World's Simplest Management Secret

Management books have it all wrong. They all try to tell you how to manage "people."

It's impossible to manage "people"; it's only possible to manage individuals. And because individuals differ from one another, what works with one individual may not work with somebody else.

Some individuals thrive on public praise; others feel uncomfortable when singled out.

Some individuals are all about the money; others thrive on challenging assignments.

Some individuals need mentoring; others find advice to be grating.

The trick is to manage individuals the way that THEY want to be managed, rather than the way that YOU'd prefer to be managed.

The only way to do this is to ASK.

In your first (or next) meeting with each direct report ask:

• How do you prefer to be managed?
• What can I do to help you excel?
• What types of management annoy you?

Listen (really listen) to the response and then, as far as you are able, adapt your coaching, motivation, compensation, and so forth to match that individual's needs.

BTW, a savvy employee won't wait for you to ask; he or she will tell you outright what works. When this happens, you're crazy not to take that employee's advice!

Unfortunately, most individuals aren't that bold, which is why it's up to you to find out how to get the best out of them.

And you'll never get that out of a management book.

There is no one-size-fits-all in a world where everyone is unique.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/worlds-simplest-management-secret.html

12 Guidelines for Deciding When to Persist, When to Quit

When you're getting something new going, the difference between success and failure is often a matter of time: how long you give it before you give up. Efforts that begin with high hopes inevitably hit a disappointing sag. It's Kanter's Law: "Everything can look like a failure in the middle."

In the messy middle, unexpected obstacles pop up because the path is uncharted. Fatigue sets in. Team members turn over. Impatient critics attack just when you think you're gaining traction. Tough challenges almost inevitably take longer and cost more than our optimistic predictions.

That's why persistence and perseverance are important for anyone leading a new venture, change project, or turnaround. But the miserable middle offers a choice point: Do you stick with the venture and make mid-course corrections, or do you abandon it? Do you support incumbents making progress even though the job is not yet finished, or do you abandon them for another group's unproven promises?

Persist and pivot, and the effort could go on to success. Pull out in the messy middle, and by definition the effort is a failure. The issue is deciding which direction to take.

Consider this real-time case. Airtime, a video conversation platform, launched in the summer of 2012 by Napster legends Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning with much hype and more than ample funding. After a mere 4 months, Airtime has been pronounced in critical condition by media doctors because it has attracted only a trickle of users. Now Fanning has reportedly departed, and critics are chattering about failure. Famed Facebook advisor Parker claims that it is "ridiculously early" to plan Airtime's funeral. He argues that it takes 6 to 12 months to get things up and running. I suppose that 12 months is considered almost a lifetime in the digital age.

But a year might seem short to other people. Just ask Hewlett-Packard's CEO Meg Whitman, who has already declared that she couldn't accomplish much in a year and needs more time. I hear woes-of-the-middle tales from all kinds of leaders in all stages and sectors; innovators getting a new idea off the ground, real estate developers facing stalled construction, companies approaching foreign markets, and CEOs leading complex turnarounds.

Whether it's a start-up like Airtime, a turnaround, an elected official, or your own pet project, there are 12 key questions that can help you decide whether it should be shut down or helped through the messy middle:

1. Are the initial reasons for the effort still valid, with no consequential external changes?
2. Do the needs for which this a solution remain unmet, or are competing solutions still unproven or inadequate?
3. Would the situation get worse if this effort stopped?
4. Is it more cost-effective to continue than to pay the costs of restarting?
5. Is the vision attracting more adherents?
6. Are leaders still enthusiastic, committed, and focused on the effort?
7. Are resources available for continuing investment and adjustments?
8. Is skepticism and resistance declining?
9. Is the working team motivated to keep going?
10. Have critical deadlines and key milestones been met?
11. Are there signs of progress, in that some problems have been solved, new activities are underway, and trends are positive?
12. Is there a concrete achievement — a successful demonstration, prototype, or proof of concept?

If the answers are mostly Yes, then don't give up. Figure out what redirection is needed, strategize your way over obstacles, reengage the team, answer the critics, and argue for more time and resources. Everything worth doing requires tenacity.

If the answers trend toward No, as seems likely for Airtime, then cut your losses and move on. Persistence doesn't mean being pig-headed.
"You've got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them," Kenny Rogers sang in a famous song about playing poker. That's good advice for any leader struggling with change. It's a mistake to give up prematurely, because the middle is always messy. But be sure to heed the 12 guidelines to choose between persistence or pulling out.

http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2012/10/12-guidelines-for-deciding-whe.html

Be Happier: 10 Things to Stop Doing Right Now

Happiness--in your business life and your personal life--is often a matter of subtraction, not addition.

Consider, for example, what happens when you stop doing the following 10 things:

1. Blaming.
People make mistakes. Employees don't meet your expectations. Vendors don't deliver on time.
So you blame them for your problems.
But you're also to blame. Maybe you didn't provide enough training. Maybe you didn't build in enough of a buffer. Maybe you asked too much, too soon.
Taking responsibility when things go wrong instead of blaming others isn't masochistic, it's empowering--because then you focus on doing things better or smarter next time.
And when you get better or smarter, you also get happier.

2. Impressing.
No one likes you for your clothes, your car, your possessions, your title, or your accomplishments. Those are all "things." People may like your things--but that doesn't mean they like you.
Sure, superficially they might seem to, but superficial is also insubstantial, and a relationship that is not based on substance is not a real relationship.
Genuine relationships make you happier, and you'll only form genuine relationships when you stop trying to impress and start trying to just be yourself.

3. Clinging.
When you're afraid or insecure, you hold on tightly to what you know, even if what you know isn't particularly good for you.
An absence of fear or insecurity isn't happiness: It's just an absence of fear or insecurity.
Holding on to what you think you need won't make you happier; letting go so you can reach for and try to earn what you want will.
Even if you don't succeed in earning what you want, the act of trying alone will make you feel better about yourself.

4. Interrupting.
Interrupting isn't just rude. When you interrupt someone, what you're really saying is, "I'm not listening to you so I can understand what you're saying; I'm listening to you so I can decide what I want to say."
Want people to like you? Listen to what they say. Focus on what they say. Ask questions to make sure you understand what they say.
They'll love you for it--and you'll love how that makes you feel.

5. Whining.

Your words have power, especially over you. Whining about your problems makes you feel worse, not better.
If something is wrong, don't waste time complaining. Put that effort into making the situation better. Unless you want to whine about it forever, eventually you'll have to do that. So why waste time? Fix it now.
Don't talk about what's wrong. Talk about how you'll make things better, even if that conversation is only with yourself.
And do the same with your friends or colleagues. Don't just be the shoulder they cry on.
Friends don't let friends whine--friends help friends make their lives better.

6. Controlling.
Yeah, you're the boss. Yeah, you're the titan of industry. Yeah, you're the small tail that wags a huge dog.
Still, the only thing you really control is you. If you find yourself trying hard to control other people, you've decided that you, your goals, your dreams, or even just your opinions are more important than theirs.
Plus, control is short term at best, because it often requires force, or fear, or authority, or some form of pressure--none of those let you feel good about yourself.
Find people who want to go where you're going. They'll work harder, have more fun, and create better business and personal relationships.
And all of you will be happier.

7. Criticizing.
Yeah, you're more educated. Yeah, you're more experienced. Yeah, you've been around more blocks and climbed more mountains and slayed more dragons.
That doesn't make you smarter, or better, or more insightful.
That just makes you you: unique, matchless, one of a kind, but in the end, just you.
Just like everyone else--including your employees.
Everyone is different: not better, not worse, just different. Appreciate the differences instead of the shortcomings and you'll see people--and yourself--in a better light.

8. Preaching.
Criticizing has a brother. His name is Preaching. They share the same father: Judging.
The higher you rise and the more you accomplish, the more likely you are to think you know everything--and to tell people everything you think you know.
When you speak with more finality than foundation, people may hear you but they don't listen. Few things are sadder and leave you feeling less happy.

9. Dwelling.
The past is valuable. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from the mistakes of others.
Then let it go.
Easier said than done? It depends on your focus. When something bad happens to you, see that as a chance to learn something you didn't know. When another person makes a mistake, see that as an opportunity to be kind, forgiving, and understanding.
The past is just training; it doesn't define you. Think about what went wrong, but only in terms of how you will make sure that, next time, you and the people around you will know how to make sure it goes right.

10. Fearing.
We're all afraid: of what might or might not happen, of what we can't change, or what we won't be able to do, or how other people might perceive us.
So it's easier to hesitate, to wait for the right moment, to decide we need to think a little longer or do some more research or explore a few more alternatives.
Meanwhile days, weeks, months, and even years pass us by.
And so do our dreams.
Don't let your fears hold you back. Whatever you've been planning, whatever you've imagined, whatever you've dreamed of, get started on it today.
If you want to start a business, take the first step. If you want to change careers, take the first step. If you want to expand or enter a new market or offer new products or services, take the first step.
Put your fears aside and get started. Do something. Do anything.
Otherwise, today is gone. Once tomorrow comes, today is lost forever.
Today is the most precious asset you own--and is the one thing you should truly fear wasting.

www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-be-happier-work-10-things-stop-doing.html

How To Beat Copycats

The world is full of fast followers. Every new business immediately spawns copycats, riffers, and discounters; cheap knock-offs and traditional players trying to use their brands and size to barge into new markets. In many cases, when you invent and establish a new product, service, sector or approach, you actually make it easier for the guys running right behind you to succeed. Why?

• They ride on your coattails, your PR and your advertising in every possible way. They’re not pioneers and they’re not inventing anything. They’ve just learned to say, “We’re just like X but cheaper or faster or closer.” Saying, “We’re just like Groupon but better,” saves a ton of time, money and marketing.
  
  
• They lean on your success to establish their own credibility, and to show their customers that the idea or product works and works well.
  
  
• They go to school on your errors and missteps. They save time and money by avoiding first-timer mistakes. They get to enter the product development and delivery cycle at a later and more stable level than you did.

So what’s a hard-working CEO to do?

Simple: You need to keep raising the bar on yourself, and your business, before your competitors do it for you. The acid test is, “What’s the best you can possibly be?” The answer is, “Better, for the moment, than anyone else who’s trying to do the same thing.

Of course, just because no one else has done something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aiming for it – you can’t let other people’s limitations hold you back. Entrepreneurship means committing to a life of constant awareness (okay, paranoia), continuous change and extreme flexibility, as well as the willingness to eat and to abandon your “offspring” before they run out of steam. If you can’t do it, someone else will do it for you.

A good example of a great company falling asleep at the switch is Nike. Nike owned the athlete for years. They had the coolest shoes, the coolest endorsements, the best technology and the coolest television ads. When the Web came along, they put up a pretty robust site to show off their ads and their products. Then, having fallen in love with their own videos, they sat on their laurels.

It didn’t take long for competitors to figure out that the real athletes weren’t in it for the ads or the glory. They launched web sites that served the real needs of athletes – providing exercise programs, race training regimens, fitness tracking, online connections with like-minded people, athlete and team meet-ups, etc.

In pretty short order, the real athletes--and plenty of weekend warriors-- totally bailed on the Nike sites. The other sites were far more connected to their interests and represented far better uses of their scarce time. Nike opened the door for small, quick competitors to jump in with simple, straightforward tools and applications that let them to eat Nike’s lunch.

How badly did this hurt Nike? We can track the popularity of Nike’s brand online by tracking their Facebook likes. (Yes, there are some questions about fake likes, but since I’m interested in comparative data, we don’t have to worry about those right now.) True, this is only one way of keeping score, but it’s one of the best we have right now.  So here’s the “likes” math:

Baseline Players                         October, 2010                       September, 2012
Coke                                        15 million                            50 million
Starbucks                                  16 million                            32 million
Athletic Brands
Converse                                    7.4 million                          33 million
Adidas                                        4.8 million                          15.7 million
Nike                                           2.5 million                          10.5 million

When you look at these numbers, it’s clear that Nike really isn’t in the same league as the big dogs.

Raising the bar means that you need to constantly make yourself obsolete regularly cannibalize your products and services. The rate of change is autocatalytic – each change creates the next at a faster rate, and leading to disruption and radical obsolescence. It’s all driven by virality and almost perfect cross-market intelligence. If you want to stay in the game, keep raising the bar.

Remember: No one cares who made the first version of something. They care about who makes the best version.

http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/how-to-beat-copycats.html

How your FICO score affects getting a mortgage

It's not uncommon for borrowers to ask: "Why can't I get the interest rates I see advertised on the Internet?"

One of the most important characteristics of securing a mortgage is your FICO score. Simply put, the lower the credit score, the higher the interest rate.

3 different scores, 3 different rates
Your FICO score determines both your eligibility for a mortgage and the interest rate that you'll be paying throughout the term of the loan. Consider the following scenarios to see how a credit score impacts indebtedness when purchasing a $300,000 home.

Example 1
Assuming a 5 percent down/5 percent equity (95 percent loan-to-value ratio) financing with a conventional mortgage on a primary residence, with a 740 FICO score:
Mortgage rate: 3.625 percent, with no points
Total interest paid on a term of 360 months: $182,909

Example 2
Same assumptions, with a 700 FICO score:
Mortgage rate: 3.875 percent
Total interest paid over 360 months: $197,463

Example 3
Same assumptions, with a 680 FICO score:
Mortgage rate: 4.125 percent
Total interest paid over 360 months: $212,251

In general, for every 40-point swing in credit score when purchasing or refinancing, expect the interest rate to rise about 0.25 percent based on the borrower's FICO score alone, all other factors being constant.

Debt, income and assets
Other factors also are considered in a lender's decision to extend credit, but the lower the FICO score, the more emphasis is placed on your debt, income and assets.

Here's a basic model in order of priority:
FICO score equal to or greater than 740: assets, debt, income
FICO score less than 700: income, debt, assets
FICO score less than 680: debt, income, assets

Imagine a scale with credit, debt and income on one side and assets and loan-to-value ratio on the other. The side with credit, debt and income will always be a larger weighted factor than assets and loan-to-value.

If you plan on comparing mortgage loans with a few different lenders, be prepared to tell each lender your whole story up front and give them a realistic picture of your FICO score. This allows the lender to make all the factors work, so you know what you're shopping for.

The score becomes a critical factor as lenders use credit to predict default risk. Credit, debt, income and assets are reviewed on a weighted risk scale to determine the pros and cons of making the home loan.

The more risk the lender absorbs, the costlier the mortgage. Conversely, the more risk you absorb, the better the terms are for you as a borrower (hence why adjustable-rate mortgages are substantially lower cost mortgages).

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/how-your-fico-score-affects-getting-a-mortgage.html

8 Qualities of Fearless Entrepreneurs

You know the type: They do things other business owners only dream of doing--and usually succeed. Here's what sets them apart.


"In my office, the term badass is thrown around a lot," says Dr. Shelley Provost, a partner and director of happiness of the venture incubator Lamp Post Group. "We use it to describe many things: a person's performance or accomplishments or ability to close a sale or turn a profit, or how well they ask someone out on a date--basically their overall potential for awesomeness."

These are the qualities that Provost says set true business badasses apart:

1. They say yes first--then figure out how to deliver.
Badasses are incredibly confident, with good reason. If a job is anywhere near their wheelhouse, they will find a way to get it done or die trying.

Why? They trust their own abilities, but they trust the people around them just as much.

If you're a true badass, you think there's a way to solve every problem. All you have to do is find it.

2. They think differently than everyone else.
Most business problems aren't new. Badasses tackle old problems with a variety of creative solutions.
Instead of designing a corporate newsletter that no one will read to "improve communication," a badass will create a holograph of the CEO that welcomes you to work and gives you the latest news. And a true badass would wear a flowing gown like the one in this video of a Kate Moss hologram.

Tell me that wouldn't improve communication.

3. They speak up.
When badasses have a different opinion, they share it.

But they aren't argumentative--because that would just make them asses.

4. They enthusiastically share their awesome skills.
Badasses never shy away from teaching others.

Inject energy and innovation into your teaching method, and people will flock to learn from you. High Skill + High Confidence + Sharing With Others = True Business Badass.

5. They live by their own code.
They respect authority--but not too much.

Whether their code is to be a creative force in the world, to disrupt technologies, or to challenge others to examine their lives, badasses are unwilling to compromise their principles and beliefs for the comfort or approval of others.

If you're a true badass, you answer to a power deep within you.

6. They do what others only wish they could do.
One of my favorite quotes is, "The Wright brothers never had a pilot's license." Rather than look around for permission or approval, badasses are courageous. They're initiators. They have an idea and they act.
Rather than research and dwell on and discuss a problem to death, badasses find a solution by actually doing things.

7. They never, ever, ever give up.
Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that it takes 10,000 hours master a complex skill.
But the real key to mastering a complex skill is grit--the ability to stick with something long enough to log those 10,000 hours.

People with grit are like anti-dilettantes. Rather than flit from thing to thing, gritty people pick something and stick with it. They're tenacious, dogged, persevering, and they absolutely refuse to give up.
The grittiest people don't just work longer and harder, although that is part of the equation. They keep a laser focus on their goal and say, "No, thanks," to anything that gets in their way.

8. They ignore the haters.
There are many reasons to listen to the haters: to save face, to remain comfortable, to be secure, to not look like the fool.

But as Dale Carnegie, the badass of winning friends and influencing people, said, "The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."
Haters try to talk you into--or even scare you into--sticking with the status quo.

Be a true business badass. Don't listen.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/8-qualities-of-fearless-entrepreneurs.html

Do One Thing & Do It Better Than Anyone Else

Become the best darn whatever-you-are that you can be. Set aside your other good ideas. The rest will follow.

The other day, I received a business plan from a pair of entrepreneurs who are smart, talented, and passionate--exactly the formula you want to see. I reviewed the plan they sent me (well, OK, just the PowerPoint). And they had a great idea. Interesting enough to keep reading.

But when I got to the fifth slide, they had another idea. And then later, another idea. Three good ideas in one plan. Sounds like a bargain, right? Wrong! Only a fraction of ideas actually get pulled off.

What do you think happens when you try to launch three ideas at once? Nothing. To implement even one good idea takes a mountain of work--strategic planning, product development, marketing pushes, financing, administration, human resources, and so much more. Taking one idea to profits is hard. To be successful as an entrepreneur, you have to realize the devil is in the details. Don't fall into the trap of trying--like so many entrepreneurs--to do too much.

Instead, you want to be the best at one thing your customers want or need. Focus on how that one thing you do best can deliver value to your customers. Become irreplaceable to your customers.

But that's not all. When you launch a business, you want to make a case to yourself for what makes you the best at what you plan to do. Each time I launched a new business, I took out a pencil and sheet of paper and wrote down a list of the key strengths and advantages that made me uniquely qualified to win in that particular space. Did I have special skills? Deep experience? Industry relationships? Patentable technology? If there's no set of assets that you possess that puts you ahead of everyone else in the given marketplace, then maybe you should move on and find a different idea that you are uniquely qualified to win at.

At ColorJar, my innovation consultancy, I call this finding your "golden purpose." The reason you and your company exist. The one thing you do so well that people recognize you for it. Focus only on being the leader in that product and service, and all else will follow.

Then, once people have trust and confidence in you and your abilities, they will come to you for more. Amazon sold only books when it started, but it was the best darn bookseller on the planet. Once customers became comfortable with Amazon and loved buying books on the site, they started asking Amazon for more. Today Amazon sells thousands of products. But the company started by becoming the best at one thing.

Entrepreneurs today see successful companies that sell many products or offer many services and forget that they didn't start that way. These companies gained credibility by being the best at one thing they were uniquely qualified to do. Google started out as a simple search engine. Zappos was just an online shoe seller. Richard Branson launched Virgin Records; only later did it become an airline, resort, mobile service, and even a commercial space program. These companies proved themselves in the minds of customers by winning their categories. They raised their hands high in one specific area of expertise and owned it before they launched another idea or two. That's what opened the door to the future.

So find a problem to solve, grab your pencil, and list your assets. Discover your golden purpose. Set aside all your other good ideas. And become the best darn whatever-you-are that you can be. The rest will follow.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-hoffman/do-one-thing-better-than-anyone-else.html

Guy Kawasaki: Enchant Customers Like Apple, Zappos & Virgin

Investor and author Guy Kawasaki says the business world needs more charm. Here's his 10-step formula to enchant customers--and build a great big company.

If you want your company to be the next Apple, Zappos, or Virgin, take a page from their playbooks: Enchant your customers.

To do that, Guy Kawasaki, the investor, author, and former Apple "chief evangelist," boiled down a modern entrepreneur's goals at the Inc. 500|5000 in Phoenix on Friday like this: "You want the quality of Apple, the trustworthiness of Zappos, and the likeability of Richard Branson."

In his book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, and in his speech, Kawasaki outlined the path to "enchantment" in 10 steps.

Here they are:

1. Be Likeable

 It's simple. You cannot achieve anything if people do not like you. When Kawasaki met Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, Branson asked Kawasaki if he flew Virgin. "When I said that I was a United Global Services member, he got down on his knees and started polishing my shoes with his jacket. This is the moment I started flying Virgin," Kawasaki said. 

2. Be Trustworthy

 "You can like Charlie Sheen--that doesn't mean you trust Charlie Sheen," Kawasaki said. Trust is never a given, so your company needs to be proactive and project an air of trust, he added. One easy way to extend the first hand of trust to your customers is by giving them something, with no strings attached. As an example, Zappos gives customers unlimited free shipping both ways.

3. Perfect Your Product or Service

 It's a lot easier to enchant people with great stuff than crap. "I have tried it both ways," says Kawasaki. So how can you tell if your product or service is 'great stuff?' It's great, says Kawasaki, if it's "deep, intelligent, complete, empowering, and elegant."

4. Tell a Great Story 

 Your company needs an origin story. Look no further than eBay, with its founding story of Pierre Omidyar wanting to enrich his girlfriend's ability to trade Pez dispensers (her alleged hobby). It's a cute story, but a "total bullshit story," Kawasaki chides. "But you need a story."

5. Overcome Resistance

 Kawasaki says it might be tough to get a parent to buy a kid a shoot-em-up game. But what about a game that's marketed as an educational toy? Sure, parents will buy that. Other ways to overcome resistance: show social proof--your friends are doing it!--or providing data as evidence.

6. Make Your Enchantment Enduring

 At Grateful Dead concerts, there was a special area for show taping. The band wasn't worried about piracy; they wanted the concert to endure over time. How can you apply this to your business? Invoke reciprocation at every chance you get. When someone says "thank you," the optimal response isn't "you're welcome," Kawasaki says. It's "I know you would do the same for me."

7. Be a Great Presenter

When speaking to a group, customize the introduction to your audience. Kawasaki does this by showing an intro slide of him doing something the local people--be it in Edinburgh or Istanbul--can relate to, like eating haggis or trying on a fez at a bazaar. Keep your presentation short. Kawasaki says the optimal formula for a presentation is 20 minutes and 10 slides, using 30-point font.

8. Use Technology

"It's a great time to enchant people with technology, because technology is fast, free, and ubiquitous," Kawasaki says. But there will always be speed bumps when new technology is involved. (Think: An indecipherable captcha screen.) Get rid of it, or risk losing customers.

9. Enchant Up

How do you impress your boss? "When your boss asks you to do something, you drop everything else, and do it," says Kawasaki. If it's a big project, you should drop everything and make a prototype--fast. Draft an early rendering, and ask your boss if that's what she's looking for.

10. Enchant Down

If you're the boss, you need to not only enchant your customers, but also your employees. One easy way: "Show that you are willing to suck it up," Kawasaki says. Bottom line: Get your hands dirty.

http://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/guy-kawasaki-enchant-customers-like-apple-zappos-virgin.html

What High-Growth CEOs Do Differently

Want to build a fast-growth business? An expert explains the four aspects of your business you should be focusing on.

Business coach and consultant Jim Schleckser has spent years trying to understand how start-up and small business CEOs budget their time. Not surprisingly, the best CEOs--the ones that are able to grow highly-profitable, fast-growing companies--had a lot in common.
As part of the CEO Project, a boot camp for entrepreneurs, Schleckser advises CEOs and company founders on the most important areas of their business to focus on. At the core of his advice, Schleckser believes CEOs need to put the blinders on and focus on what truly drives growth. Here are the core components Schleckser says you should focus on.

Business Model
"Time spent on your business model drives growth," says Schleckser. Most importantly, CEOs should aim to increase the proportion of recurring revenue in their businesses

"Lock revenue each year," he says. "And when you decide to sell your business, you'll get higher offers."

Schleckser also challenges CEOs to raise prices. "Pricing drives profitability," he says. "I recommend you go home and raise your prices 10 percent."

Lastly, CEOs need to have a product so strong, he calls it the "mafia offer," an offer your customers can't refuse.

Talent
Schleckser believes all CEOs need to add  "Chief Talent Officer" to their title.
"Better players on the field means better performance," Schleckser says. The silver lining of the recession was that plenty of talented workers are looking for jobs--now is a good time to snatch up great employees at a reasonable price.
"You're able to get talent now that you couldn't get years ago," he says. "You need to be out there looking for talent all the time. Put a few of the A-players in, it's like magic in changing the business performance."

Process
What seperates good companies from great companies are those that are able to differentiate their brand based on better processes. What does that mean in practice? Schleckser advises CEOs to always being developing new product lines, adding value to current processes, eliminating waste, reengineering processes, and standardizing methods.

"Go the extra mile," he says. "Design processes that fulfill promises to your clients."

Leadership Approach
At the beginning of the company's lifecycle, CEOs are involved in all aspects of the business. But as the company grows, the CEO needs to be able to defer power to managers.
"It feels great to close a sale," says Schleckser, "but if a CEO is out selling, he's not doing his job."
The point is to foucs on the aspects that will drive future growth, and that often means taking the CEO out of his or her comfort zone.

http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/what-high-growth-CEOs-do-differently.html

Why You Can't Do It All

The simple rule for start-up survival is to focus on the 80/20 rule-the 20% of tasks that generate 80% of the benefit.

My first year at business school, I thought my professors were trying to kill me. Each night, I had more reading and homework than could possibly get done in one evening even if I stayed up all night. I quickly realized that one of the key lessons of survival was prioritization--figuring out what portion of the work was most important and what just was not going to get done.

I remember one night, working on a term paper with a group of students. We had worked hard on the paper and we all thought it was in good shape. We had other work to complete that night and were not anxious to pull an all-nighter so we were ready to move on. One of the team members, however, felt it was not "A" material and wanted to keep working on it. I remember thinking even back then that this guy did not "get it."
My life in start-ups has been the same experience as business school. To survive and flourish, you have to quickly figure out what is "important" and what is "noise." You can't do it all...

Both at my former company TripAdvisor as well as my current company Car Gurus, we have a saying: follow the 80/20 rule, technically known as the Pareto principle. The Pareto principle tells us that 20 percent of the inputs account for 80 percent of the results. You have to cut through the noise, figure out what tasks represent the 20 percent with the greatest leverage and focus on those tasks. Find those projects that make a big impact and ignore EVERYTHING else.

Is it difficult to step away from fire drills and turn away from the mounting volume in your inbox? Absolutely. But if you don't, your days--and your team's days--will slip away without having addressed the projects that will really drive your business.

The sooner you figure out how to apply the 80/20 rule and run with it, the better off you'll be.  There are 100 things you can focus on each day, and it's up to you to parse the data, decide what projects or features have the greatest leverage and get the product to market as fast as you can.

Don't forget, you can't do it all....

http://www.inc.com/langley-steinert/why-you-cant-do-it-all.html

Are You at Risk of Employee Fraud?

Do you wonder whether you could ever be the victim of employee fraud? Stop wondering--you could. "Something like three out of every 10 businesses will have employees who steal," reports Janine Driver, author of You Can't Lie to Me, who spent years training FBI, CIA, and ATF agents in how to spot dishonesty.

No matter what business you're in it can happen, she says. "One dentist worked with the same assistant for 30 years," she says. "Then her house was being foreclosed, so she forged his signature cosigning a loan." The woman paid her loan and the fraud would have gone undetected--except that the bank sent the dentist a congratulatory note when it was paid off. "It's not the homeless person out on the street stealing from us, but the person we trust," Driver says.

In spite of her expertise, it's even happened to her. With a busy speaking schedule, Driver had a management company handle her bookings, as well as invoicing and processing payments. One day, out of curiosity, she followed up a text from her bank acknowledging a deposit--and discovered that the payment had come from a booking several months earlier. Come to find out, the company had been withholding money, often depositing it long after the payment was received. "At the time, they owed me about $8,000, but they'd been borrowing and paying back for years," she says. When she consulted an attorney about it, he told her she was the sixth fraud victim to contact him that month.

The fraud 'triangle'
If fraud is widespread and even the smartest pros don't always see it coming, how can you hope to protect yourself? Begin by being aware of what Driver calls the fraud triangle. In the fraud triangle:
1. The employee has access to money, valuable goods, or other assets;
2. The employee is facing some financial pressure, such as a child in college or a looming home foreclosure;
3. The employee can somehow justify his or her actions, perhaps feeling that he or she deserves higher pay or should be compensated for extra time on the job.

If all three elements are present, Driver says, the likelihood of an employee committing fraud are very high. Protect yourself by making sure you're aware if any employees are facing financial difficulties. You want to know so you can be understanding and helpful, but you should also keep in mind that an employee in this situation is likelier to turn to crime. Obviously, you need to be especially vigilant of anyone who has access to your company's bank accounts.

How much of this résumé is true?
Though you can never completely screen for fraud, Driver says careful hiring can help reduce the risk. For one thing, she recommends getting a credit report before signing someone on, a step that more and more employers, including the federal government, are taking. If someone's facing the sort of financial trouble that might lead him or her to steal, chances are it'll turn up.

She also recommends asking job-seekers to certify that all their answers will be true at the top of an application--before they fill out the rest--rather than at the bottom where it's traditionally found. "If people have already lied, they'll mentally justify it and sign," she says.

You can take that method a step further by having a two-part interview process, she adds. Begin by having a preliminary interview with an associate. At the end of the interview, the associate tells the applicant that while he or she seems like a good candidate for the job, you're meticulous and will check every single item--so any inaccuracies should be corrected before the person's résumé gets passed along to you. And then the associate should ask: "On a scale of 1 to 100, how accurate is it?"

The answer will be illuminating, Driver promises. "Almost no one will say 100%. They'll say 90%, so you ask about the other 10%." The answer might be that the applicant can't remember whether a job started in May or June. Or it could be that he or she was fired from a previous position.

This tactic can be surprisingly effective. "We see it in law enforcement," Driver says. In one interview, an agent asked a suspect how much of his statement had been true. "99%" came the answer. So the agent asked which 1% was inaccurate. Answer: "My involvement in the crime."

http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/how-to-lower-risk-fraud-at-your-company.html

Are You Leading Your People, or Just Running a Company?

Best-selling leadership author Simon Sinek explains 5 ways to really look after your employees.

After safely leading 22 members of the Air Force through combat in 2002, Lieutenant Colonel Mike "Johnny Bravo" Drowley, an airman in the United States Air Force, told best-selling leadership author Simon Sinek that there are fates worse than death: accidentally killing one of your own men, or going home alive when one or more of your men does not.

That mindset--total devotion to your people--translates into a crucial leadership lesson to those individuals who are in charge of different kinds of "troops:" entrepreneurs.
"Johnny Bravo commands the kind of loyalty the rest of us couldn't buy," says Sinek, in remarks that kicked off the Inc. 500|5000 conference Thursday morning. "Without a doubt, he will be there for them. This is how trust is formed."

Sinek, the author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, challenges entrepreneurs to build similar loyalty and trust with employees.

"Because you own the company, you're the boss," said Sinek. "But you're not a leader until you make it your job to look after others."

To begin truly looking after your team (to do more than just run your company), ask yourself two questions: "Why are you building a business in the first place?" and, "At the end of your life, what do you want to be the reason you built your business?"

Here's five ways Sinek says you can turn your answer to this question into day-to-day action:

Roam the halls.

Talk with your employees. In person. Don't hide behind technology. If you're sending out e-mails to find out how people are doing, you're not listening.

Recognize good work publicly.
Sure, sometimes you need to discipline employees, but--when they do a nice job--let them, and the whole team, know it. Small acts of kindness go a long way.

Tell the personal story of how you got started--often.
Sinek points out that the best businesses are founded to address real human problems--problems entrepreneurs have passion for. Let your employees know how the original idea came to be, and all the challenges you faced plowing ahead in spite of them. Create lore.

Mark what you represent.
Sinek is a big believer in symbolism. The more you stand for something, the more your logo--and other markers--serve as a symbol to employees of who you are. For this reason, also consider the power of your company's color theme, and, for example, the clothes you choose to wear.

Give employees responsibility.
Next time an employee asks you a question, respond with a question: "What do you think we should do?" Don't just dictate the course of action. Train employees and give them the skills they need to be decision makers, and then give them the ability--and responsibility--to fail. Start by doing this in circumstances when a failure's consequences won't be so detrimental.

"Your company exists not to make money," says Sinek. "Your company exists to advance something, to do something more--and it should be for other human beings."

http://www.inc.com/allison-fass/leadership-simon-sinek-on-truly-leading-employees.html

What Science Says About Successful Bosses

Over the past year, I've been writing a book about the future of sales and marketing with Howard Stevens, chairman of the leadership assessment firm Chally. As part of a decades-long research project, Chally has gathered extensive personality data about 150,000 salespeople, including 9,000 sales managers.

Last week, I had a conversation with Howard where he described the results of a statistical analysis on the cumulative data on sales managers. While the data set is specific to sales, I believe that personality traits that emerged apply to any management position.
According to the success vs. failure statistics that Howard shared with me, successful bosses tend to be:

1. Humble Rather Than Arrogant
Failed bosses defined their role as some form of telling people what to do. Employees perceived them as obnoxious know-it-alls who wouldn't let them do their job.
Successful bosses put themselves and their own egos into the background. They focused on coaching employees to perform to their highest potential.

2. Flexible Rather Than Rigid
Failed bosses couldn't tolerate change themselves and so found it nearly impossible to get their employees to embrace necessary change.
Successful bosses knew that adapting to new conditions requires personal flexibility in order to inspire similar flexibility throughout the rest of the team.

3. Straightforward Rather Than Evasive Failed bosses tried to manipulate employees using half-truths that left false impressions.  When employees realized they've been fooled, they felt resentful and disloyal.
Successful bosses gave employees the information they need to know to make the best decisions, even if that information is difficult or sensitive.

4. Forward Thinking Rather Than Improvisational Failed bosses often attempted to run their organizations ad-hoc, constantly shifting gears and directions, creating a more-or-less constant state of confusion.
Successful bosses had a plan and made sure that everyone understood it. They adapted that plan to changing conditions but did so carefully and intentionally.

5. Precise Rather Than Vague
Failed bosses created mushy goals that employees found difficult to map into actual activity. As a result, the wrong things got done and the right things didn't.
Successful bosses let employees know exactly what was expected of them, in sufficient detail so that there was no ambiguity about goals.

6. Patient Rather Than Ill-Tempered
Failed bosses blew up and threw fits when problems cropped up. Their employees became more afraid of doing things wrong than eager to do things right.
Successful bosses confronted problems by listening, considering options, deciding on the best approach, and then communicating what needed to be done.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/what-science-says-about-successful-bosses.html

6 Vital Decisions You Must Make to Succeed

If you want to turn your great idea for a start-up into a real business, it won’t just happen because you want it to. In fact, the odds that you can succeed are stacked against you. And while you’re trying to beat those odds, you will be putting your reputation, the time of your co-founders, and possibly the cash of your friends and family at risk of loss.

Over the past two years, I have been interviewing start-up CEOs--about 180 at last count--in a quest to figure out what makes the difference between the few who succeed and the many who fail. You can read the result in my new book, Hungry Start-up Strategy: Creating New Ventures With Limited Resources and Unlimited Vision, coming out in November.

Here’s a hint for you: It all depends on how well you make six vital decisions.

1. Set goals
When you start your venture, you will probably have nothing to offer the people you will try to recruit. Yet I talked to many company founders who were able to recruit outstanding people and raise capital from some of the most prestigious of venture capitalists.

To do that, these founders set three kinds of goals. The first--for recruiting others--was a mission that gave the new venture so much meaning to those recruits that they could not resist.

The mission will only get you so far, though--you will also need a long-term goal for investors, something like going public in five years or finding a corporate acquirer. And you will need to set short-term goals that will help you learn what you need to do to grow without burning through your resources.

2. Pick markets
If you can set goals, you’re far from out of the woods. After all, you need to figure out who will use or buy your product. And to do that, you will need to pick the markets that you’re going to target.

Two hints for picking the right market--you have to have a personal passion for solving that market’s problem, and the customers in that market must see your product as a compelling answer to a problem that none of your competitors are solving.

3. Raise capital
It goes without saying that everyone has bills to pay. So if you are going to hire people or buy supplies, you will need money. But where can you get it?

The best place to look initially is probably your customers. If you can get them to pay you more for the product than it costs you to build it--and cover your fixed costs--you are going to be in a good position. You might also try to get your suppliers to extend you favorable payment terms. If neither of those suffices, you can try tapping your own bank account or your credit cards.

You can probably forget banks unless your start-up has some kind of collateral that the banks can seize or sell if you don’t repay.

And I’ve found that you may want to match your efforts to raise money from other people (friends and family, angel investors, venture capitalists) to the stage of your start-up’s development, moving up that ladder as you ramp your sales.

4. Build the team
You can’t do it all yourself, but resist the urge to hire friends unless those friends have skills in areas critical to your venture’s success that complement your own. I found that the most successful ventures do a great job of dividing up the work that must be done among the most talented people. And they create a culture that binds them all together to focus on shared goals.

5. Gain market share 

To grow, you must get customers to use your product and eventually pay. But I found that many customers are afraid to get too dependent on a start-up that could go out of business and leave them in the lurch.

To overcome that, you have to offer the customer what I call a quantum value leap (QVL), a product that solves a problem that customers care about better than the competition, and to give that solution away. If that QVL actually delivers, those early customers will tell all their friends. And you can eventually upgrade the product and start charging customers to use it.

6. Adapt to change
You might think getting those five decisions right would be enough, but you would be wrong. That’s because customer needs, technology, and competitors all evolve, and the very success you achieve by making those first five decisions well could doom your venture to destruction.

Unless you can adapt to those changes--seizing new opportunities and guarding against evolving threats--your customers will flee and your venture will decline. I found that winning ventures follow three approaches to keep this from happening--one of these is to craft a vision of the skills at which the start-up must excel and to make acquisitions and strategic hires to close the capability gap.

If you want to beat the odds and win in the start-up game, you must make these six vital choices the right way. Otherwise, you’ll let down yourself as well as your co-founders, customers, investors, and employees.

http://www.inc.com/peter-cohan/6-vital-decisions-you-must-make-to-succeed.html

7 Ways to Make Customers Love You

The greatest compliment anyone can receive in the business world is "I just love working with you."  That's especially true when that compliment comes from customers, because it means that you'll be getting their business time and time again.

Here are the seven rules for getting customers to love working with you, based upon conversations with Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the The Sales Bible and Dr. Earl Taylor, master trainer at Dale Carnegie:

1. Make building the relationship more important than making the sale.
2. Create opportunities for the customer to buy, rather than opportunities for you to sell.
3. Have meaningful conversations and never give a sales pitch.
4. Be curious about the customer as a person and let the friendship evolve from that.
5. Don't try to be a hero who swoops in to solve the customer's problem.
6. Believe in your heart that you and your firm are the best at what you do.
7. Deliver exactly what you promised to deliver, no matter what.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/7-ways-to-make-customers-love-you.html

Best Interview Technique You Never Use

Eventually, almost every interview turns into a question-and-answer session. You ask a question. The candidate answers as you check a mental tick-box (good answer? bad answer?).

You quickly go to the next question and the next question and the next question, because you only have so much time and there's a lot of ground to cover because you want to evaluate the candidate thoroughly. The more questions you ask, the more you will learn about the candidate.

Or not.

Sometimes, instead of asking questions, the best interviewing technique is to listen slowly.

In Change-Friendly Leadership, management coach Rodger Dean Duncan describes how he learned about listening slowly from PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer:

Duncan: He urged me to ask a good question, listen attentively to the answer, and then count silently to five before asking another question. At first that suggestion seemed silly. I argued that five seconds would seem like an eternity to wait after someone responds to a question. Then it occurred to me: Of course it would seem like an eternity, because our natural tendency is to fill a void with sound, usually that of our own voice.

Lehrer: If you resist the temptation to respond too quickly to the answer, you'll discover something almost magical. The other person will either expand on what he's already said or he'll go in a different direction. Either way, he's expanding his response, and you get a clear view into his head and heart.

Duncan: Giving other people sufficient psychological breathing room seemed to work wonders. When I bridled my natural impatience to get on with it, they seemed more willing to disclose, explore, and even be a bit vulnerable. When I treated the interview more as a conversation with a purpose than as a sterile interrogation, the tone of the exchange softened. It was now just two people talking...

Listening slowly can turn a Q&A session into more of a conversation. Try listening slowly in your next interviews. (Not after every question, of course: Pausing for five seconds after a strictly factual answer will leave you both feeling really awkward.)

Just pick a few questions that give candidates room for self-analysis or introspection, and after the initial answer, pause. They'll fill the space: with an additional example, a more detailed explanation, a completely different perspective on the question.

Once you give candidates a silent hole to fill, they'll fill it, often in unexpected and surprising ways. A shy candidate may fill the silence by sharing positive information she wouldn't have otherwise shared. A candidate who came prepared with "perfect" answers to typical interview questions may fill the silence with not-so-positive information he never intended to disclose.

And all candidates will open up and speak more freely when they realize you're not just asking questions--you're listening.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/best-interview-technique-you-never-use.html

Best Way to Introduce Yourself

Who is the most important audience? Hint: It's not the people you meet.
 
Whenever you introduce yourself, the person you meet is not the most important audience.

You are the most important audience.

Here's why.

I like to ride bicycles. I'm not super fit. And I'm not super fast. But I like riding, and in weak moments occasionally even think of myself as a "cyclist."

So occasionally I ride in mass participation events like gran fondos. The average participant tends to be a serious cyclist: Many are triathletes, some are amateur racers, and occasionally even a few professionals show up. I live in a valley between two mountain ranges, so our events are not for the faint of fitness.

I was standing in the start area for a gran fondo that involved climbing four mountains when a man rolled over towards me. My guess is he picked me out since I was clearly one of the older riders in the field. (That was a delightful sentence to write.) As he stopped he struggled to unclip from his pedals and almost fell.

"Morning," he said, the bass in his voice turned up to 10. "I'm Louis Winthorpe III*. I'm the CEO of WeKickSeriousButt Enterprises."**

"Jeff," I said. I shook his hand.

"I am really looking forward to this," he said. "I could use the break to recharge the old batteries. Just in the last few days I've had to finalize a huge contract, visit two of our plants, and sign off on plans for a new marketing push."

How do you respond to that? "Wow, you've been busy," was the best I could manage.

"Oh, not really," he said, trying and failing to seem humble. "Just same stuff, different day. I just wish I wasn't so busy. I only have time to do the shorter course today. I would have absolutely killed the long ride. What about you?"

"I'm afraid the long ride is going to kill me," I said.

"Feel free to latch on to my wheel," he said, referring to drafting in another rider's slipstream. "I'll tow you along for as long as you can hang with me." Then he slowly and carefully clipped into one pedal and wobbled away.

Cocky? Full of himself? Sure, but only on the surface: His $12,000 bike, pseudo-pro gear, and "I rule the business world" introduction were an unconscious effort to protect his ego. What his introduction really said was, "While I might not turn out to be good at cycling, that's okay because out in the real world, where it really matters, I am The Man."

While he introduced himself to me, he was his real audience.

And that's a shame. For the next six or eight hours he could have just been a cyclist. He could have struggled and suffered and maybe even rekindled the ember of youth inside us that burns a little less brightly with each passing year.

How do you introduce yourself? When you feel insecure, do you prop up your courage with your introduction? Do you include titles or accomplishments or "facts" when you don't need to?
If so, your introduction is all about you, not your audience.

Instead:
See less as more.
Brief introductions are always best. Provide the bare minimum the other person needs to know, not in an attempt to maintain distance, but because during a conversation more about you can be revealed in a natural, unforced, and therefore much more memorable way.

Stay in context.
If you meet another parent at a school meeting, for example, just say, "Hi, I'm Mark. My daughter is in third grade." Keep your introduction in context with the setting. If there is no real context, like at a gran fondo, just say, "Hi, I'm Mark. Good luck."

Embrace understatement.
Unless you're in a business setting, your job title is irrelevant. Even if you are in fact the CEO of WeKickSeriousButt Enterprises, just say you work there. To err is human. To err humble is divine.

Focus on the other person.
The other person is the only person that matters. Ask questions. Actually listen to the answers. The best connections never come from speaking; the best connections always come from listening.

That day I rolled into the finishing area well over six hours later. I stopped and slumped over my handlebars beside a small cluster of riders who had finished well before me. They were already changed and working on a post-ride beer.

One of them looked over and said, "How was it?"

"It sucked," I said.

They all laughed, and he said, "And it was awesome, right?"

I smiled, because it was. He reached over and gave me a fist bump. "I'll grab you a beer and you can tell us all about it," he said. I looked forward to the conversation more than the beer. Acceptance and camaraderie are earned by effort, not granted by title.

At that moment I happened to see Louis, sitting alone as he packed up his gear. I felt a twinge of sadness because he never allowed himself to just be a rider. He never gave himself the chance to fit in, enjoy a shared purpose, and to simply be a cyclist among cyclists.

When you introduce yourself, embrace the moment and the setting for what it says about you in that moment, not in comparison to your titles or accomplishments.

Just be whoever you are, skills and struggles and triumphs and failures and all. You are your true audience, even when you introduce yourself.

Always be yourself--especially to yourself.

* Clearly not his real name. (Trading Places!)
** Not really, but not far off.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/a-great-way-to-introduce-yourself.html

4 Tips to Dramatically Improve Any Skill

Practice does not, in fact, always make perfect. Here's an easy way to make sure all that work pays off.
 
Picture someone you know who is incredibly talented: an athlete, a musician, a scientist.

You probably wish you had been born with some type of gift, right?

You were.

"We are often taught that talent begins with genetic gifts--that the talented are able to effortlessly perform feats the rest of us can only dream about. This is false. Talent begins with brief, powerful encounters that spark motivation by linking your identity to a high-performing person or group. This is called ignition, and it consists of a tiny, world-shifting thought lighting up your unconscious mind:

"I could be them."

That's the introduction to Daniel Coyle's The Little Book of Talent, a cool book filled with 52 easy, proven methods to improve almost any skill. It's a great guide; in just a few minutes you'll think, Oh, wow, several times.

Here's an example. You want to get better at something. At anything. Just going through the practice motions provides little or no results, though, so the key is to make sure you use a method that follows the R.E.P.S. gauge:

R: Reaching and Repeating

E: Engagement

P: Purposefulness

S: Strong, Speedy Feedback

Let's take a brief look at each.

Reaching and Repeating: Practice should require you to operate at the edge of your abilities; in short, you have to consistently reach and constantly repeat.

Say you're leading a training session. Should you:
1. Call on one person, ask a question, and have him or her answer it, or
2. Pose the question first, and then randomly choose someone to answer (and maybe even turn the exercise into a game)?

The second is the best approach, because everyone has to reach, every time--even if he or she isn't called on. Call on John from accounting, and I know I don't have to answer the question; I can sit back, check my email, and wait until you eventually call on me. I don't have to reach but--maybe--once.

Always put yourself--or the people you're training--in a position to reach, over and over again.

Engagement: Practice must command your attention and make you feel emotionally invested in striving for a goal.

Say you're trying to perfect your slide transitions for a presentation. Should you:
1. Run through the whole presentation 10 times, or
2. Try to hit each transition perfectly, without mistakes, three presentations in a row?

Running through your presentation 10 times in a row will feel like death; trying to be perfect three times in a row turns the exercise into a game you care about.

Make sure the outcome of every practice session is something you will care about: You'll try harder and be more engaged, and you'll improve more rapidly.

Purposefulness: Practice must directly connect to the skill you want to build. (Sounds obvious, but often what we practice has little to do with what we need to accomplish.)

Say you feel nervous and intimidated when you have to speak to a group. Should you:
1. Rehearse at home, alone, until you know your material inside out, or
2. Practice speaking to small groups of people in less formal settings, like in a meeting?

Although solo rehearsing certainly helps, the only way to perform well under the pressure of an audience is to actually practice speaking to people. No amount of solo practice will prepare you for the nerves you'll feel when every eye in the room is on you.

Strong, Speedy Feedback: Practice must provide an immediate and consistent flow of accurate information about performance.

Say you're studying for a certification exam. You purchased a sample test guide. Should you:
1. Take a complete test and wait until the next day to see how you did, or
2. Complete a section and immediately grade your answers to see where you went wrong (and right)?

Take the test in chunks. Check your results right away. Immediate feedback is the best feedback; you'll better connect the dots because you're in the flow. Waiting even a day for feedback creates a mental distance and a lack of engagement that are really hard to overcome--which means much of the time you spent trying to learn was wasted.

 http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/4-tips-to-dramatically-improve-any-skill.html

How to Make Huge Decisions

The power of a group is great when you need to get things done. When you need to make a huge decision, not so much.
 
Opinions. Feedback. Advice. Guidance. Counsel.

Consensus!

Yuck.

Granted, it's natural to look for input when we need to make decisions. And if asking for advice doesn't come naturally, the business world trains us to actively solicit opinions, bounce ideas off other people, and run our ideas up proverbial flagpoles in order to harness the amazing brain power of the many to make awesomely incredible decisions.

Sometimes that approach works... but sometimes it's the worst approach to take when you need to make a huge decision.

The main power wielded by group thinking is the power of the middle ground. Groups grind away the edges and the sharp corners. After all that input and feedback and devil's advocacy what remains is safe, secure... and similar.

If you want to be different--if you want to achieve "different"--the only opinion that truly matters is yours. Group decisions give you an out. Other people can be at least partly responsible. Other people can be wrong.

When you make the decision, everything rests on you: Your vision, your passion, your motivation, and your sense of responsibility.

So you'll try harder if only to prove others wrong. You'll fight through every obstacle and roadblock, if only to prove yourself right.

You will do everything possible to make it happen.

So when you need to make a huge decision, this is how to get input and opinions--while still making sure you, and only you, make the final decision:

1. Take a "crazy" idea.
Choose something you believe in late at night but in the cold light of day hesitate to try.
Or choose an idea you've been told will never work.

2. Then seek data, not opinions.
Input from other people is useful, but only if you see that input as data points and not opinions.
Opinions carry extra weight, like the weight of credibility (he's really smart, so I'm sure he's right), the weight of guilt (if it turns out he's right, I'll never hear the end of it), or the weight of safety (yeah, there probably is a reason no one has tried this before).

"I think you're crazy to try to open a store in that market," is an opinion. It may be accurate, may not be accurate; it's still just an opinion.

If you value the person's opinion, ask them how he or she arrived at that opinion. Always look for the data behind the conclusion.

Otherwise ignore everything that isn't data--warnings, cautionary tales, and well-intentioned but poorly founded advice--since you already know all those things anyway.

3. Evaluate the data.
Data analysis is easy when opinions and "weight" are stripped away.

Make a pros and cons list. Apply sensitivities. Be objective. Be smart. You know how.

4. Decide how strongly you believe...
Analysis will only take you so far, since critical thinking tends to steer decisions towards conventional wisdom.

An innovative product only looks like a sure thing in hindsight. The emergence of a new industry only seems inevitable after it has emerged.

At some point, someone believed when others didn't.

5. ...then decide if that someone is you.
If you believe when others don't--and a major portion of that belief is based on analysis, not gut feel--then go for it. Start a business. Sell a business. Enter a new market. Take a chance on a new product.

Go for it, knowing you'll go harder and faster and longer because the only person that really matters made the decision.

You.

 http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-make-huge-decisions.html

9 Things You Wish Job Candidates Knew

Sure, you'll consider their qualifications. But admit it: This is what you're really looking for during interviews.

Job candidates say a lot during an interview. As the interviewer, so do you.
But there's a lot you wish you could say to job candidates well before the interview ever takes place:

1. I want you to be likable.
Obvious, sure, but also critical. I want to work with people I like and who like me.
So I want you to smile. I want you to make eye contact, sit forward in your chair, and be enthusiastic. The employer-employee relationship truly is a relationship--and that relationship starts with the interview (if not before).

A candidate who makes a great first impression and sparks a real connection instantly becomes a big fish in a very small short-list pond.

You may have solid qualifications, but if I don't think I'll enjoy working with you, I'm probably not going to hire you.

Life is too short.

2. I'm taken aback when you say you want the job right away.
Oh, I do want you to want the job--but not before you really know what the job entails. I may need you to work 60-hour weeks, or travel 80% of the time, or report to someone with less experience than you... so hang in there.

No matter how much research you've done, you can't know you want the job until you know everything possible about the job.

3. I want you to stand out....
A sad truth of interviewing is that later I often don't recall, unless I refer to my notes, a significant amount about some of the candidates. (Unfair? Sure. Reality? Absolutely.)

The more people I interview for a job and the more spread out those interviews, the more likely I am to remember a candidate by impressions rather than by a long list of facts.

So when I meet with staff to discuss potential candidates I might initially refer to someone as, "the guy with the handcuff-ready stainless steel briefcase," or "the woman who does triathlons," or "the guy who grew up in Romania."

In short, I may remember you by "hooks"--whether flattering or unflattering--so use that to your advantage. Your hook could be your clothing, or an outside interest, or an unusual fact about your upbringing or career.
Better yet your hook could be the project you pulled off in half the expected time, or the huge sale you made.

Instead of letting me choose, give me one or two notable ways to remember you.

4. ...But not for being negative.
There's no way I can remember everything you say. But I will remember sound bites, especially negative ones.

Some candidates complain, without prompting, about their current employer, their coworkers, their customers.

So if, for example, you hate being micro-managed, instead say you're eager to earn more responsibility and authority. I get there are reasons you want a new job but I want to hear why you want my job instead of why you're desperate to to escape your old job.

And keep in mind I'm well aware our interview is like a first date. I know I'm getting the best possible version of "you." So if you whine and complain and grumble now... I know you'll be a total downer to be around in a few months.

5. I want you to ask lots of questions about what really matters to you...
I need to know whether I should hire you, but just as importantly I need you to make sure my job is a good fit for you.

So I want you to ask lots of questions: What I expect you to accomplish early on, what attributes make our top performers so outstanding, what you can do to truly drive results, how you'll be evaluated--all the things that matter to you and to me and my business.

You know what makes work meaningful and enjoyable to you. I don't. There's no other way to really know whether you want the job unless you ask questions.

6. ...But only if the majority of those questions relate to work.
I know you want a positive work-life balance. Still, save all those questions about vacation sign-up policies and whether it's okay to take an extra half hour at lunch every day if you also stay a half hour late and whether I've considered setting up an in-house childcare facility because that would be really awesome for you and your family.

First let's find out if you're the right person for the job, and whether the tasks, responsibilities, duties, etc. are right for you.

Then we can talk about the rest.

7. I love when you bring a "project."
I expect you to do a little research about my company. That's not impressive; that's a given.

To really impress me, tell me how you will hit the ground running and contribute right away--the bigger the impact the better. If you bring a specific skill, show how I can leverage that skill immediately.

Remember how I see it: I have to pay you starting day one, so I'd love to see an immediate return starting day one.

8. I want you to ask for the job... and I want to know why.
By the end of the interview you should have a good sense of whether you want the job. If you need more information, say so. Let's figure out how to get you what you need to make a decision.

If you don't need more information, do what great salespeople do and ask for the job. I'll like the fact you asked. I want you to really want the job--but I also want to know why you want the job.

So tell me why: You thrive in an unsupervised role, or you love working with multiple teams, or you like frequent travel. Ask me for the job and prove to me, objectively, that it's a great fit for you.

9. I want you to follow up... especially if it's genuine.
Every interviewer appreciates a brief follow-up note. If nothing else, saying you enjoyed meeting me and are happy to answer any other questions, is nice.

But "nice" may not separate you from the pack.

What I really like is when you follow up based on something we discussed. Maybe we talked about data collection techniques, so you send me information about a set of tools you strongly recommend. Maybe we talked about quality, so you send me a process checklist you developed that I could adapt to use in my company.

Or maybe we both like cycling, so you send me a photo of you on your bike in front of the sign at the top of the Col du Tourmalet (and I'm totally jealous).

The more closely you listened during the interview, the easier it is to think of ways to follow up in a natural and unforced way.

Remember, we're starting a relationship--and even the most professional of relationships are based on genuine interactions.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/9-things-you-wish-you-could-say-to-job-candidates.html

Multiple access points for the same SSID? (Multi-AP Roaming Network Background)

I need to upgrade my existing wireless infrastructure and this time I want 2 access points to cover my house, since I get blind spots no matter what with a single AP, I have physical cabling to my central network available for both access points.
But I would really like these two to interoperate seamlessly as a single SSID. How do I do this and what are the features the new AP's I'm buying need to support? (Product recommendations are welcome.)

Multi-AP Roaming Network Background

There's no magic to making multiple-AP (roaming) 802.11 networks work. Wireless clients just assume that all APs with the same SSID are configured similarly and are all just different points of access to the same underlying wired network. A client will scan all channels looking for APs publishing the SSID it wants, and will pick whichever one suits it needs best (usually that means whichever one shows the highest signal strength).
Once on the network, clients stay with the same AP as long as it's meeting the client's needs (i.e. as long as it's signal strength is above a "good enough" threshold). If the client later thinks it could be better off with another AP on that network, it'll do periodic scans of all channels looking for other APs publishing that SSID. If a scan turns up a candidate AP that's enough better than the AP it's currently on, it'll automatically roam to the other AP, usually without so much as a missed frame.
Assuming both APs are configured similarly and are connected to the same underlying network, roaming is seamless and invisible to the user (except nerds like me who run tools to watch for these things). Roaming events are invisible to applications using the network, although some low-level parts of the network stack might be notified of the event, so that, for example, your DHCP client can double-check that this new AP really is connected to the same network, so it can be sure your DHCP lease is still valid on this network.
Some other users' Answers and Comments on this question erroneously suggested that wireless protocols or features like wireless relay or WDS might be needed for roaming, but this is absolutely incorrect. Those features are just ways to replace a wired Ethernet backhaul with a wireless one.
For the sake of completeness, I should mention that there is a set of technologies, some proprietary, some standardized in IEEE 802.11F, known generally as Inter-Access Point Protocol. IAPP is a method by which generally enterprise-class APs can communicate with each other over the backhaul to optimize client roaming. But that's just an optimization, not a prerequisite for roaming. Roaming works "well enough" on networks both small and large without any IAPP going on.

Configuration Suggestions

Give both APs the same network name (SSID), the same security type (WPA2-PSK recommended), and the same wireless security passphrase. Many clients assume that these kinds of settings will be the same across all APs with the same SSID.
Since you already have the cabling in place, use wired Ethernet as your backhaul. This saves your wireless bandwidth for your portable/mobile devices that actually need it, instead of wasting in on stationary devices like APs that could reasonably be cabled up.
If you have another device on the network, such as a broadband home gateway, providing NAT and DHCP service, then put both APs in bridge mode (turn off NAT and DHCP service). You generally only want one box on your network acting as a NAT gateway or serving DHCP. If you don't already have another device on your network doing NAT and DHCP, and you need those services, then you can have one of your APs do it. Have the more "upstream" AP (the one that's closer, topologically, to your broadband modem) do NAT and DHCP, and make sure that the wired Ethernet connection to the other AP comes from the first AP's LAN port. Also make sure that the "downstream" AP is in bridge mode. I call this out because I've seen people make the mistake of leaving NAT and DHCP enabled on both their APs, and I've seen clients that aren't smart enough to realize that, say, the 192.168.1.x/24 network they're on now is not the same 192.168.1.x/24 network they were on a moment ago in the other room. I've also seen users get confused in this situation where two laptops in the same house had 192.168.1.x addresses, but couldn't ping each other because they really on two separate IP networks behind two separate NATs.
Channel is one key setting you do want to vary from AP to AP in a roaming (multiple AP) 802.11 network. To maximize bandwidth, leave your APs to automatically select the channel to use, or you can manually pick different, non-overlapping, and hopefully unoccupied channels to use. You don't want transmissions to/from one AP to compete for bandwidth with transmissions to/from the other AP.

Additional Considerations

The rest of this answer is just a bunch of general "how to maximize your home 802.11 network bandwidth" tips, not specific to your question of two APs with the same SSID.

Consider taking this opportunity to fully modernize

If you're already buying a new AP and taking the time to reconfigure things, I'd recommend using this opportunity to replace your existing AP as well, by buying two of the latest APs that support simultaneous dual-band 802.11n technology. That way you can support both the 2.4GHz band for older clients that are 2.4GHz only, as well as the less busy 5GHz band for more bandwidth. It's becoming a "best practice" to set your 2.4GHz 802.11n radio to 20MHz (HT20) channels so that it leaves some of the band free for things like Bluetooth to use. This limits your 802.11n transmission rates in 2.4GHz to ~130mbps instead of 300mbps, but allows other non-802.11 2.4GHz devices to still work okay. In 5GHz, where there are many more channels available and they're all generally much less busy, you're encouraged to use 40MHz (HT40) channels to get maximum throughput.
I know that Apple's latest AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule (but not AirPort Express) are simultaneous dual-band 802.11n, and they also support 3-stream (a.k.a. "3x3") 802.11n, for transmission rates up to 450mbps once you get if you have 3-stream clients that can do it (Apple's clients are currently still on 2x2, so 300mbps max Apple's March 2011 "Thunderbolt" renewal of the MacBook Pro line quietly added 3x3 radios).

If you're stuck with older single-band-at-a-time APs

If you don't need to support any older 2.4GHz-only devices, use the 5GHz band since it is generally less busy, and you can use HT40 without starving Bluetooth and other uses.
If you're stuck supporting 2.4GHz-only devices with single-band-at-a-time APs, be careful of your channel selection. In the 2.4GHz band, the channels overlap to a great degree. However, channels 1, 6, and 11 don't overlap at all, so those are good choices to pick manually. You could use a Wi-Fi network scanner like NetStumbler, iStumbler, many "war driving" tools, etc. to see which channels are in use by other APs visible from where you are. If you suspect you have non-802.11 2.4GHz interferers in your area, such as Bluetooth, microwave ovens, and many (but not all) cordless phones, baby monitors, wireless webcams, and wireless room-to-room A/V senders, you could go all-out and get a spectrum analyzer like a Metageek Wi-Spy to find which channels are the least noisy where you are.

http://superuser.com/questions/122441/multiple-access-points-for-the-same-ssid

3 Employees You Need To Fire. Now

You know the saying: Hire slow, fire fast. Here are the people you need to get rid of, right now.

There’s no more challenging job than being the person who has to fire people. Everyone else gets to talk about what a tight-knit, stick-together group the company is (just like a “family” of friends), but you’re the one who has to deliver the bad news over and over again. It’s not easy or always popular to be the boss, but then good leadership isn’t a popularity contest. If you were unpopular in high school, you’re already one step ahead of the game.

But the fact is, your company is only as good as its weakest employee. Here are the folks you need to fire - sooner rather than later.

No effort, no heart Sometimes it’s a breeze. We try to immediately fire any employee who doesn’t try or doesn’t care. These are the cardinal sins in a start-up, so there isn’t much angst in letting these folks go. Then the job gets harder.

All effort, no results The next tier of troublesome employees are those who try hard but just cannot do the job. They are totally sincere, but incapable (or no longer capable) of doing the job that needs to get done. There are good people who are perfectly able to do a job poorly for a very long time before anyone has the time, interest, or guts to ask the hard questions about results rather than effort. These people need to go too, but you need to be fair and firm with them. Do them a real favor and tell them the truth.

Poor fit Then there are the employees who are basically hard-working and dedicated, but who (for better or worse) can’t fit into the corporate culture.  Every business that I’ve been involved with has ultimately been about hard work mixed with a healthy dose of paranoia. We had lots of ways to reflect this ethic and plenty of signs all over the place. “Hard work conquers everything.” “Effort can trump ability.” “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone's not out to get you.”  And so on. And almost everyone we hired got the message and drank the Kool-Aid. Even the people who just wanted a “job” pretty much worked their butts off.

But every so often, we’d hire someone who was just too healthy and well-adjusted to succeed among our tribe of crazies. We used to say that a relaxed man is not necessarily a better man. In one business, our internal motto was “let our sickness work for you.” It turned out that it was important to let the other people see you sweat even the smallest details. That way, they knew you cared. If you weren’t just a little bit crazy about the work and the business, you were slightly suspect or worse.

I remember one former employee who wrote me a long letter asking for a more complete explanation of why he didn’t succeed with us. Here is part of what I wrote:

Our company is [on] a very fast track, run by a bunch of workaholic perfectionists. We all believe that that’s what it takes to win against pretty fierce odds. And this is simply not the right place for everyone - especially people who want to have a family, outside interests and a normal life. I think it’s very likely that you’re simply too nice and too well-adjusted to work with the crazies around here and that’s shame on us - not you. But it’s the way things are. We wish you all the best.

Ultimately, all of these situations come down to a basic choice. You can make one person miserable when they lose their job, or you can end up with a crappy company where everyone’s miserable because you don’t have the guts to do the right things for the business. Once you start to carry people along who aren’t performing, you take a tremendous double hit. Yes, you pay the price for the poor performer’s activities, but that’s nothing compared to the real harm. As soon as you fail to consistently fire non-performers, you start to lose your best people. That’s what kills the company.

http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/three-employees-you-need-to-fire-now.html