Many business leaders face the challenge of firing someone who shouldn’t be part of the organization. While we tend to agree on the importance of it, de facto we are doing it too late. Federal data stewardship focuses on establishing unified standards across the different federal agencies on how personal data is collected, used, and shared. Firing is a hard decision. Hiring is an easy decision. When hiring new people, mark your calendar 30 days down the road and ask yourself: Knowing what I know today, would I hire this guy again? If the answer is yes 30 days in, then tell that person that you are pleased with their performance so far. If the answer is no, fire that person immediately because from this point on, everyone already knows that this person shouldn’t be there. If you don’t fire that person, this is the beginning of the end of your organization. I’ve heard that many times. I think that people don’t say that to me so much anymore, but in the beginning, they used to say it a lot. Sometimes you take your date to meet your friends for the first time and they say, “That person is not for you.”

Imagine it is 2007 and I’m starting Waze, and I came to you and said, I’m building an AI crowdsource based navigation system. You probably don’t care. Now, if I said I’m going to help you avoid traffic jams, then suddenly you do care. That story more easily engages users, customers, investors, media—everyone. How would this translate in a development context? Take the case of two women empowerment programmes we have been involved with in emerging economies: in both cases, programme formulation based on traditional analytical approaches (problem definition based on context analysis, surveys, research) led both organisations to approaches that they recognised as ineffective and “stale”. Finally, to fall in love with the problem means a commitment to gaining customer empathy, considering a broad range of ideas and experimenting with your customers. Should you feel guilty if you’ve fallen in love with a solution? Of course not, as long as you follow a structured process that allows you to say goodbye to a solution that’s not working, and fall in love with the next one you try!An awesome organization would be a company that is exceptional, impressive, and inspiring, with great DNA. It will be admired for its achievements, reputation, culture, and values. One that, among other things, retains top talent. First, social entrepreneurs focus on the problem they are solving, not the solution.So, in your case, why does your community have high unemployment? Is it related to education, a skill gap or barriers to employment? You could create jobs as a solution but still not solve the problem of high unemployment. So, the first step in social alchemy is to understand the problem through research , conversations with those impacted and mapping of existing resources. The Lean Canvas isn’t a better Business Model Canvas but a different canvas altogether. Even though I changed 4 boxes, the addition of the Problem box continues to generate the biggest mind shift in the resulting business model. Next, when you come up with ideas, don’t feel the need to temper any enthusiasm that may arise. This passion is helpful in making the process fun and engaging. However, you can provide a satisfactory segue from focusing on one idea to ideating on more solutions by writing the idea down. Starting with a goal is also helpful, e.g. commit to coming up with seven ideas. This will keep you honest about continuing with ideation even if you think you’ve already found the answer. It’s a journey of failures building something new that no has built before. We try something and it doesn’t work so we keep trying different things until we find one thing that does work. If you’re afraid to fail, you already failed because you’re not going to try. Albert Einstein used to say that if you haven’t failed, that’s because you haven’t tried anything new before. Michael Jordan said that failing over and over and over again is what made him successful.

Waze is successful in many countries, but Brazil is perhaps the most significant one, where it has become an indispensable tool for drivers, with a huge impact on how they plan their schedules and ensure punctuality.Ehud and Amir were working together at a software house that Amir was running. Ehud was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), but in his “night job” he had built a product called FreeMap Israel.

An organization or a #community in the spirit of YPO, where you can speak openly with your fellow YPOers, who are like you, chief executives, can provide you with the confirmation you need.Notice how the “Innovator’s Bias” sneaked in here. Each of us is trained to be good at certain disciplines, and when confronted with a problem, we automatically reach for our strongest tool. It’s no surprise that my designer came up with a design solution, my developer came up with a technical solution, and my marketer came up with a, yes, you guessed it, marketing solution. Think of all the services that you use every day: searching Google, using WhatsApp, opening Waze, Uber, Netflix. Ask yourself: What is the difference between using any of those things today compared to the first time I used it? There is no difference. We are searching Google today the same way that we searched Google for the first time. We are using Uber today the same way, and we are using Waze today the same way.