Evaluate this year’s localisation efforts

• Analyse localisation-related data from the year gone by to determine whether you met your goals and what you want to change in the new year.

Without localisation data, analysing and planning an effective localisation strategy is nearly impossible. You need this to show the decision-makers in your company that you have managed your localisation budget well and made it go as far as possible. Such data could include how much you鈥檝e spent, how much content has been localised and into which languages, cost and volume trends, or any other metric you find useful to track. You should be able to consult your language services partner for this data; they can keep track of such things for you.

However, to get the full picture, combine this information with data related to the performance of the multilingual content itself, like tracking visitors to your website pages or tracking how long they stay on the localised pages. By putting all this data together, you can see how this year’s localisation strategy helped you achieve your company goals, as well as where you may have fallen short.

For example, if you鈥檝e noticed that your sales in Sweden have jumped by 20% after localising your website and online FAQs into Swedish, but the same has not happened in the Danish market, this can be a point of change in the new year. Your marketing team and your language partner could analyse the Danish pages together and consider what may not be working for those consumers: How does the depth of your content compare with your competitors in Denmark? It could also be useful to analyse the Swedish pages in the same way to consider what is going well in that market.

• Consider the qualitative feedback and reviews you have received on localised content and discuss these with your language service partner.

Besides looking at quantitative data, it can also be a useful exercise to look at qualitative feedback from your stakeholders and focus groups regarding your localised content. What have your in-house team said about the localised materials? Have any clients noted inconsistencies or errors? And this doesn鈥檛 just have to be feedback about the final translated product, either. Has anyone involved in localisation on your end found the localisation process inefficient or ineffective? Why or why not?

Ultimately, you want to ask yourself: Based on the successes you achieved or mistakes you made this year, what can be improved for next year? And how can you improve it? Then, discuss these observations with your language partner. This can help you set mutual goals that improve the process on both sides and address any concerns with the past year鈥檚 work.

• Take another look at your language assets and speak with your language partner about what you may want to add in the new year.

The end of the year can be a good time to plan projects and resource updates for the next year, but you must first reflect on the year gone by. Language assets like style guides, translation memories and glossaries are incredibly useful resources for linguists, and if you didn鈥檛 get the chance to ask them for feedback throughout the year, now is a good time to check in. Would they recommend any changes be made moving forward? How often do they consult the language resources?

Strategise and plan for a winning new year

• Talk about your business goals with your language service partner.

When it comes to building an ongoing collaboration with a language services partner, it鈥檚 essential to share the goals and expectations you have in mind. Setting aside time for larger strategic discussions may feel like a waste of time when you have a project that requires a quick turn-around time, but it can significantly improve the long-term collaboration, streamlining processes and leading to greater overall satisfaction on both sides. As you head into a new year, sharing goals with your language partner means that they can be ready to handle changes like peaks in volume, new language combinations, or content adaptations due to rebranding.

• Proactively profile content you plan to write to estimate which solutions you will need from your language service partner.

Do you already know that you will need to update your internal policies at the start of the year across multiple languages? Are you going to try to penetrate any new markets in the new year and need your website localised? Information like this can help inform your localisation budget and strategy for the next year, and you can consult your language partner to ask any specific questions about solutions or cost.

For example, if you wish to localise your website into German in the new year, you may want a quote for the overall project, as well as an understanding of the website localisation solutions that a language service provider can offer you, such as SEO and desktop publishing.

• Connect the relevant members of your team with your language service partner鈥檚 localisation team, encouraging good communication for the year ahead.

Without clear communication links between your team and the localisation team, whether it鈥檚 with a project manager or specific linguists, you鈥檒l struggle to build a collaborative environment for discussions and setting actionable goals and milestones for the future. The start of the year can be the perfect time for connecting people, as they may have a little more time on their hands to set up a meeting and chat about their expectations for the year ahead.

But beyond this first step, how can you continue to facilitate good communication throughout next year? Make time for regular business review meetings to discuss progress and challenges with your language partner and make sure to think about what is meaningful and productive for such meetings. Don鈥檛 feel that you need to invite and involve everyone from both parties just for show. For example, if the agenda for the meeting is strategic, keep the attendees to the appropriate management level people. If it鈥檚 hands-on production related, such as a meeting to discuss changes to a style guide, just invite the people from the teams managing the daily work.

Set yourself up for success in the new year

Taking the time to go through each of the steps above and consult with your language partner may seem long-winded, but heading into the new year with a clear plan can save you a lot of trouble further down the road. Take it from us, the key to seeing positive localisation results is to invest time in a localisation strategy that aligns with your business objectives and is communicated clearly to your language services partner.

For more on localisation strategy and analysis, contact us for a chat at info@stptrans.com.

This article was originally published in December 2024 and updated in December 2025.

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The way you manage and control your global content can influence your brand, user adoption, sales, talent acquisition, regulatory compliance and many more content-bound operations.

A centralised content localisation strategy involves managing and controlling content adaptation from a central hub, ensuring consistency and coherence across all markets. This approach has gained traction for most content types as companies expand their international presence.

On the other hand, a decentralised or localised approach where local branches and teams own their content might yield better results for marketing and sales-related content.

And there are definitely cases where a hybrid approach is the best option. The decision is unique for every company as it is driven by your available resources and limitations, your maturity and your goals.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and risks of each content localisation strategy to help you determine which best aligns with your goals.

Why choose a centralised localisation strategy?

This strategy offers compelling benefits: it promotes brand consistency, improves cost and resource efficiency, enables streamlined workflows and supports data-driven decision-making at scale. By consolidating operations, you can maintain control over quality, terminology and messaging while leveraging automation to handle large volumes of content efficiently.

However, centralisation doesn鈥檛 come without trade-offs. It may limit flexibility, reduce local cultural sensitivity and introduce bottlenecks or single points of failure if not managed carefully. Let鈥檚 explore the benefits and risks of this strategy in more detail.

Consistency

• Uniform branding and messaging: Centralised management ensures that brand identity, tone and messaging remain consistent across all regions.
• Standardised quality control: Quality assurance processes are easier to manage, ensuring that all localised content adheres to brand standards.
• Terminological accuracy: Terminology is harmonised, mitigating the risk for product recalls, regulatory glitches and claims, but also providing a more consistent user experience across content.

Cost and resource efficiency

• Reduced overall costs: Centralised strategies often reduce overall costs through bulk purchasing of services, software or resources.
• Reduced duplication of efforts: Redundant work is avoided by consolidating content creation and management, meaning all content can be leveraged at any time to speed up localisation processes. This can also help reduce costs, as you won鈥檛 have to pay for content to be localised twice.
• Centralised training and development: Training programmes can be standardised and disseminated across teams, ensuring consistent knowledge transfer.

Streamlined processes

• Coordinated workflows: Centralised control supports better planning and streamlined collaboration across departments.
• Efficient feedback loops: Feedback can be shared between teams, ensuring that any issues or suggestions for improvement are quickly addressed and do not have to be duplicated across teams.
• Automation: The bigger the volumes and the higher the level of standardisation, like documents with consistent formatting or phrasing, the more companies and teams can benefit from centralised automation of their localisation processes.

Strategic decision-making

• Data-driven insights: A centralised localisation strategy also means that you will avoid collating data from lots of different teams and instead have one place to evaluate data on content volume, language distribution and market performance.
  • For more on how this data can help inform your strategy, read our article on localisation strategy and planning.
• Content profiling: With a centralised localisation team, you can also implement new processes like content profiling to understand how to categorise and prioritise company content based on its purpose and target audience.
  • This method helps you save money on less critical materials, such as survey feedback, and ensure accuracy when it comes to brand-essential content, like marketing collateral. To better understand how to profile your company content, check out our article: Content profiling: A blueprint for multilingual excellence.

Risks of a centralised localisation strategy

• Potential cultural misunderstandings: Centralised strategies may miss the subtle cultural nuances essential for local engagement, and limited autonomy for local teams may result in less effective messaging.
• Coordination challenges: Coordinating across multiple regions from one hub can lead to misunderstandings and operational inefficiencies. Additionally, decision-making may be delayed as local requests wait for central approval.
• Risk of central failure: A disruption at the central level can negatively impact all markets simultaneously.
• Investment in implementation: Establishing a centralised system often involves significant financial and time investments, as well as infrastructure changes and training needs.

Why choose a decentralised localisation strategy?

In a world where local relevance can make or break a brand’s success, many organisations opt for a decentralised localisation strategy, placing content creation and adaptation in the hands of local teams across different markets.听

This approach offers a number of advantages: it delivers more tailored messaging to local audiences and empowers local teams to react quickly and innovate. By giving autonomy to regional teams, you can create content that feels authentic, resonates with local audiences and keeps pace with real-time market dynamics.听

Yet, decentralisation comes with its own set of challenges. Without a strong central framework, you may struggle with inconsistent branding, duplicated efforts, communication difficulties and increased training and coordination costs. In the following sections, we explore the key benefits and potential risks of decentralised localisation.听

Greater local relevance听

• Deeper market insight: In-country experts often have better insights into consumer behaviour and can adapt content accordingly.
• Cultural sensitivity and tailored messaging: Local teams understand regional norms, idioms, humour and preferences, leading to content that might resonate more deeply with local audiences. Marketing campaigns can be adapted to local trends, holidays or current events for better engagement.
• Empowered local teams: Giving autonomy fosters ownership, motivation and innovation within regional teams.

Faster market response听

• Agility and responsiveness: Local teams can act quickly without waiting for central approval, making it easier to adapt to fast-changing market conditions or customer feedback. Teams can address issues or controversies swiftly, with messaging tailored to the local context.

Experimentation and innovation听

• Testing ground: Local markets can serve as testing grounds for new strategies or campaigns that may later be scaled up globally.
• Diverse ideas: Decentralisation encourages creativity and a broad pool of ideas from different markets.

Risks of a decentralised localisation strategy

• Diluted brand identity: Without strict central oversight, brand messaging, tone and visual elements may vary significantly between regions. Disparities in content quality or tone may confuse global customers or undermine trust.
• Duplication of efforts: Multiple teams might independently create similar localised content, leading to wasted time and resources. Furthermore, without shared infrastructure, tools and subscriptions may be purchased redundantly across teams.
• Communication challenges: Aligning cross-regional strategies becomes more difficult with multiple independent teams. Some regions may lack the skilled personnel or tools necessary for high-quality localisation.
• Training overhead: Training must be conducted in multiple locations and tailored to different teams, increasing overall costs.

Choosing the right localisation strategy for you

When choosing a strategy, you should consider your company鈥檚 size, industry, market diversity and goals. Do you need to foster a more local approach to build awareness of your brand in local markets? If so, you鈥檒l need to include regional teams in your strategy, whether that鈥檚 through a decentralised approach or a hybrid strategy.

You should also take a look at your content. Standardised content, such as technical manuals or legal documents, might benefit from centralisation because you can create automated processes and save time and money. On the other hand, nuanced and creative marketing content may turn out better with more input from local teams, who understand their audience鈥檚 preferences.

For many, a hybrid approach that balances central control with local flexibility may provide the best of both worlds, but the first step is to understand the benefits and risks of each approach. Ultimately, companies seeking to optimise their global presence must weigh the trade-offs carefully to ensure their localisation strategy effectively meets their goals.

If you鈥檙e looking for any assistance with evaluating your own localisation goals and strategy, send us a message at听info@stptrans.com.

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Dear Santa,

I was looking forward to coming home to see you, but as the Finnish borders remain closed to non-resident foreign nationals听(e.g. husbands) and visiting ex-pats would have to spend most of their time in quarantine, I鈥檝e given up on that plan. With your low numbers of COVID-19 cases, I understand why you wouldn鈥檛 welcome people home this Christmas.

How are you coping with the travel restrictions yourself? I bet you鈥檙e anxious to toe the line and set a good example鈥� but some jobs simply have to be done. I guess your sleigh rides qualify as work-related travel, so on those grounds maybe the authorities will let you fly.

Here at Sandberg, we decided not to post out our usual Christmas hampers but have opted to send our staff virtual gifts instead. We hope to minimise spreading the virus and save the shops鈥� delivery slots for those who are self-isolating. In doing so, we鈥檝e also reduced international air traffic which should leave you more space in the skies when you set off on your big night.

How has it been at your workshop this year? Have you had to redesign, to accommodate the two-metre rule? We closed our offices nine months ago and moved everyone to work from home . But we have continued to recruit new staff throughout the year, which has made learning how to train colleagues without being next to them in the office an interesting challenge! I鈥檓 proud to say our teams have done extremely well.

It鈥檚 been such a grumpy year here in the UK. I expected our main struggle to be in preparing for business with the EU from 1 January 2021, but now I know better. Whilst there鈥檚 still no clear guidance on what will happen in just over a fortnight, the country battles with disunity and distrust around many other important decisions too. And we have lost more lives to COVID-19 than virtually any other European country, whilst the government鈥檚 borrowing has reached unprecedented levels.

However, I鈥檓 mindful of those who鈥檝e had an even tougher year. This month, we are once again fundraising as a company for Translators without Borders鈥� Christmas campaign. Have you seen the goodies my Nordic workmates have baked for that project!? Please distribute some holiday cheer to everyone who has helped by donating on our .

Santa, your elves always seem so chirpy and happy, what鈥檚 your secret? My colleagues sometimes get disheartened and I鈥檇 like to be better at supporting them. I try to impart direction, inspiration and training through Teams, webinars and video, but it鈥檚 not always easy to gauge how it鈥檚 received and whether it鈥檚 enough. I appreciate every opportunity to hear from the teams beyond what I get to see in numbers and reports.

You know what I鈥檇 like for Christmas 2020? To have your powers. I鈥檇 like to be able to see my colleagues where they are. Not to see who鈥檚 naughty or nice, but to know their mood and how they are. Throughout the year I know they will have skipped lunch to make sure a translation project kicks off promptly or stayed up late to sort out our virtual infrastructure. I鈥檇 love to hear what they think at those times, and what their longsuffering spouses think too!

At our online catchup meeting last week, my management team opened the virtual doors to their private lives and shared photos of how they鈥檝e decorated their homes this Christmas. We had pictures of inventive 3D advent calendars, fully decked trees, stockings, Christmas cakes, home-made paper stars鈥� and I was even introduced to the concept of Christmas-themed Japanese bento lunchboxes (pictured right, as fashioned by Tomomi, the sister-in-law of Sandberg鈥檚 Operations Manager).

Wow, it felt great to peep past our professional lives and share private interests and aspirations!

Santa, I know that you rely on your teams, and I do too.听 Many of my colleagues and fellow localisation industry members live a long way from home and are not able to visit their native lands this Christmas. It鈥檚 always a hard time of year to be away from family, but they will likely feel it more this year than ever before. It would be lovely if you could remember them specifically and drop extra goodies down their chimneys as you do your rounds this year.

Thanks and see you around,

Anu

The post Director鈥檚 Cut, take 27: Home for Christmas appeared first on sa国际传媒.

It was only a tender, the size of a large rowing boat, and we were coming down the Hamble in Hampshire having moored our yacht further up in the river. But we were still hundreds of metres away from our home harbour and it was dark. The leak started small and first we continued at full throttle, pumping the water out manually. But then the pump stopped working. The boat was filling up fast and we knew we wouldn鈥檛 make it to the jetty. The options were to aim for one of the moored yachts we were passing, clamber onto it, call for help, sit and wait and watch the tender sink. Or turn to the shore which was further away and try to reach the muddy riverbank before hitting the bottom. The Hamble is a tidal river and it was low tide. The sun had set and there were no other people in sight.

We decided to try for the bank. I gathered the possessions I most wanted to save in my arms, ready to swim if need be, trying to think of a way to keep my phone dry. I was wearing too many layers of clothing to be comfortable with the prospect of getting in the dark water. We couldn鈥檛 move in the boat as the smallest movement threatened to tip one of the sides under the water. I didn鈥檛 fear for my life but was stressed about losing what we had with us, including the outboard engine and the tender itself. And I worried about causing trouble and possible danger to other river users in the morning.

Maybe your business feels like a sinking ship right now. The cold water may have been seeping in for a while but suddenly you find yourself in a situation where it鈥檚 rising fast. Your life is not in danger but if the business were to go down, there would certainly be serious collateral damage.

What do you do? You may have the option of turning to a larger vessel and piggyback on them for a while; you can borrow or you may be able to get an investor to inject cash into the business. There鈥檚 also the option of abandoning the ship and leaving it to sink. But if you decide to keep fighting for the best possible outcome, you have to get the boat to the shore where it can potentially be fixed or at least disposed of properly. And you want to achieve it whilst minimising damage to the crew and assets you carry onboard with you.

Which, weirdly, brings me to the topic of corporate governance. You might be a company director who accepted that position without knowing exactly what you signed up for. Or you may have set up a company recently and are wondering how to organise its governance. If you 诲辞苍鈥檛 have a commercial background, you might not even realise that corporate governance is not the same as company management.

The role of the board of directors in a company is to provide vision and direction, to decide the strategy and structure, to delegate authority to the CEO who heads the operational management of the business, and to be accountable to shareholders and other relevant stakeholders.

In the UK, a private limited company must have at least one director. When initially registering the company, the incorporation documents must name the first director(s). The way in which subsequent appointments are made is governed by the company鈥檚 articles of association.

In family companies, what usually happens is that one or two of the shareholders also become the directors of the company. In the SME private sector, they may even be employed by the company. One person can thus simultaneously be a shareholder, director and manager 鈥� three roles that have separate responsibilities and interests regarding the company. When a company allows for such combined roles, it is very tempting to take pragmatic shortcuts in board procedures and decision making. This really obfuscates things for the onlookers 鈥� everyone recognises the company has a power cluster, but no one quite understands how the roles in that cluster relate to each other. Hence even the staff end up referring to the governing group imprecisely as 鈥榖osses鈥�, 鈥榦wners鈥� or 鈥榣eadership鈥�.

Many start-ups have an all-executive board where every director also has a managerial or employee position in the company. A potential problem of this structure is that the executive directors can be perceived to be monitoring and supervising their own performance. They may also find it difficult to separate operational perspectives from strategic ones.

If your organisation is small and it doesn鈥檛 seem prudent to appoint several directors, an advisory board is an excellent option. Its structure is more flexible and its advice non-binding. Consequently, its members 诲辞苍鈥檛 have legal fiduciary responsibilities either. The company, CEO and shareholders benefit from the wise counsel of these non-executive experts and can compensate for their contribution by mutual agreement. When setting up an advisory board, I recommend you approach people who have been successful in areas where you feel less confident. Aim high. You will be surprised by how many of them say yes.

Back in the boat, we made it to the shore, but with no time to spare. I gashed my leg scrambling out and we spent ages trying to bail out the water and haul the vessel higher on the mud so that we could tie it to something until the morning. I openly admit that the hardest physical endeavour that night was not mine. I was lucky to share the boat with someone stronger and more experienced than myself.

Running into difficulties in business is not always your fault. Our boat had been fine when we last used it, and there was no sign of water when we started the journey home from the yacht. A business can be hit hard by external factors that are out of your control 鈥� we鈥檝e all learnt that in the past six months. It鈥檚 important to know that as soon as a company becomes insolvent, the director鈥檚 responsibilities are extended to others beyond the company; in addition to the regulators and the shareholders, the director becomes accountable to the creditors as well.

One thing holds true for both business and sailing: the smaller the boat, the more it matters who鈥檚 with you in it. If you are in the position to choose, choose wisely who you have on (your) board. When you get into a tight spot, they can make the difference between life and death.

The post Director鈥檚 Cut, take 25: Who鈥檚 on board? appeared first on sa国际传媒.

There are two main contributors to my colleague鈥檚 incredulity. The first one is the Nordic mentality. The second is the nature of the translation industry.

Janteloven (the Law of Jante) is an idea of equality where individuals 诲辞苍鈥檛 think themselves as being any better than the rest of the community. You 诲辞苍鈥檛 consider yourself any lesser either, but you try to see other people鈥檚 value as equal to your own. In the Nordic workplace, this mentality creates a culture where trust and respect do not have to be earned. I place substantial trust in each of my colleagues as a default. They can lose my trust, but they 诲辞苍鈥檛 initially have to jump through hoops to earn it.

This is different from the UK company culture, which is characterised by a distinct hierarchy.听The polite and indirect communication style of British managers can disguise the fact that they are the sole decision makers at their company. In a earlier this year, a quarter of the UK employees interviewed said they had left a job because of a lack of trust in their workplace.

My British management peers might still have their junior employees make them a cup of tea, whereas I am sometimes found at the sink of our office kitchen cleaning dirty cups so that the others 诲辞苍鈥檛 have to. For a Nordic professional, the CEO rolling up their sleeves is an indication of the high level of mutual respect between colleagues, regardless of their role in the organisation. Courtesy across the levels of hierarchy makes the office atmosphere more relaxed and minimises power games and the need for office politics.

The translation community is characterised by a similar disregard for hierarchy in its interactions and collaboration. Size does not always matter in our industry since specialisation lends importance to the smaller players. The client/subcontractor roles may alternate and be reversed in the complex supply chains. The need for innovation drives language companies into R&D partnerships and technical alliances. Business is still based on personal contacts and recommendations through networks.

I was contemplating these characteristics when planning STP鈥檚 campaign to support Translators without Borders in their holiday fundraising appeal this month.

STP has been a corporate sponsor of this charity for the past seven years. The focus of their work is to provide people with access to vital knowledge in their language. This involves translating for non-profit organisations in the areas of crisis relief, health and education, and training new translators in under-resourced languages.

STP is registered with Translators without Borders (TWB) as a reviewer and translation provider for the Nordic languages, but our languages are not the ones they need most. We only get to donate a few hours of linguistic and project management work every other month. Yet we cherish opportunities to raise awareness of why language matters in humanitarian work.

To this end, the members of the STP team have cycled through Hampshire as a part of TextPartners鈥� European tour (Operations Manager Susan Hoare), completed the Great South Run (Project Manager Emma Tamlyn) and had their hair dyed (Executive Chairman Jesper Sandberg). I myself walked around with 鈥淟anguage matters鈥� tattooed on my back for two months last year.

To support this year鈥檚 holiday fundraising, we have set up a with a promise from the senior members of our management team to perform embarrassing dares for publication online as we hit certain milestones.

Rosie Marteau, TWB Senior Development Officer commented: 鈥淭WB is privileged to have the support of its colleagues in the commercial language industry, including STP who have been steadfast allies of our work for many years鈥�.

鈥淚n many ways we are two sides of the same coin; just as LSPs deliver translation services for corporate clients and brands, we support global charities and small local NGOs alike to ensure their life-saving information is in a format and language that people can understand, at times of humanitarian crisis. We understand each others鈥� work, and that makes us a natural fit for CSR partnerships such as STP鈥檚 sponsorship鈥�.

The work of Translators without Borders is of course serious, and it deserves to be supported even without silly dares like ours. But in the spirit of Janteloven, we wanted to muck in, add a little extra incentive and a touch of Christmas cheer to . We hope you enjoy!

To read more about the work of Translators without Borders, visit

The post Director鈥檚 Cut, take 16: The fun in fundraising appeared first on sa国际传媒.

By 鈥榲irtual teams,鈥� I mean geographically dispersed groups of in-house staff who engage in interdependent tasks for shared goals and projects. I 诲辞苍鈥檛 mean just any odd group of remote colleagues.

In a translation company, a virtual team may be a group of project managers serving the same clients. Or a team of translators with the same mother tongue revising each other鈥檚 work or concurrently translating different parts of the same text.

It may also be a language technology group troubleshooting and processing files for the aforementioned colleagues, or a management team directing the whole show. In a virtual team, these people interact electronically rather than face-to-face and can be based in different offices, time zones and even continents.

Virtual teams, real costs

The prospect of eliminating office-related overheads may appear to explain the popularity of virtual teamwork. The reality, however, is that few of us with remote-working setups have abolished offices altogether.

Indeed, it鈥檚 common for translation companies to maintain both the office infrastructure, with the associated costs of rent, lease, electricity, furniture and hardware, plus the extra technology and remote setup needed to support virtual teams.

STP has physical offices in four locations, with nearly a hundred desktop PCs 鈥� and a large number of remote workers 鈥� connecting to the same virtual server every day. The company provides the hardware for both the office and remote environments. So we could hardly say that we facilitate remote working for cost-saving reasons.

Many translation companies build global networks of staff so that they can provide a 24/5 service. To turn work around as quickly as possible, projects are handed from colleague to colleague, and from one time zone to the next. In this context, the need for virtual teams is clear.

In truth, however, most of us have our virtual teams much closer to home: in the same continent, country or even town. We bear the inconvenience of geographically dispersed teams, but reap none of the rewards of around-the-clock cover.

Some employees claim that they鈥檙e more efficient when working from home. While it may be true that an empty house holds fewer distractions than a crowded office, I have little statistical evidence of STP鈥檚 translators or PMs becoming more productive after transferring from the office to a home-working arrangement. This, therefore, cannot be the reason for favouring virtual teams either.

So why do we do it?

Everyone agrees that there are numerous disadvantages inherent in virtual teams. Communication suffers from team members鈥� inability to read nonverbal cues. Virtual meetings allow no time to build relationships, which in turn leads to an absence of collegial spirit and makes it difficult to establish trust and rapport.

Virtual teams, in our experience, find it more difficult to express opinions, manage conflicts and make decisions. They鈥檙e also harder to monitor, support technically and engage beyond their routine tasks.

At STP, we support virtual teams because they allow us to hire from a greater pool of talent than any single office location can offer. They also help us to retain employees who start in an office but face change at some point down the line. The employee wants a change of scenery, their partner moves, their growing family brings a new need for flexibility, or they simply struggle in an office environment.

When these employees are allowed to work from their chosen location, they remain loyal and stay with us for longer. If they work from home, they save hours in travel time, are able to attend to personal or family matters and can adjust their working environment to their personal taste. The employer, meanwhile, should benefit from having a member of staff with increased focus and energy for their work.

Training and comms: the keys to virtual success

One of our biggest challenges with virtual teams at STP is providing adequate training, support and mentoring for newcomers during the first six months of their employment. Face-to-face contact with a supervisor or teammate is just so much better than virtual when it comes to building relationships and fostering trust.

We manage this by having all newbies complete a week of office-based induction training 鈥� an essential foundation for effective teamwork later on. This means, however, that we must keep enough senior colleagues working in those locations to help the newcomers. Sometimes the right colleagues are simply not in that office, and need to be brought in temporarily for the initial training period.

During their induction week, new employees meet our senior managers and other key members of their team. Then, when they eventually slot into their place in their own virtual team, they are assigned a mentor. They also join Yammer, our company social network, where we have 80 different collaboration groups. Some are compulsory for everyone, some are team-specific, and some are down to the interests of the individual.

From there, nearly all our collaboration and communication takes place online. We do small meetings and one-to-ones on Skype. We use tools like TeamViewer for help with technical troubleshooting, when someone wants to shadow another colleague, or when IT or language technology needs to take over the control of somebody鈥檚 computer remotely.

All of our large internal meetings have a virtual element to them 鈥� some people attend in person, others join via GoToWebinar 鈥� and many meetings are recorded for those who could not attend at all. To ensure efficiency and effectiveness, we鈥檝e found it鈥檚 a good idea to ban multi-tasking during all virtual meetings.

Remote, but not detached

When managing virtual teams, it鈥檚 particularly important to be able to measure their work output. Both managers and team members must be clear on what the key indicators of success for that team are. Managers should then track productivity consistently, both at individual and team level, and share the results with their team as quickly and transparently as possible.

It鈥檚 equally vital to set up virtual 鈥榳ater coolers鈥� where employees can meet online for informal chats. We have an open group called Coffee Break in Yammer for this purpose. Unlike in the real world, though, everyone else can easily listen in to the smart, entertaining exchanges that take place there 鈥� and even give the occasional shy thumbs-up.

Often the discussions end up providing a delicious mix of professional and personal insight. It was on STP鈥檚 Yammer, for instance, that I first learned how rude it is to end an instant message with a full stop. Something my very unvirtual children had shockingly allowed to go unchecked for years.

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Modernity may have eroded the mystery surrounding the Magi, but we still like to consult wise men and women in our time of need. We turn to experts when we hit a wall with our own resources, or those of our team. Sometimes we do it to check we鈥檙e on the right track, or just to discover what bright new stars might be out there.

Business consultants come laden with gifts and advice, but they tend to be expensive, so we 诲辞苍鈥檛 engage with them lightly. Here are some collaboration tips and ideas I think wise 鈥� and some that are otherwise (that is to say, gained from hard-won experience).

Contractor or consultant

There is a difference between a contractor and a management consultant.

Contractors are taken on for a fixed 鈥� often short 鈥� period of time to perform a task or a role, whereas consultants are brought in to influence strategic decision-making at board level.

Wise: Contractors won鈥檛 usually transfer their skills to an internal staff member voluntarily 鈥� and why would they?

Be wary of over-friendly contractors who try hard to be liked by everyone from day one, or those who are not happy to document what they do. They may be trying to make themselves indispensable.

Consultants, on the other hand, should be willing to part with their knowledge in order to train, instruct and guide your people and your processes.

Otherwise: With both types of expert, give them good, meaty projects to work on and they will love you for it, because it helps them enhance their CV for future contracts.

Industry or domain expert

I have had the pleasure of working with external domain experts (on HR, IT and corporate finance) as well as a couple of distinguished advisers from within the translation industry.

The former tended to be long-term projects at a time when STP was restructuring a key function or department. The latter were ad-hoc visits from industry friends we already knew and admired.

While the industry stalwarts were invited to come and target specific translation community issues in a workshop-like manner, experts from outside have been helpful in transforming our company in areas that are common to all businesses.

When implementing major changes in our HR, IT or finance department, we vetted external experts either through recommendations or by conducting traditional job interviews with the candidates.

Wise: Apart from selecting the most suitable consultant, you also need to create a project with a clear schedule. It should include fixed milestones and deadlines, well-defined objectives, an agreed outcome and a realistic budget.

You must set your consultant clear deliverables, or they will get dragged into other areas of the business and not deliver what you want.

Otherwise: The challenge with external consultants is that they need time to understand your business, yet you can’t afford to give them months to get up to speed.

You may get frustrated with meetings where the consultant finds out what you do, looks at your systems and records to see how you do it, and interviews your key staff to gauge their opinion on what is working and what is not. That鈥檚 before they write a report stating the starting point for their work, which is something you obviously already know.

More meetings then follow, in which the consultant studies the wider context of your business, analyses the situation, applies their prior knowledge to see what should be changed, and produces another report on their findings.

In most cases, you will learn nothing new here either. You already know the state of your business and what needs to be improved. It was you who gave them most of the information they are now presenting back to you, after all.

So far, all the money you鈥檝e invested has gone towards bringing the consultant up to the level of knowledge that you, as the company owner, should already have. But try not to see this gulf in understanding as a negative.

By knowing less than you, the consultant is able to break straight through to the heart of the business or problem without being distracted by context or history. Sometimes a fresh face with a different perspective is all you need to make a breakthrough.

Analyst or implementer

Consultants are usually hired to analyse a situation and recommend solutions, and you should expect to be challenged at this point about how and why you have done things.

You should probably accept that without a notable investment, there won鈥檛 be a notable change. But what you should not do is thank the consultant for their report, dismiss them and let them walk away.

Wise: This is where the work should start in earnest, and where the consultant鈥檚 experience and expertise comes into its own.

Most small companies know what they are lacking 鈥� the problem is they 诲辞苍鈥檛 know how to go and get it. And if that鈥檚 the problem, the solution cannot be someone pointing out to them what is lacking and simply telling them to go and get it.

The real value of a consultant is in facilitating and managing the 鈥榞o and get it鈥� process and seeing it through to completion. These wise men and women have witnessed how things are done well and how they are done badly at other companies, and they are an excellent source of experience in this respect.

Whether the company鈥檚 need is to acquire, implement and optimise new technology, to create a new function, department or role, or to expand into a new market or sector, the consultant usually needs to provide the strategy for the planned change, then map out the practical steps.

They must find and recommend key contacts and networks for the new solution, liaise with stakeholders, chair meetings and hold everyone鈥檚 hand while they take action. They must also make sure reporting is kept up to date, monitor the budget and finally instruct the key players how to keep the rest of the staff informed of what鈥檚 happening.

Otherwise: Small companies rarely get value for money from meeting someone charismatic at an industry conference, inviting them to assess the state of the business and asking them to suggest improvements.

At best, a fleeting visit like this may produce a positive report to boost the owner鈥檚 ego. But it is difficult to gain anything more from it because there is no accountability for the visitor to drive any permanent change.

Resource or partner

My most fruitful experience of consultants has been working with 鈥榝ractional鈥� directors, also known as 鈥榩art-time鈥�, 鈥榩arachute鈥� or 鈥榦n-demand鈥� directors.

These are experienced, multi-faceted professionals who serve as part-time management experts in small or medium-sized businesses that otherwise would not need, or could not afford, a full-time executive.

Fractional directors can stay with you for as long as you need their strategic involvement, and their monthly hours can be adjusted. They usually provide a similar service simultaneously to a small handful of other companies.

Wise: As with any recruitment, to find a good match for this role, you must not compromise on your company culture. Choose a partner who fits in at least as well as your employees do.

Give them full access to the business, including an email address and a building pass. If you 诲辞苍鈥檛 fully trust them, why engage them in the first place?

Otherwise: Invite them along to away days and off-site visits, so that they can be part of the team and not an outsider.

I invited Paul Larner, our fractional IT director from , to my birthday party last summer, and it turned out to be a very wise decision 鈥� he took most excellent photographs.

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Lack of growth and advancement opportunities, limited coaching and feedback, a mismatch between the job and the person, or stress from overworking. These are just some of the motivating factors you will see mentioned.

Looking for general trends in the global workforce across all industries, however, will not get us very far. So if staff turnover is something that keeps you awake at night, you need to focus on understanding why employees leave your organisation.

The simplest reasons for people leaving our organisation range from discovering that the role did not suit them to getting a better offer elsewhere. The former typically applies to a linguist we have employed in a project management position and the latter to a translator enticed away to an in-house position at a content-owning client company or an EU institution. We have a higher staff turnover in our translation and project management teams, whereas fewer people resign from management or middle-management positions.

But we also lose people who like what they do and who say it would be hard to find a nicer company to work for. Many of our leavers want to move away from the UK, usually returning to their native countries. Some have gone back to academia for further studies, including PhDs. And others want to set up as freelance translators and have more control over their daily schedules. This usually happens when their family grows and their private life needs more flexibility.

I have looked at the figures long, hard and often, and I cannot see any single cause of resignation that we could directly remedy as a company. What we must do, then, is build a culture of motivation and reward that helps us hold on to our best people for as long as possible.

On motivating

Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor theory suggests that there are factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction and other elements that cause dissatisfaction.

The former are called 鈥榤otivators鈥� and include achievement, intrinsic interest, responsibility, advancement, opportunity to do something meaningful, decision-making and sense of importance.

The latter are called 鈥榟ygiene factors鈥�. These generally 诲辞苍鈥檛 motivate staff, but if they are lacking or entirely missing in the workplace, employees will be demotivated. Hygiene factors include company policy, admin practices, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, job security, fringe benefits and holiday.

An ideal company should have a high degree of both motivators and hygiene factors. If you have high hygiene factors but low motivators, your people will merely work for their paycheque. If the motivator factors are high but the hygiene factors low, the job is exciting but the salary and conditions won鈥檛 withstand competition. And if both motivators and hygiene factors are low, the workforce won鈥檛 be motivated and there will be many complaints.

This means that once you have a competitive compensation package in place offering flexitime, remote-working options, pension plan, health insurance and potentially a profit sharing scheme, and you have created a decent HR structure and effective internal communication, you need to turn your attention to the factors that really give your employees a good reason to stay.

On commitment

We live in a world where job-hopping every couple of years is becoming commonplace, and even desirable.

Among millennials, hopping from job to job is no longer a sign of disloyalty. It does not necessarily point to an inability to hold down a job or get along with colleagues. And yet, some recruiters say it is still easier for an older person with a steady employment history to find a job than it is for a hopper in their 30s.

This makes sense. Staff turnover is highly disruptive 鈥� especially in an environment like ours, where we try to focus on building long-term partnerships with clients as well as keeping up with fast-moving industry-specific technology and a changing marketplace.

Our team leaders spend a lot of time finding, training and mentoring new colleagues, and our teams face frequent reshuffles of tasks and workloads to accommodate temporary shortages of skills and expertise while newbies get up to speed.

Staff turnover is also expensive. An and report in the UK in 2014 declared that it takes an average of 28 weeks for a new employee to reach their optimum productivity level (OPL). Given the comprehensive nature of client-facing project management in our industry, this is certainly the minimum for translation company PMs.

The logistical cost of replacement is said to average at around 拢5,000 per employee. This figure includes advertising the role, processing the applicants, assessing tests, interviewing, and arranging cover until the replacement can start.

The cost of bringing newbies up to their OPL, however, could be five times greater. Combined with the circulating reports that over 50% of people recruited to an organisation will leave it within 2 years, it makes chilling maths for employers.

What attracts a candidate to a particular job is often different from what keeps them there. Today, employees are looking for a career path, growth opportunities, comfortable company culture, diverse responsibilities and a work-life balance.

They want to pursue their dreams. They have a passion for creativity. They 诲辞苍鈥檛 want to be told to just do their job. They want to be involved in casting the vision and working on high-brain-power tasks. People who feel like stakeholders are likely to stay longer.

On rewards

As with staff retention, money comes to mind first when thinking about rewards.

Financial incentives in translation companies, however, tend to be reserved for executives, salespeople and account managers 鈥� roles that are seen to be making the biggest difference to the bottom line. It is less common to pay bonuses to linguists and project managers, unless the business has set up a company-wide profit-sharing scheme that all employees participate in.

But not all perks and incentives are monetary.

We consider it important to reward STP鈥檚 long-serving employees. After certain milestone years of service, our people receive additional paid time off plus other awards in recognition of their commitment and loyalty to the company. We also have a policy of acknowledging work anniversaries on Yammer, our internal communication platform, with a personal, publicly shared message of thanks and praise.

This year, we also experimented with a campaign of honouring the more intangible daily staff contributions that do not get enough appreciation. For instance, we launched an internal customer service contest among our project managers to acknowledge the scope and complexity of their work.

We wanted to applaud them for carrying out their tasks in a friendly, cooperative manner, for showing initiative and for going the extra mile in their fast-paced, high-pressure working environment. The winners were given trips to international translation industry conferences where many of our clients convene.

The element of surprise

I have found that rewards tend to work best when they are unexpected. As soon as they become a regular, predictable part of the remuneration package, they seem to lose a lot of their motivational value. On-the-spot rewards are most powerful when given immediately after the achievement, and public recognition always beats privately given credit.

In the past two months, I have heard two motivational speakers quote the same research by Sam Glucksberg on the effect of offering rewards. The research they referred to indicates that rewards are good motivators for achieving narrow, focused tasks, but not so good for larger, creative ones.

Routine, rules-based work occupies our left brain, whereas conceptual tasks with no clear set of rules or solutions use our right brain. When working on tasks requiring innovative solutions, religiously applied rewards were in fact shown to lead to poorer performance.

This is because to succeed in right-brain tasks, you need intrinsic motivation 鈥� the inner drive to do things because they are important and interesting. For these right-brain tasks, trying to entice people with a carrot or threatening them with a stick simply does not work.

A different kind of incentive

Training and personal growth opportunities are good motivators. Last month, we paid for the 16 members of our management and middle management teams to go through the personality profiling, consisting of an online assessment and an onsite workshop.

Apart from the obvious self-understanding benefits, the key takeaways from the day included understanding how cohesive teams work, how each of us comes across in our interaction and communication with others and what our ideal work environment might look like.

The investment will deliver results when we apply these strategies to our collaboration and remember how to work with each person most effectively. But the session also served as a reward, aiding the individuals in their personal and interpersonal growth.

I keep smiling at my own profile, and it seems that my team does, too. In the section titled 鈥楤arriers to Effective Communication鈥�, it recommends the following:

When communicating with Anu:

• Do not question her motives or competence.
• Stick to business at all times.
• Be ready to leave quickly.
• Do not wait for praise or recognition.

鈥淲ell we knew that already, didn鈥檛 we?鈥� my team said.

鈥淵ou are more of the 鈥榠sn鈥檛 the task itself reward enough?鈥� orientation, after all.鈥�

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Apparently, the phrase has passed into everyday French to describe overambitious people who want to overthrow the boss and take his or her place (thus the name 鈥榟e鈥檚 no good鈥�, pronounced with a French accent). Which was of course not me, and not how I ended up being the managing director of STP.

Global research by Common Sense Advisory indicates that most translation companies are small businesses with less than half a dozen employees. It is safe to assume that such companies are often managed by their owners who work full time in the business, either in a linguistic role or on the commercial aspects.

The business provides the owner with a life-long career and income, and many only start to think about an exit strategy after reaching a certain age, or burning out. The options are to find a buyer for the company, to pass it on to their children or to get someone else to manage it. Family succession is a great solution when the next generation is competent enough 鈥� and interested enough 鈥� to take over and inject new blood. If this is not an option, it is natural to look to promote someone from within.

When Jesper Sandberg, STP鈥檚 founder and now executive chairman, appointed me managing director a year ago, I had already been working in the company for almost 15 years, building the empire with him block by block, probably considering it mine as much as he considered it his. Consequently, our staff did not seem particularly shaken or stirred by my appointment.

Wondering how different it might be in a company where the baton is passed to a descendant rather than a colleague, I asked Thomas Faust about his experience. Thomas recently joined his father in running , a Luxembourg-based translation company which, like STP, has grown to its current size from one man鈥檚 freelance business.

Thomas grew up watching his father translate, went to study business and tourism, and still took some time to decide that taking over a translation company was what he really wanted to do. Not wishing to see his father鈥檚 legacy pass into the hands of a stranger was a strong motivator for him.

How to replace the irreplaceable?
Many translation company owners worry deeply about finding someone able to听run the business like they do. Surely no one else would be willing to put in the hours,听have the attention to detail, possess the dedication, share the vision and master the minutiae. No one else could possibly care as much. This may be true, but it鈥檚 also the point. No hired manager will ever do the job exactly like the owner did. And there are benefits to that, the same as when a parent entrusts their kids to a nanny.

The parent has unparalleled love and concern for their children, plus a brilliant vision for what they should grow up to be. But a professionally trained, emotionally detached nanny may do a better job of bringing them up with discipline, good conduct and structured training 鈥� and equip them to deal with an outside world that does not automatically think them special.

Likewise, when considering passing the reins to the next generation, it might help to think of them as a translator working on a text originally created by someone else. She may not be as precious about the original as the content owner is, but regarding the version she is writing, her feelings of ownership easily equal those of the original writer, and she will dedicate all her skills to creating a product that will have the same impact on her target audience.

Thomas believes that working your way up is probably the best way to enter a management role, because it proves to everyone that you have earned the position and you have gained credible industry skills on the way. But, he adds, it is not always a feasible option in small companies. The organisational structure is flat; there is the team and there is the owner. There is no career ladder to climb and no opportunity to learn management skills in stages.

The team size limits the talent pool to choose the management material from, and promoting one person from a small group of peers carries the risk of causing friction and raising suspicions of favouritism. When Thomas stepped straight into his managerial role, he spent months familiarising himself with all the tasks in the company. What really helped him, though, was that he knew the members of the team personally, having already spent time with them outside of work. It enabled him to quickly establish good working relationships, though he knows that he will still have to work hard to prove to everyone 鈥� including his father 鈥� that he is worthy of their trust.

When a company is owner-managed, it is quite possible that everyone else in the company has well-thought-out, accurate job descriptions, while the MD has none. The first step in transferring the job is to write down what the MD does. The next step is to decide how much of that should belong to the remit of the new MD, and then write a job description accordingly.

When I sat down to write mine a year ago, I divided my new responsibilities into three processes:

1. Strategic
This means that I鈥檓 responsible for creating and implementing STP鈥檚 strategy and directing the company鈥檚 work, resources and policies.

2. Operational
This is about translating the strategy into business plans and monitoring our teams鈥� progress against those plans by setting performance measures, by verifying the appropriateness of our service with our clients and stakeholders, and by directing internal development.

3. Organisational
I oversee the organisation of all of STP鈥檚 functions: linguistic production, project management, IT and language technology, HR management, vendor management, customer relationship management and communications management.

Whatever duties are included in the new MD鈥檚 responsibilities, it is important to agree a transition period for the handovers. And it is important to realise that some processes may need to be changed before they can be handed over.

As an owner-manager builds a company from scratch, they tend to develop solutions organically, reactively and independently, as needs arise. This may result in systems that only they understand. With a new manager taking over, it is likely that such systems need to be updated, perhaps even reinvented.

For me, access to real-time financial analysis and accurate management accounts became paramount when I started managing someone else鈥檚 money. Thomas says that he identified processes in need of optimisation at his company, which led to restructuring of workflows and implementation of new software. At other companies, decision-making, approval and reporting channels may need to formalised. Or targets need to be set 鈥� and met.

Handing over company leadership is like running a relay race. In succession planning, you identify and develop the person you want to pass the baton on to. A relay race brings out the best in everyone and, apparently, increases rather than decreases the speed of the athletes. A 400-metre relay team, for instance, can achieve a time that is better than the four runners鈥� combined 100-metre times, because the athletes are already running when they receive the baton.

A well-planned transition period in a company can achieve the same result. It is also great that a baton drop does not automatically disqualify a team; whoever had the baton when it was dropped may pick it up and continue the race. Ultimately, it is all about the baton, not the individual runners.

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Any manager worth their salt struggles in these areas, and few are able to apply the well-meant recommendations to their own circumstances. Being a manager is a lifestyle choice, to an extent, and we tend to like what we do. Many of us 诲辞苍鈥檛 have fixed working hours, which makes it difficult to distinguish between work and leisure. And our pay is often based on results rather than time spent.

For these reasons, simplistic work-life discussions 鈥� the kind that start from the premise that there is too much work and too little life 鈥� are rarely helpful for us. Instead, I think we鈥檇 do better to view it in terms of what invigorates us and what drains us out. Pursuing a work-life balance from this angle, rather than merely looking at time allocation, has certainly been meaningful for me.

Defining what matters

I鈥檇 like to think I know what matters in life, and yet I can still be guilty of getting my priorities wrong. At times I have even put the demands of my job above the wishes of my family. I consider myself a high achiever, a completer-finisher, and a goal-oriented kind of person 鈥� so hard work is something I enjoy, and my natural inclination towards it is not always easy to control.

My all-or-nothing personality, however, means I unwittingly set the bar at a level that鈥檚 often well beyond most people鈥檚 idea of fun. This can cause tensions in my personal life, but it serves me well at work. Managing a company with clearly defined roles, rights, rewards and responsibilities is easier for me than negotiating the ever-shifting goals and entangled relationships of the private realm.

At times I have also struggled to recognise the elements in my life that zap my energy without yielding a satisfying return. Am I stressed because of my work or my private situation? Discovering the causes and dealing with them requires courage because they are often things I cannot simply remove from my life.

The house I call home. The tasks that provide me with my income. The voluntary commitments that allow me to give back to the community and my industry. The intellectual pursuits that keep my mind young and sharp. The fitness that supplies endorphins. The family and relationships that make me a better person. Each of these can cause stress, but since getting rid of them is not viable, learning to manage them is the only option.

If you were to ask me for a single piece of advice on how to become professionally satisfied, I would say be good at what you do. It鈥檚 easy to enjoy doing what you do well. If you are employed as a manager, be a manager through and through. Think like one, speak like one, act like one 鈥� whether someone is watching you or not.

And my advice for being satisfied in your personal life? Don’t let your job be the only thing that defines you. Single-minded workaholics rarely make inspiring leaders at work, and they鈥檙e seldom the most riveting company outside of it.

Impostor alert!

I understood something profound about my work-life balance when I stumbled upon the definition of impostor syndrome. The revelation that I was suffering from something similar came through talking with friends, and it was only later that I discovered the syndrome was a genuine phenomenon recognised by clinical psychologists.

Impostor syndrome refers to high-achieving people who are unable to accept and internalise their successes, and subsequently live in fear of being exposed as frauds. Dismissing any external evidence of their competence and accomplishments, they brush it off as luck, personal charm or even an ability to deceive others into believing that they are more competent than they are.

Feeling guilty, these gifted people proceed to work doubly hard to prevent others from finding out what 鈥榠mpostors鈥� they are, leading to a never-ending cycle where each new success, promotion or recognition causes the person to feel more like a fake. Getting better at the job doesn鈥檛 help, because the more you enhance your knowledge, the more you discover what you 诲辞苍鈥檛 know. The more you move up the ranks, the more you meet talented people to compare yourself negatively against.

It hardly comes as a surprise that impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women. Some sociologists suggest it鈥檚 a key reason why female academics switch into less ambitious jobs at some point in their career. We look at our senior colleagues, deem that they must be 鈥榮uperwomen鈥� and conclude that we could never emulate them. We 诲辞苍鈥檛 realise that they might feel inadequate as well. I have been labelled a superwoman in the past by friends, colleagues and even by my children, so I should know.

The only solution, many experts say, is for the 鈥榠mpostors鈥� to talk about their insecurities more. That would lead to us not being alone with our feelings of guilt, which in turn would enable us to relax and start to set limits for how much we push ourselves at work. As managers, we should also provide our teams with regular, factual feedback on their performance to alleviate any potential impostor feelings they may have. We should create an objective body of evidence for them by documenting and celebrating their accomplishments and success stories.

Play to win 鈥� or not

When I do manage to be at peace with my professional achievements and stop feeling guilty about the level of my contribution, it frees energy for other areas of my life. In the past couple of years I have experimented with many new pastimes outside of work. And I am learning to enjoy activities I may never become very good at.

Being a novice at anything feels horrible. But since I 诲辞苍鈥檛 get paid for my leisure activities 鈥� I pay for the privilege of doing them 鈥� there is less pressure to perform to a high standard. Consequently, I鈥檓 a reluctant runner bereft of a regime, an infrequent bodypumper stuck lifting only moderate weights, a trainee golfer who never ventures out of the driving range, and a West Coast Swing dancer who can鈥檛 freestyle.

But, hey 鈥� not guilty!

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