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An interesting post by Srini Pillay on a blog at the Harvard Business Review that I recommend you read and think about.  As the author points out: People often prepare for failure, but rarely prepare for what they will do when they succeed.  And this can cause you unexpected problems. Here is the gist of the article, with a link to the original. "Don’t do victory laps. "Focus on the value you bring, not on winning per se. "Stay in the “here and now”. "Reach higher. "People often prepare for failure, but rarely prepare for what they will do when they succeed. Even when we consciously want to be successful, enjoying that success can be a challenge. By following the suggestions above, you can create a framework for managing success so that you can more reliably sustain your success when it occurs. If you are conscious about these factors, you will create far more opportunities to sustain your success over time." Click here to read the full HBR article: The Un...

next-invest.ru One facet of the mythology about today's entrepreneurs is that they are major risk takers.  But are they?  This study goes against this stereotype, pointing out that many entrepreneurs take very reasonable risks after considering the costs to their lives. Over the years I've read studies that point out that many true entrepreneurs are cautious about their decisions to go into business, often working full and part time jobs for the first year or two of their enterprise. Here's the report on the study: Entrepreneurs Are Not Overconfident Gamblers L eaving one's job to become an entrepreneur is inarguably risky. But it may not be the fear of risk that makes entrepreneurs more determined to succeed. A new study finds entrepreneurs are also concerned about what they might lose in the transition from steady employment to startup. Suggested reading click on image In "Entrepreneurship and Loss-Aversion in a Winner-Take-All Society," Professor John Morga...

Source: mpiweb.org T hose business owners or managers who are more critical of their own leadership style than their employees have the greatest success.  Why?  Leaders with self-insight, who are humble and act as credible role models, are rewarded with committed and service-minded employees. This is the conclusion in a study conducted among 1500 leaders and their employees. The leaders were asked to assess their own leadership style, while their employees were asked to assess the same style. The eye of the beholder is in fact important for a leader's ability to create job commitment and a good service climate. The organisation researchers compared the employees' assessments and the leader's assessments of his or her leadership style, and found that the responses were by no means identical -- rather the opposite. Suggested reading click on image The employees decide Leaders can think whatever they like about their own leadership style. The study shows that leaders' asse...

  " Customers are more likely to forgive firms when service failures are associated with religion, no matter what religion was used in the scenarios: Christianity, Judaism or Islam." W hile companies like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A are at the forefront of debate over the religious rights of employers, a new study by a Grand Valley State University researcher shows religious affiliation can safeguard companies against negative reactions to store policies.  Kelly Cowart , Assistant professor of marketing at Grand Valley State University The research, led by Kelly Cowart, assistant professor of marketing at Grand Valley State University, examines the effect of a firm's religious association on customer perceptions of the firm, especially when a service failure occurs. A service failure is defined as limited hours of operation or a temporary store closing.   Cowart said the current findings indicate that religious affiliations may buffer against some of the negative fallou...

Credit: © diego cervo / Fotolia New research shows that many people seen by others as under- assertive or over-assertive think they're appropriately assertive .   N ew research shows that many people seen by others as under-assertive or over-assertive think they're appropriately assertive. The study also reveals that people seen as getting assertiveness right often mistakenly think they've gotten it wrong.   Jill Abramson was recently ousted from her position as the executive editor of The New York Times for being, among other things, too "pushy." But did Abramson -- who has also been described by the media as "polarizing" and "brusque" -- know during the course of her tenure that others viewed her as being overly assertive? A new study from the Columbia Business School suggests that there's a great chance she didn't. "Finding the middle ground between being pushy and being a pushover is a basic challenge in social life and the wor...

Photo: BodyLanguageProjectCom Approach Avoidance: She subtly moves away from him as he leans  toward her; she is following her natural instinct to move away.     W e probably all had the experience of having a sales person get right into our face as they try to pressure us into buying.  It's not comfortable, and now we know why.  It's called "Approach Avoidance."  This is something I learned long ago during on-the-job sales training from a wily old sales dog - and now I now what it's called, and why it works. We, the human animal, learned over our millions of year of existence to fear something that was approaching.  As Chicago Booth School of Business professor Christopher K. Hsee, explains in his recent paper, "In our long struggle for survival, we humans learned that something approaching us is far more of a threat than something that is moving away. This makes sense, since a tiger bounding toward a person is certainly more of a threat than one that...

Source: becauseirocklikehell.tumblr.com R unning a small business is time consuming.  There's so much to do and often so little time in which to do it.  Consider the possibility of your business experiencing computer fraud.  Suppose an employee either deliberately or accidently misusing the information on your computer system.  How much time would it take you to clean up the mess?  Could it even put you out of business? Fortunately, Shalini Kesar, a computer scientist at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, has devised an anti-fraud strategy for business that is straight forward and effective. Suggested reading click on image "Computer fraud can result from incompetence, ignorance, negligence in the use of Information Technology or deliberate misappropriation by individuals," says Kesar. This results in the destruction of not only the main information systems but also backup systems, causing damages up to hundreds and thousands of dollars. Kesar points o...