Low-Code and No-Code Design Is the Future of Website Building

Low-code and no-code platforms are building sites that are just as impressive as ones built by skilled developers, and do it in less than half the time of their counterparts.

The low-code and no-code web design movements are going through a renaissance. Every day, low-code and no-code website building platforms are releasing new features, innovations and solutions to continuously bridge the gap between what someone with nearly zero coding skills can accomplish and a full-fledged developer.

After all, why would any web professional waste time and resources on new code when a low-code or no-code platform can do the same thing in half the time? Web professionals and agencies everywhere are starting to reap the benefits granted by using these website-building platforms, which range from faster scaling to automated structuring for high-ranking SEO.

It’s important to identify the key factors behind the upward trend of low-code and no-code and fully grasp the benefits it passes on to businesses.

What exactly is low code and no code?

Low code and no code are widely defined as visual approaches to web development. With low code and no code, website building platforms can automate nearly every step of the development process and streamline builds, drastically increasing development speed for web professionals.

There are two main areas of low-code and no-code development. One type is design-first platforms, which allow web professionals to build visually engaging web applications. These usually have a strong focus on the design of a website, automating scaling and positioning to look flawless across all devices. These platforms are great when developers want to quickly produce external-facing web applications for their customers. These design-first platforms, such as Webflow, Duda and Bubble, are seeing the largest growth in popularity, due to their visual aspects and their wide range of clientele. The gap between what professional developers and people without any coding experience can do is becoming narrower with the rise of innovations in low-code website building platforms. 

The other type is functionality-first platforms. These were built around providing functionality and are best used as internal tools to automate IT processes swiftly. Examples of these platforms include Airtable, Google App Maker and Creatio. Large-scale organizations make heavy use of functionality-first platforms because they have a strong need for internal systems that help align data, processes and teams. This enables these businesses to better connect with digital native customers and rapidly adapt when new tools are integrated into their data systems.

Complete article at Entrepreneur India

Research: Informal Leadership Comes at a Cost

Summary.   

Encouraging up-and-coming talent to take on informal leadership of a team or project is a great way to support both employees and their entire teams, but new research suggests that these duties can also take a toll on informal leaders’ job satisfaction and energy levels. The authors conducted a series of studies with students and professionals in the U.S. and Taiwan, and identified a significant inverse correlation between informal leadership and both energy levels and satisfaction rates. They also found that support from formal leaders can mitigate these effects: When people’s formal leaders were unsupportive, informal leaders reported energy levels 20% lower than non-leaders, but with enough support, the difference actually completely disappeared. Based on these findings, the authors offer strategies to help both formal managers and informal leaders reap the benefits of informal leadership while minimizing its negative side effects.

As an informal leader on my team, I’m often responsible not just for meeting my own goals, but also for managing and making decisions on team tasks. Even though these tasks are not mine to complete, I have to put in extra work to help my peers deal with them — and that can be really exhausting.

One of the best ways managers can both support employees’ professional development and improve their entire team’s performance is by encouraging promising talent to take on informal leadership responsibilities. Stepping in and leading a team or project can give up-and-coming leaders valuable experience and prepare them for formal supervisory or management roles in the future, while also adding value to the entire organization.

Complete Article at HBR

Why A Growth Mindset Is Essential For Career Success

Mindset is everything. Whether you’re talking about career success, starting your own business, getting through a tough workout or being a parent, having the right mindset can make the difference between success and failure. The concept of mindset can’t be discussed without mentioning Carol Dweck and her insightful book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck discovered the power of mindset. In her book, she outlines the differences between a fixed and growth mindset—showing how success in almost every area of life can be influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. Once we harness the power of a growth mentality, studies show that it can be essential for career success.

Fixed vs. growth mindset

A fixed mindset assumes that our intelligence, character and creative ability are static. Basically, you are dealt a hand in life and are required to accept it. Believing that your qualities are set in stone creates a desire to prove yourself over and over again. A fixed mindset can result in career stagnation.

On the other hand, a growth mindset is based on the idea that your essential qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. It assumes that everyone can change and grow through experience and practice. A growth mentality sees failure not as a detriment, but as a springboard to success. Failing is actually a form of learning. In one study conducted by Dweck with children, she offered four-year-olds a choice. They could either redo an easy jigsaw puzzle or try a harder one. Those with a fixed mindset chose the easier puzzles that would affirm their existing ability. They wanted to make sure they succeeded to seem smart. The children with a growth mindset tried to stretch themselves because their definition of success was about becoming smarter. In her book, Dweck writes, “After thirty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.”

1. Embrace failure

Fostering a growth mentality involves viewing failure as a positive rather than a negative. Everyone has setbacks. The key is to learn from each one and improve your decision making. Wildly successful people typically fail their way to success. Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times before getting his big break. Even Oprah Winfrey was fired from her news coanchor position at a Baltimore TV station before going on to build a successful daytime talk show. A producer reportedly told her that she was “unfit for television news.” Oprah later said, "I had no idea what I was in for or that this was going to be the greatest growing period of my adult life.”

Complete Article at Forbes

 

A culture of learning: How to build it and why it's so important now – Perspectives 2021

As companies return to the office, it is important for businesses to make the most of the opportunity. They need to break away from the past and transform their workplace learning culture.

Over the last 18 months, most businesses had the opportunity to optimize their business operations. Throughout this time, companies have optimized their talent strategies, reassessed their digital strategy, products, and services, scaled up operations, and identified new market opportunities. At the heart of these shifts is a workplace culture that supports continuous learning that is agile, adaptive, and resilient.

At the opening keynote of the India edition of Skillsoft’s Perspectives Conference 2021, Ester Martinez, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, People Matters spoke about “Why its important to build a culture of learning, and how to build it.” Here are some key takeaways from her session:

Work, skills, and the workplace

As businesses resume ‘back to office’ operations, it’s not going to be business as usual in a pre-pandemic sense.  “Work is going to be about what I do, not a place I go to,” Ester noted. The real opportunity for businesses to consider is to rethink the workplace – as a place to foster team engagement, co-create strategy and to collaborate on innovation.

The critical questions that HR leaders need to think about is:

How to architect work?

What are the skills that employees need to navigate work? 

How do you enable employees to organize their work, and personal life? 

The pandemic has helped companies learn a lot about work-life. There’s a need to reflect on how much work can be done synchronously and asynchronously? And what are the capabilities and skills that are needed to help people work in both dimensions? Finding the right blend of synchronous, and asynchronous dimensions in work and learning will be necessary in the new work context.

Complete Article at People matter

Why Mandates Make Us Feel Threatened

Summary.   

As companies figure out how to implement vaccination mandates, brain science can help leaders develop strategies for managing employee reactions. Mandates feel like a violation of autonomy, which is one of the five most important intrinsic drivers of threat and reward in the brain. To help people feel less threatened, managers can try to offer another form of autonomy — for example, with the vaccine, this may mean allowing employees to choose when, where, or how they receive the shot. Another way to address the threat is to try to trigger one of the brain’s reward drivers. For example, the jarring nature of reduced autonomy (“Why am I mandated to do something?”) can be partially offset by increasing feelings of relatedness between employees (“I haven’t felt this close to my team in a while.”) Managers can also take steps to make employees feel greater levels of certainty, another of the brain’s reward drivers. While it’s difficult to provide absolute certainty when dealing with a mutating virus, transparency and communication can help provide clarity.

After President Biden announced a federal mandate requiring companies with more than 100 workers to have their employees vaccinated or tested weekly, leaders found themselves scrambling to understand the effects on their organizations. Questions surrounding privacy, individual rights, and collective responsibility surfaced, not to mention the possibility of imminent legal challenges.

Complete Article at HBR

ICICI Home Finance Company aims to hire 600 employees by December 2021

ICICI Home Finance Company (ICICI HFC) has unveiled its plans to recruit over 600 employees by December 2021, a move made to cater to the increased demand for home loans in the affordable housing segment. The recruitment drive is planned to be executed across its pan-India branch network in sales and credit, as per the company’s statement. 

Commenting on the company’s recruitment plans, Mr. Anirudh Kamani, Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Home Finance, said, “We see growth opportunity in affordable housing segment across 530 plus locations we are present in. Our pan-India recruitment drive will aid our growth plans as we focus on hiring local talent for our branches.”

Complete Article at People matter

 

Power And Influence: How to Intervene When a Manager Is Gaslighting Their Employees

Summary.   

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where an individual tries to gain power and control over you by instilling self-doubt. Allowing managers who continue to gaslight to thrive in your company will only drive good employees away. Leadership training is only part of the solution — leaders must act and hold the managers who report to them accountable when they see gaslighting in action. The author presents five things leaders can do when they suspect their managers are gaslighting employees.

“We missed you at the leadership team meeting,” our executive vice president messaged me. “Your manager shared an excellent proposal. He said you weren’t available to present. Look forward to connecting soon.”

In our last one-on-one meeting, my manager had enthusiastically said that I, of course, should present the proposal I had labored over for weeks. I double-checked my inbox and texts for my requests to have that meeting invite sent to me. He had never responded. He went on to present the proposal without me.

Excluding me from meetings, keeping me off the list for company leadership programs, and telling me I was on track for a promotion — all while speaking negatively about my performance to his peers and senior leadership — were all red flags in my relationship with this manager. The gaslighting continued and intensified until the day I finally resigned.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where an individual tries to gain power and control over you. They will lie to you and intentionally set you up to fail. They will say and do things and later deny they ever happened. They will undermine you, manipulate you, and convince you that you are the problem. As in my case, at work, the “they” is often a manager who will abuse their position of power to gaslight their employees.

Complete Article at HBR

 

How to overcome exhaustion by practicing the 7 types of rest to balance your energy

 

I tell you a secret: sleeping, taking breaks and resting are not the same. It is scientifically proven that you can close your eyes and stay in bed for many hours, and also wake up physically and mentally exhausted. It is that the accelerated and vertiginous pace of today's world sometimes leads to extreme demands in order to perform and obtain results; and that tension does not allow you to recover.

I am convinced that the most important thing a person can do for their health is to take time and have a quality rest. Yet many struggle to do so, be it out of guilt, insecurity, fear of the unknown, or for any other reason, and so people postpone the rest they need.

The 7 types of rest

I have found that it is not always easy to know what is the best type of rest for the body, mind and spirit. To know it, it is necessary to recognize the difference between the seven types of rest, and that each serves a different purpose.

We have always been told that you have to sleep at least between 7 and 8 hours a day to replenish energy; However, this is not the only way to rest, because, as you will see, we can do it with our eyes open.

Based on the research of Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith presented in her Ted talks and on CNN , let's review the 7 types of rest so that, combining them, you get the maximum energy benefit in your favor:

First type: physical rest

Within this category we find two forms: passive or active.

Passive physical rest consists of sleeping and napping. The active one, doing activities such as yoga, mindfulness, stretching, meditation, reiki, massages, among other disciplines.

Second type: mental rest

Mental rest is taking moments to unplug the mind as much as possible. You will achieve this by changing your focus, abandoning tasks, worries and problems momentarily.

For example, the stresses of the workday creep like a heavy backpack in and out of the workday; And that is why, despite sleeping or taking breaks at home, you still feel tired and do not fully recover.

Complete Article at Entrepreneur India

When Everyone’s Quitting … Except You

 

Summary.   

A historic wave of job turnover has companies working hard to recruit and onboard new employees. But what about those who aren’t job surfing? Many employees are looking around and seeing many new faces on their teams. They may suddenly find that they are the senior member on a team of new recruits. If you’re in the position of suddenly being the senior member on a team of new recruits, there are four ways you need to manage yourself and your team. First, give yourself space to process the changes around you, then focus on developing your on re-onboarding plan. Recognize that you will need to mentor new colleagues, but that you should not forget to learn from them at the same time. Finally, consider whether you can grow at your current company, but don’t write off the option of leaving if the right opportunity arises. To ensure you have as many options as possible, avoid burning any bridges with your former associates.

One of my clients is an executive who has been with her company for more than 20 years. Over the past several months many of her peers have moved on from the company, part of 2021’s turnover tsunami. She’s now surrounded by new hires and she worries that she is being associated with the “way things used to be” and unfairly seen as someone who isn’t innovative, strategic or willing to take risks by virtue of being a “long-timer” at the company.

Complete article at HBR

The Digital Economy Runs on Open Source. Here’s How to Protect It. by Hila Lifshitz-Assaf and Frank Nagle

Summary.   

Free and open source software (FOSS) is essential to much of the tech we use every day — from cars to phones to planes to the cloud. While traditionally, it was developed by an army of volunteer developers and given away for free, companies are increasingly taking a more active role in its development. But as companies buy up open source companies, bring development in house, and spin off their own for-profit versions of FOSS products, they could be endangering the future of this essential software. To maintain the viability and security of FOSS, companies should: 1) have a clear policy towards open source — preferably one that encourages employees to contribute to FOSS if feasible, 2) raise their level of awareness about the FOSS that they use and stay apprised of its vulnerabilities, and 3) keep the stability of the software they use in mind, and incentivize their employee contributions to focus on both features useful to the company as well as general security and maintenance.

Though most people don’t realize it, much of the technology we rely on every day runs on free and open source software (FOSS). Phones, cars, planes, and even many cutting-edge artificial intelligence programs use open-source software such as the Linux kernel operating system, the Apache and Nginx web servers, which run over 60% of the world’s websites, and Kubernetes, which powers cloud computing. The sustainability, stability, and security of these software packages is a major concern to every company that uses them (which is essentially every company). But unlike traditional closed-source software, which companies build internally and sell, FOSS is developed by an unsung army of typically unpaid developers, and is typically given away for free.

Complete Article at HBR

From Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, Similar Personality Traits Emerge: How Do Yours Compare?

What entrepreneurs can do — and what they feel they must do — is deeply rooted in personality.

Entrepreneurs are cut from a different cloth, and there are more of them than ever. News cycles regularly feature the latest startup that has been funded and sent to the market. 

Gig workers, freelancers, consultants, analysts and more have been given a huge advantage as remote work becomes normal and widely accepted. This means that entrepreneurs may have more opportunities than ever to give life to their big ideas. 

Because of the increased prevalence of new and innovative businesses, many experts and forecasters are revisiting research from the past decade about entrepreneurial personalities. 

Entrepreneurial personality traits

The Harvard Business School has a working paper called “Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs.” In it, the three authors review literature about the personality traits of entrepreneurs, first considering the Big 5 Model of human motivation as well as risk attitudes, goals, aspirations, locus of control and the need for achievement. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, people who start new businesses share a lot of common characteristics. 

These characteristics follow three core themes, sometimes taken together as an “entrepreneurial orientation”: distinct personality traits, including self-efficacy and innovativeness; a unique attitude toward risk, which may be misinterpreted as overconfidence; and shared goals and aspirations.

The authors of that paper draw a line of difference between entrepreneurs and managers. Entrepreneurs are not just great leaders or capable administrators: They deviate from common leadership patterns. 

Researchers found that entrepreneurs were more conscientious, similarly extroverted and more agreeable than managers. Entrepreneurs are consistently more open to experience, changing environments and new challenges than managers, and they're also extremely achievement-oriented, but are drawn to environments where success is attributed to their efforts, rather than an institution.

Complete Article at Entrepreneur India

Why Business Leaders Need to Mandate the Covid-19 Vaccine

Summary.   

To bring the pandemic under control, almost everyone needs to come to see getting vaccinated as the unquestioned, right thing to do for themselves and for others. What business leaders decide about Covid-19 vaccine mandates will go a long way toward fostering the social norms that can either mitigate or exacerbate this pandemic. When a company mandates Covid-19 vaccinations, the normative information they provide is that these vaccinations are safe and effective and that getting vaccinated is widely accepted and done. As more companies mandate vaccines, over time this becomes the shared understanding, and getting vaccinated becomes the default choice for employees and customers. Conversely, when companies don’t mandate vaccination, it delegitimizes the Covid-19 vaccines by suggesting that the science is unsettled and that waiting to get vaccinated is prudent. By establishing and diffusing social norms that uphold science, company vaccine mandates can help get the pandemic under control.

Now that the FDA has fully approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine and President Biden has urged companies to require vaccination, many leaders will grapple with what to do. In making their decisions, there’s a larger societal calculation they should consider: the role their organization can play in either normalizing or delegitimizing getting vaccinated.

Complete Article on HBR

The 5 disciplines of collaborative leadership

 

Anthony was in trouble: because of his success in leading a large R&D team within his organization, he was now tasked with leading an enterprise-wide digital transformation initiative. “I’ve been able to lead my direct reports effectively, but this,” Anthony hesitated, “this will require influencing and aligning people over whom I have no authority.”

It was a defining moment of leadership for Anthony. Leading a digital transformation requires aligning cross-functional teams, often with a workforce that is geographically dispersed. Could he successfully guide employees in collaborating across the enterprise? 

According to researchers, most leaders fail to meet this defining moment. A relevant study highlighted the inability of colleagues to collaborate effectively. When 80 senior executives from 20 countries and 25 industries were asked what the biggest barriers to long-term strategic execution was, over 76% cited people failing to work together to make change happen.

The truth of the matter is clear: Most leaders simply don’t know how to lead collaborative organizations.

Complete Article at People matters

Making Small Farms More Sustainable — and Profitable

Summary.   

Smallholder farms provide a large proportion of food supply in developing economies, but 40% of these farmers live on less than U.S.$2/day.  With a rapidly growing global population it is imperative to improve the productivity and security of farmers making up this sector.  This article presents the results of Better Life Farming, an ecosystem that connects smallholder farmers in India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh to the capabilities, products, and services of corporations and NGOs.

More than 2 billion people currently live on about 550 million small farms, with 40% of them on incomes of less than U.S. $2 per day. Despite high rates of poverty and malnutrition, these smallholders produce food for more than 50% of the population in low-and middle-income countries, and they have to be part of any solution for achieving the 50% higher food production required to feed the world’s projected 2050 population of nearly 10 billion people.

At present, these smallholders are trapped in a negative cycle that damages both themselves and the planet.  They are vulnerable to adverse weather incidents and water scarcity, have limited access and low bargaining power with purchasers of their output, and incur high crop losses, estimated at 28% of their production during on-farm growing and post-harvest storage. In order to increase their meager incomes, they cut down trees to access more land.

Complete Article at HBR