app directory on your browser. Click on ‘Add to Slack’

(4) Allow the app to access your Slack workspace

(5) Done! You will now see the app in your slack workspace and make use of it on Slack!

There are way too many apps that can be incredibly useful for your team to use, thus we can’t go through all of them with you. Instead, we will show you some examples of how they can help you!

Simple Poll

This is definitely an essential app for you to do simple polls and surveys on Slack!

You can create a poll or a survey within a minute, and it automatically sends them out to the channel you have chosen when creating the poll.

Once you send out a poll, you can click on ‘details’ in the message and set it as a recurring poll (in this case, the above poll would better be recurring if your weekly meeting day changes depending on availability)

Google Drive

File sharing is already available on Slack, but you will have to duplicate the same files to share files in Google Drive. Obviously, if your team uses Google Workspace or Drive to put the team’s work together and on track, you need a better connection between Google Drive and Slack.

(1) If you download the Google Drive app on Slack, you will see “Add from Google Drive” option in the chatbox → Click on it → Select file(s) from the connected Google Drive account → Send the Message

(2) The selected file(s) is now shared in the channel → If other users click on it, they will be directed to the editable Google Drive file in their internet browsers.

(3) You can also create a new Google Drive file on Slack

(4) Fill in the blanks (or not, it’s optional) then click ‘Create’!

Google Calendar

If you and the team members use Google Calendar to manage their schedules, adding the Google Calendar app on Slack would be helpful! Once added, you will be able to check/manage your schedules on Slack too.

Slack entails a great level of compatibility. There are thousands of apps you can connect with, and it highly depends on your team’s choice of external workspace, communication style, work environment, etc. Click Here to see the list of apps on Slack listed by popularity!

Free Plan vs Paid Plans

Free Plan

You can enjoy all the features above without paying, but there are several limitations:

• Only 10,000 messages can be displayed
• The number of third-party apps you can integrate with your Slack Workspace limited to 10
• 5GB of storage in Total
• One-on-one voice and video call
• Standard support

Slack Pro

This is where you start paying (US$6.67/person/month). From this tier, you can custom the retention policies for files and messages shared on Slack: it means that you can set the period after the files and messages will be permanently deleted or keep all shared files for the lifetime of your workspace.

• Unlimited message/file archive
• Unlimited third-party apps integrations
• 10GB of storage per member
• Voice or video calls up to 15 participants + Screensharing
• Slack Connect (ability to create and share a channel with members outside of your own organisation)
• Priority support
• Google Authentication

Additional Readings:

• Slack Pricing plan – https://slack.com/help/articles/115003205446-Slack-plans-and-features
• Slack Tutorials and Resources – https://slack.com/help/categories/360000049063

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