THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Work

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." - Alexander Graham Bell

TOPIC OF THE DAY

10 Tips for Razor Sharp Concentration

Writing to-do lists and keeping a schedule may keep you organized, but does it really help you get more done? I believe that organization is important, but what you really need is focus. Being able to sit down and concentrate intensely on your work for a few hours. Even a half hour of focused effort can get more done than an entire day of distraction and multitasking.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life’s Most Difficult Problems by Stephen R. Covey

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Interview

"The best interviews -- like the best biographies -- should sing the strangeness and variety of the human race." - Barber, Lynn

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Interview Question You Should Always Expect

Whether you are a new middle manager or a new President-elect, the common wisdom is that you have three months to make an impact in your new role. And yet when preparing for job interviews, candidates make the mistake of believing that most questions will be about their past experience, not what they plan to do once hired.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Beauty and Happiness

"Beauty might bring happiness, but happiness always brings beauty." - Narayan Veeraraghavachar

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Social Media Analytics

SAS Social Media Analytics is an enterprise-hosted, on-demand solution that integrates, archives, analyzes and enables organizations to act on intelligence gleaned from online conversations on professional and consumer-generated media sites. It enables you to attribute online conversations to specific parts of your business, allowing accelerated responses to marketplace shifts.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Inspiration

“Change your thoughts and you change your world. ” - Norman Vincent Peale

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Internal Marketing - A Review

Feasibility studies aim to objectively and rationally uncover the strengths and weaknesses of the existing business or proposed venture, opportunities and threats as presented by the environment, the resources required to carry through, and ultimately the prospects for success.

It is commonly believed that the sole role of marketing is to sell products and services outwardly to customers. In fact, the first and most urgent job of marketing is often to sell inwardly toward a company's people. For, it is only when the people of the company fully understand and are committed to the value proposition of the organization and its brands that external marketing can reach its full potential.

Marketing and the marketing philosophy came into prominence in the 1960's, yet it was not until the 1980's that it became widely accepted, practiced and seen by most organizations as indispensable. Similarly, participative management gained wide acceptance in the 1980s, and the 1990s saw the emergence of the strategic approach to HRM. The need to align human resources to the organizational strategy is widely accepted and, more recently, the need to focus organizational resources towards customer and market orientation has gained ground in the emergence of market-focused management.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Strategic management / Michael A. Hitt

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Challenge

"There is no Challenge more challenging than the challenge to improve yourself." - Michael F. Staley

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Put Your Best People On Your Most Boring Challenges

At a recent not-for-attribution dinner with several (exceptionally) successful internet entrepreneurs, the conversation quickly turned to talent. How do you get the best value from your best people over time? The majority insisted that top talent's time should focus on the highest value-added problems and opportunities.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

C.V. Raman: A Biography by Uma Parameswaran

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Work

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Get Ready for Your Next Assignment

When Bruce Wilkinson, an executive in World Vision Inter­national’s Zambia operation, learned that he was going to be promoted to regional director for southern Africa, he immediately started reading performance reviews of key staff members and talking to his peers, other national officers in the $2.6 billion organization.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Perfection

"When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target." - George Fisher

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Give Feedback to a Perfectionist

Having a perfectionist on your team can be an asset. Perfectionists are driven to succeed, work hard to avoid mistakes, and are always striving to improve. Yet it can be a challenge to manage someone who needs everything to be perfect.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Performance

"Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking." - Daisetz T. Suzuki

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Delivering an Effective Performance Review

It's performance review season, and you know the drill. Drag each of your direct reports into a conference room for a one-on-one, hand them an official-looking document, and then start in with the same, tired conversation. Say some positive things about what the employee is good at, then some unpleasant things about what he's not good at, and end — wearing your most solicitous grin — with some more strokes of his ego. The result: a mixed message that leaves even your best employees feeling disappointed. But if you take the right approach, appraisals are an excellent opportunity to reinforce solid performers and redirect the poor ones.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Opportunity

"Every Interaction is an Opportunity." - Vijay Samuel Benjamin

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Interim management

Interim Management is the temporary provision of management resources and skills. Interim management can be seen as the short-term assignment of a proven heavyweight interim executive manager to manage a period of transition, crisis or change within an organization. In this situation, a permanent role may be unnecessary or impossible to find on short notice. Additionally, there may be nobody internally who is suitable for, or available to take up, the position in question.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Data-driven marketing : the 15 metrics everyone in marketing should know / Mark Jeffery

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Goals

"Goals are dreams with deadlines." - Diana Scharf Hunt

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Set Goals Before Meeting With Your Mentor

Knowing what you want from a mentoring relationship is critical. Before you sit down with your mentor for the first time, decide what you hope to learn. Ask yourself what you want in work and life. Which assets will help you get there? Identify the strengths that will best serve you. Then, honestly examine the roadblocks, challenges, or weaknesses that are slowing you down. Once you do that you're ready to articulate your goals and share them with your mentor. Keep it to no more than five goals, so they don't detract from what your mentor has to offer.

Today’s thought is adopted from the Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need by by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Melinda Marshall, Laura Sherbin, Amy Gallo, Diane Coutu, Lew McCreary, Jodi Glickman, Priscilla Claman, Rob Cross, Robert Thomas, Jeanne C. Meister, Karie Willyerd, Tammy Erickson, Hollis Heimbouch as cited in ‘Management Tip’ of HBR Blog dated January 19, 2012.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Health

"Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship." - Buddha

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Stop Avoiding Office Politics

"I won't do it," he said. "I don't care who they are; I won't buddy up to people I don't like and respect just because I want something from them."

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Data-driven marketing : the 15 metrics everyone in marketing should know / Mark Jeffery

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Criticism

"Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots." - Frank A Clark

TOPIC OF THE DAY

7 Effective Ways to Deal With Criticism

Nobody likes being criticised but, unfortunately it is a fact of life. To be able to respond to criticism with nobility and detachment is an important life skill, which few people have. If we respond to criticism without careful consideration, it can easily lead to unnecessary suffering.

1. What Can I Learn from Criticism?

Most criticism is probably based, at least in part, on some truths. Criticism may appear negative. But, through criticism we have the opportunity to learn and improve from their suggestions.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Data-driven marketing : the 15 metrics everyone in marketing should know / Mark Jeffery

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Invention

"Inventing is the mixing of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less materials you need." - Charles F. Kettering

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Be Prepared for What You Don't See Coming

Have you ever worked on a project that produced unexpected results? Unintended consequences are common in business. For example, sometimes when a senior manager makes a request, it causes a cascade of activity that is far beyond what she intended. The classic story (which may be an urban legend) involves a former Chairman of General Motors who casually commented to a staff member that he didn't like the color of the buildings on campus — and inadvertently triggered an expensive (and totally unnecessary) repainting program.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Data-driven marketing : the 15 metrics everyone in marketing should know / Mark Jeffery

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Risk Management

"The fact that people are full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable." - Warren Buffett

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Risk and Reward

How do you determine proper risk and reward in trading? I don't think anyone can ever provide a definitive answer to that question because its is akin to asking how many layers do you need to walk outside of my apartment in New York City in the winter. Right now as the thermometer reads a balmy 8 degrees Fahrenheit as I type this at 3 in the morning, you need about four layers just to make it to the coffee shop across the street. But just last week you could have made the same journey in a T shirt without feeling a chill.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Data-driven marketing : the 15 metrics everyone in marketing should know / Mark Jeffery

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Communication

"By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach." - Winston Churchill

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Don't Send That Email. Pick up the Phone!

Around this time last year, I wrote about how we need to get back to allowing conversation to occur without texting, emailing, browsing, Tweeting, Facebooking, or doing whatever else zeros and ones can do these days on smart phones, iPads, notebooks, etc. I am as guilty as the next person of falling for the perception that any response latency is unacceptable. As 2012 fast approaches, this needs to go on top of my New Year's resolution list: focus on the live conversations at hand, rather than parallel conversations on the Blackberry screen.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Truth

"Truth does not always seem truthful." - French Proverb

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Conjoint analysis

Conjoint analysis, also called multi-attribute compositional models or stated preference analysis is a statistical technique that originated in mathematical psychology. Today it is used in many of the social sciences and applied sciences including marketing, product management, and operations research.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

E Mail

"In the time honored tradition of email, just ignore the question." - John Doddin.

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Stop Emailing and Pick up the Phone

Email has fundamentally changed the way we interact. But, it cannot replace live conversation. This especially applies when resolving a conflict or communicating an important business decision. Far too many people try to do sensitive business via email. This is problematic because tone and context are easy to misread. In a live conversation, how one says something is as important as what they are saying. Without inflections and intonations, it's hard to understand the feelings behind the words. In fact, email-based conflict often escalates because you aren't forced to be as thoughtful as you would be in a one-on-one conversation. Next time you have a delicate or complex issue to discuss, take your hands off the keyboard and pick up the phone.

Today's Thought is adopted from "Don't Send That Email. Pick up the Phone!" by Anthony Tjan as cited in Management Tip of Harvard Business Review blog on January 13, 2012

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Mentoring

"Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction." - John C. Crosby

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Get the Mentoring Equation Right

I used to be able to say "yes" to pretty much anyone who reached out to me for mentoring. As requests increase, however, and wonderfully so, I fear that I am going to overlook those with promise who don't quite know how to package themselves. Worse yet is the thought that I may inadvertently rebuff someone simply because I haven't managed my time well, neglecting to give them the courtesy of a proper no.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Music

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Music - An Excellent Therapy For Stress And Tension In Today's Scenario

Our lives are filled with work, family and other personal obligations. It is difficult to manage these obligations and sometimes we feel the need to avoid them. But it is not possible. How much ever you try to avoid them, these things are still part and parcel of your life. At the end of the day, you may feel relieved when these obligations are fulfilled but you are bound to get stressed.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Recognition

"People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition." - Bob Nelson

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Reorganizing? Think Again

If you ask managers to name their favorite sport, you'll hear a wide variety of answers: Football, baseball, tennis... But what they won't tell you is the one sport that all managers play the most: The Game of Reorganization.

Managers love to reorganize at almost every level. Whether triggered by a leadership transition, a fundamental change in the business, an acquisition, or poor performance; lines, boxes, and people tend to move around. In fact it's highly unusual to find an organization that has not shifted its structure in some way within the previous six months.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Life

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things." - Albert Einstein

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Remove Barriers Between Management and Non – Management Personnel

Relationships – whether business or personal – have their obstacles to overcome. And, as much as we want to blame others for our problems or for their stubborn behavor, there are things both parties can and should do in order to foster the healthiest working environment possible.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Listening

"The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention." - Thich Nhat Hanh

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Really Listen

One morning, my wife Eleanor woke up, turned over, and said, "I am not looking forward to this day." I asked her why.

What came out is that we were at the start of the Jewish high holy day season, which means colder weather and three weeks of big social meals, long religious services, broken routines, and children out of school. Eleanor didn't grow up with these traditions, and they can be overwhelming.

Now, I run a management consulting company; problem solving is what I do. So it didn't take me long to jump in.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Marketing strategies : a contemporary approach / Ranchhod, Ashok

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Aim

"Happiness is man's greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness." - Epicurus

TOPIC OF THE DAY

A 7-Step Process to Achieving Your Goals

Here's how you can use this process to achieve your goals for this year:

1.Write down your top goal or goals for the year (or quarter).
2.Dump all your current and upcoming tasks or projects into the spreadsheet.
3.Freak out.
4.Sort your list into related chunks.
5.Review your list of tasks, and categorize their importance and urgency.
6.Cull your deprecated tasks.
7.Review your committed tasks and cull again.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Request

"An objection is not a rejection; it is simply a request for more information." - Bo Bennett

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Handle a Raise Request

As a manager, it can be stressful when an employee asks for a raise, especially if there is no company policy. But answering a difficult compensation question doesn't have to be a headache. Try these three steps:

• Don't answer right away. Thank the person for bringing up the issue and then promise to get back with an answer by a specified date. This allows you time to confer with other leaders.
• Fairly assess the situation. The amount of money an individual is paid is a function of two things: the value of the job itself and the person's quality of performance. Examine both.
• Go back. During a second conversation, ask the individual to explain both how she might enhance her performance and how she can make her job more valuable to the organization. Base your final decision on this input combined with your assessment.

Today's Thought is adopted from "How to Handle a Raise Request" by Dick Grote as cited in HBR’s “Management Tip” on September 23, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Perfection

"No one is perfect... that's why pencils have erasers.” - Author Unknown

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Manage a Perfectionist

o you have a perfectionist on your team? The good news is that your direct report has high standards and a fine attention for detail. The bad news is that he fixates on every facet of a project and can't set priorities. Can you harness these positive qualities without indulging the bad? Can you help him become less of a stickler? Yes and yes. Managing a perfectionist can be challenging but it's not impossible. And when done well, you both will benefit.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Problems

"It is wise to direct your anger towards problems - not people; to focus your energies on answers - not excuses.” - William Ward

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Fire, Snowball, Mask, Movie

What does it take for an ineffective manager to become a highly effective leader? Talk to 50 top CEOs, management consultants, and academics, and you’ll get a different answer from each. There are countless books, models, and formulas for success. But the truth is this: Leadership transformation is deeply dependent on context. Everyone follows his own path, has her own story. The key for people who are seeking transformation is to identify the common threads in the experiences of others who have achieved success and absorb the insights they find there.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Go for no! : yes is the destination no is how you get there / Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Training

"The best training any parent can give a child is to train the child to train himself.” - A. P. Gouthey

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Best Approach to Training

How many times have you trained a junior colleague, new hire, or summer intern in a task only to have that person come knocking on your door every five minutes with a different question about some key detail?

Let me ask you a different question. Do you remember sitting in your physics, or chemistry, or calculus class in high school or college and watching the teacher do a problem on the board? Do you remember being able to solve a problem on your own if the new problem was just like the old one? Do you remember not being able to solve a new problem if it was not just like the old one?

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Relationship

"Our greatest joy-and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others." - Stephen R. Covey

TOPIC OF THE DAY

What's Your One Big Theme?

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year, the time when we think about our past year and plan for our next. What do I want to repeat? What do I want to do differently?

I usually start with everything I want to do differently. And the list is long.

I eat way too much — well past my point of being full — and leave almost every meal uncomfortable. I feel scattered in my day, focusing on too many things at once, switching rapidly from one thing to the next.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Motivation

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." - Jim Ryun

TOPIC OF THE DAY

It Takes More Than Money to Motivate People

Look on the net and you’ll find plenty of articles saying that money is a powerful motivator. Talk to employees, however, and you’ll find that money doesn’t always talk – or at least not the loudest. Time after time, sales organizations put bonus structures in place that anyone should be able to attain –and yet only a handful of people make the top levels. Usually the same people who were at the top before the new reward structure was announced, end up on top afterwards as well.

Why don’t these potential prizes cause people to change their behavior and start producing more? Simply put, because rarely do companies also do anything that effectively encourages their people to work harder or give them additional training to help them perform better. Nor do they give employees a reason that actually motivates them to work harder.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre