Ptex recently received quite a compliment. As of July, we are officially certified as a Great Place to Work® business.
To receive this prestigious accolade, GPW asked our employees to participate in their anonymous survey on their feelings regarding the workplace environment, culture, management, etc. and how it affected – positively or negatively – their job performance. I myself was not allowed to take part in this.
The unanimously positive results of the survey was quite touching.
As a marketing agency, Ptex Group invests a lot of time and talent into creating and positioning brands, and building out detailed campaigns.
But here’s the thing: Sometimes, once a company has launched a successful marketing or re-branding campaign, they find themselves without sufficient manpower to handle the sudden influx of incoming phone calls, inquiries, and leads.
And surprisingly enough, the success itself ends up resulting in a catastrophic waste of time and money – potentially causing the newly formed brand image to become severely tainted.
Something to think about, isn’t it? Read more
You’ve got product. They want purpose.
You’ve got a commodity. They want camaraderie.
Turns out, what people want most today, is uncannily similar to what they’ve always wanted. Only for thousands of years, those needs used to be supplied by community, culture and organized religion. In today’s scattered and individualistic society, those moorings have been severed, leaving a profound, gaping hollow.
Savvy brands are stepping in to fill that void, building causes and cultures around themselves. Read more
Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, of Stanford University, accurately summed up the responsibility of a leader:
“Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions, so that the world doesn’t fall apart if you take a day off.”
Perhaps no concept in business is more essential, and at the same time so colossally misunderstood, than delegation. Any rational person knows that they have strengths and limitations. It follows, that tasks should be divvied based on each employees abilities.
Yet for some reason, many business struggle to properly delegate—and the consequences are severe. Sloppy projects. Missed deadlines. Angry clients.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now before everyone gets up in arms, I’m certainly not advocating violence in any shape or form. But I do want to bring attention to a fundamental issue that, unfortunately, tends to get skated over a bit.
It’s no secret that company culture is a critical element to success in any business. It’s a huge reason for the success of companies such as Google, Zappos, and Southwest Airlines. Quality employees and valuable clients alike are attracted to a place with a vibrant, positive culture.
Great culture starts at the top. Those in executive and managerial positions have the power to set the tone for the workplace environment. It’s an enormous, far-reaching responsibility, because the environment they create will ultimately determine the quality of the employees and the business they attract. Guess that’s why they’re paid the big bucks.
There is a common denominator that all companies with great culture tend to share: they understand that there is a difference between managing and leading.
You turn on your phone, and are greeted by a most familiar message.
An alert flashes across the screen giving you the option to update to the new and improved version of some app or software. Just a tap of the screen and presto! It’s better than ever.
This routine has become so commonplace in our mobile-centric lives. Today’s hyper-paced world has reached dizzying levels of speeds, and software developers are constantly rolling out new updates, security fixes, and improvements to their products in order to keep pace.
While there’s not much to do on our end, in reality there is a lot of work that goes into creating these updates. There is updated code to write, bugs to fix, development, testing, split testing, tweaking, consumer feedback, and more testing. It’s an ongoing, meticulous process.
Much like the phones that (unfortunately) control our lives, we, too, require periodic updates.
At the end of next week, Ptex Group will be closing its doors for a few short days.
Our hardworking team plans to celebrate the wonderful Jewish holiday of Pesach (Passover) and will honor this beautiful, timeless tradition… by taking a vacation from the office.
Dozens of studies show it is both healthy and important to periodically take a break from our hectic work schedules. And the reason is quite simple.
Along with millions of Americans, I’ve been avidly following the 2016 election process. It’s been a wild, turbulent spectacle, and has commanded everyone’s attention.
We’ve seen how one man took the entire political system and threw it into a complete frenzy. I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.
Now, don’t worry – I’m going to steer clear of the political arena, and in no way is this an endorsement. However, I feel there are always valuable business lessons to be learned from current events.
Agree with him or not, there is no denying that Trump has positioned himself as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination. To many, this has been nothing short of an astonishment. Astute businesspeople will notice, however, that he has simply applied a couple of basic, winning business concepts to his campaign:
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