{"id":673,"date":"2018-06-19T21:02:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T01:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/?p=673"},"modified":"2020-07-13T20:02:44","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T00:02:44","slug":"navigating-winds-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/navigating-winds-of-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating Winds of Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>f you had to sail across the ocean next week, having never sailed before, how would you do it? As captain of your yacht, you\u2019d probably choose a destination, get a good crew of people who know what they\u2019re doing, learn as much as you could to prepare, and then cross your fingers. With a deep breath you\u2019d set sail into the abyss of uncertainty. Ultimately, most of your learning would happen in the waters and you\u2019d quickly find out how much you don\u2019t know. You would float on in a fog of vagueness, an uncomfortable flux. Eventually you\u2019d get used to the ebb and flow of the waves against your boat. You\u2019d learn that the ocean\u2019s rhythm is the only thing that you can count on – its waves sometimes raging, sometimes soft, but ever-present. Perhaps you\u2019d find a comfort in the normalcy of this constant change. Perhaps you\u2019d learn ways to navigate the winds in your favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Working] in this type of environment where there\u2019s so much unknown, \u2026is really uncomfortable for a lot of people, and\u2026it hasn’t been for me, because it\u2019s all I\u2019ve known, really.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If you can relate to this unease, you\u2019ve probably been part of a start-up before. You know it\u2019s everything but smooth sailing: it\u2019s chaotic, it\u2019s exhausting, and not everyone\u2019s stomach can take it. \u201c\u2026working at a start-up with no structure, with very little pay, \u2026it\u2019s difficult to do for a long period of time, \u2026you have to be very comfortable with a lot of ambiguity\u201d describes Anthony Morra. He was lucky in his entrepreneurial voyage because someone more experienced showed him the ropes. In the late 90s while his father was the Licensee for Kappa Canada, Anthony was running the warehouse at 16 years old. \u201cSo from him I learned a lot about what you should do in business, the type of decisions you should make. \u2026And the way most people think about business is not the way my dad thought about business; completely different, but he knows what works, he\u2019s been doing it for 30+ years with completely different industries. \u2026So valuable life lessons and business lessons I learned from him,\u201d Anthony shares. \u201c[Working] in this type of environment where there\u2019s so much unknown, \u2026is really uncomfortable for a lot of people, and\u2026it hasn’t been for me, because it\u2019s all I\u2019ve known, really,\u201d he says. Acclimated to the ever-changing waters of start-ups, Anthony Morra<\/a> is the CEO of Bladetech Hockey as well as part owner and Managing Director of BeaconForce Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a-morra-3\"<\/a>
Photo by Alex Banman<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2014 Anthony met Jeffrey Azzolin<\/a> at a U of T Sports and Business Conference. Jeffrey was showcasing a prototype of a hockey blade using a new technology. \u201cI wrote him an email the next day and said hey, like your idea, this is what I can do for you.\u201d So the two started working together and built Bladetech Hockey<\/a>. After countless emails, and plenty of unreturned phone calls, Anthony and Jeffrey got Bladetech into retailers, and landed their first NHL client, the equipment manager for the New York Islanders. Now they have several players from about a dozen teams using their blades. The Bladetech blade uses what\u2019s called Flex-Force technology<\/a> to increase the player\u2019s speed and reduce injuries. Although unique, selling a niche product is not easy, it takes a lot of persuasion to get people to try something new in an established industry. Breaking into a tough market with Bladetech has helped prepare Anthony for a similar situation with BeaconForce. \u201cThere [are] a lot of things related to BeaconForce. Same thing: new technology, new company, no credibility, no validation or very little validation. \u2026just getting [people] to try [our product] is difficult,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a-morra-2\"<\/a>
Photo by Alex Banman<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then in August 2017, Anthony received a phone call from his MBA colleagues in San Francisco, asking if he\u2019d like to be involved in their new business. They had come up with BeaconForce<\/a>, a technology that measures productivity at work in order to motivate employees to perform at their best. \u201cThey told me about what it is, and in about 10 minutes I was like yeah, I\u2019m in.\u201d So Anthony quit his full-time job and became the Managing Director for Canada and the East Coast of the United States. What was it about this start-up that made him jump ship so quickly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c…you can\u2019t motivate people, people think you can, you cannot. They\u2019ve gotta be motivated, and you have to give them the right opportunities to be motivated.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

BeaconForce discovered a serious disconnect between what science teaches us about motivation, and how businesses motivate people. Looking at studies in behavioural science from the last 35 to 40 years we can understand why people enjoy the things they do, and why they do them. The activities people enjoy the most are ones that engage them in a task that offers them control and allows them space to think creatively. The problem in many workplaces today is \u201cthe model of management is about 100 to 150 years old. When Henry Ford was creating his Model Ts, he created this hierarchy in order to control people, basically [saying]: do this thing, to get this job done, and that\u2019s it. So work has obviously evolved quite a bit since then, but management style has not,\u201d Anthony points out. Many companies still operate from this dated mindset, and use fear or extra compensation to make sure people do what they want. Despite how powerful and effective punishments and rewards can be; they are only short-term motivators. You can\u2019t create truly loyal employees with extrinsic motivation. The only true motivation we have, is the motivation that comes from within. The science shows what motivates people, but businesses aren\u2019t using that information to motivate their employees. So BeaconForce created a technology to put behaviourial science into practice in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a-morra-1\"<\/a>
Photo by Alex Banman<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAgain you can\u2019t motivate people, people think you can, you cannot. They\u2019ve gotta be motivated, and you have to give them the right opportunities to be motivated. You have to create the right environment where their motivation can flourish,\u201d says Anthony. BeaconForce has found there are seven factors that motivate us the most: clear goals, continuous feedback, social interaction, balanced challenge, sense of improvement, attitude to risk and sense of control. If the activity you are doing includes some or all of these motivators you will be motivated to keep doing it. BeaconForce measures people\u2019s intrinsic motivation, the level of trust between employees and managers and employees and the company, and where people are relative to flow. Flow is defined as \u201cyour most productive state of mind, \u2026[when] your challenges slightly outmatch your skill level,\u201d Anthony explains. Using BeaconForce technology, employees answer one quick question (anonymously) per day. These results are analyzed over time and managers receive tips that they can implement to improve the team dynamic and the work environment. By encouraging personal growth, managers can stimulate employee motivation, and, in turn, increase overall productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026it\u2019s being able to recognize things before most others and putting all these things that seem unrelated together\u2026to create new opportunities.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Anthony has his future mapped out and clear skies are in the forecast. He wants to take Bladetech to the next level by partnering with a manufacturer to make skates with Bladetech blades already in them. He also believes BeaconForce will be very successful; \u201cwith this change of technology, what we\u2019re focusing on is the people actually, and that\u2019s who often get lost. \u2026So being able to do what we\u2019re doing with people, I think is gonna make a huge impact on businesses and people\u2019s lives.\u201d Yet Anthony feels most fulfilled when he uses all his skills to accomplish his career goals; \u201cCuz it\u2019s not just knowledge of business, \u2026it\u2019s being able to recognize things before most others and putting all these things that seem unrelated together\u2026to create new opportunities.\u201d He is currently working on a sports module for BeaconForce, blending together his interest in behavioural psychology and his love of sports. BeaconForce Sports will measure how stress affects performanceto help coaches motivate the players on their teams. He smiles confidently saying, \u201cIf I do all that, I\u2019m gonna buy yacht, and\u2026that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a-morra-4\"<\/a>
Photo by Alex Banman<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While sailing in the winds of change, we cannot predict all the treasures we will find, or hidden rocks we will hit. Learning with every change in current, we navigate in the rough waters and the smooth seas, purposefully steering towards our chosen port. When weather patterns and naysayers try to knock us off course, we adjust our sails and trust that the winds and the waves will carry us where we want to be. Guided by hope, we sail on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about intrinsic motivation Anthony recommends Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us<\/em> by Dan Pink<\/a>  and Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience<\/em> by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participate in Our Mentorship Program<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you had to sail across the ocean next week, having never sailed before, how would you do it? As captain of your yacht, you\u2019d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3032,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50518562,50518563],"tags":[50518540],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-critical-thinking","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mltyh8w83q6i.i.optimole.com\/cb:tv33.231\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/a-morra-1-2791589406-1577724547791.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9EHbH-aR","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4600,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions\/4600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the6rightest.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}