How to talk on phone

The telephone has been in existence for 136 years, but the way some people use it, you'd think it was invented yesterday.
With business travel at an all-time low, there is simply no skill more important to business success (especially in sales) than the ability to build rapport during a telephone conversation. When you can't shake hands or look somebody in the eye, your voice (and your voice alone) must be able to communicate "I am capable and trustworthy."
Unfortunately, many people in business have no idea that they sound like idiots, hustlers or robots when they're talking on the phone. They talk too fast, they mumble, they blather, they make remarks that would only make sense with an accompanying hand gesture.
It's crazy. You wouldn't believe the stuff I've heard. And that's just the negative, sales-killing stuff. Very few people use their voice and word choice actively to create a better connection with the person at the other end of the line.

Here's a quick primer how to do this:

1. Expunge your verbal weaknesses.

Record some conversations (with the other person's agreement, natch) and see if you're doing something annoying–saying "uh ..." in the middle of every sentence, for instance, or slapping a "you know ..." at the end.
Important: Never, ever turn a statement into a question by putting a little uptick at the end; it's a huge credibility killer. Same goes for regional accents that carry a stigma in other regions. If necessary, hire a vocal coach.

2. Always have an agenda.

Never have a business conversation, especially on the phone, without knowing exactly what you're trying to accomplish. This is also a good idea when meeting face to face or emailing, but it's even more important during a phone call. Two key reasons:

• You may not have the other person's full attention.
• Unlike email, it's real time–which means you can't craft a message and then edit it before hitting "send."

3. Listen (really) to the other person.

When in a conversation, most people barely hear what the other person is saying; instead, they're thinking about what they're going to say next. That's really stupid during a phone conversation because nuances are much harder to catch than if you're face to face.
It takes a bit of practice, but what you need to do is suspend your "what do I say next?" until after the other person is done speaking.

4. Take a second before each response.

When you pause before responding, the other person knows that you've listened. If, by contrast, you jump right in immediately with your response (or worse, cut the other person off), you've just communicated that you think your own thoughts are far more important than anything the other person could have said.

5. Listen (really) to your own voice.

This is the flip side of listening to the other person. When in a conversation, most people, as they talk, are thinking about what the other person is going to say next. That almost guarantees you'll communicate poorly.
Instead, listen to your own voice as if you were listening to another person. (By the way, this is much easier if you're following rules 1 and 3.)

6. Adapt your tonality to match.

As you speak, gradually take on the least obvious elements of other person's voice. The key here is to make it subtle, not obvious–lest the changes fall flat or, worse, seem mocking.
For example, if you're talking with somebody with a Mississippi accent, draw out your vowels ever so slightly–but don't cram "y'all" into your normal speaking pattern. Believe it or not, this trick really does build rapport quickly.
One final note: I probably don't need to say that the rules above also apply to face-to-face conversations. However, the rules are not quite as important in person, when your body language and appearance create enough interference that things like voice tonality can get lost in the mix. This is especially true for people who are very attractive. Back when I was single, I was often amazed at how a woman who was fascinating in person could be annoying over the phone.
In fact, if I can make a non-scientific observation, it often seems that there's an inverse relationship between physical attractiveness and good phone skills. It's almost as if the "beautiful people" have become dependent upon their looks to smooth over their character flaws–flaws that emerge, big time, when they're on the phone.

why people fail

Reaching your level of incompetence and then crashing and burning -- or is that just one of many reasons why people, for whatever reason, become ineffective? Well, I've thought long and hard about this and I think it comes down to nine essential failure modes.
Breathing your own fumes. Probably the most common failure mode, especially for formerly successful people, is they lose their humility and their objectivity and begin to think they have all the answers. They don't just lose perspective -- they honestly don't believe they need it.
Following your own agenda. If you're an entrepreneur and it's your baby, that's one thing. Do whatever the heck you want. But when you work for a company, you're not there to carve your own crazy path. It doesn't matter what level you're at. You're there to do the company's business, not your own. You can't be effective that way.
You run out of steam to compete in a brutally competitive world. It hasn't always been that way, but now more than ever, companies, managers and employees need to continuously refresh and reinvent themselves. In any competitive market, yesterday's value proposition may not hold true today or tomorrow.
The Peter Principle. The vast majority of folks who climbed the corporate ladder and all of a sudden seem clueless have either reached a level where they're no longer competent or have moved laterally into a position they're not suited for. And all too often, they're left there to rot.

You're losing it. I thought of all sorts of PC ways to say this, and there just isn't any. It's huge and yet nobody talks about it. People lose it. Maybe they're dysfunctional or a little unbalanced to begin with and for whatever reason -- stress, personal, whatever -- they start to go off the deep end and self-destruct. I've seen lots of people recover, but first they have to get out and get help.
Cultural disease. I once worked with a publicly traded company that had absolutely the worst reputation you could imagine. The media, customers, everyone thought they were arrogant bullies. Instead of looking at themselves, it became popular to blame it on all sorts of conspiracy theories. Everyone was out to get them. This lunacy became a sort of cultural disease that infected the entire company. No kidding.
You've lost faith in the organization. Sometimes, it isn't you. At any given time, probably half the companies out there are heading in the wrong direction: down. Think RIM (RIMM), Sprint (S), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL (AOL), Kodak (EK), it's a long list. It's hard to get up in the morning and be effective when, deep down, you feel like the organization is going nowhere.
Your strategy didn't age well. It happens all the time and for reasons that, well, have too many variables to categorize. One day your ideas are awesome, they work and everything's hunky dory. The next day you wake up and everything's changed. After all, we live in a dynamic world. Suddenly, your strategy or ideas no longer resonate with customers, your boss, the market, whatever.
You don't understand or want to play by the rules. Want to paint the world with your own colored crayon? March to the beat of your own drum? Do your own thing? Be a rebel with or without a cause? That's great, go for it. But when it comes to work, products, markets, customers, that sort of thing, you really don't get to do whatever, wherever, whenever you want.

10 Most Common Mistakes Made When Hiring

To err in hiring is human – and is considered to be very expensive. Many “standard” hiring procedures are actually common mistakes, so to choose more competent candidate, you need to be prepared to revise your hiring methods. Learn the consequences of the hiring errors managers often make, and then eliminate them from your hiring practices to help you choose only the cream of the crop. Most, if not all managers would agree that there are always risks when hiring new employees. These risks exist whether the new hire is a fresh-out-of-school Field sales rep. or a new chief executive officer.

Clearly Identify Company Needs

When seeking to fill a position, your company must clearly define its goals in terms of skills, experience, character, and competency. Determine the actual, objective standards a candidate must meet, and the requisite educational background, exact work experience, and specific technical skills they must possess. In addition, it is important to evaluate the organization's short-and long-term needs and the effect this particular hiring decision will have upon those needs. Many times, however, an organization's requirements can be more efficiently met through outsourcing or strategic partnering. Don't automatically assume you need a certain type of employee. Test those assumptions before you hire.

Test a Prospective Employee's Skills

Skill testing is a must. Every job has some form of measurable, objective performance standard. Identify it and test for it. A secretary who types 60 words per minute with mistakes will be less effective than a secretary who types 90 words per minute without mistakes. However, if a company fails to test for typing skills, it will have no way of evaluating a prospective employee's ability to perform a specific task. Under these circumstances, a supervisor may criticize the first secretary for lack of productivity, when she is in fact giving her best effort. Unless you test an applicant's skills, you are taking a gamble that they can perform. It's a bet you just may lose.

 Rushing a decision
When a fast-growth company decides to hire someone, it tends to create an impetus to hire that someone, today. That can mean that your company is willing to settle on whatever candidate walks in the door next–a big mistake, says Alex Membrillo, co-founder of Atlanta-based Cardinal Web Solutions. Membrillo admits that when his firm, an interactive marketing agency, recently decided to bring in a new sales person, they decided to hire someone who they knew wasn’t a perfect fit just so they could get someone in the door fast. The result? The new hire lasted just three months and cost the company thousands of dollars. “In the future we will wait as long as it takes to get the perfect fit,” says Membrillo.

Hiring friends
 
The guys that are a good time to drink with don’t necessarily make the best employees, says Megan Smith, founder of Brownstone PR, a public relations firm in Philadelphia. While knowing someone before you hire them has advantages, it can also cause problems, such as blurring the lines between business and personal relationships. “Just because your best friend will always have your back if a bar fight were to break out, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a vested interest in your business and the direction you wish to take it,” says Smith.

Being overly influenced by advanced degrees.


  Candidates with plenty of letters after their names have certainly worked hard to earn their degrees. But there is no substitute for real-world business experience, and people often make the mistake of overlooking candidates with track records but not degrees. Note: this does not apply, however, to specialized fields that require advanced degrees.

Not having a long-range plan. 


 Hiring someone to fill a current need can help you through a busy time. However, unless you're hiring someone on a temporary basis, you need a long-range plan for that employee beyond your immediate need, including how you plan to develop him or her, and how he or she fits in with your company's long-range plans.

Making promises you cannot keep. 


It can be a very costly mistake to make promises that are not well thought out. Know ahead of time what you can and cannot offer a prospective employee.
 

No background check

Managers must take time to check each of your applicants’ background and employment history. No matter how much you think you know the person through reference, you never really know a person until you do a rigid background check. One common mistake managers commit during the hiring process is failing to get to know an employee in enough detail before contract signing.

 
Not contacting all applicants

This is a terrible waste of talent, and a risk to the reputation of your business. Some managers are guilty of packing up early or making quick assumptions too early on. When you miss the opportunity to see all the applicants, you’re missing the chance to make a fair and objective choice. Sadly, it is commonplace for a manager to decide on the ‘right’ candidate right away without properly reviewing all potential applicants.

As a matter of professional courtesy, you should also contact all unsuccessful applicants. You never know where or when you might come across any of these people in future – as a client, candidate, supplier, business partner. Don’t give them any reason to ‘hold a grudge’.

Ignoring the existing employees 

Most companies become too focused on finding out and recruiting new resources and consequently the human resources managers ignore the needs of the existing employees. This creates unnecessary conflicts and competition. Therefore, proper understanding and correct retention strategies should complement with the recruitment procedures.

Top Tips for Tough Job Interview Questions

How to formulate answers to common, tough interview questions and ace any interview.

The best defense for any job applicant is to prepare for an interview well in advance by anticipating tough questions and preparing answers that focus on how he or she can contribute to the employer and why he or she is the best candidate for the job.

The Function of a Job Interview

The whole point of a job interview is not just to evaluate an applicant’s skills and accomplishments, but also to ensure applicants are a good “fit” for the company. Interviewers also want to see how applicants react in high pressure situations.
Interviewers focus on certain types of questions to elicit as much information as possible from the applicant. Most questions also have an underlying purpose and answers often tell the interviewer more than the applicant may assume.

Preparing Answers for Tough Interview Questions

Here are some suggestions for how to answer difficult questions:
1. Tell me about yourself:
Applicants should prepare a one to two minute description of themselves that illustrates their potential value to the employer. They should give relevant information about their academic, technical and professional background that illustrates the contribution they can make to the company (e.g. “For the past four years I have focused on preparing myself for a career in... by....”).

2. What is your greatest strength?
Applicants should avoid giving any obvious answers, but rather give concrete examples and evidence (e.g. “My previous supervisor said...”).
3. What is your greatest weakness?
It is again best to avoid an obvious answer like “I’m a perfectionist”. Rather, applicants should choose a weakness that is not too serious and won’t affect their performance on the job. They should leave the interviewer with a positive thought by de-emphasising the weakness and focussing on what they are doing to overcome the weakness.
4. What are your salary expectations?
Applicants should research expected salary ranges for the position and request what they think they are worth within that range. They should back up their answers by drawing attention to their qualifications and experience.
5. Why do you want to work for us?
This question gives applicants a chance to illustrate what they know about the company. Applicants should give specific reasons related to what they know about the employer and what genuinely interests them about the company. Applicants should focus on what they can contribute, rather than what they can get out of the job/company.
6. Where do you see yourself in 5/10 years time?
Applicants should not identify specific positions, but rather indicate areas in which they want to improve their professional skills and where they see themselves increasing their level of responsibility.
7. Abstract questions
The interviewer is testing whether applicants can think on their feet. It is best to think carefully and respond with an answer – regardless of what one comes up with, anything is better than “I have no idea.” Applicants should then briefly explain their choice.
8. Behavior based questions
Applicants should think about and prepare examples from their academic, professional and social lives that illustrate where they have shown leadership, dealt with a conflict, failed and succeeded. These "stories" can be applied to many behaviour based questions. Applicants should always try and illustrate how they showed initiative, and they should ensure that they focus on a positive outcome. Applicants should prepare an answer that describes the situation, what action they took and what the result was.

 Best Wishes For Your Next Interview........ :)

Get Efficient output with Worst Team

How to Build a Great Team With Imperfect People

Your goal isn’t to ensure every employee is great; it's to ensure that collectively they'll be great.

We all know what makes a great team: Great people, right?
That’s true—as long as you define “great” correctly. That’s a definition many business owners, and bosses in general, often get wrong.
Years ago I worked in a manufacturing plant where productivity was all-important. We spent significant time and effort working to improve efficiency, reduce waste, reduce downtime... typical improvement initiatives.
As supervisors and managers we also spent a lot of time competing with each other. (Hey, you are what you measure, right?)
One manager decided team performance could be predicted and improved by quantifying the attributes of a great machine operator. He felt that if you could determine the key attributes, and measure potential team members against those attributes, that he could select and create a great team.
I was there when he tried to identify those attributes. During the brainstorming session he filled up 12 easel pad sheets with key skills and attributes.
The problem was, great operators possess a dizzying array of qualities. Many attributes were hard to quantify, like “self starter” and “team player.”
So afterwards he focused on attributes that could be quantified. One was mechanical aptitude. Plenty of tests evaluate and measure mechanical knowledge. And intuitively it made sense: Machine operators run machines, so mechanical knowledge must be important. Off he went, in short order creating a team filled with mechanical aptitude superstars.
Yet my team—most of us with limited mechanical aptitude (based on testing, my mechanical aptitude was the worst)—consistently outran his team by a wide margin.
Where did he go wrong? Faced with too many variables, many of them intangible and hard to quantify, he picked an attribute he could put a number on: mechanical aptitude.
Never mind our plant’s equipment failed less than 4% of the time. Never mind we had skilled machinists who were seconds away if we needed help. Mechanical aptitude could be measured in a way hustle, teamwork, drive, and work ethic could not, even though those qualities were much more important than mechanical aptitude.
So he went with mechanical aptitude because it was something he could “know,” instead of focusing on other qualities that were more difficult to assess.
That’s a simple, and all too common, mistake.
Here's how you can avoid it. The key is to recognize that every employee brings different skills and attitudes, so your goal isn’t to ensure every employee is great; your goal is to ensure that as a team those employees can collectively be great. (There’s a big difference.)
To build a great team:

Decide what key attribute you must have.

Forget about the stereotypically well-rounded employee for a moment. If you could only pick one attribute, what would you choose as the most important skill or quality a great employee needs to have to succeed in the position?
Maybe it's attitude, or interpersonal skills, or teamwork, or a specific skill set... whatever it is, that attribute is the foundation for individual employees and for your team. Training can fill in the gaps, but this is the attribute almost every employee must possess.

Decide what key attribute you can't have.

This one’s easy. Just complete this sentence: "I don't care how great he is, I don’t want him on my team because he…" Typically your answer won’t be skills-based; it will be something like terrible interpersonal skills, a horrible work ethic, or a larger than life ego. Just identify the attribute you can’t live with and make sure it stays off your team.

Determine your threshold point.

You may not be able to build a team where every member possesses your most important attribute. In our case a crew was made up of six operators. We had room for one operator who wasn't quite as fast on job changeovers but was a great leader. (In fact, he could serve as the poster boy for my definition of a remarkable employee.) The rest of us bridged his speed gap and we all benefited from his leadership skills.
Could we have afforded two operators on the team like him? No, probably not. Decide how many individuals who possess your most important attribute will be enough to make things work. If you can find more, that’s great. If not you’re still okay.

Put together the rest of your puzzle.

Knowing your threshold point frees you up to build a team with complementary skills. You can take on a great team player who is technically weaker, or a loner who is an outstanding problem solver, or a person with limited experience who possesses incredible hustle and drive.
Never assume the only individual attributes that matter are attributes that can be measured. In some cases, when individual contributors work alone and largely outside the scope of a team, quantifiable skills may be all-important.
But where teams are concerned, success is almost always the result of intangible qualities. Focus only on numbers—especially on the wrong numbers—and you build teams that on paper should perform well… but in practice never do.

How to Succeed at any Career

Woody Allen once said, “80% of success is just showing up.”
While there’s definitely some truth to that – in practice, success requires a bit more effort than just showing up – especially if you want to succeed at your career.
Employers are constantly looking for the right signs to qualify you as promotion-worthy material. You just need to show them you are qualified. Remember, it’s not a matter of what you did or said during the interview process – what matters is what you do consistently every day.
So how can you start moving up the corporate ladder? Here are some helpful hints to get you started:
Build Relationships: Sometimes it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. It’s a good idea to foster positive relationships with your co-workers as well as your superiors. When it comes time for a promotion or a recommendation, you’ll be glad you built a network of alliances to fall back on. You can never have too many friends to speak in good favor for you. Many professionals try to “edge out” other people for promotions or to be in good favor from the boss. Don’t play that game – perform whatever function you do as an executive would – help others shine, compliment people to others, and help other people network.
Be Professional: Everything from your workplace demeanor to your Facebook page might be scrutinized at some point by your current or future employers. Try to keep a low profile when it comes to your personal life, and always maintain an air of professionalism. Not only will you be taken more seriously, you’ll be remembered as a rising star when opportunities arrive. In the eyes of your boss, your reputation is a reflection of things to come. If you have a sullied reputation at work or you were too personal in the past, consider changing jobs. It’s difficult to change your employer’s perception of your core personality – you might be better off with a clean slate.
Show You Care: If you find yourself constantly watching the clock, just waiting to rush home – then you’re in the wrong job or there’s a problem with your work ethic. No one likes working all the time, but you should take some pride and satisfaction from your work. This attitude will help you work more efficiently and effectively. At the same time, its a good idea to push the envelope once in a while – to stay late or come in early – anything that shows you’re a cut above the rest. The main point here is not to “brown-nose” by showing up early, but rather to examine your own intention and motivations on a daily basis. If you don’t want to go above and beyond, if you don’t want to put in more than your fair share, you might be better off in a different career. To truly succeed and go far in any profession, it has to be the right one for you – the one you want to put effort into.
Keep these career tips in mind as you go about your day-to-day business and you’ll start turning heads. Performance and behavior can be altered whenever you choose; it’s never too late. Your career is more than your livelihood – it’s your best link to a promising future. Why not get ahead today?

The Five Personalities of Innovators: Which One Are You?

Whenever I try to conjure up what innovation looks like, the same slideshow of images clicks across my mind: that photo of Einstein with his tongue sticking out, Edison with his light bulb, Steve Jobs onstage in his black turtleneck, introducing the latest iThing. Unoriginal and overdone, to be sure. And not all that accurate.

Because it’s not just about that romantic “ah ha!” moment in front of a chalkboard or a cocktail napkin, it’s about the nitty-gritty work that comes after the idea:  getting it accepted and implemented. Who are these faces? And, most importantly, as I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves: where do I fit in?
Forbes Insights’ recent study, “Nurturing Europe’s Spirit of Enterprise: How Entrepreneurial Executives Mobilize Organizations to Innovate,” isolates and identifies five major personalities crucial to fostering a healthy atmosphere of innovation within an organization. Some are more entrepreneurial, and some more process-oriented – but all play a critical role in the process. To wit: thinkers need doers to get things done, and idealists need number crunchers to tether them to reality.
Though it may seem stymieing at times, in any healthy working environment, a tension between the risk-takers and the risk-averse must exist; otherwise, an organization tilts too far to one extreme or the other and either careens all over the place or moves nowhere at all. An effective and productive culture of innovation is like a good minestrone soup: it needs to have the right mix and balance of all the ingredients, otherwise it’s completely unsuccessful, unbalanced — and downright mushy.
The Forbes Insights study surveyed more than 1,200 executives in Europe across a range of topics and themes. Using a series of questions about their attitudes, beliefs, priorities and behaviors, coupled with a look at the external forces that can either foster – or desiccate – an innovative environment, a picture emerged of five key personality types the play a role in the innovation cycle.
This last piece – the corporate environment – is a stealth factor that can make or break the potential even the most innovative individual. Look at it this way: a blue whale is the largest animal known ever to have existed, but if you tried to put it in a freshwater lake, it wouldn’t survive. Well, that and it would displace a lot of water. My point? Even the largest and mightiest of creatures can’t thrive in an environment that doesn’t nurture them.
The themes surveyed in the study are universal; despite the focus on European executives, these personalities are applicable across oceans and cultures. The full study, available here, provides further breakdown of where these personality types congregate by industry, company size and job function.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which one fits you best . You may even see a little of yourself in more than one group.  But remember, none of these are bad. All play crucial roles in developing an idea, pushing it up the corporate channels, developing a strategy and overseeing execution and implementation. These are all pieces of a puzzle, arteries leading to the beating heart of corporate innovation. Wow – can I make that sound any more dramatic?

The Five Personality Types of Innovation: a breakdown

Movers and Shakers. With a strong personal drive, these are leaders. Targets and rewards motivate them strongly, but a major incentive for this group is the idea of creating a legacy and wielding influence over others. These are the ones who like being in the front, driving projects forward (and maybe promoting themselves in the process), but at the end of the day, they provide the push to get things done. On the flip side, they can be a bit arrogant, and impatient with teamwork.  Movers and Shakers tend to cluster in risk and corporate strategy, in the private equity and media industries, at mid-size companies; though they comprise 22% of total executives, at companies with revenues of $25 million to $1 billion, Movers and Shakers can encompass up to one-third of the executive suite.
Experimenters. Persistent and open to all new things, experimenters are perhaps the perfect combination for bringing a new idea through the various phases of development and execution. “Where there is a will, there is a way,” is perhaps the best way to describe them. They’re perfectionists and tend to be workaholics, most likely because it takes an incredible amount of dedication, time and hard work to push through an idea or initiative that hasn’t yet caught on. They take deep pride in their achievements, but they also enjoy sharing their expertise with others; they’re that intense colleague who feels passionately about what they do and makes everyone else feel guilty for daydreaming during the meeting about what they plan on making for dinner that night. Because they’re so persistent, even in the face of sometimes considerable pushback, they’re crucial to the innovation cycle. They tend to be risk-takers, and comprise about 16% of executives – and are most likely to be found in mid-size firms of $100 million to $1 billion (20%). Surprisingly, they’re least likely to be CEOs or COOs – just 14% and 15%, respectively, are Experimenters.
Star Pupils. Do you remember those kids in grade school who sat up in the front, whose hands were the first in the air anytime the teacher asked a question? Maybe they even shouted out “Ooh! Ooh!” too just to get the teacher to notice them first? This is the segment of the executive population those kids grew into. They’re good at…well, they’re good at everything, really: developing their personal brand, seeking out and cultivating the right mentors, identifying colleagues’ best talents and putting them to their best use. Somehow, they seem to be able to rise through the ranks and make things happen, even when corporate culture seems stacked against them. Unsurprisingly, CEOs tend to be Star Pupils. What’s most interesting about this group, though, is the fact that, at 24% of corporate executives, they don’t seem to cluster in any one particular job function, industry or company size; rather, they can grow and thrive anywhere: IT, finance, start-ups, established MNCs. They’re the stem cells of the business world.
Controllers. Uncomfortable with risk, Controllers thrive on structure and shy away from more nebulous projects. Above all, they prefer to be in control of their domain and like to have everything in its place. As colleagues, they’re not exactly the team players and networkers; Controllers are more insular and like to focus on concrete, clear-cut objectives where they know exactly where they stand and can better control everything around them. They comprise 15% of executives — the smallest group overall — and tend to cluster on both extremes of the spectrum: either in the largest enterprises (with 1,000 or more employees) or the smallest (with fewer than 10). This makes sense when you think about it: controllers thrive on overseeing bureaucracy (at larger firms) or having complete control over all aspects of their sphere – at the smallest firms, they may be the business owner who has built an entire company around their personality. Controllers pop up most frequently in sales and marketing and finance, and populate the more practical, less visionary, end of the corporate hierarchy: these are the department heads and managers who receive their marching orders and get to mobilizing their troops to marching.
Hangers-On. Forget the less-than-flattering name; these executives exist to bring everyone back down to earth and tether them to reality. On a dinner plate, Hangers-On would be the spinach: few people’s favorite, but extremely important in rounding out the completeness of the meal. Like Controllers, they don’t embrace unstructured environments, and they tend to take things one step further, hewing to conventional wisdom and tried-and-true processes over the new and untested. When asked to pick a side, Hangers-On will most likely pick the middle. This is not necessarily a bad set of characteristics to have; someone has to be the one to remind everyone of limitations and institutional processes. While they comprise 23% of all executives – the same no matter the company size – they cluster most strongly in the CFO/Treasurer/Comptroller role, where 38% are Hangers-On. This makes sense; someone has to remind everyone of budget and resource constraints.

No one group can be considered the purest “entrepreneurial group,” but Movers and Shakers and Experimenters may be the closest. They have the strongest tendency to be internally driven, in control and bridle the most at others telling them what to do. Younger, more innovative firms generally need Movers and Shakers at the top, channeling the energy of Experimenters into a vision that can be implemented. As organizations grow larger and more established, however, they need Star Pupils who can translate that vision into a strategy and lead it forward, Controllers who can marshal the troops to execute it and Hangers-On who can rein it in. A firm reaching maturity has greater need for strong processes, as well as those who value control.
As we’ve seen time and again, unbridled innovation is a wonderful thing. But it’s what comes next that’s arguably more important. To get an innovative idea off the ground, it’s crucial to have a cast of characters who can keep that tension between risk-taking and reality at a healthy balance midway between the sky and the ground — where innovation can thrive.

Brenna Sniderman, Forbes Staff

How Great Bosses Motivate Employees

The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

Consistently do these five things and the results you want from your employees--and your business--will follow.

In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star. Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.

9,003
inShare

Remarkable bosses aren’t great on paper. Great bosses are remarkable based on their actions.
Results are everything—but not the results you might think.
Consistently do these five things and everything else follows. You and your business benefit greatly.
More importantly, so do your employees.
1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.
Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.
It's your job to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees: Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.
So don’t worry about reaching performance goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and achieving goals will be a natural outcome.
Plus it’s a lot more fun.
2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments... all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.
And they're distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.
Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.
3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.
While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move.
But it’s not too heavy for you.
Before you remove your weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say, "John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of the way.
Don't relax your standards. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.
If that seems like too much work for too little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.
Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it doesn't, don't worry about it.  The effort is its own reward.
And occasionally an employee will succeed—and you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life.
Can’t beat that.
4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice... but that's it.
Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did.
If it should go without saying, don't say it. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.
When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.
You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should.
When you consistently act as if you are less important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.
5. Always remember where you came from. See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”
Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.
That's why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you.
When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off... or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.
In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star.
Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.

Article by :        
Jeff Haden

Are Women Better Leaders than Men?

We've all heard the claims, the theories, and the speculation about the ways leadership styles vary between women and men. Our latest survey data puts some hard numbers into the mix.
Our data come from 360 evaluations, so what they are tracking is the judgment of a leader's peers, bosses, and direct reports. We ask these individuals to rate each leader's effectiveness overall and also to judge how strong he or she is on the 16 competencies that our 30 years of research shows are most important to overall leadership effectiveness. We ask, for instance, how good a leader is at taking the initiative, developing others, inspiring and motivating, and pursuing their own development.
Our latest survey of 7,280 leaders, which our organization evaluated in 2011, confirms some seemingly eternal truths about men and women leaders in the workplace but also holds some surprises. Our dataset was generated from leaders in some of the most successful and progressive organizations in the world both public and private, government and commercial, domestic and international.
In the confirmation category is our first finding: The majority of leaders (64%) are still men. And the higher the level, the more men there are: In this group, 78% of top managers were men, 67% at the next level down (that is, senior executives reporting directly to the top managers), 60% at the manager level below that.
Similarly, most stereotypes would have us believe that female leaders excel at "nurturing" competencies such as developing others and building relationships, and many might put exhibiting integrity and engaging in self-development in that category as well. And in all four cases our data concurred — women did score higher than men.
But the women's advantages were not at all confined to traditionally women's strengths. In fact at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts — and the higher the level, the wider that gap grows (see chart; click on the image to view a larger chart):

Specifically, at all levels, women are rated higher in fully 12 of the 16 competencies that go into outstanding leadership. And two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree — taking initiative and driving for results — have long been thought of as particularly male strengths. As it happened, men outscored women significantly on only one management competence in this survey — the ability to develop a strategic perspective (see chart; click on the image to view a larger chart).
























So what should we conclude from these data? Why are we not engaging and fully employing these exemplary women leaders? Yes, blatant discrimination is a potential explanation. If not actual than certainly perceptual. When we shared our findings with a group of women outside this particuar survey and asked them to suggest why they thought their colleagues had been rated so highly on taking initiative and self-development, their answers pointed to the still-tenuous position they feel themselves to be in the workplace:
"We need to work harder than men to prove ourselves."
"We feel the constant pressure to never make a mistake, and to continually prove our value to the organization."
That is, anecdotally, at least, the women we queried don't feel their appointments are safe. They're afraid to rest on their laurels. Feeling the need (often keenly) to take initiative, they are more highly motivated to take feedback to heart.
The irony is that these are fundamental behaviors that drive the success of every leader, whether woman or man.
Why are women viewed as less strategic? This is an easier question to answer.Top leaders always score significantly higher in this competency; since more top leaders are men, men still score higher here in the aggregate. But when we measure only men and women in top management on strategic perspective, their relative scores are the same.
What should leaders and managers do with these findings? Here are our thoughts. Feel free to respond as well with your own.

• As leaders in organizations look hard to find the talent they need to achieve exceptional results, they ought to be aware that many women have impressive leadership skills. Our research shows these leadership skills are strongly correlated to organizational success factors such as retaining talent, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and profitability.


• As to the constant state of unease we hear women leaders express — clearly, chauvinism or discrimination is an enigma that organizations (and the business culture) should work hard to prevent. However, that said, think of the benefits every leader in every organization would gain from a mind-set that they simply can't afford to make a mistake. Paranoia or extreme risk aversion is clearly detrimental to a rising career. But in today's economic climate, every leader, male or female, would do well to avoid becoming complacent.

 

What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do

Are you frustrated? We know we are.
Most of us prepared hard for the future we expected, and yet things aren't working out as we had planned. That's true if you have been laid off, are a recent college graduate who feels underemployed, or are a manager facing constant upheavals at work, even if you are the boss, because you are wrestling with disruptive technologies and new competitors who seemingly come out of nowhere to upend your industry.
All of this is extremely confusing and unsettling.
This is not how we were told it was going to be. Growing up we were led to believe that the future was predictable enough, and if we studied hard we could obtain the work we wanted in an environment we understood, and we would live happy and successful lives.
It hasn't exactly worked out that way (even for those of us who are happy). Many of us, maybe most, are not making progress on achieving the things we want.
We think the reason is pretty simple. The way we were taught to think and act works well in a predictable future, but not so much in the world as it is now.
You know the steps for dealing with a predictable universe:

1. You (or your parents, teachers, or bosses) forecast how the future will be.
2. You construct a number of plans for achieving that future, picking the optimal one.
3. You amass all the necessary resources (education, money, etc.) necessary to achieve your plan.
4. And then you go out and make that plan a reality. 

We have become so indoctrinated with this way of thinking by our education and our organizations that it is more or less the only way we approach anything.
But what is a very smart approach in a knowable or predictable future is not smart at all when things can't be predicted. And that fact is at the heart of the frustrations most of us feel. Things simply aren't as predictable as they once were.
In a world where you can no longer plan or predict your way to success, what is the best way to achieve your goals? It's a daunting question, but today — when saying "change seems to be the only constant" has become a cliché because it is so true — it's one everyone has to resolve.
Here's the central point of our new book, Just Start (and this blog post): When the future is unknowable (Is quitting your job and starting something new a good idea? Will the prototype we are developing at work find a market?), how we traditionally reason is extremely limited in predicting what will happen.
You need a different approach.
We have one. There is a proven method for navigating in an uncertain world, an approach that will complement the kind of reasoning we have all been taught. It will help you deal with high levels of uncertainty no matter what kind of situation you face. We know it works because entrepreneurs — the people who have to deal with uncertainty every day — use it successfully all the time. It is also the approach that is used by Babson College — the world's number-one school for entrepreneurship, of which one of us is president.
Babson calls the approach "entrepreneurial thought and action," but we use a simple shorthand and call it "Act, Learn, Build, Repeat."
Based on the research of Saras D. Sarasvathy, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, and similar work by others at Babson College, this approach is a time-tested process for dealing with the unknown.
Put simply, in the face of an unknown future, entrepreneurs act. They deal with uncertainty not by trying to analyze it, or planning for every contingency, or predicting what the outcomes will be. Instead, they act, learn from what they find, and act again. More specifically the process looks like this.
1. Start with desire. You find/think of something you want. You don't need a lot of passion, you only need sufficient desire to get started. ("I really want to start a restaurant, but I haven't a clue if I will ever be able to open one.")
2. Take a smart step as quickly as you can toward your goal. What's a smart step? It's one where you act quickly with the means at hand. What you know, who you know, and anything else that's available. ("I know a great chef, and if I beg all my family and friends to back me, I might have enough money to open a place.") You make sure that step is never going to cost more than it would be acceptable to you to lose should things not work out. And you bring others along to acquire more resources, spread the risk and confirm the quality of your idea.
3. Reflect and build on what you have learned from taking that step. You need to do that because every time you act, reality changes. Sometimes the step you take gets you nearer to what you want ("I should be able to afford something just outside of downtown"); sometimes what you want changes ("It looks likes there are an awful lot of Italian restaurants nearby. We are going to have to rethink our menu.") If you pay attention, you always learn something. So after you act, ask: Did those actions get you closer to your goal? ("Yes. It looks like I will be able to open a restaurant.") Do you need additional resources to draw even closer? ("Yes. I'll need to find another chef. The one I know can only do Italian.") Do you still want to obtain your objective? ("Yes.")
4. Repeat.
Act. Learn. Build. Repeat. This is how successful serial entrepreneurs conquer uncertainty. What works for them will work for all of us.

Article :

Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B. Brown

Leonard A. Schlesinger is the president of Babson College. Charles F. Kiefer is president of Innovation Associates. Paul B. Brown is a long-time contributor to the New York Times.

6 Ways to Measure the Success of Any Project

Want to go from the beginning to the end of a project more efficiently? Make sure your team understands what success should look like.

If you run a project-based business like mine, you know that there are any number of things that can get between you and the successful end of the project: budget, bureaucracy, poor team dynamics, just to name a few.
The most damaging of them all?
Not knowing when you've actually finished a project successfully.
What defines "success?" Is it when a client signs off on the project? Or when you complete the scope of work?
All too often teams start projects without any success criteria. Or they start with the wrong set of criteria. I've been writing a series of posts about productivity based on a conversation with Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt and founder of The Point Man System. For this latest installment, Wong points out that every person, from the project manager to the CEO, has a different idea of what success means—and often that's why teams don't get projects done efficiently.
Here are his six factors for measuring the success of a project:
1. Schedule. Is there a hard deadline, or does the schedule relate to something else (budget, product launch date, etc.)? In the end, did you complete the project by the time it was due? Sometimes clients come to us with a hard deadline, other times they’re simply looking for the final product. Either way, my team always has a schedule we need to meet.
2. Scope. What do you need to get done within the timeframe? Tony refers to scope as the “stars that align to bring the client, the team, and you together.” It may be a list of features or just an idea, but the scope should essentially be the driving force of the project.

3. Budget. This is often the most important factor for many projects. In the end, did you stick to the budget? Did you come in way under budget? Your team should always know where they stand in terms of money spent. We regularly give clients a quote before they start and once we do so, we need to stick to it, or come in under. Otherwise we’re not a profitable business.
4. Team satisfaction. This is one that often goes overlooked in project management. “We often take our team for granted like a loyal friend, assuming that they’ll always be there when we need them,” Wong says. My philosophy is, I dont ask my team to do anything I wouldn’t do. They need to have a life outside of work (although I know they all love coming into the Ciplex office everyday!), and work shouldn't feel only like an obligation. Keeping the team happy means if I do need them to work a late night here and there, they won't do it begrudgingly.
5. Customer satisfaction. Your clients might not be able to articulate exactly what they want, so often it’s your job to figure out what they’re looking for in order to make sure they’re happy with the end product. How do you track client satisfaction? Ask them to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 every week or so, and analyze and review your findings. If my team builds a website the client loves, but the client wasn’t happy with the process, we failed. You can avoid this situation by seeking constant feedback.
6. Quality of work. The quality of one project often affects another, so it's important to always track quality and make adjustments to future projects accordingly. Remember, recommendations are like free advertising. If you deliver a strong product, your client will tell people about it, and that's where your next project should come from.
Ilya Pozin

8 Bizarre Tricks for Start-Up Success

At the London Web Summit this week, the CEO of CloudFlare explained the rules he learned starting one of the world's fastest-growing companies.

"It took Facebook more than five years to hit 400 million unique visitors a month. It took CloudFlare just 1.25 years," Matthew Prince, the CEO of the phenomenally fast-growing cloud-based service that aims to make websites safer and faster, told the London Web Summit on Monday. How did CloudFlare manage to become, as Henry Blodget recently put it, "a monster company in the making"? Exploding expectations doesn't come from following the conventional wisdom, so it's no shock that Prince ascribed his company's success to these eight simple but utterly counter-intuitive rules:

1. Big ideas are easier than little ones.

At first this idea may make your brain hurt, but Prince insists that epic ambitions are actually easier to accomplish that middling ones. Why? Big dreams and a compelling goal make it easier to attract talent with bold vision. Don't be YAIA ("yet another iPhone app"), Prince said, and like CloudFlare you'll have people literally "camping in the hallway" to come work for you.

2. Say no early and often.

What could possibly be wrong with big customers (or high profile VCs) and why would any sensible start-up say no to one? Prince explained that being afraid to say no to clients changes a company from being engineering-driven to being customer-driven. That might not sound like a terrible thing, but Prince insisted that talented people do their best work when they're driven by the work itself, not the cash, pointing to a study of painters as proof. The survey of hundreds of years of art history found commissioned work is simply less good than work artists did on their own time. So, be brave, and learn to say no.

3. Under-price and over-simplify.

Cheap and simple expands markets, said Prince, who explained that these days products need to be easy to understand and easy to afford. But he also stressed that when you're aiming for minimum viability, you can't forget that your product still has to be viable.

4. Invest in community service early.

Early on CloudFlare did a little digging into who was using its service, and was surprised to discover how many Turkish escort agencies had signed up. Your business is unlikely to be servicing Anatolian escorts, so what's the takeaway? No matter who your customers are, you need to be authentic, get to know them and make a contribution. CloudFlare embraced helping some of the least savory businesses in Turkey. Now it is protecting the website of one of the county's top political parties.

5. Build learning into your product and team.  

Even if your plan was awesome on Day 1, things change. On Day 101, the market may demand something entirely different. Plan to adapt and respond. Hey wait, doesn't that sound sort of familiar?

6. Be relentlessly cheap (with commodities).

OK, maybe this is the least counter-intuitive of the bunch, but that doesn't make it the least valuable. Prince urged start-ups to be relentless about reducing costs and just as obsessive about passing the benefits on to the customers.

7. Be obsessively fair (especially with employees).

Earning a reputation for trustworthiness and fairness for your brand is a valuable but long-term process, and it starts at home. At CloudFlare, managers ask employees what they need to live, and that's what they them pay them, said Prince.

8. Aim for 10 degrees above the horizon.

Sure, some start-ups drive themselves right into the ground through incompetence or misguided ideas, but far more, Prince said, simply fail to improve and stall. To avoid this fate, think like a pilot and aim not for level, but instead try to keep your nose up.
What does that all add up to? "Be cheap, be nice, be simple," concluded Prince. Do these rules work for every business? Probably not, but they're well worth pondering for nearly any entrepreneur.
Do any of these rules apply to your venture? 

Note: Article Author

Jessica Stillman

8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees

Forget good to great. Here's what makes a great employee remarkable.

inShare

Great employees are reliable, dependable, proactive, diligent, great leaders and great followers... they possess a wide range of easily-defined—but hard to find—qualities.
A few hit the next level. Some employees are remarkable, possessing qualities that may not appear on performance appraisals but nonetheless make a major impact on performance.
Here are eight qualities of remarkable employees:
1. They ignore job descriptions. The smaller the company, the more important it is that employees can think on their feet, adapt quickly to shifting priorities, and do whatever it takes, regardless of role or position, to get things done.
When a key customer's project is in jeopardy, remarkable employees know without being told there's a problem and jump in without being asked—even if it's not their job.
2. They’re eccentric... The best employees are often a little different: quirky, sometimes irreverent, even delighted to be unusual. They seem slightly odd, but in a really good way. Unusual personalities shake things up, make work more fun, and transform a plain-vanilla group into a team with flair and flavor.
People who aren't afraid to be different naturally stretch boundaries and challenge the status quo, and they often come up with the best ideas.
3. But they know when to dial it back. An unusual personality is a lot of fun... until it isn't. When a major challenge pops up or a situation gets stressful, the best employees stop expressing their individuality and fit seamlessly into the team.
Remarkable employees know when to play and when to be serious; when to be irreverent and when to conform; and when to challenge and when to back off. It’s a tough balance to strike, but a rare few can walk that fine line with ease.
4. They publicly praise... Praise from a boss feels good. Praise from a peer feels awesome, especially when you look up to that person.
Remarkable employees recognize the contributions of others, especially in group settings where the impact of their words is even greater.
5. And they privately complain. We all want employees to bring issues forward, but some problems are better handled in private. Great employees often get more latitude to bring up controversial subjects in a group setting because their performance allows greater freedom.
Remarkable employees come to you before or after a meeting to discuss a sensitive issue, knowing that bringing it up in a group setting could set off a firestorm.
6. They speak when others won’t. Some employees are hesitant to speak up in meetings. Some are even hesitant to speak up privately.
An employee once asked me a question about potential layoffs. After the meeting I said to him, “Why did you ask about that? You already know what's going on.” He said, “I do, but a lot of other people don't, and they're afraid to ask. I thought it would help if they heard the answer from you.”
Remarkable employees have an innate feel for the issues and concerns of those around them, and step up to ask questions or raise important issues when others hesitate.
7. They like to prove others wrong. Self-motivation often springs from a desire to show that doubters are wrong. The kid without a college degree or the woman who was told she didn't have leadership potential often possess a burning desire to prove other people wrong.
Education, intelligence, talent, and skill are important, but drive is critical. Remarkable employees are driven by something deeper and more personal than just the desire to do a good job.
8. They’re always fiddling. Some people are rarely satisfied (I mean that in a good way) and are constantly tinkering with something: Reworking a timeline, adjusting a process, tweaking a workflow.
Great employees follow processes. Remarkable employees find ways to make those processes even better, not only because they are expected to… but because they just can't help it.

Note : This Article written by Jeff Haden

Work Work only Work but think also !

Why Most Employees Make Up to 30% Less Than They Should -- Is It Happening to You?

Nancy Anderson, Contributor

If you were offered a raise at work simply for being there and requiring no additional tasks, would you accept it?  Of course you would.  With no downside risk, most people would jump at the chance for additional compensation, but the reality is the raise was there all along.  You just didn’t realize it.  Many people forfeit a generous raise by not fully taking advantage of the benefits packages provided by their employer. Employers provide an additional 30% or more in benefits above and beyond salaries listed on a W-2. Many people even choose between prospective employers specifically for better benefits packages but after their new hire paperwork is filled out and the core benefits are chosen, maximizing that extra 30% in compensation falls by the wayside.  Performing in the new job is top of mind.
Forfeiting additional compensation is one thing, but the consequences of doing so are high.  Neglecting to fund a retirement plan or forgoing an employee stock purchase plan could have catastrophic results in losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and delaying retirement for many years.  Not using a Health Savings Account or taking advantage of a company legal benefit could result in unnecessarily high out-of-pocket expenses for yourself and your family. There are also many free perks that could add value or enjoyment in life that are often simply overlooked.
There are reasons for this.  HR Departments can’t give personalized advice to employees on benefits, but they can provide education, communication, and tools for employees to use, but that is the extent of it. The financial planning field doesn’t always incorporate employee benefits such as health insurance into financial plans, or does so at a minimal level.  Their expertise lies in the insurance and retirement products they sell or provide to their clients, not in the ones provided in the workplace. Americans who work with financial planners that do not take a comprehensive look at their total financial life aren’t truly getting the whole picture and a full value of working with an advisor.  For better or worse, most Americans are in a situation where they have to rely on themselves when it comes to benefits decisions.  This can be tough with our hectic lives, but the good news is that you know you have your own best interests at heart, which isn’t always the case with outside financial experts who may care more about their own commission.  Plus, getting more out of your benefits is probably easier than you think.  We’ve created a three-step process for employees to maximize their benefits and recapture some of the “lost raise” they were missing.  Below are the steps we share with the employees we counsel that you can use on your own with your spouse or loved ones:
Step 1:  Maximize your core benefits– This is where you stand the most risk of leaving money on the table and, ultimately, jeopardizing your health or retirement in the process.  Core benefits are a major drive to long-term financial success, and if mishandled, can lose virtually all their value.
The biggest mistakes we, as educators, see employees making are to miss out on the complete company matching contributions and to not withhold enough of their paycheck.  In a company with 5,000 employees and an average salary of $50,000, the wealth generated just from employee matching contributions would be about $7.5 million dollars a year.  Employees often stop there however and only save to the matching percentage.  A common company match is 50% of the first 6% of contributions.  If employees only save 6%, they may not be saving enough to be on track to retire since the rule of thumb is to save 10% of income from the beginning of their career.  Maximize this benefit by taking full advantage of every dollar of matching contributions from your employer and increase your savings contribution percentage to the maximum allowable contribution over time.  Better yet, if your company offers auto-escalation through your retirement plan, sign up for it.  Auto-escalation automatically increases your savings rate over time, in small increments that you set—at say 1% or 2% per year.  This can make a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your working career—simply by filling out a form!   Quite a payoff for 5 minutes of your time.

In terms of health care plans, one of the biggest mistakes we see is employees renewing their coverage year after year without doing a full analysis of the plans.  Employees may have compared plans when they first started at the firm, but the plans themselves have probably changed as well as the employees need.  Consider the high-deductible health care plans and compare them to the full service plans, using your past medical history as a starting point to see what plan is the best value for you.  Your HR department may have an online calculator or other tools to show the true cost of the plan side by side.
Step 2:  Take advantage of your free benefits– Here’s where employees are overwhelmingly missing the boat and spending thousands, in some cases tens of thousands, of dollars a year out of their own pocket on services their companies will actually pay for.  In our experience, the most expensive and common company-subsidized benefits that employees miss out on are tuition, legal and financial services, counseling, day care, adoption services, and moving expenses.  To avoid this obtain a list of benefits from your HR department or review your benefits portal on your company intranet.  Sit down with your spouse or significant other and review the benefits you have available.  Many people don’t even realize the benefits they have!  Then earmark the most valuable benefits and put them to use.
Step 3:  Determine which voluntary benefits are right for you– These are benefits that you have to pay for but might (and I stress the “might”) get a discounted rate from your employer.  Some may be very important to your overall financial plan and ultimate financial security.  Others may, quite frankly, be a complete waste of money.
While health insurance is usually a given that there will be a cost savings, some other benefits such as life insurance or disability may be better purchased separately.
Consider the cost savings first, but also ask yourself these questions:
Is it portable? Do you own the policy or is it tied to the workplace?  If the policy is tied to the workplace and you plan on leaving soon, it might be better to purchase coverage outside of work.
Is it accessible outside of work?  In other words, can you obtain the benefit outside of the workplace?  People with health problems may not be able to qualify for life insurance or disability in an individual plan, so getting the benefit through work may be the only answer.
Is it convenient or easy to use? Voluntary benefits through work are often more convenient than those purchased outside of work since they can often be paid for through payroll deduction—so if convenience is important, this may make a work policy more attractive.
Lastly, is it a quality benefit? Quality sometimes matters much more than cost—so it’s critical to make sure the work benefit is the quality you need before purchasing the benefit through work.  For example, discounted legal services provided through a work pre-paid legal plan may give basic estate planning documents, but if you need complex trusts drawn up, the benefit at work may not be of the quality needed to fill your need.
There are hundreds of ways your benefits can make you more money, help you grow your wealth, provide savings on services you use daily, and can ultimately be the difference in your family’s financial security. Next time you look at your paycheck or log on to your company’s benefits portal, try reading between the lines and take a deeper look at what benefits you’re utilizing. There is most likely money hidden between them that you can find without having to hassle the boss for a raise.

This Article is taken from http://www.forbes.com/sites/financialfinesse/2012/03/08/why-most-employees-make-up-to-30-less-than-they-should-is-it-happening-to-you/

3 Words That Guarantee Failure

People who fail to achieve goals signal their intent to fail by using this common phrase. Make sure you aren't falling into the same trap.

People who fail to achieve goals almost always signal their intent to fail by using three little words:
"I will try..."
There are no three words in the English language that are more deceptive, both to the person who says them and the person who hears them.
People who say "I will try" have given themselves permission to fail.  No matter what happens, they can always claim that they "tried."
People who hear "I will try" and don't realize what it really means are fooling themselves, by thinking there's a chance that the speaker will actually succeed.
People who really and truly achieve goals never say "I will try."
Instead, they always say "I will do" something–or, better yet, "I must do" whatever the task is.
As a wise (though fictional) guru once said: "Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'"