Fehzan Ali

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Setting targets can help set your team up for long-term success. In the business world, it's important to set and achieve quarterly goals if you want your company to experience success with its clients, in the marketplace, and remain in business. It's also necessary for leaders to make those milestones realistic enough for the team to attain them and avoid burnout or attrition from the heavy workload. Below, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members share their advice on how to tackle quarterly goals in 2022 without feeling overwhelmed, under pressure, and fatigued.

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To truly innovate and tap into your company's full creative potential, you need a diverse workforce with equal access to opportunities. Innovation in business is powered by unique perspectives and new ideas. At the forefront of innovation is diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Having diverse perspectives from teammates who come from different backgrounds ensures that your team approaches a problem from multiple angles and this can lead to faster resolutions. Diverse teams also adapt to changes more easily, reach more potential customers and offer the opportunity for ground-breaking change. As leaders in their industries, the members of Fast Company Executive Board understand the importance of innovating and the role diversity, equity and inclusion play in achieving it. Below, 15 of them shared the most impactful ways that DEI fuels innovation. 

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If you want to keep morale high and avoid a slump after the holidays, here's how to encourage positivity and cheer among your team. During the holiday season, employees are often excited about seeing their families, taking time off and relaxing before the start of a new year. It's difficult, however, to carry this spirit into the new year when employees have to go back to a normal work schedule in January. Leaders can take the initiative to change this mindset by doing small things to support employees, such as supporting their personal goals through company-sponsored gym memberships or having more frequent happy hours. To help, Fast Company Executive Board members shared some effective ideas for encouraging cheer and positivity post-holidays and into the new year.

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While most business owners turn to areas like marketing and IT to cut their budget, there are plenty of other places to find and eliminate "wasteful" spending. A lean thinking framework can help leaders trim excess costs in their business or organization. But to maximize the impact of your efforts, it's important to look everywhere for signs of wasteful spending.  The members of Fast Company Executive Board know how easy it is for leaders to overlook key business areas and functions when applying lean thinking. Below, 15 of them share the most common places business owners forget to look when reducing costs, and how exploring those areas can help your company cut expenses and streamline the budget.

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Making simple but effective changes to your customer experience can make a huge difference in how your brand is perceived. When it comes to customer service, it's often the little things that make the most difference. Simple actions like using the customer's first name more often or delivering a personalized order confirmation are easy enough to automate and execute, but they can have a big and lasting impact on how a customer feels about your brand. There are plenty of opportunities to pick the "low-hanging fruit" and start improving your customer experience right away, without breaking the bank or expending tons of resources. To help you do this, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board shared some easy ways they’ve boosted their customer experience and why it was so effective.

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Here are 16 tips to consider before your staff members dive into training for the latest software tools. Technology exists to make our professional lives a little easier. However, when department managers and their teams get too comfortable with the old way of doing business in a familiar pattern or process, it’s never easy to convince them to adapt to the latest infrastructure all at once. If your company is currently pursuing a new digital platform or service, an expert panel of Fast Company Executive Board members share 16 ideas to support each employee’s tech level and learning style.

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If you’re seeing high rates of resignation, these strategies can help you identify the reasons why. When a company is experiencing high attrition rates, it isn’t always easy to pinpoint the reason (or reasons) employees are leaving. Countless factors can influence someone’s decision to stay at or leave their place of employment; some are within the organization’s control, and some are not. However, when a company is seeing steady turnover, there are likely one or more underlying problems that are happening on the inside. It’s critical for leadership to identify those issues to prevent even more employees from leaving—especially in today’s tight workers’ market. If your company is struggling with steady or growing employee turnover rates, try these 15 strategies from the members of Fast Company Executive Board to get to the root of the problem. The sooner you discover the cause(s), the sooner you can implement real solutions.

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The leaders of even the leanest startup teams can usually find ways to cut down their work hours and find a better balance for long-term success. Entrepreneurs and their small crews understand and accept the hard work that comes with their decision to start or join a new business. Yet, a constant, long-hours hustle may not be sustainable over time. If a startup's team members regularly burn the candle at both ends, they're likely to burn out—and that spells bad news for the future of the business. While it may be a cliché, "Work smarter, not harder" may well apply here. If an entrepreneur can find ways to use time more productively, they can shorten the number of hours both they and their team members are devoting to work—which helps everyone involved sustain both their health and the health of the business for the long term. To help, the members of Fast Company Executive Board shared 16 steps entrepreneurs and their teams can take to reduce their 60-plus-hour workweeks down to 40 or less.

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Knowing what others who have been in your shoes wish they’d done can save you time, money, and effort. As an entrepreneur first starting out, you may find yourself seeking out business podcasts, books, articles, and more in an effort to feel prepared. While there are plenty of great resources out there, experience is what’s likely to teach you the most. Still, you’re not the first person to walk this path, and knowing what your predecessors would change if they had it all to do again can be invaluable. Your entrepreneurial journey is unique, and ultimately, you’ll write the story of your business’s birth and growth. But there can be a big benefit to weaving in the wisdom of others. Below, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members look back and reflect on what they wish they had done when they first began their entrepreneurial journeys.

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When it comes to getting the word out about your business, your own online reputation can be a boon—if you manage it carefully. With more communication channels than ever available for free, right at our fingertips, there are plenty of options for a CEO to broadcast their business. However, as quick and simple as it can be to talk up your business online through your business and personal social media accounts, it's just as easy to make the wrong move—one that can hurt your company's reputation. Indeed, a CEO's reputation can affect how people view their business. In today's marketplace, consumers tend to make personal connections with the businesses they patronize, and they may well choose to buy from (or pass by) a company depending on what they think of its CEO. Company leaders need to devote time and resources to building up a positive public image online. To help, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board have shared their top personal branding tips for CEOs. Follow their advice to cultivate an online reputation that's a positive for both you and your business.

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No entrepreneur starts their business journey knowing everything, so it helps to have some hints from those who have walked the path before them. Every entrepreneurial journey comes with a learning curve—one that is likely to include both missteps and victories. Experience may be the best teacher, but it doesn't necessarily have to be one's own personal experience. By getting advice from others who have taken the journey before them, entrepreneurs can gain insights that smooth some of the bumps in the road ahead.  Following the right advice can save you from making some of the big mistakes that have cost other entrepreneurs wasted money, time, and energy—and help you make smarter decisions that will shorten your path to success. Below, 16 members of Fast Company Executive Board share the financial advice they wish they’d received prior to starting their businesses.

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Even if you're self-funded, you can still find meaningful and cost-effective ways to recognize and reward your team's hard work. Every leader wants to recognize their team members for their excellent work. But for a startup—especially one that’s bootstrapped—financial rewards may not be possible (for now). Still, when your startup team is putting in long hours and hard work to help you get your dream off the ground, you want to ensure they know that you see their efforts and just how much you appreciate them. Fortunately, showing your team your thanks doesn’t have to be expensive—you just have to be creative and thoughtful. Below, 16 Fast Company Executive Board members offer their advice for entrepreneurs who want to recognize outstanding work from their team even when the budget’s tight.

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If you want to ensure you and your team have a healthy work-life balance, try these strategies for shortening the amount of time you’re devoting to your desk. While work-life balance has always been important, it hasn’t always gotten much serious attention; but since the COVID-19 pandemic, the human need to step away and recharge has increasingly become a topic of discussion. Many professionals at all levels have reported working even longer hours since moving to remote work arrangements—when the office and home become a single location, stepping away can become even harder.  Whether you and your team are working exclusively from home or showing up to an office building one or more days a week, developing a healthy work-life balance is essential for everyone’s mental and physical health. To help all professionals add a bit more personal time back into their week, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board have shared ways to structure and make the most of your “work” hours so you can have more time for your personal life.

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Leading a remote team can be challenging, but with the right strategies, you can keep your team aligned and productive no matter where they’re located. Throughout the pandemic, many companies were forced to make an abrupt shift to a fully remote work environment. This, combined with the growth of the gig economy, means that today, many managers rarely if ever meet with their team members in person. The transition was a difficult one for some businesses, and it’s normal for leaders to feel like they’re still learning about and adapting to managing remote team members. The last several months have proven to many businesses that it’s possible to maintain or even improve productivity levels even when some or all team members are working from home—if managers adopt the right leadership strategies. If you’re still learning the ropes when it comes to managing remote and contract workers, check out the following recommendations shared by members of Fast Company Executive Board.

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To accomplish a challenging goal, you've got to have the right game plan for your team. It's one thing to have an ambitious goal; it's another to have an effective game plan to ensure that goal is reached. Big goals are achieved through smart—sometimes small—habits. If a leader is to guide their team to the top of the mountain, they have to blaze a clear trail and give their people the tools they need to climb. It doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all solution; leaders can leverage the right combination of strategies to fit their organization's unique purpose, procedures, and people. To get your ideas flowing, a panel of Fast Company Executive Board members has shared their best strategies for turning lofty goals into realities. Follow their advice to build efficient workflows that foster repeatable, scalable success.

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Don't let multiple projects or big goals overwhelm you; instead, learn to prioritize and keep moving forward. When you’re growing your business, you likely have a lot of goals you want to achieve and projects on your plate. A significant challenge for any leader is prioritizing the work in process to ensure their team (and they themselves) aren’t overwhelmed. Further, if an individual or a single team is pulling in too many directions at once, they’re likely to go nowhere fast. You don’t have to give up on the goals you’ve set out to achieve—you just have to set up orderly methods and, usually, a way to “divide and conquer.” With the right strategies, you can identify and take the fastest, most promising path to success. To help 11 members of Fast Company Executive Board shared their own prioritization methods and how each lends itself to steady, consistent progress.

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Building a successful brand is all about creating and engaging a community around your business. Loyal customers benefit a business’s bottom line, but avid fans can actively increase it. Not only are they loyal customers, but they will often share their passion with others and attract new customers to your business. The secret to creating genuine fans is not just providing an outstanding product or service (although that’s an essential first step). It’s building a community that draws them together based on the interests, values and vision they share with both you and each other. Fortunately, now that the public can easily learn more about you and your company online, building a community of fans is easier than ever before—if you take the right steps. Below, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board share their best tips for building an engaging community for your customers.

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You can't improve what you don't measure, so make sure you're keeping an eye on your customer experience metrics. A business can't survive without happy, paying customers. That's why measuring customer experience is vitally important for any business that wants to grow—and it doesn't have to be a difficult metric to pin down. There are proven methods for determining how your customers feel about your service, and leveraging one or a combination of them can help you pinpoint both what you're doing right and areas that need improvement. Below, eight members of Fast Company Executive Board share some specific ways businesses can measure their customer experience. Follow their advice to gauge how satisfied your customers are with your product or service, and then use those insights to improve.

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Even in the growing gig economy, your business can still find ways to attract and retain top talent. Flexibility, independence, and work-life balance have become top priorities for many professionals in recent years. That's why, as the gig economy grows, many are turning to freelancing or short-term work rather than pursuing a role with one company.  The trend toward "gig work" can be challenging for businesses that need full-time help and want to build a dedicated team of talented professionals. However, you can still attract top candidates to your company—you just need to embrace flexibility on your side. Below, seven members of Fast Company Executive Board shared their top-recommended ways to find and hire new team members in the gig economy.

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Stress is a natural part of life, but it doesn't have to derail your focus and productivity. Leaders generally deal with some level of stress on a daily basis—but they can't let it sidetrack them or shut them down. With multiple responsibilities on their plate, leaders need to have go-to strategies and coping mechanisms to ease both everyday and situational stress and get back to the work at hand.  With plenty of experience coping with the myriad responsibilities of leadership, the members of Fast Company Executive Board have their own methods for handling high-pressure moments, big responsibilities, and heavy workloads. Below, 15 of them share their favorite ways to find calm and move forward. Follow their recommendations the next time you find yourself carrying the burden of stress.

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Writing informative content can set you and your organization up as experts in your industry—but only if it provides real value to your audience. Gone are the days when producing business content simply meant writing copy for ads. With today’s broad variety of 24/7 media outlets, organizations have the opportunity to create messaging that will not only give them top-of-mind awareness but also showcase their expertise, boost their brands, and help them build real, meaningful relationships with their target audiences. By producing content that shares their knowledge with the public, a leader and the organization they represent can show that they’re genuinely interested in serving the public’s needs, not just in making a sale.  It can seem like an intimidating task to develop smart, meaningful content, but it doesn’t have to be. You and your team have plenty of valuable information to share; you just have to learn the best ways to uncover it and get it out there. To help, the members of Fast Company Executive Board have shared ways leaders and their teams can brainstorm and create content that not only demonstrates their expertise but also provides real value for their audiences.

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You’ve caught the attention of a new prospect—now you need to convince them you can really deliver what you’re promising. Across industries, marketing teams of both B2B and B2C companies employ a variety of strategies to catch the attention of new prospects. It can be a difficult hill to climb—particularly in today’s global, digital marketplace—but even when you succeed, your work may be only half done. The new prospect knows what you claim to offer, but they may not be sure—yet—that you can back it up. To complete the sale, companies need to close the “credibility gap” that may be keeping prospects from making a final decision in their favor. To help, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board have shared ways companies can convince potential clients and customers that they are capable of and committed to following through on their marketing promises. Follow their advice to establish your expertise and land the deal.

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Feeling like you don’t belong in the position you’ve achieved in your professional life can have a negative impact on your mental and emotional well-being, but there are ways to boost your confidence in your intrinsic abilities and qualifications. In recent years, the term “impostor syndrome” has become an increasingly common topic of discussion. People with impostor syndrome may believe that they are not truly qualified for the role they hold or may attribute the success they’ve achieved to mere luck. This can lead to unfounded feelings of being “unworthy” or fears of being “found out.” And no one is immune; imposter syndrome is an issue that affects everyone from entrepreneurs and CEOs to entry-level professionals. Left unchecked, this all-too-common phenomenon can be detrimental to both work performance and mental health. Fortunately, it’s possible to combat these negative perceptions and feel more confident in your achievements, worth, and potential. Below, 16 members of Fast Company Executive Board share their best advice to help those struggling with impostor syndrome.

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Today’s consumers want to engage with the human beings behind a brand, not faceless corporations. “People buy from people.” It’s an adage that has never been more true than it is in today’s digital age. The online economy places near unlimited options at consumers’ fingertips. Even so, people crave real connections and a personal touch in their customer experience. Businesses must develop ways to reach people on a human level to convert online connections into sales. Both B2C and B2B companies will see better results if they’re able to show the human beings who drive their brands. Below, 16 members of Fast Company Executive Board discuss ways business leaders can humanize their brands, no matter what product or service they sell.