Seventy-five per cent.

According to the survey by The Hartford, that is the rate of workplace millennials will occupy by 2025. They are tech-savvy and self-expressive team players unwilling to follow the “boss-subordinate” algorithm. Striving for constant improvement, they need a leader who could motivate and be a role model for them.

And while it’s common to see 23 to 30-year-old entrepreneurs and startup-ers who are millennials themselves and supposed to set the corresponding leadership style, some aren’t yet emotionally intelligent enough to deal with their ambitious and mindful mentees on the way to business success.

In the post-COVID-19 world, when so many people became more self-aware and revised their life and career goals, emotional intelligence turns to be even more essential in the workplace.

With remote work from homes, the ability to recognise, evaluate, and control mentees’ sentiments is critical for responsible leaders to master.

Here’s what young entrepreneurs and team leads can do to get the ball rolling:

Practicing correct emotions in team communication

Good and bad leaders alike use their emotions to control mentees. The difference lies in harnessing them. Yelling at team members can instill fear or annoyance while motivating and inspirational words can turn them in your favour. 

Communicating with the workforce, leaders need to pay attention to emotional words they use in both oral and written language. Some can tear away your sensitive mentees, while others make them want to complete a task and excel.

Just compare:

“Jack, complete this report by Friday so I wouldn’t have to rewrite everything. You don’t want to get penalised for a failure, do you?”

With:

“Jack, could you help us, please? The manager asks for a stellar report with no weak spots. As far as you’re our best analyst, I decided to ask you. Would you complete it by Friday?”

Also Read: How early-stage startups can build a thought leadership strategy

Using emotional arguments

Given that it’s emotions rather than logic that rule our decisions, leaders who try persistently to persuade mentees with nothing but solid arguments may often fail. The team will listen to you, nod their heads, but yet adhere to their own opinions.

Take iPhone sales, for example. While Apple releases their new products long after Android, their sales exceed others so far. It happens because customers have gained an emotional attachment to Apple’s products.

The same is true for leadership:

If willing to persuade their workforce, partners, or clients to follow and advocate their brands, a leader needs to draw them emotionally. With lockdowns from the pandemic, it’s pretty challenging to instill a sense of purpose and drive people to reach outside their comfort zones.

Cultivating the traits like motivating, teaching, and trust in others can help modern business people become emotional leaders everyone wants to work for.

Resonating with others in a leadership

Outstanding leaders are those able to resonate with mentees. The business word “synergy” fits here best: A leader needs to become one unit with their workforce on the emotional level, which leads to more efficient collaboration and coordination.

Good leaders ask themselves, “What do my mentees feel when leaving the office or the work chat after the talk with me?” No inspiration, motivation, or at least mirth is a bad sign.

Training social intelligence

Social intelligence, aka empathy, is our ability to listen and understand others. A “father” the emotional intelligence concept, Dr. Daniel Goleman describes it as “the ability to build relationships and navigate social environments successfully.” It includes teamwork, conflict resolution, coaching, training, and enthusiastic leadership, influencing our business and personal relationships.

To develop it, leaders should, first of all, find out if their current levels of social intelligence need further training and improvement. Psychological tests and corresponding online quizzes can help here.

Also read: Why we should embrace a startup mindset in today’s volatile economic climate

The first step to better empathy is learning the psychology behind body language to “read” dialog partners and practicing good eye contact when speaking and listening to team members.

Then, leaders need to try developing so-called proto-conversation skills. It refers to the ability to read between the lines and understand a person’s mood by their gestures, voice intonations, and micro-expressions.

Avoiding the carrot and stick approach in leadership

For entrepreneurs and leaders who haven’t yet read Paul L. Marciano’s Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work, it’s high time to start. This approach refers to the belief that proper and productive behaviour is possible to induce through sequencing reward and punishment. 

As far as you understand, it doesn’t work. In his above-mentioned book, Dr. Marciano proves that hair-raising tactics can’t motivate us to change habits, behaviours, and attitudes towards something.

For modern leaders to win respect and motivate mentees, it’s critical to know each team member individually and how best to encourage them. Creating an atmosphere of open, honest, and positive communication would be a great start.

This atmosphere includes unconditional acceptance, trust, constructiveness, confidentiality, and equality.

Getting ready for own transformation

Good leaders are those open to transformation and aren’t afraid of getting new traits. Asking themselves what kind of emotional leaders they want to be would help decide on characteristics to develop.

Some leaders may be practicing flexibility or sympathy; others will train the ability to listen and hear their team members; some may decide to develop traits like coaching, motivating, and inspiring others through vision and mission.

What we all need to remember is that changes happen to those who do, not those reading tons of blog posts and promising to try described tactics “one day.”

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Digest this: in South Sudan, Chad, Burundi, Malawi, and Liberia, the per cent of the population with access to electricity is in the single digits!

The lack of access to electricity primarily constrains modern economic activities, provisions of public services, and quality of life. In addition, it slows down the growth of banking, education, agriculture, and finance that could otherwise alleviate some of the core challenges facing Africans, such as low productive employment opportunities and limited healthcare.

Certainly, it will take years for these African countries to bring in electricity to each and every household because, for their respective governments, poverty elimination takes precedence over providing electricity, which requires massive investments and infrastructure.

“According to a World Bank report, the micro-grid solar solution is going to play a pivotal role in providing energy to millions of people living in remote and rural areas, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia, where a high quality and affordable electricity is still a distant dream,” says Singapore-based entrepreneur Dr Avishek Kumar.

Also Read: RESC: Promoting sustainability with an IoT battery platform for e-mobility and smart grid

The micro-grid market accounted for about US$28.6 billion in 2020, as per a report, and it is estimated to grow to US$47.4 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 10.6 per cent. However, micro-grid developers are facing certain challenges such as unreliable storage solutions, and high operational and maintenance costs with respect to diesel generator sets.

“Existing battery technologies like lead-acid and lithium-ion are mature in the market. However, they are not suitable for long-duration energy storage. They suffer from performance degradation and thermal run-away and pose a serious safety issue. Our startup V-Flow Technologies aims to address these issues with new technology,” says Kumar.

V-Flow was established in 2018 by Kumar (CEO) and Dr Arjun Bhattarai (CTO, in collaboration with Entrepreneur First, with generous support from SG Innovate and the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

With a PhD in solar technology, Kumar has a deep background in manufacturing and domain knowledge of the renewable energy industry. Bhattarai also has a background in renewable energy technologies and holds a PhD in improving vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery performance.

According to the co-founder-duo, the previous decades belonged to solar energy because it is the cheapest and cleanest source of energy. However, its growth is unsustainable because existing storage solutions are insufficient to support them. There is a need for a low cost, reliable, and long-duration energy storage solution. This is where VRF battery becomes important.

“Our mission is to develop the cheapest and most efficient modular VRF batteries, which deliver long-lasting reliable energy storage solutions for renewable integration at an affordable price. Our long-term vision is to drive the world towards energy equity,” Kumar states.

Also Read: How SolarLux helps solar producers get a fair share of their good deeds

Globally, the renewable energy market has grown exponentially over the last decade. Today, the cost of energy generated by renewable sources is less than that of conventional energy.

“There is no denying that renewable energy is the future but its continuous growth may be disrupted without a reliable storage solution, which is critical to unlocking the further potential of renewables,” says Kumar.

How VRF battery works

According to Kumar, VRF battery works through the continuous reduction and oxidation reaction between the vanadium redox couples with no detrimental issues and with the cross-mixing of the redox couples. Due to this unique setup, the electrolyte has no degradation and the battery provides stable performance over 20 years.

V-Flow’s storage solution has an expected life span of 25 years, boasts Kumar, and is safe and environmentally friendly battery technology.

“Our system is unique due to its low-cost innovation, saving some upfront investments for clients. Its compact and modular design makes the system easily scalable to any size,” he notes. “The novel chemistry with improved thermal stability ensures that the battery can operate at temperatures up to 55o degrees Celcius. Finally, the system has a performance guarantee of 25 years operating at an efficiency of 85 per cent throughout the term.”

Typical stationary energy storage projects vary from a few kWh to MWh depending on the size and application. However, V-Flow has introduced a twin approach of product and project to capture the market.

It is developing three key modular products for three market segments. The base product is 5 kW/30kWh which can be linearly scaled to 150 kW/600 kWh product. V-Flow has already built 5 kW and 10 kW systems and is now building a 150 kW system.

The CEO says that VRF batteries are ideal for micro-grid applications (for solving intermittency, reducing/eliminating diesel generator use), grid balancing applications (peak shifting and frequency regulation), and EV charging. It is a US$40-billion opportunity in Southeast Asia alone.

“We can completely replace diesel generator set through our low-cost energy storage solutions, coupled with solar. Our technology has proven to be economical and more reliable for applications that require backup for more than three hours. Our target installation for such an application is over 6 GWh of battery storage in the next five years valued at over US$2 billion,” he elaborates.

V-Flow’s storage solution has an application in green charging stations as well. The electric vehicle (EV) market is growing at an exponential rate. Sustainable growth of EV requires easy availability of EV charging stations. Several agencies are now rolling out plans for the installations of hundreds of thousands of EV charging stations.

“These EV charging solutions will cause stress to the existing grids, thus requiring a reliable battery solution to mitigate these risks. V-Flow’s technological solution can meet the requirements of EV charging and target to supply the solution to ~10,000 charging stations in Southeast Asia valued at over U$3 billion,” says Kumar.

Also Read: ‘Singapore isn’t ready for mass adoption of EVs yet; hybrid may be better for the present’

Another application is in the powering of buildings and datacentres, where batteries are designed for long hours of backups. The VRF battery is also useful for grid stabilisation and renewable peak shifting.

The containerised solutions are fit to match any power requirement of our customers. Our products are designed to resist harsh environments and can be installed in remote locations, Kumar claims.

The energy startup has already raised US$1.5 million in grants and equity funding from undisclosed investors. It is now out in the market for US$5 million to scale the business.

Asia has over 950 GW of renewable energy already installed, and this number is expected to double by the end of this decade. India alone aims to install over 175 GW of renewables in the next five years. Peak load demand (power arbitrage), frequency regulation and solving intermittency problem with renewable integration requires utility-scale reliable energy storage project.

“Government agencies are now rolling out policies to promote energy storage at the grid level and giving price-based incentives. India requires the need of over 100 GWh of stationary energy storage over the next five years, which is valued at over US$40 billion,” Kumar concludes.

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Image Credit: V-Flow Technologies

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Data is the currency in the digital marketplace. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of online business, and companies are consequently collecting more data than ever. Advances in technology have enabled companies to harvest vast amounts of personal data from consumers without their full awareness.

Big Data sets can be used to track and predict consumer behaviour and analyse group psyche to influencing and nudging political and social views as well as buying habits.

At the other end of the spectrum, data breaches and compromised data security have continued to hit news headlines. According to a report by Risk Based Security (RSB), cited by TechRepublic, the number of breached records jumped 141 per cent in 2020 to 37 billion.

Regulators are doing their part. But regulatory pressure alone has not prevented violations because in most cases, it appears that companies are trying to satisfy the minimum regulatory requirements. Some may even risk ignoring the rules because of cost.

The plethora of corporate data breaches has human consequences, with ordinary people falling victim to scams and online fraud. No consumer wants their private data falling into the wrong hands.

According to a PwC Consumer Intelligence Series survey, 76 per cent of global consumers think that “sharing my personal information with companies is a necessary evil”, but  60 per cent expect the companies with whom they do business to suffer a data breach someday.

Also read: Blockchain is the future of data privacy

Business leaders seem oblivious of such perceptions. In the same survey, 55 per cent of businesses feel that consumer trust in their technology is growing. However, only 21 per cent of consumers report such growing trust.

There is clearly a trust gap. Now more than ever, consumers are demanding the right to privacy, and they want to work with and for companies they trust.

How can organisations bridge that trust gap? For starters, take proactive steps to avoid becoming a victim of cyber-attacks. If they are collecting customer data, they need to manage and safeguard it responsibly. In other words, they need to practice Data Stewardship.

In recent years a new industry of privacy-tech has emerged, with purpose-led startups such as OneTrust and BigID responding to the complex cybersecurity needs. These two startups gained unicorn status in 2020.

The dilemma for business leaders is that data security costs money but is largely invisible to the consumer. However, a data breach is potentially catastrophic.

Stewardship is the mindset and practice of creating long-term economic value by addressing the needs of a wide range of stakeholders, not just shareholders.

Business leaders who adopt this mindset and practice are Steward Leaders. They do make money for their shareholders, they do have commercial and financial ambitions, but they further challenge themselves to achieve superior returns by doing good and doing right for society at large.

So how does one become a steward leader? Three steps:

• Adopt four stewardship values: Ownership Mentality, Interdependence, Long-term View, and Creative Resilience
• Articulate a purpose that is larger than just generating shareholder returns at any cost.
• Consistently use the stewardship values as a purpose to guide all actions and decisions.

Steward leadership and data (Cyber) security

Ownership mentality: Operating with an ownership mentality requires business leaders to be transparent about their data collection, usage and management practices. Leaders need to acknowledge the trust gap, understand what counter-parties expect and implement it. Training, insurance, server redundancy, and many other items, unseen but important, need to be acquired.

Also Read: Data breaches are inevitable. This is how you can protect your startup

Interdependence: Steward leaders see the world as an integrated and interconnected web in which the success of each constituent is coupled with that of other constituents. They understand that any data breach will not only lead to potential harm for consumers but also the loss of credibility and reputation for the company.

So they take it upon themselves to address the needs of all related stakeholders and do what is needed to protect data. The duty of care extends beyond that of box-ticking efforts.

Long-term thinking: Consumers’ attitudes are changing. Countries and governments around the world are also responding with stronger laws that emphasise data privacy and protection. Steward leaders go beyond short-term gains and superficial adherence to regulations, to delivering durable and safe products and services that provide value over the long term.

They also proactively build trust with their customers to ensure the long-term viability of their business models.

Creative resilience: Steward leaders understand that they need to have a blueprint for data security that matches today’s challenges. The status quo may not be good enough. If this means re-engineering the entire existing IT infrastructure at great cost to shareholders to meaningfully improve customer data security, so be it.

Steward leaders manage the tough decisions. A steward leader would not think of doing the regulatory minimum. Instead, he or she would ask, “Have I protected customers to a degree that is adequate?”

The four values and purpose together form a company’s Stewardship Core Compass. But simply developing the Compass and printing colourful posters will not do the job. Steward leaders must make the Compass a way of life (step 3) within their organisations. This is hard work, but in today’s transparent world, it is perhaps the only way to safeguard long-term success.

As we rebuild from the pandemic, there is a window of opportunity to create a strong win-win-win culture of stewardship, because it is good for the employee, the company, and the consumer.

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Blockchain technology has completely revolutionised the way we think about money. Thanks to solutions such as cryptocurrencies and smart contracts, millions of people around the world have been empowered to take control over their financial future.

Investing is no longer something reserved for Wall Street brokers, thanks to blockchain, anyone can massively improve their finances, but how can you be sure that you are trading crypto in a safe way?

Using credible exchange platforms

Crypto exchanges play a crucial role in determining your trading experience. Other than being the medium to purchase, sell and trade crypto assets, crypto exchanges also act as a convenient vessel to store funds.

Choosing a crypto exchange platform is fundamental to have a safe trading experience. A secured exchange that complies with the regulatory requirements and ensures protection for all users and projects onboard is necessary to ensure user protection.

When choosing a platform, new traders have to look beyond fee structure and token pairs, rather they should ensure to read into the security and safety processes of these exchanges to protect themselves from being easy victims of fraud.

Platforms like ABCC Exchange, allow for their users to securely trade through their unique multi-layered security infrastructure. An exchange with such a user-centric layout allows current users and other crypto-enthusiasts to feel safe diving into the world of cryptocurrency.

Also Read: Fluctuating fortunes: The changing fate of digital assets

Keeping your account protected

Similar to a bank account, it is also important to keep your trading account secured. Although it is an added step that extends the log-in process, enabling at least one secondary authentication (two-factor authentication) will act as additional security that verifies your identity and protects your account and information from any cybercriminal activities.

With recent increase in phishing attacks, traders are also encouraged to have some additional care to not be vulnerable to such scams. A few good practices includes:

• Not having the same or similar account name and passwords on multiple sites.
• Double checking the domain name before logging in, or when depositing and withdrawing funds.
• Using reliable and updated antivirus software to protect the device.
• Avoiding any suspicious emails, message links and attachments.
• Not using unknown and untrusted public networks

Doing your own research is necessary

If you look up the name of any crypto project on the market, you will find a plethora of results convincing you that this particular project will “go to the moon”. Nonetheless, is it really plausible for every crypto on the market to grow exponentially?

In short, even if there are analysts online promoting a certain project, it is always beneficial to do your own research before delving into considering this as an investment option.

When planning to take the leap into crypto, you should always know all the necessary details about the coin you want to purchase. Who is behind it? What use cases does it fulfil?

How long has it been around? Is it decentralised, or fully controlled by someone? Asking these questions prior to making an investment places you in a much more secure position than to wonder why this “hidden gem” has yet to “skyrocket”.

Also Read: Singapore’s stock and crypto trading app Spiking closes pre-Series A round at US$1.63M

Ultimately, the best way to trade crypto securely and to mitigate the chances of any risks involved in trading cryptocurrency is simple: do your own research and only invest as much as you can afford to lose. Sometimes our emotions may get the better of us, making us prone to indulge in impulse-driven decision-making acts.

Given the volatility of the market, rather than going all-in when particular crypto or a certain trade looks attractive on paper, remember to make well-informed decisions through trusted platforms before investing your hard-earned money.

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As we’ve got used to everyone being able to crunch numbers using a computer, we are now rapidly entering an era when computers can see, hear, and make decisions on humans’ behalf with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Democratisation of AI-based tech is now leading to even the least tech-savvy companies using this technology to their advantage. Companies operating in healthcare, travel, insurance, retail, education, and many other industries now embrace AI software development to streamline their decision-making and make workflows more efficient.

For example, Johnson & Johnson uses AI to discover new drugs and make vaccines. Bloomberg uses AI to automatically generate financial news articles based on companies’ financial reports. Costco has managed to attract millions of new customers by utilising AI to detect the most effective locations for their new store locations.

Other uses of AI firmly resemble decades-old sci-fi movie scenarios. For example, Ping An, a Chinese insurance company, uses facial recognition to detect dishonest clients. Potential borrowers can now apply for loans through an app by answering questions about their finances using a mobile camera.

An embedded AI algorithm monitors facial expressions to spot lies and figure out whether a prospective borrower needs to be further interviewed by a human professional.

Common AI adoption pitfalls

While tools that incorporate AI have become as accessible as never before, the lack of AI understanding hinders the realisation of the full potential of this technology.

Furthermore, non-tech organisations often have a completely different set of conditions that call for unconventional strategies for AI deployment. This is why non-digital companies often struggle with AI implementation.

Also Read: Edamama, an e-commerce platform for moms in Philippines, raises US$5M

Here are the main challenges that these companies face and ways to overcome them:

Small data

Unlike tech giants who have access to inordinate amounts of data to train their AI algorithms, smaller non-tech companies often have not enough data for powering their models. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. Given that data is the bread and butter of any successful AI model, it’s critical for non-digital companies to turn to consultants on the matter.

For example, let’s say there is a bicycle manufacturing company, which is looking to implement AI to detect bike frame scratches and defects. It’s highly unlikely that such a company would have millions of dented bike frame photos lying around.

However, new sophisticated AI algorithms can generate artificial images based on a very small number of similar images, which would then be used again for algorithm training. Alternatively, companies can feed algorithms with relevant data gathered from external datasets, but it would take significant input from data scientists to make it work.

Lack of change management 

AI deployment often has much more impact on an organisation than it’s expected. When employees, stakeholders, or customers are not ready for AI implementation, workflows often get disrupted in a negative way. To overcome this, companies need to think about their change management strategies in advance and ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding AI implementation.

People need to be informed how exactly AI will influence day-to-day operations and educated about the basics of the technology. Workflows need to be adjusted, retraining initiated and stakeholders notified. Non-tech companies have to deal with much more uncertainty and reluctance to change than other companies that have technological innovation at the top of their agenda.

Unrealistic expectations of AI and what it can do

Far too often, non-tech businesses struggle to achieve the same model accuracy as they expect. This is especially relevant when AI feasibility is justified based on research, where experiments were likely conducted in perfect environments that are hard to replicate in the real world.

For example, our imaginary bicycle manufacturer can be convinced about AI viability based on comprehensive research about automated AI-based scratch detection software. However, it rarely becomes apparent that such type of research is often conducted in closely controlled environments with high-quality images. However, when it comes to deployment, it becomes apparent that a manufacturer’s image quality is not sufficient, and the production environment requires dramatic adjustments to become appropriate for AI.

In this particular example, it could be possible to rely on human employees to double-check the AI system output. In essence, though, it’s paramount to conduct rigorous pre-deployment tests in an environment that would resemble real-life conditions as much as possible.

Also Read: Building technology for the AI bank of the future

As AI goes beyond the tech industries, it becomes increasingly important for companies to start considering the technology. It will inevitably be the X-factor in reshaping how business functions like HR, finance, and customer service will work in the future.

With media often portraying AI as a Swiss Army Knife that can solve any possible business issue, some business owners are still uncertain about the technology and struggle to separate hype from reality.

In a nutshell, the technology’s most disrupting feature is its ability to make predictions way cheaper and faster than it was possible ever before. Similar to the democratisation of electricity fuelling economic growth in the 19th century, we can expect AI to have a dramatic impact on business by lowering the cost of making predictions.

With forecasting becoming a readily available business instrument, those who won’t learn how to make use of it will most certainly fall behind.

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