Connection

Life is always telling us what we need to START doing. But it does not concentrate as much on the things we need to STOP doing.

We use all kinds of strategies to stop our life, love, and leadership and we have all kinds of mechanisms that we have cultivated in order to stop moving forward.

There are people who will laugh just so they can stop their tears.

There are people who will be center of attention just so they can stop feeling lonely.

There are people who will pretend to be happy just so they can stop their sadness.

What we don’t realize is that sometimes our behaviors keep us hidden from our greatness.

If we are to be successful this year in our life, leadership, and loving, we might need to put a stop to a few things

I have put together a short STOP list. Feel free to add your own items.

LIFE:

Stop being late.

Stop being so sad.

Stop bragging.

Stop doubting yourself.

Stop being so anxious.

Stop thinking you are the only one suffering.

Stop complaining.

Stop being so dramatic.

Stop being a martyr.

Stop being so ashamed.

Stop doing things you don’t believe in.

Stop thinking you are not worthy.

Stop being so angry.

Stop lying.

Stop wondering “what if.”

LEADERSHIP:

Stop interrupting.

Stop over scheduling.

Stop being bossy.

Stop being afraid of success.

Stop working so hard for so little.

Stop being a perfectionist.

Stop being judgmental.

Stop sabotaging yourself.

Stop being hypocritical.

Stop being narcissistic.

Stop criticizing others.

Stop having an affair.

Stop being an enabler.

Stop being a cliche.

Stop craving public attention.

LOVING:

Stop settling.

Stop being mean.

Stop arguing.

Stop being unhappy.

Stop looking over your shoulder for better.

Stop being moody.

Stop running from relationships.

Stop blaming yourself.

Stop being selfish.

Stop apologizing for yourself.

Stop being rude.

Stop philandering.

Stop being down on yourself.

Stop being spoiled.

Stop being afraid of commitment.

What we have been doing does not have to become our fate. We can always choose to stop:

Stop impacting our lives in negatives ways.

Stop defining our moments by the behaviors of the past.

Stop reliving our habits that don’t work for us.

And, most of all stop apologizing for who we are.

Life is about learning, growing, and constantly developing.

We have starting many things, we are learning many things, and sometimes we have to stop many things.

The time to stop is now because everything we want to achieve, to learn, to share can begin right now. If we don’t live within our best, if we don’t love with all our heart, if we don’t lead with compassion, then when will we?

Lead From Within: be the kind of leader who stops competing, stops judging, stops comparing, stops blaming and become a better you. For who?For you. When? Now!

I recently read the Harvard Business Review article, “Why Marketing Needs More Introverts.” The takeaway: With all the customer feedback, information and tools available today, the marketing organization of the future will be filled with those that can think and act at scale. That is, the ability to make meaning from data and use it to influence products, solutions and services versus simply being the “voice” of a company to the marketplace.

The idea of an “introverted marketing organization” (or any “introverted” organization for that matter) initially seemed odd to me – like a spokesperson who isn’t good at public speaking. But the more I reflect on it, the more I realize that what this really means is that being an “introvert” means being centered in the art of deep listening, data-based decision-making, and quality conversations.

All too often in companies, and among teams and leaders, there is pressure to be in “extrovert mode” all the time. Saying, broadcasting, convincing, reporting, and responding versus making meaning from information and inputs, building quality relationships, and understanding the real core of customer needs and what’s driving their business’ value.

Leadership is not prescriptive and what works for one person may not work for another. There is one trait, however, that many successful business leaders and entrepreneurs share: They are constantly asking themselves questions to stay relevant and perceptive.

Whether you’re running a company, heading up a startup or leading a team, your ability to analyze and critique your workday and approach is critical to success. Keeping tabs on your own development might help  figure out areas for improvement, deepen your understanding of your industry and set a good example to the people you manage.

Asking yourself these questions every day will help you grow as an individual and as a leader:

Related: Managers Can Be True Leaders Not Just Taskmasters

At the end of each working day, take a step back and ask what you’ve achieved. Keeping tabs on your accomplishments is a great positivity and productivity booster. Strive to undertake at least one meaningful task each day that will directly help you reach your end goals. If you believe you could have achieved more, harness your disappointment and channel that energy to help you work harder the next day.  

Not every decision you make will be the right one. And in such instances, holding your hands up and admitting you have made a mistake is the best thing to do. There is a saying, “More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying that they made them.” And these words of wisdom are important to remember. Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you respond to them that defines you.

Related: Mentors Can Fill in Any Yawning Gaps as Your Startup Integrates New Grads

Good leaders focus on the success of those around them as well as their own personal achievements. Make it your mantra to help others succeed or provide them with opportunities each day. It doesn’t always have to be a grand gesture. It could be something as simple such as spending 20 minutes with an employee to discuss his or her performance and progress. Building the strength of those working for you will ultimately enhance your company.

Running a business and leading a team can be difficult and during the tough times, reach for the motivation that keeps you going and encourages you to strive for betterment. Take note of the things that inspire you and draw on them when you need renewed enthusiasm. Good leaders are acutely aware of the things that fuel their personal motivation and use that knowledge to their benefit.  

When you’re at the helm of a ship, it's wise to keep destination in mind. Likewise when you're running a business or leading a team, you should have goals to keep everyone focused and moving in the same direction. Outline your business aims and ask yourself every day if you've worked toward them. If not, figure out why not and how you'll change tack to put everything on the right trajectory. Never lose sight of your goals.

Related: Turning Crisis Into Opportunity: 5 Ways to Deal With Hardship

What are your sticking points? Is there a particular division of the business that you struggle with? Are you unable to come up with a workable strategy for a particular function? If so, identify the areas that require improvement or the resources that will go a long way toward overcoming the problem.

Once you understand where your weaknesses lie, create a small team and talk about the areas of concern. Share ideas and work through the issues together in a constructive way. This is great for team building and getting everyone on the same page. It will also get the problem solved so you can move on.

You’re setting yourself up for failure if you take on too much. Business owners and department heads can be guilty of the notion that they need to be directly involved with every decision made at their business. Part of being a leader is being able to recruit effectively.

Build a team around you that you trust to make decisions and get things done. Don’t be removed from your business. Instead allow your employees to shoulder some of the burden. This not only means that progress will happen quicker. But by sharing the responsibility, you''ll build a more collaborative company culture. Ask yourself today, What can I hand over?

Finally, how do you want to be remembered? Keep this in mind every day and work toward that end goal. Are you happy with the way you conducted yourself today? Remember that character rules.

You're not born with the qualities that make up your character, but develop them as you go through your experiences, failures and successes. Govern reactions to events to develop the character you'd like to have.

We all know leaders who are filled with the kind of bravado that takes great pains to hide any hint of misgiving. No matter what happens, they “knew it all along.” At the very essence of their strategy is the fierce belief that showing even the slightest hint of vulnerability would cause their teams to see them as “weak.” They couldn’t be more mistaken. In reality, vulnerability is a strength. Every leader has vulnerability. The greatest leaders have the self-awareness to recognize this fact. They also recognize that showing their vulnerability is a sign of courage and strength.

Courage is the sixth Non-Negotiable that I cover in my book The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning.

Vulnerability is not a weakness.  I was impressed by the recent thoughts of business writer Kimberly Weisul, who discussed a presentation on vulnerability by author and researcher Brene Brown. At a Leadership Forum for Inc. Magazine, Brown turned the popular notions of vulnerability on their head. She says vulnerability is actually the courage to show up and be seen. I agree.

“Vulnerability is the absolute heartbeat of innovation and creativity,” she says. “There can be zero innovation without vulnerability.”

How does vulnerability work? According to Brown, here are the four common myths of vulnerability and how to combat them.

Myth #1: Vulnerability is Weakness.

In her research, Brown asked thousands of people to talk about times they felt vulnerable. They provided answers like, “Starting my own business; the first date after my divorce; taking my company public.” Other answers included, “Owning something I’ve done wrong at work” (a big one, as you know from my prior columns) or “Cheering my son on because he wants to make first chair in the orchestra and I know that it’s unlikely to happen.”

Brown realized that none of these situations had anything to do with weakness. In fact, she points out that vulnerability is not a weakness at all. It is, perhaps, one of our most accurate measures of courage.

Every entrepreneurial endeavor, by its very definition, is courageous and risky. For example, in my book I share the full experience of heading up the buyback of our company, Fishbowl, in 2010. Rarely in my life have I been in such a vulnerable position. Although we’d always run our company in a very cash conservative way, the need of our majority investor to divest himself left us in the most vulnerable place of our lives. Banks were not lending at the time.

Against all odds, we received an agreement for the only enterprise loan our regional bank offered in 2010. But at the last minute, we discovered the final approval was $500,000 short of our goal. I spoke to my executive team openly about the situation we were facing. I was humbled, and the discussion even involved tears (my own, and many from these longtime friends and esteemed partners as well). It took courage beyond measure for us to have that discussion – but we emerged together from that situation with increased strength. In fact, that month was our highest revenue month in the company’s history to that date.

We’ve continued to grow since, and now there are a total of 71 Fishbowl owners among our team of 100 employees. Admitting and facing my vulnerability and even helplessness in that situation took all the courage I could muster, but it has made me and my team stronger in ways few other experiences could have ever achieved.

Myth #2: You Can Opt Out of Vulnerability.

According to Brown, vulnerability is the combination of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Welcome to entrepreneurship. Vulnerability is a natural condition of the work that we do—it isn’t a choice but a consequence. To declare oneself “not vulnerable” would be inauthentic and would leave a leader living in a perpetual state of denial and stress. So it’s better and more courageous for every leader to acknowledge the fact that vulnerability is there.

Myth #3: Vulnerability Means Letting It All Hang Out.

Live tweeting about personal details to the point of bad taste is not “vulnerability.” Nor is it an act of courage. Purposeful vulnerability without boundaries is attention-seeking behavior that actually appears to others as desperate. What is your goal in sharing information that leaves you vulnerable? Is it to get attention or is it to solve a problem?

Also, as Brown points out, it is best to share the candid information that leaves you vulnerable only with people who have earned the right to hear and know this sensitive news. For example, we share our financial goals openly within our company with all employees. But we trust our employees to hold sensitive company information in confidence. And we don’t publish that information in locations such as our company blog. (I actually know of some executives who do this, and it certainly takes courage for them to do so. But I, for one, would advise sharing such sensitive and vital information with the members of your team who are striving to find the solution with you, and who are earning, day by day, the right to hold this information with you.)

Brown notes that you wouldn’t go out to the world openly and announce, “Our company is going to Hades in a hand basket right now and I don’t know what to do.” But you might elect to be very candid within a small group of trusted associates and friends.

Myth #4: I Can Go It Alone.

None of us, in recognizing our vulnerability, should pretend we are able to “go it alone.” When we ask others “Can you help me with this? What are your thoughts on this issue? Are you willing to work on this together with me?” we are expressing our vulnerabilities in a courageous and positive way.

Vulnerability is a frightening thing for many of us. But knowing that vulnerability is a universal condition, and that recognizing and owning our vulnerability is a form of true courage – here’s a thought that’s even more frightening: What would it be like to reach the end of your life and to wonder what would have happened if you’d truly shown up, ready to give your all and, if necessary, sacrifice all. What if?

Everyone knows that Peter Drucker was the founder of modern management. But how do we come to terms with the writings of a man who wrote 39 books? Even to read his 811-page classic,Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices(1973) or the revised edition of 572 pages (2008), is more than most readers get round to. Inevitably most of us pick and choose.

An excellent introduction to Drucker’s thinking—and one of the real “raisins in the cake”— which was recently flagged by Jim Hays, is Peter Drucker’s nine-page paper for The Economist in November 2001: “Will The Corporation Survive?” Drucker’s answer to his own question was: “Yes, but not in the form that we know it.” The paper was incorporated into the 2008 edition of Drucker’s Management, but it is also available here.

Five basic assumptions of the 20th Century

The paper, written 13 years ago,  is almost as fresh as if it was written yesterday. It argues that for “most of the time since the corporation was invented around 1870, the following five basic points have been assumed to apply:”

1. “The corporation is the ‘master’, the employee is the ‘servant’, because the corporation owns the means of production… “
2. “The great majority of employees work full-time for the corporation… “
3. “The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product,” because, as Ronald Coase argued, this lowers transaction costs.
4. “Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have… “
5. “To any one particular technology pertains one and only one industry, and conversely, to any one particular industry pertains one and only one technology.”

Competition was very orderly with “everything in its place.” Thus “everybody took it for granted that every product or service had a specific application, and that for every application there was a specific product or material… Competition therefore took place mainly within an industry. By and large, it was obvious what the business of a given company was and what its markets were.”

The assumptions upended

Now, each of those assumptions has been turned upside down:

1. The corporation is no longer the master of the employee because “the means of production is knowledge, which is owned by knowledge workers and is highly portable.”
2. “A growing number of people who work for an organisation will not be full-time employees but part-timers, temporaries, consultants or contractors… or employees of, an outsourcing contractor.”
3. It no longer makes sense to bring everything under one management, because (a) “the knowledge needed for any activity has become highly specialised. It is therefore increasingly expensive, and also increasingly difficult, to maintain.” (b) Transaction costs are drastically reduced, particularly the cost communications.
4. “The customer now has the information…. the manufacturer will cease to be a seller and instead become a buyer for the customer.”
5. “There are few unique technologies. Increasingly, the knowledge needed in a given industry comes out of some totally different technology.”

“One thing is almost certain: in future,” Drucker wrote, “there will be not one kind of corporation but several different ones.” In the 20th Century, banks everywhere were very much alike and so were hospitals and retailers. In future, “different banks may be quite different from one another, depending on how each of them responds to the changes in its workforce, technology and markets. A number of different models is likely to emerge…” Confederations of different kinds of organizations will emerge.

Top management is powerful but failing

Drucker saw that the importance of top management would increase in this emerging world:

“As the corporation moves towards a confederation or a syndicate, it will increasingly need a top management that is separate, powerful and accountable. This top management’s responsibilities will cover the entire organisation’s direction, planning, strategy, values and principles; its structure and its relationship between its various members; its alliances, partnerships and joint ventures; and its research, design and innovation.”

Yet while the demands on top management were increasing, Drucker saw that top management was not getting the job done.

“The recent failure rate of chief executives in big American companies points in the same direction. A large proportion of CEOs of such companies appointed in the past ten years were fired as failures within a year or two… This suggests that the jobs they took on had become undoable. The American record suggests not human failure but systems failure. Top management in big organisations needs a new concept.”

Drucker cites a few possible examples of rearranging managerial responsibilities at the top. With the wisdom of hindsight, none of them look particularly plausible or sustainable, e.g. GE under Jack Welch.

The failure of top management relates less to any particular configuration of management responsibilities and more to another of Drucker’s central themes: the role of the corporation in society.

The role of the corporation in society

Drucker had a clear vision of the corporation as an agent of society:

“An equally important task for top management in the next society’s corporation will be to balance the three dimensions of the corporation: as an economic organisation, as a human organisation and as an increasingly important social organisation. Each of the three models of the corporation developed in the past half-century stressed one of these dimensions and subordinated the other two. The German model of the “social market economy” put the emphasis on the social dimension, the Japanese one on the human dimension and the American one (“shareholder sovereignty”) on the economic dimension.”

“None of the three is adequate on its own. The German model achieved both economic success and social stability, but at the price of high unemployment and dangerous labour-market rigidity. The Japanese model was strikingly successful for 20 years, but faltered at the first serious challenge; indeed it has become a major obstacle to recovery from Japan’s present recession. Shareholder sovereignty is also bound to flounder. It is a fair-weather model that works well only in times of prosperity.”

Interestingly, Germany took action to deal with the issue of labor flexibility, and this one of the key success factors for Germany today. Meanwhile most big US corporations are still wedded to shareholder sovereignty.

A different kind of leadership is needed

“Corporations will have to pay attention,” Drucker argued, “both to their short-term business results and to their long-term performance…”

Drucker’s hope was that the pension funds and mutual funds would lead the way.

“By 2000, pension funds and mutual funds had come to own the majority of the share capital of America’s large companies. This has given shareholders the power to demand short-term rewards. But the need for a secure retirement income will increasingly focus people’s minds on the future value of the investment.”

What Drucker didn’t fully foresee is that the managers of pension funds and mutual funds would themselves have powerful incentives to focus on short-term shareholder value and the stock price. Their compensation is often geared to it, and the success of their fund sometimes depends on it–at least in the near term.

Nor could he have foreseen the massive shift in CEO compensation that was to occur by 2014. “In 1993, some 20 percent of executive compensation was based on stock,” Eduardo Porter wrote recently in the NYT. “Today, equity accounts for about 60 percent of the remuneration of executives at companies in the S&P 500-stock index. With so much money tied up in stock options and the like, it is not surprising that executives will do almost anything to give their share price a boost regardless of what costs this might incur after their options have vested.”

Nor could Drucker have foreseen how severely the system would be degraded by self-interest. Thus in a recent study published in the Accounting Review, an astonishing 62 percent of directors, who had a disclosed friendship with the CEO, said they would cut the budget for research and development in order to assure the bonus for their friend, the CEO. Instead of senior managers acting as responsible stewards of societal resources, as Drucker optimistically envisaged, we see leaders driven by greed and nepotism. Instead of wise statesmen capable of balancing social interests, we have inherited the mean-spirited and the narrow-minded.

A different kind of management

To accomplish the kind of positive future that Drucker envisaged, it is now much clearer in today than in 2001 that a different kind of leadership and management is needed for our corporations.

It means a fundamental shift in how leaders think, speak and act in the workplace. Whereas the 20th Century economy flourished with an ethos of efficiency and control, accentuated in recent decades by values of self-interest and self-aggrandisement, the economy of the 21st Century will require an ethos of imagination, exploration, experiment, discovery and collaboration, driven by a commitment to make a positive difference in the world.

It implies:

• a shift from a goal of making money to the goal of delighting customers profitably. Innovation is not an option: it’s an imperative. The only question is how.
• a shift from controlling individuals to inspiring collaboration among self-organizing teams, networks and ecosystems.;
• a shift from coordinating work by hierarchical bureaucracy to dynamic linking, with iterative approaches to development with direct customer feedback and interaction with teams and networks.
• a shift from a preoccupation with economic value to an embrace of values that will grow the firm and the accompanying ecosystems, particularly radical transparency, continuous improvement and sustainability.
• a shift from top-down communications to horizontal conversations. Instead of telling people what to do, leaders inspire people across organizational boundaries to work together on common goals.

Of course, Drucker recognized all along that management is not a static pursuit. “The demands on the skill, knowledge, performance, responsibility and integrity of the manager have doubled in every generation during the past half century,” he wrote in The Practice of Management, his 1954 classic. That is even more true in 2014.

LinkedIn released a bold and fascinating report about the career paths of successful tech founders. The public company made a refreshingly opinionated conclusion: Aspiring teens should not forgo college to found a risky tech startup.

“The image of a young, unstoppable founder is certainly appealing — cultivated in movies like The Social Network and through press-friendly initiatives like [the] Thiel 20 Under 20, there’s plenty in popular culture to suggest that the essential ingredients of entrepreneurship are little more than youth and a healthy dose of determination,”wrote Linkedin’s senior data scientist, Michael Conover, in a post that called out noted Silicon Valley investor and education critic, Peter Thiel.

Thiel’s 20 Under 20 experiment to pay teens to delay college for $100,000 in startup money has faced harsh criticism from its inception.

Conover claims that data doesn’t support Thiel’s thesis, and you can see this in three graphs. I’ll give my 2 cents on his conclusions below these.

Combining the Crunchbase database of venture funding with founder’s LinkedIn profiles, Conover finds that most venture-backed founders went to a highly reputable college and held senior leadership positions prior to their startup

As University of California at Berkeley researcher Vivek Wadhwa has pointed out, many Silicon Valley founders defy the stereotype of a young, brilliant twenty-something. Conover’s own findings show that the overwhelming proportion of founders begin a company after they turn 30.

Conover finds that most founders are heavily networked on LinkedIn; the more people founders know, the more successful they are.

After adding education background, age, and total LinkedIn connectivity, Conover finds that there’s a moderate correlation these characteristics and the total amount of venture raised.

LinkedIn’s report is a fascinating look at the career paths of successful entrepreneursand uses some new data sets in important ways. For this, the company should be commended, especially for daring to offer an opinion on an important policy topic.

That said, the report’s conclusions are questionable. All of the data is based on weak correlations and a misunderstanding of Thiel’s project.

Here are a few key issues the report doesn’t address:

• Many startup founders fail a few times before becoming successful. This will necessarily make them older. The report assumes that this kind of failure is not as valuable as going to college or working for a big company prior to beginning a startup.

• Some very successful founders did not finish college. Like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, for instance. But while dropouts are a minority of founders overall, maybe they have a higher rate of success — we just don’t know. The report needs to look at the success rate of similar founders who dropped out vs. those that went to college.

• Conover’s magic “machine-learning algorithm” is like asking a chef to learn how to cook by eating soup and never providing them with the ingredient list. How much does college factor into success compared to age and how networked a founder is? We have no idea from the report. And if job experience and network is far more important than an education, it’s not clear why college is essential to get these valuable assets.

• A 0.365 is not a strong correlation. As we can see from the graph, it looks more like a circle than an arrow. Why is the correlation so weak? A correlation of this shape usually means there are many (many) more reasons why someone is successful. Most important, college is not one of these very important, unknown variables.

Additionally, Conover misinterprets the reason why some people forgo college or go into Thiel’s program. Many entrants into 20 Under 20 don’t have the opportunity to go to a school where students can start a company. Stanford’s StartupX is great for the lucky few who can get a great education at a university that is willing to invest venturecapital. But this practice is not mainstream at most schools.

Ideally, Thiel’s project will push universities to integrate elements of his philosophy and fund students who attend their school.

Thiel’s project is more a statement on college reform than a call to abolish the entire system. That said, the program is yet to prove that paying students to forgo college actually works.

To date, we don’t have good data on whether college is the cost for aspiring startup founders. If I had to guess, I’d say it is a wise idea for students’ to hedge their bets and get a diploma. But we need to be honest and admit that it’s a guess either way.

When things get messed up—and they do—some people respond with lying, denying or minimizing their own responsibility.

Leaders know that to be respected or trusted they must be accountable. They must be willing to be responsible even before they know how things will turn out.

If it is to be, it’s up to me:

Accountability starts with you. It means you are responsible. It’s not so much a way of thinking as a way of being, and it starts from within.

Accountability is about being reliable. Ask yourself “Can people count on me to do what I say I’ll do, as I said I would do it?” You must always keep your word.

Accountability is ownership. It’s the willingness to hold yourself to account, it means taking totally ownership no matter the mess up

Accountability is about creating clarity. When you are accountable you clear up the gaps and voids of expectations and what you are going to be doing.

Accountability is about trustworthiness. When you are responsible and you make a commitment, you hold yourself to a high standard where others know and can trust in you.

Accountability is a partnership. Partnerships are about support and mutual accountability; when you are held accountable by a partner, it’s important to recognize and respect the power of their intention and respond with appreciation rather than anger.

The millennial generation is considered one of the most promising to date when it comes to business ownership. According to the Millennial Generation Research Review, compiled by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated by Generation Y may be creating a positive outlook for job creation.

Citing 2011 figures such as "Millennials launched almost 160,000 startups each month, and 29% of all entrepreneurs were 20 to 34 years old," the research report concluded the "entrepreneurial mind-set" of millennials could "reverse a declining trend of business startups."

Spurred on by the likes of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Mason of Groupon and Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, more and more young people are starting their own businesses or being promoted into influential positions. 

Being a leader can be tough even at the best of times, yet the added pressure that a young leader faces as a result of others equating youth with inexperience can make the experience even harder. Young leaders can take these eight steps and (older) employees, colleagues and business associates may be more likely to take them seriously:

Related: Overcoming Youngest Person in the Room Syndrome

Young business leaders should do research and be sure to know their industry inside and out. Read up on the latest trends, connect with experts in the field and become immersed in the appropriate business sector. Figure out the following: Who are the key players and why have they become successful? What emerging technologies could serve as a springboard for the company's success?

Taking the time to develop an understanding of the industry at hand will show others this leader knows her stuff and means business. As Sheryl Sandberg wrote in Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, “The upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.” And she was right. Knowledge is power. Don't forget.

One of the most effective ways to demonstrate ability and prove a management role is deserved is to lead by example and work hard. Be the first person in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night. Take on a fair share of the workload and show everyone signs of being a team player. The most effective way to earn respect is to lead from the front and help others succeed.

While a young business leader may have already demonstrated skills in management, only a fool believes he or she knows it all, particularly when armed with limited experience. People are far more likely to take a manager seriously if he or she listens to and heeds advice.

A study conducted in June by Sage surveyed people in more than 11,000 small and medium-sized businesses in 17 countries and found 89 percent of those surveyed acknowledged that mentoring can help them succeed. Listening to people and heeding their advice could significantly boost the leader's chances of success. What’s more, people will respect this willingness to learn and openness to constructive criticism. Show signs of being a know-it-all, though, and risk alienating others and losing credibility as a professional.

Related: Got Conviction? Then You Can Drive Your Business to Success.

It’s important for a leader to have conviction in her decisions. If the young manager has done her homework, then her decision may well be the right one, even if it’s challenged by someone with more experience. Young leaders should be aware of their value in brining a fresh perspective to the table. That’s not to say they should avoid taking advice or admitting when a decision was incorrect. Just don’t back down immediately.

A leader with the confidence to put his head above the parapet is likely to impress others in the office and earn respect.

Part of being a successful leader is staying cool under pressure. The business world regularly offers up challenging and stressful situations and a leader's reaction is judged. Take a step back and a deep breath and put everything in perspective. Members of the team will feel reassured by a collected demeanor, which will in turn develop their trust and confidence in the leader. 

Related: New Gen Y Leaders Can Carry the X Factor for Success

Leadership is all about managing expectations. Share with employees what's expected of them and in return, listen to what they desire in a leader. By opening the lines of communication and being approachable, a leader can build a team with people who understand the direction the department is headed in and the end goals. If this leadership results in positive business outcomes, then respect and support will follow.

It may seem trivial but the way a leader presents himself to the outside world is critical. How the person dresses and carries himself says a lot about his personality. This doesn't mean always show up to work suited-and-booted but be sure to be dressed appropriately for any situation. Take a look in the mirror each morning and ask, Does my appearance reflect my desired business persona?

Finally, hone the professional personality. A leader needs to figure out decide how she would like people to perceive her and work toward building a personality in line with that. To be considered firm but fair, hard working and meticulous, behave that way.

As Mark Zuckerberg said, “The question isn’t, ‘What do we want to know about people?’ It’s, ‘What do people want to tell about themselves?’” How a young business leader presents himself will influence others’ opinions. The leader is a product of past experiences, failures and successes. Become immersed in the right situations and tailor reactions appropriately to build the business persona desired. 

Here's the brutally unpleasant dark side of being an HR professional…

No matter what you do, someone is going to criticize and distrust you -- and many willhate you, even if they don't know your name.

That's the reality.

It comes with the territory.

And there are lots of reasons why.

First of all, if you're doing your HR job well, your actions will directly and negatively affect the personal lives, dreams, ambitions and the livelihoods of every single employee in your organization.

That's a fact.

For example, in staffing situations, for every one person that is thrilled to be hired or promoted, you're often the bad guy that has to call up and dash the career hopes of six to ten others by letting them know they didn't get the job.

In job eliminations, you are often the last person the terminated employee sees and talks to about all the great benefits the company will no longer be providing to them and their family now that they've been whacked.

Your inside knowledge about that planned layoff, those anticipated cutbacks in the health care plan, that business that is about to be sold off or that outsourcing decision that will wipe out an entire department -- all of which can affect the peace of mind, families and the paychecks of many of your closest non-HR colleagues -- puts you in a position to keep secrets, sidestep the truth, come across as coldly objective or seem distrustful because you cannot reveal what you know.

Secondly, your HR role often requires you to deliver bad news.

For example, saying no to a manager who wants give an "out-of-guidelines" increase to her indispensable, superstar employee who has just been offered a huge salary increase at another company.

Or disappointing a powerful executive who is hellbent on terminating an employee immediately, but hasn't followed the proper progressive disciplinary guidelines and hasn't afforded the employee the opportunity to correct their performance.

In these situations, most great leaders will respect your stance. However, a few deep down will blame you for throwing a monkey wrench into their plans and serving as a bureaucratic speed bump to the success of their business.

Thirdly, some people may not even hold a grudge against you personally. They just hate your guts because they had a run-in with someone in HR over a mistake made years ago.

It could be that an error was made in their merit increase, dental program deductible or the effective date of their promotion -- individual situations that happened long before you even came on the scene. But you're guilty by association and held responsible because "you're HR."

These are honest mistakes that are made every day in business. However, to quote Sue Meisinger, the former CEO of SHRM...

When your finance counterparts make a mistake, they'll just redo the spread sheet.

When marketing screws up, they'll simply redesign the campaign.

When the sales group miss their quota, they focus on the next quarter.

When R&D fails to discover or develop a new product, they'll just try again.

But unlike these other groups, if HR makes a mistake, it's very personal and will sour the individual on the HR department (and YOU) for years.

Finally, spinelessly weak managers don't do you any favors either. They often deal with their employee or workplace problems by saying that "HR said…" or "HR won't let us…"

This approach undermines HR and allows them to shift responsibility for their actions. After all, they'll say, HR determines pay. HR determines job titles. HR set the policy that led to your termination.

So, it's therefore HR's fault.

I could go on but I'm sure you get the point.

It doesn't matter how phenomenal you are as an HR professional -- even if you're respected and valued by the CEO and the executive team in your organization -- you're still going to be unpopular among many employees and managers who blame YOU for what happens to them on the job.

Some of my former colleagues have allowed this "dark side" of HR to drive them from our profession.

Don't fall into this trap.

Accept these realities.

But besides just acceptance, what should you do to deal effectively with them?

Here are just a few thoughts:

1. Strive for respect, not approval.

Your own success in HR happens when your personal HR brand stands for trustworthiness, reliability and credibility, not the number of people who agree with every little thing you do. Build this kind of reputation for yourself, whether your HR department has it or not.

The most reputable and successful HR leaders on the planet accept the reality that some decisions will be unpopular. And that means not promising what you can't deliver or making commitments just to be liked or to make people happy.

If you can’t handle others’ disapproval, then HR probably isn’t for you. Trying to be everyone’s friend is a futile and selfish effort -- and is impossible.

2. Replace no's with options (lots of them), whenever you can.

Let’s say your client is concerned about his three best people and wants to increase their pay beyond reason, in order to retain them.

In this case, don't respond with just a flat out no. Meet with him on his turf to brainstorm alternative, creative solutions that address his real need: retention. For example, could you keep these top performers by providing them with the opportunity to improve their skills so they might be promoted (with higher pay) more readily? Can you restructure their jobs to give them even more recognition, freedom and autonomy in making decisions? Can you enhance their work life by providing flexible work schedules, remote working arrangements or more time off?

Strive for win/win solutions. It's not always possible, but work hard with your clients to come up with alternatives that both you and they can embrace.

3. Focus on what you can change.

Ignore the noise from those who are complaining because they had a bad HR experience or know someone who did. Instead focus on those things within your control or that you can change.

If you've discovered that you're suddenly someone's enemy, look back at the series of events that led up to this strain in your relationship.

You may discover that somewhere along the way, you screwed up. If so, fess up and apologize. And keep moving. Ultimately it will be your willingness to admit mistakes and keep a cool head that serves both their interests and the company's.

4. Forget revenge.

We're all human and there may be clients who bring out your worst instincts. Just as it's important that you do not play favorites, it's also important that you resist the urge to retaliate against someone who has pissed you off.

You're asking for trouble if you go after people with the attitude that "I'm going to make them pay!" Even if you win and that person quits (or is terminated), word spreads and you'll never be trusted again. When that happens, you might as well leave too.

Model forgiveness and, to a responsible extent, forgetfulness. Be an example yourself of supporting a workplace where people are expected to make mistakes and in which it's safe to be human. You can do this by treating screw ups as teachable moments and learning experiences that everyone can benefit from.

Cut others slack and they'll return the favor when you slip up…which you will do.

5. Let people vent, but don't get pushed around.

In the article Don't Call Me HR, RJ Morris tells the story of attending a meeting with a stressed out Operations executive named Jim whose business wasn't doing well and who wanted to make job cuts. The meeting had operations, senior executives, finance, HR and others in the room.

During the meeting this executive would drop in statements like: "Well, if HR would let us do this the right way, we’d be done with this already..” or “HR won’t let us make the changes we want make…” In doing so, he was blaming HR for not letting him make the people changes he was seeking.

Todd, the head of HR (RJ's boss at the time), was in the meeting and let him go on for a while. But then finally he had heard enough and said:

“Jim, who exactly are you talking about when you say “HR?” I am confused. Is someone here named HR? Are you talking about me? Is that it? Let’s do this, Jim. We’ll get through this together if we act like adults. Don’t call me HR. Call me Todd. We’ve given you good advice. You’re angry about it. That’s fine. Disagree with me, but don’t depersonalize who we are as advisors to you. I’m Todd, you’re Jim. If you have an issue with my advice, have the guts to call me by my name. I’m not Corporate; I’m not HR. I’m just trying to help you out of your bad business deal.”

To be fair, I'm not an advocate of calling people out and smacking them down in a meeting in front of their peers, especially when you can do it in private. But I'm also not an advocate of being disrepected either.

Sometimes you must make a stand in favor of a value or principle. In doing this, some people are bound to take it very personally and believe you're taking a stand against them. And I'm sorry, that can't be helped.

Successful HR leaders stand up for themselves, their values, stand up against toxic and truly cruel managers and gain respect from others because they take the most important stand of all -- the stand they take in front of the mirror.

6. Embrace HR's larger purpose.

As an HR professional, what really drives you should be your unwavering desire to help your organization get better results through people. That's why you get paid. Despite all the crap you take, it's a noble calling. It's a great way to make a living. So stick your chest out and wear that badge proudly. Don’t let others extinguish your flame.

Despite the negatives, what you can do as an HR professional to impact peoples' lives in a positive way is immense. You help to develop and execute strategies that make your business successful, which in turn creates jobs for lots of people. You ensure employees are rewarded fairly enabling them to provide a life for their families they can be proud of. And you help provide a workplace that's engaging, productive and where talented people can thrive and achieve their dreams.

HR, like any calling, has thrills, challenges and frustrations. So prepare to be hated, but remember that most haters don’t matter. So don't permit yourself to be a "victim" because of misplaced blame or because someone just doesn't understand what HR does.

The ones who DO matter will sincerely appreciate your leadership and will trust your guidance -- especially if you prove reliable, consistent and trustworthy.

Let THEM be your source of motivation.

And you’ll do just fine.

Onward!

To gain insights into the 2014 global human capital trends, we conducted a survey in the last quarter of 2013 that included 2,532 business and HR leaders in 94 countries. The survey covered the major industries and all of the world’s geographies (survey demographics are summarized in the appendix to this chapter). Our goal was to better understand the priorities and preparedness of executives and HR professionals around the world, and to provide insight on what leaders can do to drive the talent and HR agenda.

This chapter provides a summary of our top findings from the global survey. We are also making views of the data available through the Deloitte Human Capital Trends Dashboard tool, which will be available on our websites.

Across all respondents to our global survey this year, companies cite four issues as the most urgent: leadership, retention and engagement, the reskilling of HR, and talent acquisition and access (see figures 1 and 2).

Building global leadership is by far the most urgent: Fully 38 percent of all respondents rated it “urgent,” almost 50 percent more than the percentage rating the next issue “urgent.” Companies see the need for leadership at all levels, in all geographies, and across all functional areas. This continuous need for new and better leaders has accelerated. In a world where knowledge doubles every year and skills have a half-life of 2.5 to 5 years, leaders need constant development. This ongoing need to develop leaders is also driven by the changing expectations of the workforce and the evolving challenges businesses are facing, including two major themes underlying this year’s trends: globalization and the speed and extent of technological change and innovation.

The second most urgent issue today is retention and engagement—a topic that often has no clear owner within HR or the business. Our research shows that “we all own this issue”: HR, top leadership, and all levels of management. As we discuss in the main report, companies should redefine their engagement strategy to move from keeping people to attracting them and creating a passionate and compassionate place to work. Further, companies will benefit from having a clear point of view on how business executives, line leaders, and HR can more effectively work together and address this challenge.

The third most urgent issue is the reskilling of HR. This finding suggests that the HR and talent functions are in the midst of a transformation. HR is not making the grade as companies move away from HR as people administration to a focus on people performance. An essential part of this change is the upskilling, reorganization, and transformation of HR and its relationship with business leaders and issues.

The fourth most urgent issue is talent acquisition and access. This continues to be one of the most important things companies do. In a skills-constrained environment, a company’s ability to find, attract, and access highly skilled people is critical to success. This area is going through a significant disruption as a result of globalization, technology, social media, changing workforce expectations, and the shrinking half-life of skills and technical knowledge. Tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and others are changing recruiting into a strategic function focused on marketing, branding, and new tools and technologies.

Launch the interactive trends dashboard

Overall, survey respondents reported generally low levels of readiness to respond to the 12 global trends in our survey (figure 3). In fact, on average across all trends, 36 percent of respondents reported they were “not ready” as opposed to 16 percent reporting they were “ready”—meaning that they were more than twice as likely to say they were “not ready” versus “ready” for the trends they see coming. Only in workforce capability did more than three-quarters of respondents feel either “somewhat ready” or “ready” to address the trend. These findings are sobering, given that each trend was rated “important” or “urgent” by at least 60 percent of respondents, while the top five trends were all rated “important” or “urgent” by at least 75 percent of respondents (figure 1).

More than 40 percent of respondents reported their companies were “not ready” to address talent and HR analytics, HR technology, the overwhelmed employee, and performance management—the lowest levels of readiness among all the trends (figure 4). These low reported levels of readiness and preparedness are a warning signal, considering the high levels of urgency and importance attributed to the trends in the global survey.

Figure 5 maps the 12 trends according to respondents’ ratings of both their urgency and their companies’ readiness to deal with them. Urgency is shown on the horizontal axis, with higher numbers indicating greater urgency; readiness is shown on the vertical axis, with higher numbers indicating greater readiness. The resulting grid shows a clustering of the trends in the lower right, underscoring one of the major findings in the survey: the gap between these trends’ perceived importance and companies’ readiness to address them.

To further highlight the near-pervasive gap between urgency and readiness, we calculated an index score for each trend that we call the Deloitte Human Capital Capability Gap Index, a figure that shows HR’s relative capability gap in addressing a given talent or HR-related problem. It is calculated by taking an organization’s self-rated readiness and subtracting its urgency, normalized to a 0–100 scale. For example, if an organization feels that an issue is 100 percent urgent and it also rates itself 100 percent capable and ready to address the issue, the capability gap would be zero. These index scores, which are almost always negative, provide a “weighting” of gaps to help identify the biggest areas of need.

As figures 6 and 7 show, leadership (gap of -34) and analytics (gap of -30) are the areas with the biggest gaps between urgency and readiness, and hence the most important areas on which to focus investment. Reskilling HR, talent acquisition, dealing with the overwhelmed employee, and the need to replace HR technology are close behind, with gap scores of between -25 and -27, inclusive. These indicate areas where companies need to rethink their strategies and reengineer their current approaches.

The challenges of revamping performance management, addressing retention and engagement, and improving HR globalization received gap scores of between -20 and -24. These areas reflect a need to rethink HR strategies to deal with the 21st-century workforce.

The areas of workforce capability, diversity and inclusion, and learning and development also require attention. When weighted by importance, the gap between urgency and readiness is the smallest in our index, but these areas still represent potential opportunities for improvement.

We asked our respondents to identify in which of seven global geographies their top five trends were most important. As figure 8 shows, leadership, the most important overall trend in our survey, was identified as highly important in five of seven global regions: Asia Pacific, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, North America, and South America. Note also that, in these regions, retention and engagement is a high priority as well, with North America facing the most acute need in this area.

This geographic pattern of leadership’s perceived importance corresponds to global regions of business growth and opportunity. Asia and North America were rated as the two highest areas of growth in our survey, and Western Europe is undergoing a difficult economic transformation. Emerging economies (Middle East, Africa, and, to a degree, South America) also report leadership as a top priority, balanced with the need for workforce capability, HR globalization, retention, and talent acquisition.

While most geographies have broadly similar priorities across the human capital trends, there are some variations, as figure 9 shows. North America reports the highest level of challenge from the overwhelmed employee. Asia Pacific- and South America-based companies report the need for improved workforce capabilities more strongly than companies in other geographies. Western Europe sees a greater need to reskill and transform HR than other regions.

This finding suggests that regional economic forces and cycles have an impact on human capital priorities. In figure 9, the high urgency that companies in Africa, Latin and South America, and the Middle East report for many of the trends is striking. This underscores the value of HR and leadership teams understanding these variations and accommodating regional workforce priorities and dynamics as they globally hire, manage, and lead their people.

Different industries have different talent priorities—with one major exception (figure 10): Every industry sees leadership as its top priority. Retention and engagement was almost as consistently rated a high priority: It was the No. 2 trend for six of the eight industry groups.

Differences among industries include:

• Technology companies, life sciences, health care, professional services, and oil and gas companies rate talent acquisition and access particularly high, reflecting the important need in these industries to find key people with unique technical skills.
• Energy companies, life sciences companies, and technology, media, and telecommunications companies—three industries going through significant transformations—rate the need to reskill HR as a particularly high priority.
• Professional services companies, public sector organizations, and energy and resources companies rate building workforce capabilities particularly high—in the top two or three slots.

Our survey asked respondents to rate the overall performance of their HR and talent organizations and programs. When we looked at self-assessed “excellent” or “high performing” HR and talent teams, we found that they rated the top trends higher in urgency and importance (on average, seven percentage points more) compared to those who rated themselves “adequate” or “average” performers. These trends included:

1. Leadership: Rated as “urgent” or “important” by 88 percent of high performers vs. 85 percent of average performers
2. Talent acquisition and access: Rated as “urgent” or “important” by 85 percent of high performers vs. 74 percent of average performers
3. Reskilling HR: Rated as “urgent” or “important” by 84 percent of high performers vs. 76 percent of average performers
4. Retention and engagement: Rated as “urgent” or “important” by 83 percent of high performers vs. 79 percent of average performers
5. Talent & HR analytics: Rated as “urgent” or “important” by 82 percent of high performers vs. 71 percent of average performers

These findings suggest that top HR teams are even more focused on certain business and talent priorities, including leadership, talent acquisition, delivering a high-performing and highly engaged workforce, improving the HR function, and building analytics capability, than most companies’ HR teams.

Our survey included the perspectives of both business leaders and HR leaders. For the five trends identified as most urgent overall, we observed substantial differences between business leaders’ and HR leaders’ views on their organizations’ readiness for these trends. These differences were more pronounced for larger organizations—those with more than 10,000 employees. Among these organizations, business leaders rate their organizations’ readiness to address the top trends an average of 13 percentage points lower than HR’s assessment of readiness in leadership, reskilling HR, the globalization of HR, retention and engagement, and talent and HR analytics (figure 11).

While HR teams may understand their current programs, capabilities, and readiness in these areas, these results hint that business leaders may not. If this is so, then this finding highlights the importance of HR leaders and teams improving their engagement with business line leaders, ensuring that HR is focusing on critical business concerns, and partnering with the business effectively to share HR’s capabilities and services. Of course, the finding may also point to underlying gaps that business leaders believe HR leaders need to address more fully.

When asked respondents to rate their organizations’ HR and talent programs on a scale from excellent to underperforming, the HR organizations in our survey showed a minor improvement over last year’s self-assessment. In 2013, 37 percent of respondents felt that their overall HR and talent programs were “underperforming” or just “getting by.” This year, that number dropped to 34 percent.

While this improvement is a positive sign, the general picture is still one of widespread perceived mediocrity. If we evaluate HR organizations’ overall self-assessed capabilities using a traditional grade-point scale (see figure 12), where “excellent” is a 4.0 or A, “good” is a 3.0 or B, “adequate” is a 2.0 or C, “getting by” is a 1.0 or D, and “underperforming” is a 0.0 or F, then this year’s respondents rated themselves at the equivalent of a C-minus—in contrast to last year’s D-plus. In 2014, twice as many global respondents gave their HR and talent programs an F as gave them an A (10 percent versus 5 percent). While this is not intended as a criticism of HR in general, it does reflect how challenging it is to build a world-class HR function and how far companies believe they are from this goal.

Forty-seven percent of responding companies expect to increase their HR investments in 2014, with 13 percent anticipating increases of 5 percent or more. Eight percent of respondents expect to decrease these investments, and 39 percent are planning to invest at the same level (figure 13).

Taking the weighted average across these increases, we found that 2014 should see a general growth in spending on HR of 1.32 percent. While this is a relatively small number, it is positive, indicating that companies are recognizing the need to invest in human capital and the value derived from those investments. Similar research shows a significant increase in spending in talent acquisition, training, reskilling, and employee engagement programs, with a flat to declining investment in HR staff and technology.

The global Human Capital Trends 2014 survey strives to present critical insights for business and HR leaders on both their HR and talent priorities and their readiness to deal with the future. Given evolving business needs and a changing global employee landscape, there is a complex set of urgent and important human capital challenges that require attention. At the top of the list are:

• Leadership
• Retention and engagement
• Reskilling HR
• Talent acquisition and access
• Global workforce capabilities

At the same time, new challenges, including talent and HR analytics as well as the “overwhelmed employee,” are being added to the human capital agenda.

While the priorities and challenges are clear—and seem to resonate in importance across industries and geographies—the readiness of HR teams to respond to these challenges is less certain. For almost every trend we identified, readiness scores lagged, in many cases substantially, behind the trend’s perceived urgency. In large organizations (those with more than 10,000 employees), we saw the largest differences between business and HR leaders in their assessments of the readiness to respond to important trends.

Perhaps HR executives are being tough on themselves and their functions when they grade themselves an overall C-minus. But given the importance that both business and HR leaders place on the human capital and talent agenda, 2014 is a moment both to reflect on what else can be done and to take action: focusing on what more can be done, what should be done differently, and what might be improved to move the needle in this critical area.

Our findings outline an agenda that can guide business and HR leaders pivoting between the recession and future growth strategies. The trends discussed in the balance of this report represent opportunities for improvement in leadership and development, acquisition and engagement, and transforming and reinventing HR to support business priorities in a changing world.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, Deloitte Consulting’s global Human Capital practice conducted an extensive survey of HR and business leaders to understand their priorities and readiness to address 12 global HR and talent trends. The survey included 2,532 respondents from 94 countries around the world. The key survey demographics are summarized in the following charts.

Finding talented game programmers isn’t easy. So HackerRank has built a recruiting tool that “gamifies” the process, or applies game-like mechanics to nongame tasks to get people more engaged. Today, the company is revealing a game tool that challengers programmers to create artificial intelligence characters that can beat those created by a game company that is looking for programmers.

Game companies in particular are excited about the tool, and two companies that have already signed up to use it are the fast-growing digital game companies Riot Games and Pocket Gems. They need engineers, and tools like those that HackerRank offers can show off an applicants skills without boring them to tears in job interviews.

“Every single customer I’ve shown this to is excited because it brings a whole new dimension to job recruiting and interviewing,” said Vivek Ravisankar, chief executive of HackerRank, in an interview with GamesBeat. “With HackerRank, you can attract people who are really interested in what you are doing in an engaging manner.”

Companies can do things like create a game of chess and challenge a player to create a program that plays chess better than the game’s existing AI bot. Some companies are able to get nine hires from each challenge they create. Companies can challenge programmers to show off their skills with computer languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, and Python.

Ravisankar believes that his company’s tools are especially useful in technical recruiting. He believes that his company’s tools can identify people with skills, regardless of where they graduate from, rather than steering recruiters into pursuing programmers who are graduating from big-name schools like Stanford University.

“We hope we are on the forefront of changing attitudes about hiring,” he said.

HackerRank creates a community where developers and engineers can use its web site to solve puzzles or hone their skills. Those who perform will can show up on leaderboards, and companies can go after the people with the best skills. The company claims it saves its customers 80 recruiting hours for every hire.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company raised $9.2 million in a second round of funding in June. Investors include Khosla Ventures, a16z, Sierra Ventures, Battery Ventures, and other angel investors. Altogether, the company has raised $12.5 million. HackerRank has 75 employees, and it hopes to become profitably by the second quarter of 2015. Rivals include Gild. Beyond the game companies, HackerRank has lots of other tech customers such as Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Square.

It took a while to figure out the business. Ravisankar and Harishankaran Karunanidhi started thinking about a company a few years ago. One of their ideas was to create a process that made it easier for engineers to apply for visas so they could work in the U.S. That didn’t work so well, since there were only two times a year when the applications were processed. Another idea was to create mock interviews to help train job applicants. But the applicants didn’t really have money to pay for that.

They went through the Y Combinator summer 2011 accelerator class. By 2012, they figured out what they wanted to do.

“Our vision really expanded beyond a platform for screening programmers,” Ravisankar said.