You have a great idea, now what?

by Guest | Feb 17, 2020 | sponsor

John Zechlin, Principal Software Engineer, PHX Devs

So, you have a great idea but you’re not sure where to start. Maybe your great idea is for a business, an app, or anything else. John Zechlin, Principal Software Engineer at PHX Devs shared 6 ways to get started on that great ideas.

1. Attend PHX Startup Week! John shared a story with our team about a speaker he listened to in Gilbert at PHX Startup Week last year that actually was part of the motivation for him to gather a team and launch PHX Devs. PHX Startup Week is an opportunity to put yourself in front of resources, new ideas, new connections and so much more.
2. Listen to ‘How I Built This’. In case you’re not familiar, ‘How I Built This’ is a podcast from NPR hosted by Guy Raz. In each episode, Guy Raz speaker with innovators and entrepreneurs to learn the stories behind the businesses they’ve created. These podcast episodes are inspiring and insightful and John shared that he’s collected many golden nuggets from this show.
3. Ask yourself what is stopping you. You have a great idea, but you haven’t taken the leap yet. Why? What’s stopping you? This personal evaluation might be challenging but it’s essential in moving forward. Are you scared of failure? Do you not have enough time?
4. Mitigate what’s stopping you. This next step makes sense. Once you discover what is holding you back, it allows you to start making progress in mitigating that roadblock. This might be a bit of a process but create a plan to move the roadblock and allow yourself to move forward.
5. Decide what the minimum required to take your idea to the next step. Say that you have a great idea for an app, but the full version you’d love to bring to the market would involve a significant investment of time and money. Is there a smaller or different version of the app that you could bring to market first that would require less investment but would keep your idea moving forward?
6. Define what early success will look like. Success is personally defined by every person. Define with yourself or your team what early success would look like.
7. Pick something, take steps, and move the needle. There’s the age-old saying, that when you have a pile of bricks to move, all you have to do it just move one brick a day. Just do something every day to move yourself and your idea forward. Set aside a chunk of time and work on connecting with others, writing a business plan, publishing content, etc.

If you’re interested in continuing the conversation, or if you have a development need, be sure to stop by and visit PHX Devs at PHX Startup Week 2020!

John Zechlin, Co-Founder, Principal Software Engineer, PHX Devs

Remote Work: Six Guiding Principles

by Guest | Feb 17, 2020 | sponsor

What does it take to make remote working work?

By: Eric Hammons, Principal, Pointb Phoenix

Today’s Environment

Remote work is not only growing; it’s also changing. What began as an alternative for the few has become a way of life for millions. In study after study and across Point B’s diverse client base, the trend is clear: more people are working remotely at more companies for a growing part of their workweek – with more full-time remote workers every year.

As technology makes remote work possible across more types of work and industries, companies have good reasons to embrace it. A remote workforce can help stem the high costs of office space, parking and other on-site infrastructure challenges. Forward-thinking companies can plan ahead to grow their workforces and venture into new markets without the time and expense of expanding their physical footprints. Remote work is a compelling way to recruit and retain great employees. Talented self-starters are drawn to companies that offer flexible working arrangements. Employees may work harder to keep the trust they’ve been given to work off-site. Research shows that people who want to work remotely report feeling happier and more productive when they do.

Of course, it’s not all blue sky. Employees may be surprised to find that working remotely doesn’t offer as much flexibility as they expected. Sometimes remote workers can’t stay in sync with the daily pulse of on-site work. Remote workers might miss the social benefits of a team. Managers may not know how to manage remote workers. Communications can suffer. On the bottom line, organizations typically don’t realize near-term cost savings from remote work. But these challenges can be overcome with the right upfront investment in tools and resources.

Point B’s Perspective

Point B has helped many organizations and their employees make winning transitions to remote working. In fact, we believe remote working is so important that we’ve made it a core focus of our Future of Work practice.

Does your company know what it takes to make remote working work? What follows are six guiding principles we use to help ensure that a remote workplace transformation will succeed. All of them are interdependent, which means that none can be ignored.

1. Reliable tools

There’s a preconception that solo work, such as programming, does well remotely but that team-based work, such as creative collaboration, does not. The fact is that many types of work can now be done remotely if people have the right tools. Design your systems for efficient searching and indexing, and invest time teaching teams to optimize virtual collaboration tools.  Unencumbering system security and mobile access are table stakes.

2. Equitable policies

Remote working may bring up issues of fairness, especially if it is viewed as a perk. Policies perceived as unfair or inconsistent quickly affect morale and camaraderie.

We find that most organizations don’t have remote working policies. Clearly define participation rules and guidelines for remote workers, including expectations and etiquette around remote meetings. Make remote workers feel part of the team. Invite them to social events and support their travel costs as appropriate. Give them digital access to publications and business information that others have or may share onsite. Keeping remote workers in the loop builds team camaraderie.

3. Responsive support

You wouldn’t let your onsite employees’ computers stay down for a day. Likewise, a remote workforce needs the same degree of attention to IT performance, security and support. Create a support infrastructure that prioritizes remote worker requests, and maintain the tools to handle issues remotely. Your company should also be prepared to make “house calls” and deliver on fast shipping support if remote hardware issues arise.

4. Investment

Remote work can drive efficiencies that reduce costs in the long run. However, as mentioned earlier, it takes an upfront investment to see savings later on. Put the right tools and resources in the hands of remote workers. A transformation to remote working is not the time to cut corners on support. Be flexible and generous, and see the results.

5. Change management

Remote work is an organizational change that affects everyone – those working both on-site and off. Unplanned, unstructured transitions can lead to massive workflow disruptions, stalled projects, dissatisfaction, and lack of trust. Manage the change that comes with remote working by simply thinking and planning ahead. Define user-profiles and align change activities to each user’s needs. Develop training and communicate with leaders and colleagues to help them adjust to the new work environment. Show trust in remote workers. Keep listening and communicating. Never underestimate the emotional aspects of this change; ignoring them results in real productivity dips.

6. Intentional culture

A lack of well-defined purpose can erode the value of remote work and make it tough to measure success. What is the intent of remote work for your company? How can you share this intent in ways that gain understanding and support? Consider offering social programs and cultural events specific to remote workers. Encourage co-located small group connections and cover expenses for outings that bring virtual teams together. And put the spotlight on remote workers in internal news. If you’ve paid attention to these six guiding principles for success, you’ll have plenty of good news to share.

The Bottom Line

Great organizations are becoming less about where employees work and more about the talent, energy and commitment they bring to their work – wherever they do it. A healthy remote workforce can attract and keep high-caliber people. Improve productivity. Lower costs. Boost morale. And make it more cost-effective and flexible for your organization to grow. Not only will you reap all these benefits now; you’ll also be positioned to attract the digital natives who make up an increasing portion of the workforce – employees for whom the ability to work anytime, anywhere seems only natural.

Eric Hammons, Principal, PointB uses his two decades of project management and business transformation experience to focus on organization and team performance. He’s passionate about volunteering in the community and works with non-profits to help them develop strategic communication and change management plans.

Prioritizing Mental Health in the Entrepreneurial World

by Guest | Feb 17, 2020 | sponsor

An Interview With Johnny Hanna, CEO of Homie

Johnny Hanna is CEO of Homie, a tech-enabled real estate brokerage headquartered just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Since the company’s launch in 2015, Homie has become the number one listing broker in UT, raised millions of dollars in funding, launched in Phoenix, AZ (and soon to come, Las Vegas, NV), and employed over 200 agents and other tech-savvy professionals.

That’s the typical introduction that startup entrepreneurs and executives have come accustomed to. While that bio shines with accolades and success, it’s missing the most important thing about Johnny Hanna.  

He is a human. 

Johnny Hanna is a father, a husband, and a leader. His passion for helping others prompted him to start Homie, a tech-enabled real estate brokerage, headquartered in Utah, that saves buyers and sellers thousands of dollars in commissions. In his spare time, Johnny enjoys spending time with his wife and seven children. Johnny feels strongly about promoting mental health, work/life balance, and self-care in the workplace.

In an interview with Johnny, we explored the stigma that the startup world creates around crushing it, all the time. 

Question: Can you share with us a personal story about mental health?

Answer: “I recently posted some thoughts on LinkedIn. I explained that I’ve been trying to not label myself as CEO of Homie. What you do isn’t who you are. I talked about how, if I am just the CEO of Homie, my value is attached to the company. If the company isn’t doing something newsworthy, I am a failure; if the company is doing well, I am arrogant. I shared that we are currently going through training at Homie on self-care and mental health.

With that post, I learned that everyone bottles things. Five minutes after I hit that Post button, I got a private message. It was from another CEO who told me he was struggling. He asked for info on the training. Instead of just giving him info, I called him directly. He was just really upset. He needed someone to talk to.

Until you open up, no one knows what you’re going through.

I’ve had tons of messages from people stemming from a similar post in the past. The number goes up to around 70 people, people who need support.”

Question: Can you share the process of protecting work/life balance for Homie employees?

Answer: “We have mental health training going on right now. We talked about understanding self-care and what it is. Our executive team went through it, and our mid-level managers are doing it now. Soon, we’ll roll it out to the entire company. 

Some things I focus on from the training include drawing boundaries, taking time to think and meditate, and prioritizing my life. Now, I can’t control what people choose to do. I can give them tools to help them balance their lives. 

Another key point in our training regards vernacular. One of our company values is balance. We can more easily hold each other to that value if we all speak the same language. We can promote balance by using the same words and having a common understanding of what self-care is.”

Question: How do you practice what you’ve learned in the training?

Answer: “Being present. I am married, and I am a dad. When I go home, I recognize that I just left a full-time job, and I am starting another full-time job. If I check out of my job at home, then I am just avoiding my responsibility as a husband and as a father to be present. It’s constantly a challenge. You have to build the habit of being present. You’ll have slip-ups, but it’s working toward the end goal that’s important. If you’re not working on self-care, you’re not healthy and you’re not balanced.”

Question: What tips would you give a new business owner, an entrepreneur, or a leader in an established company about mental health?

Answer: “Recognize your feelings. Share your feelings. Be vulnerable. Everybody struggles. Everybody bottles it up. No one [in the workplace] is really open with their feelings. We’ve been taught NOT to be. Sharing what you feel is not a weakness, it is a strength. Tucking everything away is hard. It’s numbing. That is a weakness, and people don’t realize that. When we have these pains, we go home and try to ignore it; we binge watch TV and try to shut down our brains because we had a painful day. Instead, acknowledge those feelings and work through them. If you treat them like water under the bridge, they’ll come flowing back later on.”

Question: What do you want people to take away from this interview the most?

Answer: “If your entire worth is tied to whatever label or job you have, you’ll end up in a dark place. Your worth as a human being never changes. You are loved. You have a support system out there that you might not know about right now. Find it. I know it’s easy to act like you’re crushing it all the time because you compare yourself to other people in your position. What you need to remember is that comparison is the thief of joy. 

Don’t let your worth be tied to things that are out of your control. Being overwhelmed and stressed is a choice you make. Don’t take things on because you think other people are out there doing it. You’ll have a distorted view of what self-worth is.”

We want to thank Johnny for opening up for this interview and for his time. Homie is currently using ConneXions for employee mental health curriculum.

Johnny Hanna is CEO of Homie, a tech-enabled real estate brokerage headquartered just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Since the company’s launch, Homie has become the number one listing broker in UT, raised millions of dollars in funding, launched in Phoenix, AZ (and soon to come, Las Vegas, NV), and employed over 200 agents and other tech-savvy professionals.