👤 Manoj Agarwal
10th January 2022
In times when opportunists with aspirational ideas believe that spending more always means earning more, the ethic of conservatism, frugal application of financial factors, and maximum exhaustion of efforts are often ignored. The true value of a project is emanated when it is accomplished by using the least of resources. Below are 38 invaluable leadership insights by Manoj Agarwal, Co-founder of Empuls, that would change your perspectives on handling resources and customer expectations.
In the world of consumerism and "excess" in everything; I have found delight in "Minimalism". I am sharing my best learnings which can help any organization to improve its business. It has been helping Xoxoday too.
Empuls have grown from zero to a few points with limited resources. We found solutions in every problem, embraced iterations and changes, and tried innovation in every small thing whether it's lead generation, reducing customer tickets, reducing fixed costs, hiring, and technology. Less is more for us.
Rather than adding more people to a project, break down the project itself. This always helps in agility and cost controls.
A laser-sharp focus helps in getting high-quality output. Many times at work, we are busy doing unnecessary and lose focus on what is most important. Organizations should be ruthless in removing anything unnecessary whether it's design, features, processes, goals, teams, initiatives, etc.
We keep sitting on multiple tasks and goals. While chasing multiple goals, one tends to deliver each with mediocre output. Instead of that, one can choose a few goals at a time, do them very well before moving on to the next.
28000 is the number of hours the Xoxoday team collectively puts at work every month. 8000 hours was the number of hours at work from the WhatsApp team when it was acquired by Facebook. Deep focussed work can create wonderful output with lesser man-hours. Organizations should enable workspaces that help in deep work and reduce distractions in everything else. Xoxoday needs to improve in its deep work culture and I am sure this applies to many other companies
Open workspaces in offices in the name of collaboration are increasingly leading to distractions. Organizations should have a good balance between open spaces and noise-free spaces. Most of the time your output is best when you are working alone with access to people on-demand. The always-on collaboration through open workspaces does not help any cause and kills productivity.
Meetings in organizations are the biggest time killers. One meeting with 5 people for 1 hour is equal to 5 man-hours. Most of the time meetings don't result in anything. What could be done in a simple mail or chat that resulted in a meeting? Avoid the temptation of meetings, have clear agendas, decline what is not relevant, and have fewer meeting rooms.