BusinessDay 21 Aug 2018

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18 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556 Tuesday 21 August 2018 Harvard Business Review Tips & Talking Points TALKING POINTS Shopping Spree $20 billion: In the past year, China’s retail giant Alibaba and internet giant Tencent have invested more than a combined $20 billion to change the country’s consumer shopping habits. + A Digital Transformation Two-thirds: Nearly a decade ago, Xerox had begun heavily investing in new products and services for the digital age. By the end of 2011, two-thirds of the company’s revenues came from recent innovations. + Personal Development $11 billion: The thriving U.S. self-help industry is valued at an estimated $11 billion. + Women’s Worth $1.6 trillion: A study conducted by S&P Global reported that the American economy would be $1.6 trillion larger than it is today if female participation in the workforce had grown at the same pace as other advanced countries like Norway. + Looking Inward 10%: Although 95% of people consider themselves self-aware, only 10% to 15% actually are, according to research from author Tasha Eurich. Does your team’s work style inconvenience remote employees? Life on a global team isn’t necessarily equitable. Employees far from headquarters often have less access to the team leader, and have to deal with regular inconveniences such as late night calls because they’re in a different time zone. As a manager, it’s your job to ensure that remote employees aren’t carrying an extra burden. Consider rotating the time of weekly team calls so that everyone takes a turn at having the meeting during regular business hours (or at the very least, find the least inconvenient time for your remote employees to participate.) Even small courtesies can help distant team members feel noticed, such as translating meeting times into all the time zones that your people work in. And schedule periodic off-sites for the whole team to get together and connect. If your budget allows, you can even hold these meetings in different locations around the globe. (Adapted from “How to Keep a Global Team Engaged,” by Andy Molinksy.) Solve Complex Problems by Expanding Your Thinking Too many leaders approach complex problems with eitheror thinking: The answer is right or wrong, good or bad, win or lose. To cultivate a nuanced perspective, challenge your understanding of the problem. Ask yourself, “What am I not seeing here?” and “What else might be true?” Don’t seek out answers that just confirm what you already know. It’s also helpful to tackle this kind of challenge first thing in the morning, when your mind is fresh. Spend at least an hour on it without interruption. The dedicated time ensures that you give a complex issue the attention it needs — attention that might otherwise be consumed by less intellectually demanding tasks. And as you work, pay attention to how you’re feeling. Embracing complexity is an emotional challenge in addition to a cognitive one. You’ll need to manage tough emotions like fear and anger and get yourself out of flight-or-fight mode so that you can think more expansively. (Adapted from “What It Takes to Think Deeply About Complex Problems,” by Tony Schwartz.) Set boundaries when collaborating with a perfectionist Read the room before your next meeting Instead of complaining about a colleague, talk to them It can be exhausting to work with perfectionists. Their unrelenting standards can lead to unnecessary stress, conflict and missed deadlines. So how do you collaborate productively with them? To start, don’t internalize their expectations. Perfectionists tend to equate time with quality, so when you think a project is good enough to be considered done, you’ll need to be thoughtful and diplomatic in explaining why. Talk about the benefits of spending time on other tasks instead of getting every detail right on this one. You should also set boundaries so that your colleague’s nitpicking doesn’t interfere with your progress. For example, if the person sends you a lot of emails, each with a different question or suggestion, you might decide to respond once per day, but that’s it. And finally, focus on building your working relationship. Having a strong relationship will assuage your colleague’s anxiety, which is often the root cause of perfectionism. (Adapted from “How to Collaborate With a Perfectionist,” by Alice Boyes.) c In every conversation at work, there’s the explicit discussion (the words being spoken out loud) and the tacit one — the things being communicated subtly. It’s important to know how to read a room so that you can understand what’s not being said. The best way to do this is to pay attention to the people in it. Note who’s next to whom, who’s relaxed, who’s not, who’s standing and who’s sitting. Look at their facial expressions, posture and body language. Does the mood in the room feel tense or relaxed? Then think about possible reasons for your colleagues’ emotional states. What’s happening in their lives and jobs? This can be tricky if you don’t know the people in the room, but you can still come up with hypotheses. Then check those hypotheses by talking to colleagues in private. You might say something like, “In the meeting I saw you furrow your brow when discussion turned to the big project. How do you feel about it?” (Adapted from “Tips for Reading the Room Before a Meeting or Presentation,” by Rebecca Knight.) Let’s be honest: Sometimes complaining about a co-worker feels good. But although it helps you release pent-up emotions, venting is a sideways move. In other words, we usually complain to a friend or colleague — and we rarely confront the person we’re complaining about. So the next time you want to complain, try taking it to the source of the problem. For example, let’s say a co-worker yells in a meeting. Your first instinct might be to complain to another colleague about their brash behavior. Instead, take some time to calm down. Think about exactly what bothered you and what you want to complain about (it’s not OK to yell and disrespect others in 2017 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate a meeting). Decide what you can do to shift the person’s behavior or improve the situation (perhaps saying, “Please don’t shout in meetings — let’s respect each other in our conversations”). And then follow through by speaking to the person directly. (Adapted from “The Next Time You Want to Complain at Work, Do This Instead,” by Peter Bregman.) Are you travelling abroad for vacation or studying abroad? We have you covered through CBN’s special intervention for specified retail invisible transactions. Visit any of our designated branches nationwide for your following invisible trade transactions: School Fees Pilgrimage & Other Travel Allowances (PTA and BTA) Medical Allowances We are here to serve you. *Terms and conditions apply www.firstbanknigeria.com FirstBankofNigeria @FirstBankngr Firstbankngr FirstBankofNigeriaLtd @firstbanknigeria +FirstBankNigeria
Tuesday 21 August 2018 BUSINESS DAY 19 BD TECH In association with IBM introduces AI-powered solution in Nigeria ...Descassio deploys for employee productivity Stories by JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON IBM, one of the world’s leading technology companies, has made available its Watson Workspace, artificial intelligence (AI) powered solution that helps improve work productivity in Nigeria. The messaging application which is newly introduced in the country is said to substantially improve workplace efficiency through its integrated employee collaboration capabilities, such as enabling users to hold group conversations and share data files, can now be used by companies in Nigeria. Through its built-in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, the solution enables sales and technical teams to create workspaces where they can collaborate on all sales activities. Watson Workspace also enables companies to significantly reduce the time group members spend reading through conversations to obtain information relevant to them. Descasio, a leading cloud services provider in West Africa, has adopted IBM Watson Workspace to enhance its existing email services and provide a smart employee collaborating tool on desktop and mobile devices. The company was looking for an application that could enable smarter and seamless communication, helping their teams to focus on the strategic aspects of their business. ”One of the things that really excites us about this platform is the ease with which we can build new solutions using APIs. We are now thinking about ways we can use IBM Watson APIs to create value-added solutions such as virtual assistants, which could help to automate repetitive tasks,” says Dele Nedd, Co-Founder and CEO, Descasio. “As a new reseller of the IBM’s Watson Workspace Essentials in West Africa, Descasio plans to sign on clients for this solution. To achieve this, the company is working with a team from IBM to integrate IBM Watson Workspace Microsoft launches app for secure group communication, staff management in Nigeria Microsoft has made available in Nigeria, a mobile application designed for large group communication, workflow management, reporting and analytics, integrated with Office 365, called ‘Kaizala Pro’. The app aims to improve the way businesses communicate and collaborate, as workers can interact whilst on the field, by sending messages, photos, video files, audio files, documents, polls, surveys, and other data which is protected by encryption in-transit through the mobile app. Akin Banuso, country general manager, Microsoft Nigeria, says the app addresses several challenges faced by many businesses across the country who manage field staff remotely. “Mobile technology is enabling businesses to embrace the fourth industrial revolution and digitally transform their operations. Microsoft Kaizala is ideal for organisations that need to communicate with large numbers of task workers to enhance business agility, collaboration, and organisational productivity,” Banuso says. Unlike other chat-based apps in the market, Kaizala extends beyond a mere communication function. Because many workers in the region often don’t have an email address, Kaizala only requires a mobile number to sign a user up. The appis also optimised to work on any network – including slow 2G networks. Kaizala provides actionable information through analytics and reports, while complying with industry security best practices. Managers can decide who has access to company data. All Kaizala data is stored in Microsoft Azure data centres,which adhere to industry standard security and compliance certifications. “This means only you and the people with whom you are communicating can see what you have sent them,” says Akin. “Microsoft Kaizala is currently Tier-A compliant and our engineers do not have access to any customer data.” “As we roll out Microsoft Kaizala in Nigeria, we hope to connect the complete value chain, including the unconnected parts of organisations. Microsoft’s vision for Kaizala is to empower every organisation and community to achieve more through purposeful chat,” Banuso adds. Some of Kaizala’s other unique features include the ability to communicate with and manage an unlimited number of users. This includes employees, front-line workers, customers, suppliers and citizens. Organisations can create flat,hierarchical or discoverable public groups in minutes from contact lists, directories or ad hoc sharing. For users in remote areas, the app is optimised to work on slow into its cloud services portfolio— enabling it to deliver the solution as a service to clients across the region” he adds Watson Workspace helps companies turn conversations into actionable insights, summarised information, prioritise next best actions and make recommendations enabling its employees to connect and collaborate with their teams and other work groups on any device. For example, the solution has enabled teams save up to 30 minutes per team member on responding to issues relevant to their role. It also provides a full, searchable history of all conversations and one central place for all shared images and resources. “Organisations have seen a proliferation of tools and applications that employees use to get their jobs done at the workplace which has often caused information overload, interruptions and difficulty getting back into the flow of productivity. What IBM Watson Workspace does, is take away these pressures, allowing employees to focus on the activities that really matter,” says Dipo Faulkner, the Country General Manager of IBM Nigeria. 2G networks and users don’t need an email address to sign up, only a mobile number. The app is also able to broadcast and collect information in a structured way through action cards. This includes sharing announcements - photos, videos or documents; hosting polls or surveys; assigning tasks; providing training content; marking attendance; and tracking workforces using location tracking. In addition, organisations are able to gather rich insights from data with built-in analytics. Organisations can view results in realtime, organise large amounts of information with an aggregated view of user responses and get reports at each level of the organisation.
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