Monday, December 31, 2012



6 Things Really Productive People Do

Have you noticed that some people just seem to accomplish tons and still appear happy and relaxed? Here are six tips for becoming more productive.



People often ask me, amazed, how I manage to do so many things. Aside from writing two columns every week, I speak regularly, travel, create videos, manage my business, write books, consult with five companies, network, socialize, cycle, run, read, cook, sleep six to seven hours a night and have dates with my wife. Oh yeah, I watch a lot of television while hanging out with my dog as well.
Okay, I know it sounds ridiculous. But accomplishing my preferred future requires this level of activity. I have the same 24 hours in a day that you do, but I have made specific choices that allow me to make the most of every day, and still feel happy and relaxed. Perhaps these tips will help you make the most of your time as well.

1. Pick Your Priorities

Make choices about the activities in your life. With most endeavors, you can either go deep or go wide. Focus on spending time that for you is fun and productive. If you like big families, have them, but recognize up front that kids require time and you'll have to choose a lifestyle that supports quality time with them, for you to feel satisfied. I chose the life of a consultant because I like to work with companies, but don't want the life of a big company CEO. My choices are based on the lifestyle I want.

2. Go For Efficiency

You don't do everything well. The things you do well usually give you greater joy and require less time. Don't take on something with a steep learning curve if you don't have the available bandwidth. Design your life to meet your wants, and recognize when to say no to opportunities that are outside the scope of your desires. Live your life by design, not default.

3. Integrate Your Activities

Many people go crazy trying to figure out how to spend time with friends, family, work, play, etc.  Stop trying to balance time between them all. Find ways to enjoy them in a combined manner. Build your social life around people in your work environment. Find people in your company who share common interests and develop your career around the people and activities you love. If everything is out of synch to the point where you feel pulled and stressed, a change is likely imminent one way or another.

4. Actively Manage Time-wasters

Social media, family, friends, employees, co-workers and general whiners all under certain circumstances can suck precious time from you if you let them. Budget your time for necessary activities. Make a choice to limit non-supportive interactions that don't energize you. As for social media, it can easily be a black hole for time and productivity. Use it appropriately and sparingly as a tool to support your endeavors and social needs, but lay off the Farmville.

5. Be an Active Learner

You would think learning takes more time from you, but actually there are always new tools and new ways of doing things that can save you time on mundane tasks freeing you up for your priorities. Always be looking for a new way to gain back an hour here or there. Just try it and dump it quick if it starts to drag on.

6. Lighten Up

No need to beat yourself up if you can't do all the things you want because you are handling other stuff that needs attention. It happens. The world won't come to an end in most cases just because you left a few things undone. Celebrate progress and keep refining toward a happy productive existence. This is why making lists and crossing off items is a staple in any productivity handbook. Every completion is a small victory that adds up in a big way.


By: Kevin Daum

Source: Inc.




Friday, December 28, 2012

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessf


The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives




Sydney Finkelstein
, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, published “Why Smart Executives Fail” 8 years ago.
In it, he shared some of his research on what over 50 former high-flying companies – like Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Rubbermaid, and Schwinn – did to become complete failures.  It turns out that the senior executives at the companies all had 7 Habits in common.  Finkelstein calls them the Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives.
These traits can be found in the leaders of current failures like Research In Motion (RIMM), but they should be early-warning signs (cautionary tales) to currently unbeatable firms like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Amazon.com (AMZN).  Here are the habits, as Finkelstein described in a 2004 article:


Habit # 1:  They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment
This first habit may be the most insidious, since it appears to be highly desirable.  Shouldn’t a company try to dominate its business environment, shape thefuture of its markets and set the pace within them?  Yes,but there’s a catch.  Unlike successful leaders, failed leaders who never question their dominance fail torealize they are at the mercy of changing circumstances.They vastly overestimate the extent to which they actually control events and vastly underestimate the role of chance and circumstance in their success.
CEOs who fall prey to this belief suffer from the illusion of personal pre-eminence: Like certain film directors, they see themselves as the auteurs of their companies.  As far as they’re concerned, everyone else in the company is there to execute their personal visionfor the company.  Samsung’s CEO Kun-Hee Lee was so successful with electronics that he thought he could repeat this success with automobiles.  He invested $5 billion in an already oversaturated auto market.  Why? There was no business case.  Lee simply loved cars and had dreamed of being in the auto business.

Warning Sign for #1:  A lack of respect


Habit #2:  They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests
Like the first habit, this one seems innocuous, perhaps even beneficial.  We want business leaders to be completely committed to their companies, with their interests tightly aligned with those of the company.  But digging deeper, you find that failed executives weren’t identifying too little with the company, but rather too much.  Instead of treating companies as enterprises that they needed to nurture, failed leaders treated them as extensions of themselves.  And with that, a “private empire” mentality took hold.
CEOs who possess this outlook often use their companies to carry out personal ambitions.  The most slippery slope of all for these executives is their tendency to use corporate funds for personal reasons.  CEOs who have a long or impressive track record may come to feel that they’ve made so much money for the company that the expenditures they make on themselves, even if extravagant, are trivial by comparison.  This twisted logic seems to have been one of the factors that shaped the behavior of Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco.  His pride in his company and his pride in his own extravagance seem to have reinforced each other.  This is why he could sound so sincere making speeches about ethics while using corporate funds for personal purposes. Being the CEO of a sizable corporation today is probably the closest thing to being king of your own country, and that’s a dangerous title to assume.
Warning Sign for #2: A question of character


Habit #3:  They think they have all the answers
Here’s the image of executive competence that we’ve been taught to admire for decades: a dynamic leader making a dozen decisions a minute, dealing with many crises simultaneously, and taking only seconds to size up situations that have stumped everyone else for days. The problem with this picture is that it’s a fraud. Leaders who are invariably crisp and decisive tend to settle issues so quickly they have no opportunity to grasp the ramifications. Worse, because these leaders need to feel they have all the answers, they aren’t open to learning new ones.
CEO Wolfgang Schmitt of Rubbermaid was fond of demonstrating his ability to sort out difficult issues in a flash. A former colleague remembers that under Schmitt,” the   joke   went, ‘Wolf  knows everything about everything.’  In one discussion, where we were talking about a particularly complex acquisition we made in Europe, Wolf, without hearing different points of view, just said, ‘Well, this is what we are going to do.’”  Leaders who need to have all the answers shut out other points of view. When your company or organization is run by someone like this, you’d better hope the answers he comes up with are going to be the right ones.  At Rubbermaid they weren’t.  The company went from being Fortune’s most admired company in America in1993 to being acquired by the conglomerate Newell a few years later.
      Warning Sign for #3:  A leader without followers


Habit #4:  They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them
CEOs who think their job is to instill belief in their vision also think that it is their job to get everyone to buy into it.  Anyone who doesn’t rally to the cause is undermining the vision.  Hesitant managers have a choice: Get with the plan or leave.
The problem with this approach is that it’s both unnecessary and destructive. CEOs don’t need to have everyone unanimously endorse their vision to have it carried out successfully.  In fact, by eliminating all dissenting and contrasting viewpoints, destructive CEOs cut themselves off from their best chance of seeing and correcting problems as they arise.  Sometimes CEOs who seek to stifle dissent only drive it underground. Once this happens, the entire organization falters.  At Mattel, Jill Barad removed her senior lieutenants if she thought they harbored serious reservations about the way that she was running things.  Schmitt created such a threatening atmosphere at Rubbermaid that firings were often unnecessary.  When new executives realized that they’d get no support from the CEO, many of them left almost as fast as they’d come on board.  Eventually, these CEOs had everyone on their staff completely behind them. But where they were headed was toward disaster.  And no one was left to warn them.

Warning Sign for #4:  Executive departures


       Habit #5: They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company   
         image
You know these CEOs: high-profile executives whoare constantly in the public eye.  The problem is that amid all the media frenzy and accolades, these leaders’ management efforts become shallow and ineffective. Instead of actually accomplishing things, they often settle for the appearance of accomplishing things.
Behind these media darlings is a simple fact of executive life: CEOs don’t achieve a high level of media attention without devoting themselves assiduously to public relations.  When CEOs are obsessed with their image, they have little time for operational details. Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski sometimes intervened in remarkably minor matters, but left most of  the company’s day-to-day operations unsupervised.
As a final negative twist, when CEOs make the company’s image their top priority, they run the risk of using financial-reporting practices to promote that image.  Instead of treating their financial accounts as a control tool, they treat them as a public-relations tool. The creative accounting that was apparently practiced by such executives as Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling or Tyco’sKozlowski is as much or more an attempt to promote the company’s image as it is to deceive the public: In their eyes, everything that the company does is public relations.
Warning Sign of #5:  Blatant attention-seeking


Habit #6: They underestimate obstacles

Part of the allure of being a CEO is the opportunity to espouse a vision. Yet, when CEOs become so enamored of their vision, they often overlook or underestimate the difficulty of actually getting there.  And when it turns out that the obstacles they casually waved aside are more troublesome than they anticipated, these CEO have a habit of plunging full-steam into the abyss.  For example, when Webvan’s core business was racking up huge losses, CEO George Shaheen was busy expanding those operations at an awesome rate.
Why don’t CEOs in this situation re-evaluate their course of action, or at least hold back for a while until it becomes clearer whether their policies will work?  Some feel an enormous need to be right in every important decision they make, because if they admit to being fallible, their position as CEO might seem precarious. Once a CEO admits that he or she made the wrong call, there will always be people who say the CEO wasn’t up to the job.  These unrealistic expectations make it exceedingly hard for a CEO to pull back from any chosen course of action, which not surprisingly causes them to push that much harder.  That’s why leaders at Iridium and Motorola (MMI) kept investing billions of dollars to launch satellites even after it had become apparent that land-based cellphones were a better alternative.

Warning Sign of #6:  Excessive hype


Habit #7: They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past

Many CEOs on their way to becoming spectacularly unsuccessful accelerate their company’s decline by reverting to what they regard as tried-and-true methods. In their desire to make the most of what they regard as their core strengths, they cling to a static business model.They insist on providing a product to a market that no longer exists, or they fail to consider innovations in areas other than those that made the company successful in the past. Instead of considering a range of options that fit new circumstances, they use their own careers as the only point of reference and do the things that made them successful in the past.  For example, when Jill Barad was trying to promote educational software at Mattel,she used the promotional techniques that had been effective for her when she was promoting Barbie dolls, despite the fact that software is not distributed or bought the way dolls are.
Frequently, CEOs who fall prey to this habit owe their careers to some “defining moment,” a critical decision or policy choice that resulted in their most notable success.  It’s usually the one thing that they’re most known for and the thing that gets them all of their subsequent jobs.  The problem is that after people have had the experience of that defining moment, if they become the CEO of a large company, they allow their defining moment to define the company as well – no matter how unrealistic it has become.

Warning Sign of #7:  Constantly referring to what worked in the past

The bottom line: If you exhibit several of these traits, now is the time to stamp them out from your repertoire.  If your boss or several senior executives at your company exhibit several of these traits, now is the time to start looking for a new job.



By:Eric Jackson


Source: Forbes

Monday, December 24, 2012


Easiest Way to Win Friends and 

Influence People


Charm is good and cleverness never hurts. But there's one very simple thing you can do 
to create instant rapport with someone else.


It probably says more about me than I like, but I don't like to be touched, except of course by loved ones. I rarely initiate casual touching.
Reach to shake hands? Sure. Full hug, bro' hug, shoulder patting, back slapping good times? Um, no.
That may be why I didn't realize how powerful nonsexual touch can be. (I'm aware sexual touch can be powerful, thanks.) Touch can influence behavior, increase the chances of compliance, make the person doing the touching seem more attractive and friendly, and can even you help make a sale.
Here are a few examples of the effects of nonsexual touch from PsyBlog.  When touched, people are:
  • More likely to comply. 81% of participants agreed to sign a petition if touched, while only 55% agreed when not touched.

  • Even more likely to comply when touched twice.Researchers asked strangers to fill out a questionnaire; people who were touched twice were more likely to agree than those only touched once. (Shockingly, results were highest when females touched males.)

  • More likely to provide help. 90% of strangers who were touched lightly on the arm helped the experimenter pick up dropped items. If not touched, only 63% helped.

  • More likely to tip generously. Waitresses who touch customers are more likely to receive a bigger tip. (This from a 1984 study before the non gender-specific "server.")

  • Able to perceive unspoken emotions. Participants in a study tried to convey 12 different emotions by touching another blindfolded participant on the forearm. The rate of accuracy for perceiving emotions like fear, anger, gratitude, sympathy, love, and disgust ranged from 43% to 83%--without a word being spoken.

  • More likely to (maybe) buy a car. Researchers approached random men shopping for used cars. Half were touched for one second and the other half were not touched. Those who were touched later rated the "toucher" as more friendly, honest, and sincere. Would creating that perception help a salesperson make more sales? Probably so, since so people tend to buy from people they like.
Just make sure you use your new powers for good, not evil. For example, since touch helps convey sincerity, when you congratulate someone don't just smile and make eye contact. Shake hands. Or pat the other person lightly on the upper arm or shoulder.
Show your sincere appreciation or genuine interest not just with words, but with actions as well--taking care to ensure the person you touch doesn't mind, of course.
And start hugging your mother more often. She deserves it.


By: Jeff Haden

Source: Inc.

Friday, December 21, 2012

The Best Promotion is Never Self Promotion


The Best Promotion is Never Self Promotion


Once you've been in the spotlight, it's really hard to step back into the shadows--  but you should.


 
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Promoting yourself is easy. All it takes is a little guts, a little determination, and in extreme cases, very little self-awareness. We all try, to some degree, to promote ourselves. That's why we're all experts at picking out the self-promoters, shameless or otherwise. And that's why self-promotion is rarely effective. There's a much better way. Here's a story told by the comedian, actor, and author Albert Brooks in Vanity Fair about an appearance on "The Tonight Show:

"There was always that last two minutes where Johnny was asking people, "Thank you for coming--what do you have coming up?" And during the last commercial break Jack Benny leaned over to Johnny Carson and said, "When we get back, ask me where I'm going to be, will you?"

So they came back. Johnny said, "I want to thank Albert. Jack, where are you going to be performing?"

And Jack Benny said, "Never mind about me--this is the funniest kid I've ever seen."
And it was this profound thing. Like, Oh, that's how you lead your life. Be generous and you can be the best person who ever lived."

You have the same ability to promote with your employees, your customers, your vendors--basically anyone--but it's easy to lose sight of that when your primary focus is on crafting a business image, building a personal brand, or just protecting your professional turf.
Entrepreneurs are especially vulnerable to glory hogging since early on a small business is a reflection of its owner and its success often depends on the owner's ability to build a reputation for knowledge and expertise. Once you've stood in the spotlight for a while, it's really hard to step back into the shadows. But it can be done. And it's easy. A couple examples:

Instead of blogging about your company's success, talk about a customer--but don't make it "salesy."
Instead, share how a customer did something smart. Share how a customer took a different approach to an old problem.
Helping others by promoting their expertise or success is reason enough to do it. But if you need another reason, the fact that you work with such smart and savvy people reflects well on you.

Instead of leading an implementation meeting, turn it over to the employeewho spearheaded the project. Don't be tempted to somehow include yourself in the introduction; just say, "Next week we're rolling out our new scheduling system, so Mary will walk you through the process." Turn it over to Mary, sit down, and shut up.
Everyone already knows you're in charge; the fact that your employees get things done reflects well on you.
Today, promote someone else.
Then they win--and so do you.


By: Jeff Haden

Source: Inc.


Monday, December 17, 2012

5 Leadership Fads to Ignore


5 Leadership Fads to Ignore

Forget the self-help books. If you want to be a leader, use common sense. Here are a few of the so-called trendy tactics you should ignore.




Every so often some academic, researcher, leadership guru, former somebody, or current wannabe writes a book that catches on and becomes the latest and greatest business or self-help fad. 
They’re mostly old concepts repackaged with catchy new names, trite ideas that go viral and develop cult-like followings, or one person’s way of doing things that all the pod people think they should copy so they can be just like him.
I can count on one hand the number of management or business concepts that I thought were groundbreaking or really resonated with me over the past 30 years. The One Minute Manager, Gary Hamel’s Core Competency, the Tao of Leadership, and perhaps a few others. I’m sure they’ll come to me later.
You can probably tell that I have little patience for trendy fads. They don’t work, waste precious time, turn you into a clone, and distract you from what you should be doing: achieving great things and otherwise having a good time.
If you don’t want to become a zombie, then don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Avoid these fads in 2013 and beyond.

Managing like Steve Jobs.
First came the invasion of black mock turtlenecks, jeans, and sneakers. Then folks began mimicking his speaking style. Now executives and entrepreneurs are trying to clone the Apple icon’s management ideas. Unfortunately, you can’t just “copy and paste” talent, wisdom, or breakthrough leadership. It just doesn’t work that way.
Listen to this. The Steve Jobs that everyone is trying to copy, the one who turned around Apple, isn’t even the same Steve Jobs whose toxic management style got him fired from the company he founded. That tragic and painful event changed him. It was a process he had to go through. That’s what created the guy who built the world’s biggest technology company. It’s called experience. You can’t clone it.

Employee engagement.
Of course, every executive and business leader wants employees to love their jobs and feel like they’re important to the company’s success. That’s a no-brainer. It’s also nothing new. The way to get employees motivated is by creating a culture where they really are empowered, where they really do make a difference, where they’re challenged and supported. It isn’t rocket science and you don’t have to hire Gallup to do it.

Personal productivity and time management.
When did squeezing every minute of productivity out of the day become a national obsession? Let me tell you something. If you’re hopelessly disorganized, if you’re not a morning person, if you have an office that looks like it was hit by a tornado, if you haven’t cleaned up your inbox in three years, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be broke and miserable. It just means you’re like most of the successful and innovative people I’ve known over the years.
And if you still need to find more time, just do what I do. Less. Less is more. Prioritize. You’ll be more successful and happier. Just like that. 

Emotional intelligence.
Traditional command-and-control style leadership is out. Soft skills are in. Who wouldn’t want an empathetic and self-aware CEO? The problem with the latest fad du jour, emotional intelligence, is that it’s impossible to measure objectively and it’s easy to game the questions. Also, if EI is really a predictor of business success, then how do you account for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, and dozens of other highly successful entrepreneurs and executives? That’s right; you can’t.

Strengths-based leadership.
The whole “strengths” movement -- also brought to us by the good research folks at Gallup -- strikes me as another one of those “Good to Great” moments where what maybe worked for some companies in the past doesn’t do squat for others in the future.
Look, this is really simple. We live in a fast-paced, ever-changing business world. If you’ve got strengths you can translate into competitive advantage, focus on them. If, however, you have significant weaknesses that might result in you shooting yourself in the foot and taking others down with you, then ignoring them may spell disaster.
Here’s the thing. People who follow fads are just that. They’re followers. Don’t do that. Be yourself. Create your own culture. Lead. I have faith in you. Really.

By: Steve Tobak

Source: Inc.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Do You Need To Be Young To Start A Business?

Do You Need To Be Young To Start A Business?

I’m incredibly proud of my son, Ian, who opened a cafe and bar in Brooklyn with two partners a few months ago and is doing very well. Every time I see him, he looks happier – and a little more tired.  He’s learning so many things, so quickly, with such energy and hope, and putting his whole heart and soul into the process.
Ian is 24, and his partners aren’t much older.
Given that, I was caught by the title of a post here on Forbes by Brock Blake,Why 20-Somethings Are the Most Successful Entrepreneurs. Brock offers a number of compelling examples (the founders of AppleGoogleMicrosoft,Facebook and Wal-Mart were all in their 20s when they began their companies), and then goes on to opine that it’s easier for young people to be successful entrepreneurs because they have less to lose and are therefore less cautious than their older counterparts — and that their youth and relative inexperience gives them a fresh perspective that allows them to be more innovative.

But then I started to think about other entrepreneurs I know – myself included – who were in their 30s, 40s, 50s – even their 60s or 70s – when they started their businesses, and I realized that while the two elements Brock talks about are key to business success, they’re primarily mindset-related vs. age-related. So then the question becomes, how can you cultivate that entrepreneurial mindset, no matter what your chronological age?I look at my son and his partners, and can’t help but agree.  Ian’s living expenses are low; he doesn’t have a family  to think of or a mortgage to pay, and he’s not worried about how this will look on his resume.  And  his untainted-by-negative-experience eyes are much more likely to focus on how to do something he envisions than on all the reasons it might not work.
Becoming bold – When I started my business, I was 38, had two small children, and was the primary breadwinner. Hardly the carefree, nothing-to-lose 20-something Brock describes.  But I had something else that put me in that same bold, all-in frame of mind: I saw this as my big chance to create the life I wanted for myself and my family, and I was completely, 100% convinced that my business idea would work and was valuable. I see that Ian holds these same beliefs. Whether you have a lot at risk or a little, the energy required to start a new business and make it successful comes from a passionate commitment to both the power of your business concept and the importance of its success to you, personally. That deep and abiding commitment will take you from over-cautious to appropriately bold, and keep you there through whatever trials and tribulations arise.
Thinking fresh – My husband is thinking about starting a microbrewery.  He’s been an IT executive for the past 20 years; before that he was an engineer.  I observe him thinking about this business in really innovative, fresh ways not because he’s 25, but because he’s willing to be a novice. I believe age isn’t the main thing that makes it difficult for people to be innovative, but rather the discomfort with ‘not knowing’ that usually comes with age.  For most of us, the older we get, the more we think we’re supposed to be knowledgeable and experienced…and that gets in the way of new thinking far more than chronology. If you can be comfortable with being on the front end of a learning curve in an endeavor, you’re much more likely to see the possibility for new ways and fresh approaches.
I truly think that no matter how old you are, you can access these ‘youthful mind’ habits.  And then someday, someone will write a blog post about older entrepreneurs, and cite you as a shining example…


By: Erika Anderson

Source:Forbes

Monday, December 10, 2012


3 Things Every Great Leader Gets Wrong


Think you're a great leader? Make sure you aren't guilty of one of these three reality-distorting traits.


Steve Jobs


 
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Every great leader possesses a degree of what Walter Isaacson (in his biography of Steve Jobs) describes as "an ability to distort reality."
What Isaacson meant is that Jobs forced his will on Apple, often pushing people to create things they never thought possible--a powerful asset in any leader.
But that reality distortion effect works both ways. It also means that every leader, to a greater or lesser degree, distorts the reality around themselves, leading to tensions, inconsistency, and bad decisions.
There are two reasons why leaders who live in a bubble become so dangerous to themselves and those they lead.
First, the most insidious aspect of this is that it happens in seemingly mundane ways which are hard to spot, but which have far-from mundane consequences to the group, team or organization.
Second, the bubble effect is directly proportional to the ability of the leader. The better they are at what they do, the larger the bubble grows, and the harder it becomes to burst. (Peers and colleagues will readily burst a reality bubble of an insecure or less than effective colleague, but the highly successful leader is rarely challenged.)
Here are the three things most great leaders get wrong, and which together, place them inside a negative reality distortion field:

1. The time needed to do things.
Visionary leaders work at such strategic heights that they consistently underestimate how long it actually takes to get stuff done. (My estimate is that most visionary leaders have a seven-times perception error. If they say something will take an hour to do, it will actually take a day; if they think a day is enough, it'll take a week.)
This particular form of reality distortion regularly gets positive play in the media, who love stories of derring-do whereby the hard-charging visionary leader refuses to accept what mere mortals tell them, and instead push their team to superhuman feats of achievement in unheard-of time frames.
Unfortunately, the sad reality is that for every published tale of whip-cracking brilliance there are a thousand exhausted, frazzled teams forced to produce crappy, unsustainable gum-and-glue solutions for no other reason than their leaders inability to tell time.

2. The relative importance of people and ideas.
The second bubble-creating reality distortion that visionary leaders fall prey to is the tendency to categorize everything--every idea, every person--at extremes. An idea is either brilliant or it sucks. There's no in-between. People are either for us or against us. Etc. 
This form of reality distortion is certainly colorful, and can even be fun to watch play out, but for those who get tarred with an extreme negative categorization, based on little or no evidence, it's demoralizing, and for everyone else it's just plain confusing.

3. What other people hear you say.
Perhaps the most damaging reality distortion visionary leaders are subject to is an (almost) endearing inability to truly comprehend what others have heard them say. 
Weirdly enough, this works on two almost contradictory levels.
At one extreme, visionary leaders, who talk to think, will often engage in an orgy of musing, setting up straw men to test a theory; arguing the point about things they actually believe; positing hypotheticals in order to brainstorm options, all with the net effect of completely confusing those listening.
On the other hand, when they do move into instruction-giving mode, visionary leaders often make the wholly unsubstantiated assumption that everyone around them can read their minds, using opaque, almost mysterious, brief, allusions to convey highly important directives.
Take a look at your interactions with others this week. Which of these reality distortion techniques are you engaging in?


By: Les McKeown

Source: Inc.

Monday, December 3, 2012

The Facebook Job Board Is Here: Recruiting Will Never Look The Same



The Facebook Job Board Is Here: Recruiting Will Never Look The Same

                                               PALO ALTO, CA - AUGUST 18:  Facebook founder a...



The company’s own blog post reveals some telling statistics about the potential for recruiting over the platform. According to Facebook, half of employers in the U.S. use the social network during their hiring process. Of those companies already using Facebook to engage with customers, 54 percent anticipate using it more heavily in their recruitment efforts in the future. Given those numbers, the lucrative nature of the recruitment industry and the success of companies like Work4 Labs—not to mention increasing pressure from battered shareholders—it appears likely that Facebook will seek monetize recruitment efforts at some point soon.
Le Viet surmises that the current application is just an early, lightweight version intended to test recruiting on the platform. It also serves to trigger a PR push letting the general public know that the social network is now a place to find jobs. A more robust version may eventually mean users will see more recruitment-related activity on their newsfeeds.
The Social Jobs Partnership was meant to serve as a consortium to guide the company’s recruitment offering.
Given today’s announcement, does November 14, 2012 mark the beginning of the end for LinkedIn? The varied demographics of Facebook certainly differ from LinkedIn’s 175 million older, college-educated users. Le Viet’s Work4 Labs acknowledges this reality, focusing on entry-level and hourly positions rather than the salaried openings for which LinkedIn provides candidates. And as Forbes contributor George Anders noted in a July cover story, LinkedIn Recruiter, the company’s enterprise recruitment tool, is the company’s core business. They have a three-year head start and a product with cachet among recruiters  said to rival the Bloomberg terminal for traders. LinkedIn is also a trusted, professional brand created for the explicit purpose of business networking. Older employees may not feel comfortable mixing work with a social platform better known for party photos.
The sheer size of Facebook’s user base however, means that the company can slice the population a number of different ways. Though only 22 percent of users are above the age of 45, that’s still 220 million people–more than LinkedIn’s entire platform. And Facebook has already been shown to be highly effective in recruiting lower-skilled workers. A foothold in the lower end of the market could serve as a nice starting point for moving upstream and eating LinkedIn’s business. The twenty-somethings who tend profiles on both LinkedIn and Facebook may not care where their next job comes from.
It is certain that traditional online job boards like Monster.com are on the way out. While Monster has seen its market share and stock price plummet in recent years, LinkedIn has soared and Facebook’s developer partners–Work4 Labs, BranchOut and Jobvite–have raised tens of millions of dollars to pursue social graph-based recruiting models. The future of recruiting is decidedly social.
Though Forbes staffer Eric Savitz noted that the lockup agreement covering 777 million Facebook shares ended today, the company’s stock is up nearly 8%.

By:J.J. Colao

Source: Forbes