Is Email Ruining Your Life?

E-mail on the move adds to workers' stress level

We can spend up to half our working day going through our inbox, leaving us tired, frustrated and unproductive.

A recent study found one-third of office workers suffer from e-mail stress.

And it is expensive, too. One London firm recently estimated that dealing with pointless e-mails cost it £39m a year.

Now firms are being forced to help staff deal with the daily avalanche in their inboxes. Some hire e-mail consultants, while others are experimenting with e-mail free days.

Email has changed the way that we communicate changed the way we worked.

This technology also has its downside. It's too easy to write an e-mail and hit the send button.

And when an e-mail goes wrong, it can be around the world in 80 seconds and headline news the next day.

On average, we spend 52 hours a year just dealing with our junk mail.

Additionally, e-mail is a major source of employee anxiety.

E-mail inboxes are causing employees concern, because of the number of e-mails and the poorly written e-mails. They really want to find some sort of solutions for these problems.

We are 24/7, we are interfaced by the mobile phone, by Blackberrys, by e-mails, by a whole range of technologies, so that we are almost on call all the time.

City accountancy firm Deloitte found its employees had a problem with e-mail overload. So it came up with a radical solution.

"A lot of people complain they get too much e-mail, that they're swamped with it, a lot of the messages they receive are unwanted, unnecessary targeted to the wrong people," says Mary Hensher, who heads Deloitte's IT department.

"We all tried to see if we could avoid sending internal e-mail on a Wednesday. Now the first thing that happened was it got everybody talking.

"Everybody started to think about what they were sending, who they were sending it to and whether they could use another method instead of sending the e-mail. So it had a very good immediate response, where people were actually thinking more about what they were doing."

E-mail is so ingrained in our working lives that Deloitte's experiment was abandoned after only a month. But the company still thinks it was worth it.

"Although the e-mail free day is not an e-mail free day any more, the actual amount of internal email circulating has dropped, because people are more conscious of what they're sending," Ms Hensher says.

Top tips

One man that might have the answer to all the problems surrounding e-mail is Tom Jackson.

He has spent the last nine years researching and developing better e-mail practice and has five tips he believes can help you take control of your inbox:

• Invest in a spam filter. You shouldn't open a spam e-mail, because as soon as you open the e-mail up, it notifies the organisation that has sent that, saying this is a valid e-mail address. They know how long you've looked at it, when you looked at it and did you go back to it.
• Target your e-mail. One of most annoying things about e-mail is the sheer number of messages we receive that aren't addressed primarily to us. Does everyone in the cc box really need to be copied in on your words of wisdom? Basically, a cc is there for information purposes only, and you should only use it for that purpose.
• Write more carefully. The reason to write carefully is crystal clear. It just vastly increases the chance that whatever it is you want to get done will get done. If you don't write carefully, there's room for misunderstanding.
• Reduce interruptions. I think it does start to stress people out. Simply by changing the way they have their e-mail application set up, they can start to reduce some of that stress.
• Get training. E-mail seems like common sense. Anyone can write an e-mail. But the issues we're having are that many people are struggling with e-mail communication - and training can really help with that.

Simon Turner

Body Language: Giving Good & Bad Messages

Much is made of using body language to project strength and competence in the workplace, but as any FBI profiler will tell you, nonverbal cues are an indicator of larger underlying truths that shouldn’t be swept under the rug.

Given our sometimes brief workplace interactions, nonverbal communication plays very large role in our communications.

Meetings, presentations and hallway encounters offer precious little time to present yourself, but trying to mask your deficiencies with hand gestures, eye contact or a well-timed touch on the arm is like taking Panadol not bothering to think about the reason behind your pain. Plus, you also risk coming off as inauthentic. Here are some things to look out for:

Poor eye contact: Wandering eyes suggest you may have something to hide. If you have trouble being forthright with a teammate or manager, you have to ask, “Am I representing myself honestly, or is this job a stretch for me?” (Either in terms of qualifications or interest.)

Not smiling: When you aren’t smiling very often, there’s a good chance that you aren’t at ease. Do you have enough passion for the job you are doing that you feel a connection with your coworkers? Is your manager making any effort to make you comfortable? What might that say about your working relationship?

Slouching: When people are excited to meet someone or to make their point, they generally stand or sit up straight or even lean forward. If you regularly aren’t energetic or confident when in a meeting or presentation, you should be wondering, “Have I chosen a job that is something that I’m excited to get up and do most days? Is this person (or company) for whom I’m working someone I really respect?”

Simon Turner

Student Gems: Don't Get Wrecked by HECS

Student Gems matches students in need of work with businesses in need of occasional or one-time help.

Student Gems is open to UK students or recent graduates 18 and older. To register, students begin by creating a profile that lists all their skills, including anything from language translation or website design to any of 1,400 other skills categorized on the site. Businesses or individuals in need of help can then search the database for someone who has the skills they require for a one-off or occasional job; if they can’t find a match immediately, they can post their job requirements. Students can also browse through tasks listed by businesses seeking someone with a particular talent and initiate contact themselves.

Ad-supported Student Gems is free for use by both businesses and students; by mid-January, more than 1,000 students and 100 businesses had registered with the site, including a software house, a chartered accountant, a media company and even a firm of funeral directors. Cofounder Joanna Ward explains: “Most small businesses cannot afford to take on professional staff for small tasks. Studentgems.com allows them to find someone quickly and easily and negotiate a price that suits their budget.”

Given skyrocketing levels of student debt and a tough employment landscape, this just could do the trick both for students and for smaller businesses. One to bring to other parts of the world?

Website: www.studentgems.com

Zero tolerance: Drinking in the Workplace

A recent case serves as a warning to all employees to be aware of “zero tolerance” policies that apply at their place of work and ensure their conduct does not contravene those policies. In May 2007, Woolworths dismissed one of its store managers for drinking two beers during his lunch break. The store manager, who had over 20 years of service with Woolworths was dismissed because the consumption of alcohol during working hours (including meal breaks) was strictly prohibited and was expressed in several company policies as well as the manager’s employment contract. Woolworths’ decision to terminate the employee’s employment was upheld by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) in October 2007 and the application was dismissed. Woolworths’ decision to terminate was further upheld by a full bench of the AIRC on appeal in February 2008.

Does the punishment of dismissal really fit the “crime” in this instance? If you are generally an exemplary employee, in a position of seniority and have been in a position for several years, should one slight break of the rules cost you your job? In this case, the AIRC upheld the dismissal and found that it was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable because the manager had breached an express term and condition of his employment contract. This strict approach suggests that a wilful disregard of zero tolerance policies will not be viewed lightly by the courts. This decision further highlights the fact that employers are entitled to take appropriate disciplinary action when their employees are found to have breached express terms and conditions of employment.

Selak v Woolworths Limited [2008] AIRCFB 81 (8 February, 2008)

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

The 10 Worst Days For Driving

Regardless of where you live, what you do or how old you are, this survey is worth a read!

Sunday is the least common day for car accidents and the most dangerous day to be on the road is Friday, 18 January.

After analysing 1.8 million claims received over the past 15 years, a leading insurer has identified the days when accidents are most likely to occur.

Historically, more accidents happen on 18 January than any other date in the year, while Friday is the most common day of the week for crashes. Unsurprisingly, the date with the least reported incidents is 29 February.

'Long week'
According to the research, the next safest dates are 25 and 26 December, when the roads tend to be very quiet. For the same reason, the report highlights Sunday as the days of the week when accidents are least likely to occur, followed by Saturday. The vast majority of problems happen on weekdays when the roads are busier.

TEN WORST DAYS FOR DRIVING
1. 18 January
2. 20 December
3. 27 October
4. 22 March
5. 20 July
6. 1 October
7. 21 October
8. 1 November
9. 15 December
10. 20 October

It's not surprising to see that the worst day of the week for accidents is a Friday: people are tired after a long week at work and can easily get caught up thinking about their weekend plans instead of the road ahead.

It is less clear, however, why there was such a concentration of incidents on 18 January: it could be that people have a lot on their mind as they haven't been paid for a while, the bills are coming in, and the fun of the festive period is a long and distant memory.

How did you fare on 29 February this year, given that 2008 is a leap year?

The Five Minds of a Manager

Does your management job seem impossible? If so, that's not surprising. Your many roles are so often contradictory.

You can, however, triumph over managerial obstacles, despite conflicting expectations, if you focus less on what you should do and more on how you should think. Successful managers think their way through their jobs, using five different mind-sets that allow them to deal adeptly with the world around them:

1) A reflective mind-set allows you to be thoughtful, to see familiar experiences in a new light, setting the stage for insights and innovative products and services.

2) An analytical mind-set ensures that you make decisions based on in-depth data--both quantitative and qualitative.

3) A worldly mind-set provides you with cultural and social insights essential to operating in diverse regions, serving varied customer segments.

4) A collaborative mind-set enables you to orchestrate relationships among individuals and teams producing your products and services.

5) An action mind-set energizes you to create and expedite the best plans for achieving your strategic goals.

The key to your managerial effectiveness? Regularly access all five mind-sets, not in any particular order, but by cycling through each as needed. And don't go it alone. When you collaborate with colleagues by interweaving your collective mind-sets, you--and your organization--will excel.

How to Archive Your Instant Messanger Chats

If you rely heavily on instant messaging for business communications, you’ve probably wished for a way to store conversations for future reference. Simkl archives instant messages to an online server and lets you search and share them.



This “history saver” works with virtually all IM clients, from AIM to MSN to Yahoo Messenger. Savvy users know that IM aggregators like Pidgin and Trillian already let you save conversations, but they’re stored locally; you can’t access them from the Web like with Simkl. Check the video above to see it in action.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to pony up a few bucks to use the service: Simkl charges $24.99 annually or $2.99 per month. Those are reasonable rates, especially if you ever need an IM “paper trail” for legal reasons. [via Download Squad]

How to Improve Your Time Management

Feel like time is your adversary rather than your ally? Maybe you need to get a little better at managing the sucker. Dumb Little Man offers 11 tips for improving time-management, including these little gems:

1) Concentrate on One Thing: The human mind works more efficiently when it is focused. As we’ve seen before multitasking is actually a disadvantage to productivity. Focus on one thing and get it done. Take care not to bleed tasks into each other. At times, multitasking may seem like a more efficient route, but it is probably not.

2) Avoid Procrastination at All Costs: When trying to be more productive and trying to save time, procrastination should be avoided like nothing else. It is the ultimate productivity-killer.

3) Set Personal Deadlines: Nobody likes deadlines. They cause stress, aggravation, worry, and, more stress. A guaranteed way to alleviate some of this stress is to set your own earlier deadlines. Be realistic but demanding of yourself. Challenge yourself and reward yourself for a meeting a difficult challenge.

What methods do you use to manage your time? I’m still a fan of the "to-do list". I make a list of three or four things I must get done each day. It doesn’t seem overwhelming, and I get great satisfaction from crossing them off.

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

Rental Applications Being Taken as Seriously as Job Applications

Renters are treating the house-hunting process like the search for a job, even submitting resumes and photographs of themselves with their tenancy applications.

As Sydney's rental crisis spirals out of control, many applicants are also offering $50 to $100 above the asking rent to secure a property. Some are offering to pay 12 months rent in advance to secure a place to live.

People have been putting together compendiums of their whole lives, together with glowing references, binding them, and presenting them as if they're awards. The Marquette Turner team can certainly attest to this. One instance we can name are a Kiwi couple in their early 20's that put together a presentation folder of the quality that our agents would present.

We're being given life stories, their CVs, referrals, savings history, parent/employer guarantees and even including portfolio pictures of themselves.

It really is like applying for a job, they want to make their applications stand out. And, quite simply, this DOES go along way.

Finding a property to rent these days is almost a full-time job - and thus it is being taken just as seriously as career applications.

Building a raport with the real estate agent also goes a long way - they are after all the ones that provide the landlord with the applications and their "thoughts" on each applicant.

Michael Marquette or Marquette Turner confirms this, saying that "It is becoming increasingly rare for rental properties to become vacant these days, with existing tenants more willing than ever to sign up a new lease, rather that simply continue month to month."

He continues "On the rare occasion that a property does become vacant, tenants are already offering much higher than the asking rent, so it's becoming like a rental auction, and with so many people being forced to sell up as interest rates rise, more people will be forced into the rental market."

Quite simply, the situation for would-be tenants continues to look challenging.

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

3 Steps to Handling Stressful Conversations

If you haven’t been involved in one, I’m sure you’ve witnessed a heated conversation between work colleagues in which potentially beneficial discussion gets lost in the tension.

A colleague of mine, Donald Jessep from Profitableteams.com, was describing a heated exchange between Mike, a Financial Controller, and Steve, a Sales Manager. Mike suggested they close one of the company’s branches.

“You can’t do that” was Steve’s retort to Mike’s suggestion. Mike fired back a dirty look and the blood pressure of both men clicked up a notch. Mike’s enthusiasm evaporated and what could have been an idea worth discussing went no further.

If Steve had exercised discipline in applying the three steps of an age-old process there would have been a different outcome to the discussion.

Step 1 — Acknowledge the person. Even if you don’t agree with the comment. Acknowledgment can be a smile or the gift of undivided attention.

Step 2 — Give a reason to explore another angle. The reason has to be plausible, even encouraging to the person who proposed the idea … and free of all judgment.

Step 3 — Ask a question, a high-quality question. A high-quality question demands just the right amount of mental stretch to answer.

They’re simple ideas, but sadly, especially once we become familiar with people we sometimes lack the awareness and discipline to apply them. Highly influential people have this process deeply ingrained and can apply it even under pressure

3 Simple Ideas That Made Millions

Sometimes a single brainstorm can change the course of a career. Here are 3 people who turned brilliant ideas into big career moves—and the pitches they used to close the deal.

IDEA 1
Microsoft Xbox: Beating Sony at Its Own Game
The Product: Electronic gaming platform
The Genius: Game Programmer Seamus Blackley
The Story: In early 1999, Microsoft hired Blackley to work on software that would make games easier to implement on PCs. At the time, industry analysts were calling the then-new Sony Playstation an "alternative computing platform" and saying it represented a long-term threat to Microsoft's software dominance. Microsoft had recently bought the WebTV set-top box, which was proving to be a huge flop in the market. Blackley took advantage of management's paranoia about WebTV's failure and the threat from Sony and co-wrote a proposal suggesting that Microsoft regain the initiative by producing its own gaming console. Executives bit, and the Xbox is now the mainstay of Microsoft's $4.6 billion a year Entertainment and Devices division Blackley later left Microsoft and today represents video game developers at the Creative Artists Agency.

Basic Sell: "If you don't buy this idea, we'll eventually get screwed."
Advantage: Fear is a wonderful motivator.
Disadvantage: There's a fine line between "out of the box" thinking and "out of your mind" thinking. (Hint: If you suspect your idea isn't being bought because of a conspiracy against you, you're probably out of your mind.)


IDEA 2
MTV's The Real World: Reinventing the Sitcom
The Product: Reality television
The Geniuses: Daytime soap producer Mary-Ellis Bunim, TV newsman Jonathan Murray
The Story: In the early 1990s, Bunim (Search for Tomorrow, As the World Turns) and Murray (WXIA-TV, Atlanta) observed that production costs for situation comedies and drama were rising, yet the expansion of cable channels meant they were also generating less advertising revenue. MTV was changing formats at the time, moving away from its mainstay music videos. Since the network's more successful VJs had the look and feel of actual college students, Bunim and Murray pitched the idea that young viewers would prefer to watch the dating exploits of real-life peers rather than professional actors.

The combination of low production costs and conceptual similarity to MTV's existing "personality" lowered the risk for MTV execs. The network debuted The Real World in 1992, creating a new genre—reality TV—which has become a massive cash-cow for the network television industry. Bunim and Murray went on to a string of hits, including Road Rules and The Simple Life, creating a franchise that generates around $30 million in yearly revenue, according to Hoovers.

Basic Sell: "This idea will simultaneously reduce costs and increase revenue."
Advantage: Appeals to both visionaries and bean-counters.
Disadvantage: Cheaper and faster doesn't always mean better.


IDEA 3
Tom Peters: Redefining Management
The Product: Books and speaking engagements
The Genius: McKinsey consultant Tom Peters
The Story: In the 1970s and earlier, most business books were dry tomes written with the academic market in mind. In 1981, Peters co-wrote a book that changed all of that. In Search of Excellence expressed Peters' observation that successful corporations had eliminated hierarchical decision-making processes in favor of "empowering" decision-making at lower levels of the corporate structure. The idea of a more democratic workplace resonated with the ex-hippie Baby Boomers who were just then entering the executive ranks. When sales of the book spiked, Peters flogged the concept mercilessly, and it was later turned into a series of PBS television specials. In the process, Peters became arguably the world's most popular management guru. Twenty-five years later he still commands speaking fees in the high five figures.

Basic Sell: "Your intuition and experience tell you that this idea makes sense."
Advantage: Buyers are already emotionally inclined to your idea.
Disadvantage: You must be a living example of your idea. For example, if you're selling ideas for financial success, you'd better know how to look and act successful.

Crash Course in Mastering Office Politics: Step 1

Like it or not, every workplace is a political environment. But operating effectively within it doesn’t have to mean sucking up, lying, or slinging dirt.

In its purest form, office politics is simply about getting from here to there: securing a promotion, seeing an idea come to fruition, or gaining support to make an organizational change. Playing the game well is about defending your position, earning respect, exchanging favors, and keeping your sanity amid the chaos.

To get started, you need to know what you really want from work, then orient your political moves toward those goals. It all starts with strong relationships and helping others; those people in return make up the support system that helps you realize your goals. Here’s how it’s done.

STEP 1
Figure Out Why (and If) You Want to Play

Goal: Let what’s most important to you guide your actions.
Office politics gets a bad rap because the most obvious practitioners often do it for the wrong reasons: They enjoy the ego trip, or they like to compete for the sake of competition. But the people who quietly succeed at work are also political operators — they just do it better. Those who play the game well map out their career or workplace priorities and align their politicking to those goals. “Political moves are the navigation through your career — not the driver,” says Susan DePhillips, former vice president of human resources for Ross Stores.

Start by writing down your top five career goals and priorities. These could include switching departments, making more money, unloading some of your responsibilities, or becoming the go-to person for your area of expertise. Then write down the five things you’ve spent the most time and worry on during the last six months. Do they match up? If not, you may be caught up in your colleagues’ goals instead of your own.

Next, prioritize your goals. Maybe you’re seeking a promotion, but you recently had a child and want to start leaving the office earlier. It’s not that you can’t have both, but you’re not likely to get them at the same time since new positions usually entail more responsibility and a learning curve. Decide which matters most to you right now, and start thinking about who you’ll need to persuade or influence in order to get it.

Big Idea
Getting What You Want
It’s tempting to think that the best way to get ahead is to buckle down and work extra hard. You’ll be recognized and rewarded for the effort, right? Don’t count on it. You can’t expect other people to magically know what you want in return. Be clear on your goals, and don’t feel shy about going after them.

If: You want a promotion...
Then: Find out how to get one.
Ask your boss what she wants from you and what skills you need to demonstrate to get promoted. Document the conversation in a follow-up email, then master those tasks and skills. This puts you in a better spot to open the conversation again — and get the promotion.

If: You want buy-in from another department when you propose an idea...
Then: Ask for support.
Ask your counterpart in that department when and how he would first like to hear about new ideas: Over coffee? In an email? As soon as they come up? Once they’ve gained approval in your department? See if he wants to be included in related meetings. Involving him earlier will increase your chances of gaining support.

If: Someone’s blocking you from your goal...
Then: Stand up to them — nicely.
Dan Coughlin, a management consultant whose clients have included Toyota, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola, remembers a regional operations head who was frustrated because her boss finished all her sentences in group settings. “He was stepping in to make sure she succeeded,” Coughlin says, “but in doing so he wasn’t giving her enough room to operate.” The woman confronted her boss privately, and he backed off. With her increased autonomy, she gained the support of the managers in her region, and her boss recommended her for a promotion shortly thereafter.

Australian's Working Harder But Not Smarter

Australians are spending less time playing, sleeping, eating and drinking and are working longer, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures on how Australians use their time.

There has been a huge leap in the time people are spending on education, with people over 15 on average spending three hours and 30 minutes a day on educational activities (15% higher than in 1997). Time spent on recreation and leisure activities has decreased by one hour and 45 minutes a week since 1997 (to 29 hours, 31 minutes a week).

Australians are spending on average an extra hour a week on activities such as watching television and using the internet than in 1997 (16 hours 20 minutes a week).

However time spent on sport and outdoor activity has decreased by nearly one hour compared to an average week in 1997. The average time people spend on getting fit, playing sport and outdoor activity is now 2 hours, 13 minutes a week.

Men and women spent a similar amount of time on both paid and unpaid work, although women work harder than men putting in almost 53 hours a week compared to men’s 52 hours. This is around two hours more a week than in 1997. Men continue to spend much less time on unpaid work, just 20 hours four minutes a week, than did women (36 hours 31 minutes).

While men have not increased their contribution to unpaid work at all since 1997, women have decreased the time they spend on domestic duties by one hour a week. Men spent almost 32 hours a week on paid work (up 5% on 1997) compared to women who spend 16 hours 27 minutes (up 7% on 1997).

When it comes to voluntary work men are spending 15 minutes a day on care activities and volunteering compared to women (24 minutes).

How men and women spend their day:
Men
Recreation 19%
Employment 19%
Domestic activities 7%
Women
Recreation/leisure 16%
Employment 10%
Domestic activities 12%

www.smartcompany.com.au

How To Have The Perfect Life

You already have everything you need to create a wonderful life for yourself. You know everything you need to know to be your own best friend, a gentle guide, a teacher and a helper to yourself so you can be truly happy and fulfilled. You can learn how to become your own psychotherapist for life, and how to resolve the difficulties that stand between you and personal joy.

Be Honest With Yourself
The starting point of becoming your own best friend is for you to be perfectly honest with yourself and your relationships. Refuse to practice self-delusion or hope for the best. For example, when something is making you unhappy, for any reason, the situation will tend to get worse rather than better. So avoid the temptation to engage in denial, to pretend that nothing is wrong, to wish and hope and pray that, whatever it is, it will go away and you won't have to do anything. The fact is that it probably will get worse before it gets better and that ultimately you will need to face the situation and do something about it.

Deal With Your Problem at a Higher Level
There's an old saying that you can't solve a problem on the level that you meet it. This means that wrestling with a persistent problem is often fruitless and frustrating. For example, if two people who are in a relationship together are constantly fighting and negotiating and looking for some way to resolve their difficulties, they may be attempting to solve the problem on the wrong level. Dealing with the problem on a higher level, those people would ask the question, "In terms of being happy, is this the right relationship for us in the first place?"

Find the Right Job For You
Many people work very hard and experience considerable frustration trying to do a particular job. However, in terms of their own happiness, the right answer might be to do something else, or to do what they're doing in a different place, or to do it with different people-or all three.

Here are a few questions for you to answer in this arena of happiness. Write them down at the top of a sheet of paper, and then write as many answers to each one as you possibly can.

What Would It Take?
The first question is: "What would it take for me to be perfectly happy?"
Write down every single thing that you can imagine would be in your life if you were perfectly happy at this very moment. Write down things such as health, happiness, prosperity, loving relationships, inner peace, travel, car, clothes, homes, money, and so on. Let your mind run freely. Imagine that you have no limitations at all.

What is Holding You Back?
The second question is a little tougher. Write down at the top of a page this question: "In what situations in my life, and with whom, am I not perfectly happy?" Force yourself to think about every part of your day, from morning to night, and write down every element that makes you unhappy or dissatisfied in any way. Remember, proper diagnosis is half the cure. Identifying the unsatisfactory situations is the first step to resolving them.

Determine Your Happiest Moment
The third question will give you some important guidelines. Write down at the top of a sheet of paper these words: "In looking over my life, where and when have I been the happiest? Where was I, with whom was I, and what was I doing?"Decide What to DoOnce you have the answers to those questions, think about what you can do, starting immediately, to begin creating the kind of life that you dream of. It may take you a week, a month, or a year, but that doesn't matter.

Every single thing you do that moves you closer to your ideal vision will be rewarding in itself. You'll become a more positive and optimistic person. You'll feel more confident and more in charge of your life, and you'll achieve true peace of mind.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, examine your business and personal relationships carefully. Is there any situation you wouldn't get into again if you had it to do over?

Second, make a list of every single thing in your life that would make you happy and then think about what you could do to begin achieving them.

Third, allow yourself to dream and fantasize about your ideal life, what it would look like and feel like, and then do something every day to make it a reality.

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today. His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area. For more information, please go to www.briantracy.com

Top 3 Tips to Avoid Entrepreneur-Burnout

Being an entrepreneur is exciting and dynamic. It can also be draining - physically, mentally and emotionally. After the initial boost of activity, some entrepreneurs realise they've simply created a job for themselves - one they work harder in than any job they've ever had before.

Unlike a regular job, you also have more responsibilities, fewer days off and more stress. I've been speaking to an increasing number of entrepreneurs who are burnt out. "I just don't want to work so much, all day, every day, at all hours of the day," one told me in desperation. So how do you overcome this?

There's no magic bullet for entrepreneur burnout. But there are certainly steps you can take to alleviate some of the pain.

1. Use technology to automate as much as possible
It goes without saying that you need systems in your business. I've written about this many times before. You need clear, documented procedures for all your processes. This applies to everything from how to answer the phone to how to pack and send widgets. In addition to this, remember to consider how you can use technology to automate any processes. For example, use email autoresponders to deal with standard product/service enquiries. Automate payments where possible - both incoming and outgoing. Use technology to batch process as much as possible.

2. Outsource or hire someone to do low dollar-value work
Your time is better spent being an entrepreneur than it is on administration, book-keeping or answering the phone. If you're still in the early days of your entrepreneurship journey, you might be hesitant to invest in staff. Or you might simply not be ready to let go of control. However, ask yourself whether you are making the most of your time. The bottom line is that if the work you are doing could be done by someone else at a lower hourly rate than what you can charge per hour, then you should delegate or outsource the function. I used to spend countless hours on my book-keeping until I finally outsourced it. Now, my book-keeper does a better job at my accounts than I ever did - in a fraction of the time.

3. Rethink your business model
This might be a radical idea but it could be worthwhile to rethink your business model. If your income is a direct function of your time, then your business model definitely needs an overhaul - or else you will burn out. Where do you start? Look at other people in a similar business to yours. Talk to a business coach about what you want to achieve. Force yourself to consider other opportunities and ways of structuring your business. This is your chance to be an innovator.
If you don't take steps to avoid entrepreneur burnout, the joy of entrepreneurship can get sucked out of your business. Don't let it happen.
Posted by Valerie Khoo

Take The Test To Find Out If You're a Good Boss

Most employers want to be good bosses, but sometimes it can be hard to tell if you’re heading in the right direction. Perhaps try asking yourself this list of questions produced as a kind of self test for bosses by the US-based National Federation of Independent Business:

1. Have you ever publicly criticised an employee?
2. Do you take credit for your employees’ work?
3. Do your employees fear you?
4. Do you expect employees to do what you tell them without question?
5. Do you believe employees should know what to do without you telling them or providing guidelines?
6. Are you a yeller?
7. Do you demean employees as a form of punishment?
8. Do you play favourites?
9. Do you hate delegating?
10.Do you check everyone’s work?

The New York Times has also put together a collection of some of the qualities the best bosses have, as deduced by experts in the subject.

Good bosses: Inspire confidence, are humble, have integrity, know what they were talking about, let workers get on with things, are always there when workers need help and usually say “Yes, try it.”

Bad bosses: Don't give employees a clear and compelling company direction; say important things only once and leave workers scrambling to catch up; don’t hold employees accountable; and concentrate on trying to improve employees’ shortcomings instead of figuring out what employees are really good at and training them to be brilliant.

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

What a Boss Looks Like Determines How They Performs

A couple of years ago a group of management scholars from Yale and the University of Pittsburgh tried to discover if there was a link between a company's success and the personality of its boss.

To work out what that personality was, they asked senior managers to score their bosses for such traits as an ability to communicate an exciting vision of the future or to stand as a good model for others to follow. When the data were analysed, the researchers found no evidence of a connection between how well a firm was doing and what its boss was like. As far as they could tell, a company could not be judged by its chief executive any better than a book could be judged by its cover.

A few years before this, however, a team of psychologists from Tufts University, led by Nalini Ambady, discovered that when people watched two-second-long film-clips of professors lecturing, they were pretty good at determining how able a teacher each professor actually was. At the end of the study, the perceptions generated by those who had watched only the clips were found to match those of students taught by those self-same professors for a full semesterNow, Dr Ambady and her colleague, Nicholas Rule, have taken things a step further. They have shown that even a still photograph can convey a lot of information about competence—and that it can do so in a way which suggests the assessments of all those senior managers were poppycock.

Dr Ambady and Mr Rule showed 100 undergraduates the faces of the chief executives of the top 25 and the bottom 25 companies in the Fortune 1,000 list. Half the students were asked how good they thought the person they were looking at would be at leading a company and half were asked to rate five personality traits on the basis of the photograph. These traits were competence, dominance, likeability, facial maturity (in other words, did the individual have an adult-looking face or a baby-face) and trustworthiness.

By a useful (though hardly unexpected) coincidence, all the businessmen were male and all were white, so there were no confounding variables of race or sex. The study even controlled for age, the emotional expression in the photos and the physical attractiveness of the individuals by obtaining separate ratings of these from other students and using statistical techniques to remove their effects.

This may sound like voodoo. Psychologists spent much of the 20th century denigrating the work of 19th-century physiognomists and phrenologists who thought the shapes of faces and skulls carry information about personality. However, recent work has shown that such traits can, indeed, be assessed from photographs of faces with a reasonable accuracy.

And Dr Ambady and Mr Rule were surprised by just how accurate the students' observations were. The results of their study, which are about to be published in Psychological Science, show that both the students' assessments of the leadership potential of the bosses and their ratings for the traits of competence, dominance and facial maturity were significantly related to a company's profits. Moreover, the researchers discovered that these two connections were independent of each other. When they controlled for the “power” traits, they still found the link between perceived leadership and profit, and when they controlled for leadership they still found the link between profit and power.

These findings suggest that instant judgments by the ignorant (nobody even recognised Warren Buffett) are more accurate than assessments made by well-informed professionals. It looks as if knowing a chief executive disrupts the ability to judge his performance.

Sadly, the characteristics of likeability and trustworthiness appear to have no link to company profits, suggesting that when it comes to business success, being warm and fuzzy does not matter much (though these traits are not harmful). But this result also suggests yet another thing that stockmarket analysts might care to take into account when preparing their reports: the physog of the chief executive.

The Association for Psychological Science issued a press release about Dr Rule and Dr Ambady’s researchm which was used in the preparation of this article by The Economist

Simon Turner simon@maruetteturner.com.au

Active Employees Pull More Weight!

SmartCompany reports that employees who tend to engage in regular physical activity are absent from work almost half as often as those who don’t, according to research released today by the Centre for Heart Disease and Diabetes Prevention.

The report compared the absentee rates of 200 Australian employees taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC), an event in which office workers use pedometers to track and increase their daily step count, with 200 who didn’t participate.

Over a six month period the 200 GCC participants took a total of 666 sick days, almost half as many as the 1128 sick days their more sedentary colleagues took. Overall, GCC participants took 3.3 days off over the six month period, compared to 5.6 days for non-participants.

During GCC 2007, 23,000 corporate workers across the globe walking a collective 30 billion steps, travelling 19.6 million kilometres and averaging 10,516 steps each every day.

How Well Read Are You?

In 1996 there were about 40 million internet users worldwide, by the end of 2000 there was conservatively around 500 million. Anyone know-what it is for 2007/8?

More information has been repduced in the last 30 years than in the previous 500 years. The total of all printed knowledge doubles every four or five years.

One weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come acress in a lifetime in the 17th century England.

More than 4000 books are published around the world every day.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

To Hire or Not to Hire

During the first few minutes of meeting a potential employee you tend to get a “gut feel” as to the suitability of a person within your organisation.

There are no guarantees to say this person is perfect in every way for the role, however if they have the right attitude, and the skill set that you need, or the ability to learn, chances are they will be a good match.


With the shortage of excellent candidates in today’s market, don’t take too long to make your decision. Often, in the time you take to make up your mind, the candidate has been offered and accepted a job elsewhere. The message here is simple, if your gut instinct says it is right, act upon it quickly.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

Internet Excitement: Senior Managers Lack Interest

Companies are having a tough time persuading their senior managers to take advantage of online training. According to studies, 90% of managers have Internet access, but most don’t find the time to participate in e-learning or other Internet-based training.

About 67% say they spent 30 minutes or less last year using intranets or e-learning to solve business issues. Slightly more than half (54%) have capitalised on available online management resources.

Time constraints and lack of engagement are stumbling blocks. 46% say they have “too many distractions” to use computer-based learning, while 20% claim the learning content “fails to engage them.” The conclusions were drawn from responses of nearly 1,000 managers.

In a separate survey, however, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. reports that executives see the value of advanced Internet technologies that promote self-paced learning and collaboration.

These tools include items such as peer-to-peer networking, blogs, podcasts and social networking. According to McKinsey, half of the 2,847 executives surveyed “are pleased with the results of their investments in Internet technologies” made during the past five years. Three-quarters of companies plan to either increase or at least maintain their investments in so-called Web 2.0 technologies.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

What Generation Gap? The Young & The Old Have Similar Career Objectives

Staffing firm Robert Half International is throwing cold water on the widely held perception that Generation Y workers have different concerns and wants from those of older workers.

According to research by Half and Yahoo HotJobs, younger employees “share many of the same concerns as more tenured workers when it comes to saving for retirement, finding a solid health care plan and achieving work/life balance.”

Where the divide apparently surfaces is in what these newcomers expect from company leaders. In fact, they rated “working with a boss they respect and can learn from as the most important aspect of their work environment, ahead of having a nice office space, a short commute or working for a socially responsible company.”

About 60 percent of Gen Y’ers also expect to have meaningful interaction with their managers “at least once a day.”

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

How To Get Promoted

A study at Stanford Business School examined the qualities that companies look for in promoting young managers toward senior executive positions, particularly the position of Chief Executive Officer.

The study concluded that the two most important qualities required for great success were, first, the ability to put together and function as part of a team. Since all work is ultimately done by teams, and the managers' output is the output of the team, the ability to select team members, set objectives, delegate responsibility and finally, get the job done, was central to success in management.

The second quality was found to be the ability to function well under pressure, especially in a crisis. Keeping your cool in a crisis means to practice patience and self-control under difficult or disappointing circumstances.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

Blogs? What Are They?

A blog is essentially a web-based journal. Because it’s web-based (known as a a web log, hence the name blog), it can also include photos and multimedia which allows its readers to add notes and comments to what they read. In essence, a blog can be classified as a “building block”!

Our cyberspace is full of blogs and for every blog that is out there, there are most likely numerous other blogs out there talking about the same topic. The terminology for this is “blogosphere”. But not all blogs stand alone. They can include clips from and links to outside content and other blogs.

Blogging gives you the ability to comment on other people’s writing and allows you to share your thoughts freely.

Many bloggers include extensive links to other blogs—or a “blogroll”— on their sites. You can find a blog that interests you and then explore similar blogs that are also listed . Bloggers often love to share news from their friends’ blogs, or talk about their partner’s or children’s’ blogs, which may deal with completely different subjects.

Blogging is a great way to learn more, directly from specialists, about specific subjects, or to converse online with people who share your interests. But you should use common sense when posting, and be cautious about anyone you or your children meet online.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

SYDNEY Events: Catch Them If You Can

Australian Chamber Orchestra
February 9th-March 19th 2008
In a busy 2008 schedule that will include trips to Europe and Asia, the Australian Chamber Orchestra comes to Sydney as the city wakes up after the summer holidays. Australia’s leading chamber-music ensemble kicks off the year with two programmes at the Sydney Opera House and the City Recital Hall under the direction of Richard Tognetti, the lead violinist.
The first features Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 19” played by Melvyn Tan, a British pianist, and “Strung Out”, a piece for strings by Roger Smalley, a British-born composer from Western Australia. The second programme has works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams, with Katie Noonan, a renowned Australian vocalist, performing English songs ranging from the 17th century to the Beatles.

City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney. Tel: +61 (02) 8256 2222. For programme details, see the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s website.

Open-air Cinema
Until February 16th 2008
Sydney has two outdoor cinemas running this summer, both of which are worth visiting as much for their atmosphere as for the films. The most popular is the Open Air Cinema at Mrs Macquarie’s Point, facing Sydney Harbour off the Royal Botanic Gardens. The programme mixes recent releases (such as “Michael Clayton” and “Atonement”) with previews of forthcoming features (“The Savages” and “3.10 to Yuma”). Web pre-sales have sold out, but about 50 tickets are held for sale at the gate each day from 6.30pm; it is worth joining the queue. There is a bar with drinks and good food on the premises.

You should have better luck booking ahead for the Moonlight Cinema in Centennial Park. Here you'll find a less ritzy location with a more adventurous programme, including a repertoire of classics (“2001: A Space Odyssy”, “Thelma and Louise” and “Casablanca”, among others). Bring a picnic. This cinema closes on March 9th.

Films at both cinemas start at sunset, around 8.30pm. See the Open Air Cinema's website, and the Moonlight Cinema's website.

Opera Australia Summer Season
December 31st 2007-March 29th 2008
Opera Australia, the country’s leading opera company, kicks off its summer season with a New Year’s Eve concert of selections from its repertoire. Consider splashing out on dinner beforehand or a party in the foyer afterwards, and expect excellent views of midnight fireworks over Sydney Harbour. The season closes with a rare performance of “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, conducted by Richard Hickox, the company’s music director, to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the opera’s composer.

In between, there are new productions of Bizet’s “Carmen”, directed by Francesca Zambello, and Richard Strauss’s “Arabella”. For something a little different, take a picnic and a cushion to the Domain on February 2nd for the free, open-air performance of Puccini’s “La bohème”.
Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney. Tel: +61 (02) 9250 7111. Box office: +61 (02) 9318 8200. See Opera Australia's website.

Sydney Festival
January 5th-26th 2008
In January many Sydneysiders escape the city for their summer holidays. But the Sydney Festival provides a good reason to stay. This year Fergus Linehan, the director since 2004, has added an opening night party of music and dance, which will wend through the central streets. Other highlights include appearances by Brian Wilson (co-founder of the Beach Boys), the National Theatre of Scotland and Spain's Compania Nacional de Danza.

After its sell-out debut in 2006, the Spiegeltent—a travelling tent—returns to Hyde Park to host risqué performances by La Clique, a cabaret and vaudeville company. The festival has two big open-air concerts in the Domain, both of them free. January 12th sees a jazz evening featuring the Spanish Harlem Orchestra of New York conducted by Oscar Hernandez. On the 19th the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer, performs an ensemble of classical and contemporary works. Arrive with a picnic a few hours before the 8pm starting time, as the best spots on the grass are snapped up quickly.

For programme details and bookings, see the Sydney Festival website. Telephone bookings: +61 (02) 1300 888 412.

Sidney Nolan: A New Retrospective
private collection (c) The Trustees of the Sidney Nolan Trust photograph Jenni Carter
Until February 3rd 2008

Sidney Nolan (1917-1992) is probably Australia’s most internationally renowned artist. Unashamedly modern in his approach, he drew his inspiration from the ancient landscapes of the outback. At a time when many dismissed it as harsh and barren, Mr Nolan saw this landscape as “the real Australia: old, dignified and coherent”. Starting with his earliest abstract works from the 1930s, and finishing with a spray-painted self-portrait completed in 1986, this exhibition of 117 works spans Mr Nolan’s visits to Antarctica, Africa and China.

Its essence, though, is the series of images for which he remains famous: of Burke and Wills, two ill-fated 19th-century explorers, and Ned Kelly, an outlaw whose gang was pursued by Mr Nolan’s grandfather, a policeman. They were the characters, he once said, whose stories helped him to interpret the outback. And do not miss the epic “Riverbend” series, depicting the Goulburn river in Victoria, where Mr Nolan spent part of his childhood. The exhibition is the centrepiece of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s summer season.

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery Rd, The Domain, Sydney. Tel: +61 (0)2 9225 1744. Open: daily, 10am-5pm. Admission: A$12. See also the gallery's website.

Tough Men, Hard Times: Policing the Depression
Courtesy of Michael Cannon
Until February 10th 2008

This fascinating exhibition explores the political conflicts that rocked Sydney during the Great Depression. By 1932, more than one-third of Australia's workforce was unemployed; violent clashes erupted in Sydney between police and members of the Unemployed Workers Union, a communist-backed body. The New Guard, a paramilitary group with quasi-fascist leanings, attracted about 40,000 members in response to its claims that a Soviet-backed working-class uprising was imminent.

The exhibition presents the story of the 1930s by examining Sydney's police at the time. The force infiltrated both sides, and even uncovered an alleged New Guard plot to overthrow the government of New South Wales. The archival newspaper and film images of Depression-era Sydney are riveting, and provide a sobering contrast to the booming city of today.

Justice and Police Museum, Cnr Phillip St/Albert St, Circular Quay, Sydney. Tel: +61 (02) 9252 1144. Admission: A$8. Open: Sat-Sun 10am-5pm. See the museum's website.

The Photographs of August Sander
November 17th 2007-February 3rd 2008

There could hardly be a stronger contrast to the vibrant colours of Sidney Nolan's paintings than this concurrent exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). It contains 155 photographs by August Sander, a German who documented life in the early 20th century using the faces of farmers, artisans and families around Cologne, where he lived.

The portraits tend to be austere and posed rather than spontaneous, and most predate the 1930s. The Nazi authorities’ disapproval of the social realism in Sander’s approach had a chilling effect on his output afterwards. The exhibition is drawn from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which boasts the largest collection of Sander photographs outside Germany.

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery Rd, The Domain, Sydney. Tel: +61 (0)2 9225 1744. Open: daily, 10am-5pm. Admission: free. See also the gallery's website.

Convict Hulks: Life on the Prison Ships
SJ Jones collection, State Library of Victoria
Success, a convict hulk, at Hobart (c.1894)
Until July 26th 2009

This revealing exhibition charts the human stories behind Britain’s policy of using hulks, or old and unseaworthy ships, as floating prisons in the 18th and 19th centuries. The system, pioneered in London as a solution for Britain’s overflowing prisons, was farmed out to colonies such as New South Wales, Tasmania, Gibraltar and Bermuda. Most of the displays here concentrate on Bermuda, which between 1824 and 1863 received some 9,000 convicts, 2,000 of whom died in captivity. Look out for objects recovered by divers in 1982 from the Dromedary, a sunken convict hulk. They include pipes, rings and gaming boards that convicts made from bone, shell and metal to sell in exchange for tobacco, alcohol and food. The exhibition fits comfortably in the Hyde Park Barracks Museum, which sits in Sydney’s most historic convict building.

Hyde Park Barracks Museum, Queens Square, Macquarie St, Sydney. Tel: +61 (02) 8239 2311. Open: daily 9.30am-5pm. See also the museum's website.

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

That Sinking Feeling: Depression Saps Workers

Mental illness takes a bigger toll on business than physical woes, and disability absences are twice as long when triggered by depression.

If your bottom line has you feeling blue, don’t let that feeling get out of hand, or the bottom line could really suffer.

That’s because while workers with behavioral health problems—a phrase that encompasses substance abuse and mental health problems—are a small percentage of the overall workforce, they are responsible for a large percentage of overall health expenditures.

Marquette Turner has found studies in the US that indicate, for example, that roughly 6 percent of the U.S. workforce is depressed at any given time. But according to Sibson Consulting in Chicago, behavioral health issues cause 217 million missed workdays annually, account for 7.6 percent of total health care dollars, and are the fifth leading cause of short-term disability and, ultimately, the third leading cause of long-term disability.

Studies also show that 29 percent of health- and productivity-related expenditures are a result of employee absence and disability caused by physical health problems, while 47 percent are caused by mental health conditions.

Lost productivity from behavioral health problems can be staggering. For example, a 2006 Aetna analysis of claims found that disability absences doubled in length when the cause was depression. In a study of employers—including large private employers and governmental entities—OptumHealth Behavioral Solutions found that the average annual cost of lost productivity due to depression was $5 million per company.

Just letting employees know what benefits exist and encouraging them to utilize them is a good strategy. Firms should also analyze who is prescribing antidepressants and encourage employees to go to mental health professionals instead of general practitioners, Donahue says.
Antidepressants are often prescribed by general practitioners, but studies show that a combination of medicine and psychiatric therapy is the most effective treatment. Going to a mental health professional and getting therapy along with medication is more likely to result in better treatment, she says.

Employees who are depressed have higher medical utilization rates, so medical plan costs are higher. Depression becomes the costliest behavioral health-related issue for employers because when the high prevalence of depression among employees is factored together with medical, pharmaceutical and workplace productivity costs, the total cost to the employer is huge.

Employers should have a systematic program for treating depression. Training managers and organizational leaders to identify depression is also critical because workers may not recognize that they are depressed, she says.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

Expensive Things Makes You Feel Good: FACT!

EVERYONE loves a bargain. But retailers know that people will sometimes turn their noses up at a cheap version of a more expensive item, even if the two are essentially the same.

That suggests something is at work in the mind of the consumer beyond simple appreciation of a product's intrinsic qualities.

The something in question is expectation, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Antonio Rangel of the California Institute of Technology and reported by The Economist. Dr Rangel and his colleagues found that if people are told a wine is expensive while they are drinking it, they really do think it tastes nicer than a cheap one, rather than merely saying that they do.


Dr Rangel came to this conclusion by scanning the brains of 20 volunteers while giving them sips of wine. He used a trick called functional magnetic-resonance imaging, which can detect changes in the blood flow in parts of the brain that correspond to increased mental activity. He looked in particular at the activity of the medial orbitofrontal cortex. This is an area of the brain that previous experiments have shown is responsible for registering pleasant experiences.

Dr Rangel gave his volunteers sips of what he said were five different wines made from cabernet sauvignon grapes, priced at between $5 and $90 a bottle. He told each of them the price of the wine in question as he did so. Except, of course, that he was fibbing. He actually used only three wines. He served up two of them twice at different prices.


What is truth?
The scanner showed that the activity of the medial orbitofrontal cortices of the volunteers increased in line with the stated price of the wine. For example, when one of the wines was said to cost $10 a bottle it was rated less than half as good as when people were told it cost $90 a bottle, its true retail price. Moreover, when the team carried out a follow-up blind tasting without price information they got different results. The volunteers reported differences between the three “real” wines but not between the same wines when served twice.


Nor was the effect confined to everyday drinkers. When Dr Rangel repeated the experiment on members of the Stanford University wine club he got similar results. All of which raises the question of what is going on.

There are at least two possibilities. The point of learning is to improve an individual's chances of surviving and reproducing: if the experience and opinions of others can be harnessed to that end, so much the better. Dr Rangel suspects that what he has found is a mechanism for learning quickly what has helped others in the past, and thus for allowing choices about what is nice and what is nasty to be made speedily and efficiently. In modern society, price is probably a good proxy for such collective wisdom.

However, goods can be desirable for a reason other than survival value. Many of the things for which high price is an enhancement are purchased in order to show off, as any male confronted with the wine list in a fancy restaurant knows. Indeed, conspicuous consumption and waste are an important part of social display. Deployed properly, they bring the rewards of status and better mating opportunities. For this to work, though, it helps if the displaying individual really believes that what he is buying is not only more expensive than the alternative, but better, too. Truly enjoying something simply because it is exclusive thus makes evolutionary sense.

Besides its role in giving cachet to wine, this may be the explanation for the sort of modern art that leaves the man in the street cold. Art collecting is a high-status activity par excellence. Many lowlier mortals regard it as pretentious. If Dr Rangel is right, though, pretence may not be the true explanation. The collector who has paid millions for a plain-coloured canvas or a pickled sheep probably really does think it is beautiful.

Whichever explanation is correct (and both might be), Dr Rangel's research also has implications for retailers, marketing firms and luxury-goods producers. It suggests that a successful marketing campaign can not only make people more interested in a product, but also, truly, make them enjoy it more.



Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

Taming the Lion: 100 Secret Strategies for Investing Success - by Richard Farleigh

BOOK REVIEW

A former economist and a chess player, Richard Farleigh saw investment and trading as a form of gambling. But gradually he came to believe that market prices are predictable and recognised the many opportunities the markets could offer.

In Taming the Lion, Farleigh shares the unconventional philosophies he has developed over the years. The book will take you through the 100 strategies Farleigh has developed to enable consistent success in the markets.

rrp: $29.95
ISBN: 978 0 731404 63 6

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au

Karōshi: Death from Overwork

Karōshi (過労死), which can be translated quite literally from Japanese as "death from overwork", is occupational sudden death. The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress.

The first case of karōshi was reported in 1969 with the death from a stroke of a 29-year-old male worker in the shipping department of Japan's largest newspaper company. It was not until the latter part of the 1980s, during the Bubble Economy, however, when several high-ranking business executives who were still in their prime years suddenly died without any previous sign of illness, that the media began picking up on what appeared to be a new phenomenon.

This new phenomenon was quickly labeled karōshi and was immediately seen as a new and serious menace for people in the work force. In 1987, as public concern increased, the Japanese Ministry of Labour began to publish statistics on karōshi.

Usually, Japan's rise from the devastation of World War II to economic prominence in the post-war decades has been regarded as the trigger for what has been called a new epidemic. It was recognized that employees cannot work for up to twelve or more hours a day, six or seven days a week, year after year, without suffering physically as well as mentally.

A recent measurement found that a Japanese worker has approximately two hours overtime a day on average. In almost all cases, the overtime is unpaid. The recent international expansion of Japanese multinationals has also led to an export of the Karōshi culture to countries such as China, Korea and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, death-by-overwork lawsuits have been on the rise in Japan, with the deceased person's relatives demanding compensation payments. However, before compensation can be awarded, the labour inspection office must acknowledge that the death was work-related. As this may take many years in detailed and time-consuming judicial hearings, many do not demand payment.

Japanese courts have even awarded damages to relatives in cases of work overload induced stress or depression ending with the suicide of the employee when the Labour Standards Inspection Office rejected the plea for compensation. The practice of "voluntary" undocumented unpaid overtime (sabisu-zangyo) is also reported as leading to karōshi incidents.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour published relevant statistics in 2007: about 355 workers fell severely ill or died from overwork in the year to March, the highest figure on record and 7.6 percent up from the previous year. Of the total, 147 people died, many from strokes or heart attacks. Separately, another 819 workers contended they became mentally ill due to overwork, with 205 cases given compensation, according to the ministry data released on Wednesday. Mentally troubled workers killed themselves or attempted to do so in 176 cases.

Simon Turner: simon@marquetteturner.com.au

TOXIC: When the Workplace Turns Sour

Question:

Many complain about poor workplace behaviors of others. Although not illegal, these behaviors are unhealthy and unproductive. Some of those that I work with do not seem capable of getting along with each other, and it’s harming our ability to work efficiently. What can I do to address these behaviors and improve this toxic work environment?

Answer:

The first step is to create a clear list of the exact behaviors you have in mind. Until people know what is and what isn’t OK at work, your workplace will continue to put up with employees’ differing standards.

For some, asking for a date is cute and flirtatious. For others, it’s awkward and insulting. For some, terms like “stupid” are playful, while others find it demeaning and unprofessional.

Your team should meet with people who had complained of a toxic work environment and ask them to share the details of what other's are saying and doing. From these interviews then develop a detailed list of inappropriate behaviors.

What may seem menial and rather obvious can produce spectacular results. After turning the list into a formal code of conduct, ask each team member to agree to the code and then start holding people accountable to the new standard. So, start by clarifying the new rules.

At the personal level, deal with each abusive interaction as it happens. Hold what we have come to call a “crucial conversation.” Start by assuming the other person isn’t fully aware of the impact of their actions. Instead of becoming upset, ask yourself: Why would a reasonable, rational and decent person do what they just did? Now you won’t be angry and won’t start the discussion on the wrong foot.

Next, describe the problem, starting with the facts: “Here’s what just happened” as opposed to what you want to see happen. For example: “You raised your voice and called me incompetent. I was hoping we could keep our conversations free from labels or a harsh tone.” Then stop and check for the other person’s point of view. “Is that what just happened, or did I miss something?”

If the person agrees but seems unaffected, explain the consequences of their actions—how it made you feel and the effects on your relationship. If they still remain unaffected, explain that you’ll have to call in an authority figure. Of course, this won’t be necessary as long as you start the discussion with a clear and unemotional description of the problem. When you keep a professional tone, the other person is likely to respond in kind and you’ll engage in a healthy discussion of the problem.

You are right to be concerned about a toxic work environment. Everybody deserves a workplace filled with civility and respect.

Christine Watson: christine@marquetteturner.com.au

No Act: Keeping the Cirque de Soleil Show on the Road

If the logistics of mounting Cirque du Soleil’s signature big tent productions seem daunting, so is the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to keep entertainers and other employees properly insured and protected.


That task continues to grow as the privately held Montreal entertainment enterprise adds to its eight touring troupes, five resident shows and related projects.



Coordinating benefits for Cirque du Soleil can be as complicated as the somersaults performed by acrobats in the troupe’s giant spinning German Wheel act.

How can an employer provide health insurance for workers who travel 100 percent of the time? How should it calculate risk for employees whose daily routines include fireworks, martial arts and hanging from ropes 50 feet off the ground?

It’s all in a day’s work for Hélène Thibault, a senior benefits manager for the avant-garde circus. Her background as an accredited actuary makes her especially well suited to the job. It’s not the usual career path for actuaries, the highly trained professionals who use math, statistics and finance theory to calculate the business impacts of risk. But it’s one Thibault, 30, enjoys. It brings imagination to a profession that’s typically black and white.

"Cirque du Soleil is a creative company, so working in benefits can’t be that straightforward," she says. "We need to be creative and adapt to everything the company is doing. We always work in the gray areas."


On the road
In her role as senior benefits manager, Thibault is responsible for planning health care coverage for a majority of Cirque du Soleil’s approximately 4,000 employees. She is one of 70 employees on Cirque du Soleil’s HR team in Montreal, and her charges include 1,600 employees in Montreal and 1,000 permanent expatriates—the performing artists and support personnel who travel continuously around the world. Thibault and her team of four assistants were also responsible for developing and financing a health insurance plan for Cirque du Soleil employees in Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida, where the company stages permanent shows at hotels. A stateside HR staff administers it, however.

With such a diverse global workforce, one-size-fits-all benefits are out of the question. Expats pose particular problems because they change addresses—and often countries—every six to eight weeks. One of the first things Thibault did after joining Cirque du Soleil in October 2006 was reorganize the company’s health insurance coverage. Until then, the company had used one carrier for its U.S. employees and a second for everyone else. But the setup caused problems.

For a venture as risky as a circus, Cirque du Soleil’s accident rate isn’t out of the norm, Thibault says. "For sure we have some accidents. Things happen, but probably not as much as people think," she says.

In one such case in mid-November 2007, two performers in the circus’ Zumanity show at the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas were hurt during an aerial performance and taken to a local hospital. One performer was released the next day and the other was still being treated for undisclosed injuries two weeks later. At the time, a spokeswoman said all company emergency procedures had been followed.

Cirque du Soleil’s workers’ comp program is partially self-insured. Each year, Thibault uses historical claims data and other factors to calculate how much the company will pay per workers’ comp claim, a number the company doesn’t disclose. Anything over that amount is covered by outside workers’ comp insurance, also from Cigna.

Cirque du Soleil hasn’t encountered a major disaster, but there have been scares. When Hurricane Katrina devastated Biloxi, Mississippi, in fall 2005, Cirque du Soleil was in the final stages of prepping for a six-month show that was to open there the following February. In a short time, the company came up with a Plan B and sent the show to South America instead, Thibault says.

In the event that a show can’t go on, the circus carries cancellation insurance. Since joining the company, Thibault has also begun planning for other catastrophes. For example, she has used computer models to calculate how many days of work the company’s employees would miss in the event of a worldwide outbreak of the flu or another pandemic. "I don’t think anyone else in the HR department could have built that," she says.

Repeat After Me: "I Can Do It"

According to psychologists, repeating the words “I Can Do It” is the way to overcome any fear of failure that may be holding you back from achieving your goals and dreams.

By repeatedly talking to yourself , enthusiastically saying the words, “I Can Do It, I Can Do It, I Can do It”, you will get the message into your subconscious mind, which will then lower any fears you may have and helps to build your self confidence. To motivate yourself, reaffirm what you want, and talk to yourself with positive, uplifting words – it makes you feel good!

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

The Stress of I.T.

Technology professionals seem to be happy with their jobs, but they are also extremely stressed and likely to recommend careers in other fields to their friends, according to a new report from Dice.com.

The Dice Tech Appeal Index measures a person’s inclination to recommend the information technology field to others as opposed to another industry. Some 1,000 individuals were surveyed, including 565 adults currently working in IT.

For IT companies, there is good news in the survey. Ninety-one percent of survey participants say they are somewhat or very satisfied in their current job. What’s more, 92 percent of respondents note they intend to stay in the IT field for at least the next six months.

The bad news is that despite the general satisfaction with their jobs, IT professionals are more inclined to recommend a career in other industries to their friends than they were a year ago. Recommending jobs in financial services went up by almost 10 percentage points to 56 percent, as it did for media and entertainment, which moved to 44 percent from 34 percent.

“Although the satisfaction and loyalty levels of IT professionals continue to be strong, we're seeing evidence of possible retention issues over the long term,” said Scot Melland, chairman, president and CEO of Dice Holdings Inc., parent company of New York-based Dice, in a release.

One key culprit may be work-related anxiety. The study found that 91 percent of respondents associate the work with stress—mostly due to workload, dealing with clients and pace of the job.

The fear of exporting work overseas also weighs on the minds of IT professionals. Forty-six percent of survey participants say they are somewhat or very concerned about offshoring, an increase from 39 percent a year ago.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

When Writing is Wrong

Studies now show there is a glaring deficiency in reading and writing among new entrants in the workforce, and that is troubling employers who are being forced to invest in additional training—or simply look for skilled workers offshore—for one of the most fundamental job skills in the 21st century economy.

Studies are showing that today’s workforce is “woefully ill-prepared” for the demands of the workplace.

The decline in reading and writing skills has demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications. Workers who cannot read and write well earn less and have higher unemployment rates. Employers, meanwhile, must spend more time and money on what is considered a basic skill.

Even among recent graduates, new employees are frequently unable to write effectie business communication, read analytically or solve problems.

It’s nice that they are reading e-mails and reading comics, but if they can’t turn it into a communication tool, that is where the breakdown happens on the employer side.

Literacy levels today are similar to those in 1970, but the economy has changed drastically since then. Workers today need to be able to read and analyze complex, often very technical material, like manuals for car mechanics, to succeed in most jobs.

Jobs that don’t have much in the way of skills have moved out of the country or are not living-wage jobs. That means even jobs that are considered low skill, require workers to read at a reasonably high level.

Schools are not demanding students to read what the workforce is demanding them to read and the problems come down to basic errors in grammar, spelling and tone that can nonetheless be disastrous for a company and its image.

If you can’t make sure an e-mail is grammatically correct, what else are you cutting corners on? Companies invest millions of dollars in their image and it can be undone in a matter of minutes by one sloppy e-mail.

Christine Watson christine@marquetteturner.com.au

Ease Yourself Into 2008

Christmas and new year celebrations have come and gone, as have the decorations, family, and hopefully any hang-overs!

Now it’s time to get back into it, and it wouldn't be so surprising if there's more than a few people out there who are not exactly jumping out of bed in the mornings to hurry off to work, after seeing what a good couple of days or weeks off feels like!

Here are our tips to ease yourself back into work life, if you’re feeling a little less than enthused.

Be measured

If you spent a lazy week on a beach in Queensland, jumped on a plane, and were at work bright and early the next morning, no wonder you’re feeling a little worse for wear! Or, if you just had to go to every late night party on offer over the Christmas break, and then expected to be able to turn your body clock around in the blink of an eye, I’m sure you had another think coming!

Recognise that you over-indulged and lived completely differently from normal – hey, it’s called a holiday! – and take your time getting back into your everyday life. Perhaps try to keep your working hours shorter for the first week. Ultimately, however, don't punish or expect too much from yourself.

Engage yourself.

Find a project that you can get into straight away. Something a little bit exciting or different from your normal work routine. If you have something to work on, and an end result to look forward to, it can make taking your mind off other things a lot easier.

See the lessons.

It's hardly surprising if you rediscovered how nice it is to enjoy taking time off. Let this be a lesson for you. In your first spare five minutes, sit down with your diary and work out when you’re going to take your next real break. Let’s face it – if you wait too long before planning your next holiday, you’ll lose interest and just not do it at all!

And, most of all, remember that being at work is what enables you to afford to take holidays in the first place! So, get set for a fantastic 2008, put everything into your work, and most importantly ensure that you aim for balance.

Simon Turner simon@marquetteturner.com.au