Last October, CNET’s parent company, Red Ventures, held a cross-department meeting to discuss the AI writing software it had been building for months. The tool had been in testing internally ahead of public use on CNET, and Red Ventures’ early results revealed several potential issues.
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CNET pushed reporters to be more favorable to advertisers, staffers say
The AI system was always faster than human writers at generating stories, the company found, but editing its work took much longer than editing a real staffer’s copy. The tool also had a tendency to write sentences that sounded plausible but were incorrect, and it was known to plagiarize language from the sources it was trained on.
Red Ventures executives laid out all of these issues at the meeting and then made a fateful decision: CNET began publishing AI-generated stories anyway.
“They were well aware of the fact that the AI plagiarized and hallucinated,” a person who attended the meeting recalls. (Artificial intelligence tools have a tendency to insert false information into responses, which are sometimes called “hallucinations.”) “One of the things they were focused on when they developed the program was reducing plagiarism. I suppose that didn’t work out so well.”
Of the 77 articles published on CNET using the AI tool since it launched, more than half have had corrections appended to them, some lengthy and substantial, after use of the tool was revealed by Futurism. CNET editor-in-chief Connie Guglielmo, EVP of content and audience Lindsey Turrentine, and Red Ventures vice president of content Lance Davis defended the tool in an internal meeting with staff in January but said the company would pause the use of the tool “for now.” In a follow-up blog post, Guglielmo said publishing using the AI software was on hold until CNET was confident it could “prevent both human and AI errors,” but she was clear that this wasn’t the end of AI tools in the newsroom.
“Expect CNET to continue exploring and testing how AI can be used to help our teams as they go about their work testing, researching and crafting the unbiased advice and fact-based reporting we’re known for,” Guglielmo wrote.
“Everyone at CNET is more afraid of Red Ventures than they are of AI.”
But the controversial use of an AI system to generate stories even in the face of known issues with plagiarism and accuracy is merely the most visible outcome of Red Ventures’ ownership of CNET. Under the ownership of Red Ventures, a private equity-backed marketing firm that’s bought up more than a dozen digital publishers since the mid-2010s, staff at the storied tech news outlet say they have been fighting to protect CNET’s editorial independence and rigor amid a push toward sponsored content and affiliate marketing by its new corporate owners. As one staffer told The Verge for a previous piece, “Everyone at CNET is more afraid of Red Ventures than they are of AI.”
Multiple former employees told The Verge of instances where CNET staff felt pressured to change stories and reviews due to Red Ventures’ business dealings with advertisers. The forceful pivot toward Red Ventures’ affiliate marketing-driven business model — which generates revenue when readers click links to sign up for credit cards or buy products — began clearly influencing editorial strategy, with former employees saying that revenue objectives have begun creeping into editorial conversations.
Reporters, including on-camera video hosts, have been asked to create sponsored content, making staff uncomfortable with the increasingly blurry lines between editorial and sales. One person told The Verge that they were made aware of Red Ventures’ business relationship with a company whose product they were covering and that they felt pressured to change a review to be more favorable.
“I understood a supervisor to imply in conversation that how I proceeded with my review could impact my chances of promotion in the future,” they say.
Red Ventures ignored an emailed list of questions from The Verge about its AI tool as well as CNET’s editorial independence and ethics, advertising, and staffing. The company instead offered to send a short statement about CNET’s editorial integrity but refused to provide it on the record attributable to anyone.
This apparent breakdown of the traditional barriers between editorial and advertising content is worlds away from CNET’s history, according to former staffers. Now more than 25 years old, the site has long been known for its thorough news coverage and comprehensive reviews program, which examines everything from laptops and phones to bookshelf speakers and home projectors.
“[The reason I came to CNET] was the opportunity to be able to tell the truth no matter what,” a former staffer says. To them, working at CNET was different from other journalism jobs, where journalists can be honest but may need to self-edit. “You get to tell the truth [at other jobs], but a lot of times, you’re not allowed to say things that you really feel.”
But the CNET operated by Red Ventures is a very different place than the CNET it acquired in 2020. CNET, along with other Red Ventures-owned publications, is loading up on cheap SEO-driven articles to game Google’s search algorithm and fill search results with content designed to deliver affiliate links to readers. As a result, CNET’s independent journalism and the people who produce it — the thing that once made CNET valuable and rank highly in search to begin with — feel that they are being pushed out in favor of whatever and whomever else makes Red Ventures the most money, according to multiple former employees.
“When you’re [covering] products and not people, it’s really easy to be like, ‘This new Apple thing sucks.’ I just thought that was a refreshing change of pace to be able to say things as they are,” the former staffer says. “And that continued all the way until Red Ventures took over.”
After Red Ventures scooped up CNET for $500 million in 2020, CEO Ric Elias promised the outlet would be able to continue to be an independent publication known for its robust offering of reviews and in-the-weeds tech news coverage. CNET staff had nothing to worry about, Elias told The New York Times. There was a “nonnegotiable line” separating the journalism from the money, and CNET’s staff of tech journalists could call him on his personal cellphone if there were ever a problem.
“I told them, ‘There’s a red line,’ and they’re like, ‘OK, we’ll see,’” Elias said.
That skepticism now appears prescient. Former CNET staff say the guardrails that keep editorial content independent, like a divide between revenue teams and journalists, or a clear chain of command among leadership, were repeatedly breached after the Red Ventures acquisition. “Most of the time, [Guglielmo] seemed to just be relaying orders” from Red Ventures, a former staffer says. In turn, journalists were placed in difficult positions as they tried to fend off the encroaching influence of the business side.
Former CNET staffers describe being asked to work on ads for companies that the outlet covers, including Volvo and home security company Arlo and having to push back against such requests from executives at the company. Three people told The Verge that they believe resistance to Red Ventures initiatives caused various CNET staffers to lose their jobs, with one saying that the pressure to be a “yes man” was a “collective experience” for some teams.
Multiple former CNET staffers point to the demise of the CNET Smart Home as an example of Red Ventures’ overreach. The Smart Home — a four-bedroom, five-bathroom home in Louisville, Kentucky, that the outlet had purchased in 2015 to test and produce videos on home products like robot vacuums and thermostats — had become something of a brand in and of itself. Since Red Ventures’ takeover, Smart Home staff repeatedly refused to work on sponsored content, saying it went against the integrity of their work. Readers look to tech reviewers for honest, unbiased assessments of companies’ products and services, and working on content that is paid for by these same companies can cast doubt on a reviewer’s ability to be independent.
“It’s a culture that if you disagree with them, they’re going to get rid of you and replace you with a zealot.”
In 2022, a Red Ventures executive named Marc McCollum stopped by the Smart Home for a short walk-through. McCollum, according to his LinkedIn profile, led the acquisition of CNET Media Group. A former staffer says he played a key role in the transition, with a focus on increasing profits.
Shortly after McCollum’s visit, teams working out of the Smart Home learned that the company was planning on selling the house, and people working at the house believed their jobs would be at risk if the space were sold. But McCollum indicated that the company may be able to keep the house if it secured a lucrative advertising deal with GE, which had expressed interest in using the Smart Home for a commercial, multiple former employees say.
Hoping to avoid layoffs, some CNET staff pitched in on the GE deal in early talks and planning, and Red Ventures inked a deal. But CNET editorial staffers refused to shoot the ad itself, and contractors were ultimately used to work on the commercial, a former staffer says.
The GE shoot was ultimately moved from the Smart Home to an off-site location due to space limitations at the house, a GE Appliances spokesperson who would only identify themselves as “Whitney” told The Verge via email. GE was not aware of Red Ventures’ plans to sell the house, “Whitney” added.
But by the time the GE ad was released in September, many staff on the Smart Home team had already left the company. Seeing the “writing on the wall” — that the house would soon be put up for sale — some people were able to land new roles, a former staffer says; others were laid off that summer. The house was put up for sale shortly after the GE ad anyway, eventually selling in December for $1.275 million, according to Zillow.
“It’s a culture that if you disagree with them, they’re going to get rid of you and replace you with a zealot,” a former employee, who was laid off, says of Red Ventures. “Somebody that’s absolutely a true believer, [that] drinks the Kool-Aid.”
Former CNET staffers say their colleagues have also been pressured into appearing in ads for companies the outlet covers despite the murky ethics of using reporters in sponsored content. On-camera video hosts were uncomfortable with the idea of being in ads and pushed back against it, according to several former staffers. Using recognizable journalists for video content that’s paid for by advertisers can blur the lines and make it hard for viewers to tell what is and isn’t an ad.
In one recent video, titled “Moen Unveils Innovative Smart Sprinkler Product at CES,” a CNET host takes viewers through the company’s booth at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, interviewing company representatives and testing products. The video is an ad, but the host doesn’t say that, and neither the video description nor title included a disclosure until recently. The only disclaimer was a small pop-up that YouTube inserts when an uploader has indicated there’s a paid promotion in a video, though CNET doesn’t actually specify what in the video is promoted. Moen did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the nature of the sponsorship or its labeling. After The Verge asked Red Ventures about the ad, a disclosure was silently added to the video’s description.
One of the key priorities for Red Ventures seems to be the company’s focus on affiliate links, which pepper its portfolio of sites like The Points Guy, Bankrate, and CreditCards.com. Over time, a focus on affiliate revenue has crept into CNET’s editorial decisions, causing frustration among staff.
In one meeting after the Red Ventures acquisition, a former employee says editorial staff were shown how much the company earned through affiliate categories like home furnishings with the suggestion they keep it in mind when producing future content. CNET staffers were also told that a separate commerce team would begin writing video descriptions that included affiliate links, which many people worried would suggest on-camera hosts were endorsing specific products.
“Red Ventures’ big mantra is that they help people make life’s most important decisions,” a former staffer says. “And yet all of their influence has been to get people to make decisions that are going to be the most profitable to Red Ventures.”
CNET staff say that the proximity to revenue made it harder to maintain the editorial standards
“It’s very demoralizing. It’s actually soul-crushing. All you want to do is your job and you’re being told, ‘Don’t cover this,’ because the revenue potential is not there,” another former staff member says.
Advertising is what keeps most digital media companies afloat, and affiliate marketing is common across the industry. (The Verge earns a commission from affiliate links, as do other Vox Media-owned outlets, like The Strategist.) But in many newsrooms, there is a strict separation between the people dealing with advertisers and the people producing the news. At The Verge, for example, editorial staff never work on ads, and reviews writers don’t know how much parent company Vox Media earns through specific affiliate marketing links.
But under Red Ventures, former CNET staff say that the proximity to revenue made it harder and harder to maintain the editorial standards promised to audiences.
“I do believe that the journalists who are doing the work at CNET are extremely ethical. I think that they have a lot of integrity, I think they work really hard,” they say. “But I think that they are under a great deal of pressure to make money for Red Ventures. And that’s just never a good situation for journalists.”
Though the AI tool generating stories for CNET, Bankrate, and CreditCards.com was formally announced just weeks ago, Red Ventures’ “experiment” with enlisting artificial intelligence has been underway much longer. Like other publishers who’ve incorporated automated tools into their work, the Red Ventures proprietary AI software was sold to the newsroom as a way to more efficiently produce “the boring stuff” so writers could use their time instead and work on bigger projects. In actuality, enlisting artificial intelligence to write SEO bait accelerates the speed at which Red Ventures-owned websites can churn out search-optimized content loaded with affiliate links, cutting down the need for human writers — and the reporting they produce.
For Sarah Szczypinski, a former journalist on the CNET Money team who left the outlet in early 2022, the association with CNET in light of the AI-writing saga has been frustrating. Though Szczypinski quit many months before the AI-generated articles began appearing, people have started contacting her after the news broke, wondering if she, too, had used AI tools for her stories. Szczypinski maintains she wrote her stories on her own, without automation tools.
“The leadership team gave no thought to what these unilateral decisions would do to the people working there, especially the people who are journalists and need their readers to trust them,” Szczypinski told The Verge. “We still have lives to live and careers to forge. And we can’t do that with something as damaging as this hanging over our heads.”
In late January, Szczypinski contacted Red Ventures and CNET, asking to have her author page and bylines pulled. Her name has been scrubbed from dozens of articles, now replaced simply by “CNET Staff.”
Throughout the time Red Ventures has owned CNET, the outlet’s leadership has promised readers time and again that its journalism is as strong as ever. Even as Guglielmo, Turrentine, and Red Ventures executives dodged questions from readers, staff, and reporters about the AI system, they pointed to CNET’s track record built over decades as evidence of trustworthiness. Audiences trust CNET for tech news, reviews, and recommendations, they reasoned, so they can trust CNET for how to move forward with artificial intelligence.
But even the more public ways CNET has tried to elicit trust from its audience have been hollowed out by a relentless drive toward optimization and gaming the search algorithm at the expense of the very work that had made CNET valuable.
CNET’s public ethics policy has not been meaningfully updated in years — it still lists CBS as its parent company — but last year, the publication added nearly a dozen links detailing exactly how it tests and vets products to a hyper-specific degree, with separate posts for how CNET reviews everything from credit cards and TVs to vacuums and more. One way of looking at these posts is to provide readers — and potential customers — with as much detail as possible about CNET’s methodology.
But for Red Ventures, these articles are just more fodder to boost its bottom line: Google likes when publishers demonstrate “experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness,” and the search algorithm factors in articles like these when it ranks search results. Articles packed with words like “unbiased,” “credible,” and “thoroughly vetted” are great for Red Ventures’ SEO-heavy strategy.
After all, Google can’t tell if it’s true.
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How to Get the Most Out of Your Link-Building Efforts
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Five years from now, 94% of marketers think that links will continue to be a ranking factor in Google algorithms.
However, many companies offering link-building services engage in questionable practices, such as selling links from manipulated or low-quality websites. These links can not only fail to provide value but may also harm the website receiving them. Therefore, it’s essential to exercise caution when hiring an external partner for link building.
So, here are a few key tips to help SaaS businesses get the maximum from their link-building efforts.
Related: 10 Powerful Link-Building Tactics for Boosting Your Website’s SEO
1. Take metrics with a grain of salt
It’s crucial to approach metrics with skepticism. Website owners often inflate numbers like Domain Rating (DR). You might see a DR of 70, but in reality, the website holds little to no authority in Google’s eyes. Of course, that’s not always the case. In reality, Domain Rating correlates with higher rankings
While metrics can be useful, especially when sorting through large lists of websites, don’t rely on them alone. Always look deeper into the site’s real quality.
2. Organic traffic for real keywords is key
Pay attention to the keywords a website ranks for. Ideally, the site you’re getting backlinks from should have organic traffic, which shows Google values it. More importantly, the traffic should come from relevant, industry-specific keywords. Some sites may rank for irrelevant terms like “celebrity news” despite being in a completely different niche — or worse, they may use fake traffic. Always ensure the keywords are a good fit for your business.
3. Get links from real businesses
The best way to determine if a website is worth getting a backlink from is to see if it’s a real business. Many sites exist solely to sell links and are often just link farms. Focus on acquiring links from legitimate businesses, as these are the ones that offer the most value.
4. Use internal links
Let’s face it — quality link building is hard. And if you find it hard to get backlinks to your service or landing pages, start by linking to your blog posts instead. Then, use internal linking across your site to ensure link equity flows throughout your pages. Without proper internal linking, you won’t fully benefit from the backlinks you’re building.
Related: Top 8 Backlink Strategies to Boost Your Traffic
5. Prioritize links to target pages
When building backlinks, your main focus should be on your money-making pages. Links to these pages are critical. If you’re working with an agency, ensure they are targeting specific commercial pages. Even if you’re only getting a couple of links per page per month, if they’re targeted, it’s highly effective.
6. Optimize anchors
Anchor text optimization is essential. From my experience, optimized anchor texts perform very well. If you’re hiring an agency, send them a list of preferred anchor texts along with your target pages, so they can focus on both elements.
7. Focus on do-follow links
There’s ongoing debate about the impact of no-follow links on rankings. While no-follow links have some influence, it’s hard to quantify. Based on my observations, they seem to be about 30-50% as effective as do-follow links. In a LinkedIn poll I conducted, 43% of participants believed no-follow links were 25% or less effective than do-follow. However, keep in mind that many respondents may not have had enough experience, so their opinions are just that — opinions.
8. Get listed on the top of listicle posts
There are countless “comparison” and “alternatives” pages for popular tools, generating significant search volumes. For instance, searches like “Canva alternatives” are common. If your product is in a competitive niche, you want to be featured as the number one option on these pages created by bloggers and websites. Not only will you gain valuable backlinks, but you’ll also get more clicks and recommendations as the top alternative, greatly boosting your link-building efforts.
This also creates a snowball effect. Future writers and bloggers working on alternatives for that specific tool will often reference existing lists. When they see your product featured prominently, they’re more likely to include it in their own lists, further amplifying your exposure and link-building efforts.
9. Outsource to the right company
According to some research, 56% of SaaS marketing departments utilize a combination of in-house and outsourced staff to reach their marketing objectives.
When selecting a company, make sure they specialize in link building for SaaS and deliver high-quality work, as word of mouth and testimonials can be very effective indicators of their reliability.
Related: How to Shake Up a Stale Link Building Strategy
In summary, while links remain vital for SEO, it’s crucial to prioritize quality over quantity. Focus on securing high-quality backlinks that directly target your key pages, using optimized anchor texts to make a meaningful impact. Your link-building strategy should align with your overall branding strategy to maximize effectiveness. By being selective and strategic in your approach, you can build a robust link profile that genuinely enhances your SaaS business’s online presence.
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Many Brands Risk Being Left Behind By Overlooking These Critical Advertising Steps
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The landscape of ad spending has changed significantly in recent years. We have seen a major shift in marketing campaigns from before the pandemic to now. Everything from graphic styles to personalization has evolved, and so has spending. With more brands in the mix, advertising spending is consistently rising.
The question is, why are some still hesitant to adjust their spending? The simple fact is that budgets must change over time. If your budget doesn’t evolve, you won’t be able to compete with the growing number of brands advertising online.
Let’s break down what you need to know if you plan to keep up in the increasingly competitive advertising landscape.
Related: Is Your Advertising Spend Going to Waste? If You Don’t Fully Understand This Metric, It Might Be
Supply and demand dictate spending
Let’s begin with the current situation. Advertising rates are increasing, which means you’ll need to increase your budget to attract the quality of traffic you want. The cost of effective online advertising is determined by supply and demand. When more companies vie for the same ad placement, the price for that placement goes up.
What are the reasons for this recent rise? Firstly, the pandemic fueled a surge in e-commerce as consumers shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to online retailers. However, this boom has been met with challenges. When the world shut down, brands significantly decreased — or even halted altogether — their marketing costs. Now that the economy has picked back up, competition has returned with a vengeance. The dominance of Google Ads and Facebook Ads has also created a double-edged sword for advertisers. While these platforms offer massive reach and targeting capabilities, their popularity has driven up advertising costs. This is due to a classic case of supply and demand. With more businesses vying for the same ad space on these platforms, bidding wars erupt, inflating the cost per click or impression. This trend is further amplified by limitations on data tracking, making it harder for advertisers to pinpoint their ideal audience. The result? Steeper costs for businesses to reach their prospects online. Additionally, the increased popularity of online shopping has attracted more advertisers, driving up competition for consumer attention and inflating the cost of advertising space. These factors are creating a complex landscape for e-commerce businesses, demanding innovative strategies to navigate the new realities of the online marketplace. That, combined with a growing population of advertisers, as well as many brands having moved their marketing online due to remote culture, means costs are, and will only continue, climbing.
Take advantage of technology and automation
Although many business owners decide to take the DIY approach due to cost, the opportunity cost of not knowing how to properly target an audience, use tools to improve your outcomes, and reduce your per-click and per-impression costs is typically far more expensive than working with an expert. One way to produce highly relevant ads is to take advantage of today’s technology. Artificial intelligence can learn more about each subset of your audience than you likely ever could imagine. Moreover, the best AI marketing tools make it easy to use your data to create highly relevant advertisements. So, if you’re still combing through spreadsheets, hoping to find a trend, it’s time to upgrade your technology.
Smart marketing tools and marketing automation are your biggest allies in navigating this challenge. Automation can take the reins on managing your ad spend, constantly searching for the best inventory based on past performance, as well as ongoing ad rates and top-performing channels. Identifying and prioritizing these top-performing channels ensures your budget is directed toward the most impactful avenues. Marketing tools can further serve as cost-cutting allies by pinpointing the most precise targeting options, taking the guesswork out of online advertising and giving you time and energy to take back to other areas of your business. This laser focus eliminates wasted ad spend and time, ensuring your message reaches the exact audience you desire and ultimately reduces your overall ad spend.
Related: 4 Marketing Budget Hacks That Will Boost Your Business in 2024
Plan in advance for disrupted seasons
The holidays may be far away, but from an ad fund standpoint, it’s something you’ll want to be prepared for long before they’re right around the corner. Brands can adhere to various holiday seasons, some may want to up their ad spend tremendously during this time and others may want to reevaluate it. Beyond the holidays, other seasonal events can significantly impact advertising costs. Events like major sporting competitions (e.g., the Olympics, FIFA World Cup), award shows, and even back-to-school season can see increased competition and higher ad rates. These periods of time play a significant role in driving up the cost of advertisements. It’s no secret that consumers like to spend more money during the holiday season compared to their typical spending behavior. As such, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve for your yearly holidays and to note that those periods are when advertisers are most interested in attracting their target audience. That means demand for advertising typically sees significant increases on an annual basis, but keeping an eye out for this and planning ahead will keep you at the forefront. It’s important to make these periods and planning part of your overall marketing strategy.
Over the years, marketers have watched demand climb during the holiday season and seemingly fall after the holiday season. However, that seasonal drop seems to be shrinking each year. Ultimately, marketers seem to be anticipating the drop in demand following the holiday season, and as such, many are saving meaningful amounts of money for this period. This causes an increase in demand that rivals the holiday increase, which in turn means you should continue to consider adding more to your ad fund during these times. Having a marketing automation partner can help set you up for success by automating the process for you.
The bottom line
The bottom line is that the marketing industry has a history of fast-paced evolution, and that evolution isn’t likely to end anytime soon. As more and more advertisers join the fray, demand will likely continue to grow, leading to inflated advertising prices. Make sure your brand is keeping ahead of the competition by planning for the future and potential shifts in advertising.
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How to Choose Your Battles Wisely at Work
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Several years ago, I was involved in a professional conflict that consumed all my energy, focus and time. I was working with a colleague I had known for years. It was an important project to me, and part of it became a point of contention between us. I passionately believed that my approach was the right one, and I was determined to see it through. My colleague disagreed and felt her approach was more robust than mine.
The more I pushed, the more resistance I encountered. Our meetings became tense, the emails we exchanged seemed filled with increasing sharpness and the project’s progress slowed to a crawl. It wasn’t just about the project anymore; it felt like a personal battle I had to win. I was convinced that if I didn’t fight for this, the entire project would fail, and I would wonder what could have been.
However, as the weeks dragged on, I realized that this battle was taking a toll on the project and me personally. My stress levels were through the roof, my relationship with my colleague was deteriorating and the project that we had been so excited about turned into a source of dread. The breaking point came when I confided (okay, complained) to a trusted friend who asked, “Is this fight worth it? What are you trying to win here?”
That question hit me like a ton of bricks. I had become so focused on winning the battle that I lost sight of the bigger picture. Ultimately, I had to step back, reassess and make the difficult decision to let go of my stance for the greater good of the project and my relationship with my colleague. It wasn’t easy, but it was the right decision.
That experience taught me a crucial lesson about leadership: not every battle is worth fighting. As leaders, we must learn to choose our battles wisely, knowing when to push forward and when to let go.
Here’s how I approached this delicate balancing act.
1. Evaluate the impact on the bigger picture
One of the most important considerations when deciding whether to fight a battle or let it go is understanding the impact on the bigger picture. Will winning this battle benefit the project, the team or the company in the long run or is it more about personal pride?
Leaders who consistently focus on the bigger picture rather than getting bogged down in minor details seem more likely to navigate complex challenges successfully. I’ve watched other leaders gracefully step back even when I knew they believed they were right in that situation. It’s essential to stop and assess whether the battle you’re fighting is aligned with the project’s overall goals and vision.
Related: 3 Signs You’re Letting Pride Get in the Way of Being Successful
2. Assess the possible cost of the battle
Every battle comes with a cost—time, energy, relationships or resources. Before engaging in any conflict or disagreement, it’s essential to weigh these costs against the potential benefits. In my case, the price was the deterioration of a long-standing relationship with my colleague and the stagnation of the project’s progress.
Research from the University of California (their various studies on conflict and leadership) found that leaders who weigh the costs of conflict before engaging in one are more effective in maintaining a cohesive team and driving long-term success. This means you should consider the immediate fallout and the long-term consequences of engaging in a battle.
3. Determine what’s truly at stake
It’s easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment and lose sight of what’s really at stake. Is this battle about a critical issue that will significantly impact the success of the project or company, or is it more about your ego and proving your point is correct?
In my experience, many uncomfortable situations that seem important now are driven by personal pride rather than business necessity. By stripping away the emotional layers, you can focus on what truly matters. I have found that when I focus on objective outcomes rather than emotional satisfaction, I’m more successful in conflict resolution and decision-making.
4. Recognize when to let go for the greater good
Sometimes, the best decision a leader can make is to let go. This doesn’t mean giving up; it means recognizing that your energy and resources might be better spent elsewhere. Letting go can be an incredibly difficult decision, especially when you’ve invested a lot of time and effort into a particular project, but it can also be the most strategic move.
In the end, letting go allowed me to refocus on the larger goals of the project and rebuild the strained relationship. Letting go when necessary makes one more adaptable and better equipped to lead, a key trait of successful leadership.
5. Learn from the battle
Whether you fight a battle or let it go, there’s always a lesson to be learned. It’s crucial to reflect on the experience, understand what worked and what didn’t, and apply those insights to future decisions. Every battle, win or lose, is an opportunity for growth and learning.
An article from the Center for Creative Leadership stated that leaders who regularly reflect on their decisions and learn from their experiences are more resilient and effective in their roles. This practice of reflection helps in making better decisions in the future. It also enables you to look at things differently — ensuring you’re not just fighting battles but choosing the right ones.
Looking back on that challenging time when I was butting heads with my colleague, I realize that learning how to choose my battles was a valuable lesson in my leadership journey. It’s easy to get caught up in the details and fight for every inch while losing sight of the larger goals. However, authentic leadership is about making strategic decisions that benefit the team and the project.
As leaders, we must step back, assess the situation clearly and decide when to push forward and when to let go. This isn’t about avoiding conflict or backing down; it’s about being wise, strategic, and focused on what truly matters. By choosing our battles wisely, we can lead more effectively, build stronger relationships and achieve greater success.
Ultimately, the battles we choose to fight — and those we choose to let go — define us as leaders. It’s in these deciding moments that we demonstrate our true leadership capabilities.
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