Entries by Nicole Hradek

Remote workers and companies are becoming more popular these days. In 2015, Gallup reported 37% of workers said they worked remotely, up from just 9% in 1995.

The first day of school is one of the most exciting and anxious days for teachers. You greet about 100 fresh young faces that are excited, and anxious, too, or they do not want to be there. Usually, at least as a high school math teacher, you spend the first day going over the syllabus, reviewing classroom rules, sharing minimal information about yourself, and doing an icebreaker with the kids. I was a tough teacher and jumped into the first lesson!

As back to school is in full swing most places, I thought this would be the perfect time to share three ways I would change my first day of school and how I would use Rhythm to do it. You may not be involved in a classroom but could use these ideas with your corporate training programs or even with your own children.

Most of you have probably wrapped up your Annual Planning sessions and feel prepared for 2017. You have the best 3-5 initiatives to move your business forward this year, you have your targets in place and set high, you have your theme or Main Thing that you and the executive team are so excited about - it’s really going to motivate all your employees! You have it all organized in Rhythm or a spreadsheet, and then what? How do you keep your team motivated all year and use your Main Thing to keep employees engaged and focused on your initiatives and targets? There are certainly many right answers to this, but I thought I would share what we did at Rhythm Systems since we do practice what we preach!

At Breakthrough Conference 2016, there was a breakout session called Rhythm Hacks, Tips, and Tricks presented by yours truly! It was a great workshop where I hope I was able to deliver little secrets that you may not have known about our software. But, since not everyone who reads our blogs uses Rhythm software, I thought I would share part of my session that can apply to all Rhythm fans!

From helping clients and seeing their dashboards, I’ve come up with a list of things that most teams could improve. Even if you don’t use the Rhythm software but implement Rhythm habits (i.e., Weekly Adjustment Meetings, Red-Yellow-Green), these may be some easy adjustments to make your and your team’s execution more robust.

Rhythm Systems is hosting the Breakthrough Conference 2016 in Charlotte, NC on October 18-19. Save the date for 1.75 days full of breakthrough team execution. Now is the best time to recruit your team, get your tickets, and book your rooms. Why register now? What’s the hurry if the conference isn’t until October? Well, I’m glad you asked! I have compiled a list of the best five reasons why you should not wait to buy your tickets.

It’s the end of February, so how are your New Year’s Resolutions going? Too soon to ask? This is the first year when I made a resolution and actually stuck with it, and using Rhythm software has helped! Can you guess what my resolution is? If you couldn't tell by the title, it's probably like most people's - to lose weight. Well, not only that, it’s to live healthier. My birthday is in December, and something about this year made me ask myself, “What are you doing to yourself?” I took the time between my birthday and the New Year to make a plan and began executing on January 1, 2016.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Time Warner Cable, Comcast - We can’t live without them, but they don’t make it easy for their customers to live with them.

Loving My New Car

Have you ever been so enraged about how a customer service representative was treating you? Did you think, “How on Earth are they still in business when they treat their customers this way? My employees would never treat our clients like this.” Or maybe you have experienced the complete opposite and had such a fantastic customer experience that you were left speechless. They had you thinking, “How could I implement what she did in my business? My employees have to start doing this.”

I really hate the f-word: Failure. But it happens, especially when it seems like you have a lot going on in one week. Your focus was elsewhere and you have to status Red on a KPI or Priority in your weekly meeting prep, but that’s OK. You’re an A-player and there’s always next week to get back in the race. It’s one thing to status Red; it’s another thing to understand why you’re Red and what you’re going to do to get yourself to Green.

Congratulations!  The search is over!  You went through the long process of TopGrading to hire the right person for the job, and you now have another A-Player to add to your A-team roster!  Finding that person took months.  Keeping that person is going to take years. 

It’s that time each week when you meet with yourself in Rhythm to prep for your weekly meeting, and you reach a priority that just slipped through your schedule this week.  Whatever the reason may be, prioritizing just wasn’t in the cards for this one and a Yellow or Green status isn’t being honest.

The fear begins to overcome you as you imagine how your weekly meeting could be an embarrassment.  How will your team judge you for having a RED status?  What does RED say about your ability to do your job?  So you decide to just ignore it. Yes, that is better than marking it red.  Red is bad.  Blank is… not good, but not as bad.