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#Strategy : How To Cut Your Email Time In Half…Would you Like a Simple Way to Dramatically Cut the Time you Spend on Emails?

June 28, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

According to a survey conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, office workers spend 2.6 hours per day reading and answering emails. This equates to 33% of a 40-hour workweek.

What’s worse is that smartphones, laptops, and other mobile devices have many checking their email constantly: while commuting (yes, I see you checking your phone while driving), waiting at the doctor’s office, at mealtimes, and every other situation imaginable.

But is there a better way to manage your email? Over the years, I’ve found out that the key to mastering email (instead of letting email master you) is to have a system.

Ergo, seven steps to master your email:

1. Unsubscribe from email newsletters.

Do you really need to subscribe to all those fashion websites? Those flash deals-of-the-day offers? Those viral clickbait “news” headlines? Don’t give permission to all those companies to intrude on your day, to interrupt your flow, and to tempt you with their offers. They’re trying hard to get into your head, but they can’t if they’re not in your inbox to begin with.

Just go into your email and search for “unsubscribe” and then unsubscribe from all the email newsletters that you find. There’s also a great website called Unroll.Me that will let you easily unsubscribe from the newsletters you want to trash. It will then consolidate the newsletters you want to keep into one big daily email.

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2. Turn off all email notifications.

Email is not intended to be an urgent form of communication. Nowadays, when most of us are getting 50 to 500 emails a day, getting email notifications is a sin. Notifications interrupt your concentration, your work sprints, and your ability to be present during meetings and conversations.

Whatever notifications you’re using, whether an audible ding, a phone vibration, or a little window that pops up with every new email–turn it off.

3. Think twice before you forward, cc or bcc.

As reported in an August 9, 2013, article in the Wall Street Journal, London-based International Power reduced total email traffic by 54% just by encouraging their top executives to “think twice” before they forwarded an email or added anyone to the cc: line. Too often we forward or cc someone in the spirit of keeping them “in the loop,” but in reality we are contributing to the information overload problem.

Remember, every email you send and every cc you include means you are likely going to get a reply back into your own email box. If you send less email, you’ll also receive less email.

4. Use the subject line to indicate the action required.

An ideal subject line doesn’t just indicate the subject of the email, but also the type of action it requires. This helps email recipients to process your email in less time. And they’ll learn to reciprocate. The idea is to preface your subject line message with some meta-information. I like to use all caps to make this part of the subject stand out from the message. Here are some examples:

“FYI: [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][subject]”—Use the FYI designation when you are just passing info along as a courtesy.

“ACTION REQUIRED by [DATE]: [subject]” or “TO DO by [DATE]”—Use ACTION REQUIRED when your recipients should take an action, but they don’t report to you; use TO DO when you are giving a directive to someone who reports to you.

“NRN: [subject]”—NRN stands for “no response needed” and can be used to eliminate the polite response emails that people often send like “Thanks” or “Looks interesting” or “I’ll take a look at this next week,” etc.

“[subject]–EOM”—My personal favorite, EOM stands for “end of message” and lets you put super short messages right in the subject line. EOM tells the recipient, don’t bother opening this one because all the content is in the subject line.

5. Keep emails short—really short.

Realize that being brief isn’t rude; it’s a sign of respect for the other person’s time (in addition to your own).

There is even a movement that suggests we consider email messages to be similar to text messages. The website five.sentenc.es suggests you limit all your emails to five sentences or fewer and then add a footer message that directs people to the website for an explanation.

6. Use the 321-Zero system.

I’m a firm believer that you should only process email three times a day.

Schedule three times to process your email (morning, noon, night), set the timer on your phone for 21 minutes, and try to get to inbox zero in that time. Make a game out of it—21 minutes is typically not enough time to get to zero, and that’s intentional. But this goal will keep you focused, ensure that your responses are short, and keep you from clicking links out onto the wonderful world of internet distractions.

7. Immediately apply the 4 D’s.

Every time you open an email, you should be ready to Delete it (archive), Delegate it (forward), Defer it (move to your calendar), or Do it.

• Delete: When you think “delete,” in most cases you should really just archive. These days, with virtually unlimited storage space, it’s easy to just hit the Archive button on most things, knowing that you can use the search function to get it back again in the future.

• Delegate: If someone else should be handling this, forward it immediately.

• Defer: If you defer an email, in most cases that means immediately adding an entry to your calendar—“moving” the email to a calendar entry.

• Do: If you can handle this in five minutes or less, do it right away.

After each of first three actions, either archive the email or delete it.

In addition to the 4 D’s, consider F for File it. In my opinion, this is just another form of archiving, but it can be helpful especially if you’re nervous that you might not be able to find something again. Just create folders for all your projects, clients, or even something like “Respond to Someday,” and then drag emails related to those topics into the folders to keep your inbox nice and clean.

There they are—seven simple steps to master your email. Try using these to keep your email under control, and you’ll suddenly discover hours per week that you didn’t know you had.

–

Kevin Kruse is the author of 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management and “The Millionaire Day Planner: A Free 1-Page Planning Tool.”

Forbes.com | June 27, 2016 | Kevin Kruse

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#Leadership : This is How you make Better Decisions, According to Science…Yeah, it Can Really be that Simple: Thinking about How you Would Help Others is Often the Best Way to Help Yourself.

June 27, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Life would be a lot easier if we just knew how to make good decisions. Research shows we all make a lot of bad ones, according to Chip Heath’s “Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work.”

With careers:

“More than half of teachers quit their jobs within four years. In fact, one study in Philadelphia schools found that a teacher was almost two times more likely to drop out than a student.”

In our jobs:

“A study showed that when doctors reckoned themselves ‘completely certain’ about a diagnosis, they were wrong 40% of the time.”

And in our personal lives:

“… an estimated 61,535 tattoos were reversed in the United States in 2009.”

We get a lot of sketchy tips based on unreliable sources. So what does the scientific research say about how to make good decisions?

For starters, you might think you would be better off if you just had more information about the choice at hand.

And you’d be wrong …

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You don’t need more info, you need the right info

In the past 20 years we went from a world where information was difficult to come by to a world where we can’t get away from the stuff. The phrase “TMI” is now more true than ever.

When doctors are diagnosing heart attacks, the glut of information isn’t just a nuisance — it can be deadly, according to “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”:

“What Goldman’s algorithm indicates, though, is that the role of those other factors is so small in determining what is happening to the man right now that an accurate diagnosis can be made without them … that extra information is more than useless. It’s harmful. It confuses the issues. What screws up doctors when they are trying to predict heart attacks is that they take too much information into account.”

Solution?

Spend less time trying to amass all the information and more time better defining the problem so you can find the right information.

As Dan Pink explains in his bestseller, “To Sell Is Human“, research shows one of the hallmarks of great advances in both the arts and sciences is spending more time on clarifying problems.

Via “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others“:

“‘The quality of the problem that is found is a forerunner of the quality of the solution that is attained…’ Getzels concluded.”

And people who focus on the problem instead of the answer end up more successful in their careers.

Via “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others“:

“In 1970, Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels tracked down these same artists, now out of school and working for a living to see how they were faring. About half the students had left the art world altogether. The other half was working, and often succeeding, as professional artists. The composition of that second group? Nearly all were problem finders back in their school days.”

(To learn what Harvard research says will make you more successful and happier, click here.)

Alright, you’re clarifying the problem and focused on getting the right info. Good. So now you need to be ultra-rational and logical, unswayed by emotion in order to make a good choice, right? Wrong again …

Feelings are your friends

Being calm definitely helps when trying to make good decisions — but ignoring emotions is silly.

As Stanford professor Baba Shiv explains, choices can’t be made without feelings.

Via “The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive“:

“In the late ’80s and through the ’90s, says Shiv, neuroscientists “started providing evidence for the diametric opposite viewpoint” to rational-choice theory: ‘that emotion is essential for and fundamental to making good decisions.'”

And not only do we need feelings to make decisions, engaging them also leads to betterdecisions.

Professor Timothy Wilson, author of “Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change“, says feeling beats thinking when it comes to relationship predictions:

“It was the people in the ‘gut feeling’ group whose ratings predicted whether they were still dating their partner several months later. As for the navel gazers, their satisfaction ratings did not predict the outcome of their relationships at all.”

And matters of the heart aren’t the only place where feelings help. Empathy can be a big positive when trying to make good choices. Research shows doctors who feel empathy make better decisions for their patients.

Wharton professor Adam Grant, author of the bestseller “Give and Take“, told me:

“There is a great study by Turner and colleagues showing that when radiologists saw a photo of the patient whose x-ray they were about to scan, they empathized more with the person. They saw that person as more of a human being as opposed to just an x-ray. As a result, they wrote longer reports and they had greater diagnostic accuracy, significantly.”

Certainly there are times when we need to think things through and be very rational. So how do you know whether to go with your gut or not?

For simple decisions without many factors involved (What soda should I buy?) be rational.
For very complex or weighty decisions (Am I in love?) trust your gut.

Via “How We Decide“:

As Dijksterhuis demonstrated, when you ask the prefrontal cortex to make (complex) decisions, it makes consistent mistakes… It might sound ridiculous, but it makes scientific sense: Think less about those items that you care a lot about. Don’t be afraid to let your emotions choose.

Now what about when you’re tired and it’s hard to think? Don’t worry — research says go with your gut.

And what about when you’re really really tired? Just go to bed. Studies show the old saw is true: “sleeping on it” works.

(To learn the #1 decision-making secret of astronauts, samurai, Navy SEALs and psychopaths, click here.)

Okay, you’ve defined the problem, got the right info and you’re not ignoring your feelings. What’s a key tool most people ignore that will let you know you should trust your decisions?

Know your strengths

Modern science is awesome but here you may wanna take a lesson from the ancient Greeks: “Know Thyself.”

There are few things that can truly guide powerful decisions more than knowledge of who you really are and what you’re good at. And the research agrees.

Definitely trust your gut on a subject — if it’s something you’re an expert at:

A new study from researchers at Rice University, George Mason University and Boston College suggests you should trust your gut — but only if you’re an expert… Across both studies, participants who possessed expertise within the task domain performed on average just as well intuitively as analytically. In addition, experts significantly outperformed novices when making their decisions intuitively but not when making their decisions analytically.

I know what some of you are thinking: But I’m not sure what my strengths are.

No sweat. All you need is a pen, paper and time. Keep a “decision diary.”

Peter Drucker, author of “The Effective Executive“, and one of the most influential thinkers on the subject of management, recommends monitoring what you do and noting what gets results over time:

“Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations… Practiced consistently, this simple method will show you within a fairly short period of time, maybe two or three years, where your strengths lie — and this is the most important thing to know.”

Don’t trust your memory. Write it down. Make it a game. See where you score highly and not so highly.

Good at work decisions but bad when it comes to your personal life? Now you’ll know when you can trust your gut and when you may need some help.

(To learn the 4 lifehacks from ancient philosophy that will make you happier, click here.)

All the ideas so far are great but there’s one critical thing that’s missing: when do you stop deciding? When is it time to pull the trigger?

Make a ‘good enough’ decision

Don’t sweat making the absolute 100% best decision. We all know being a perfectionist can be stressful — and neuroscience backs this up. Trying to be perfect overwhelms your brain and makes you feel out of control.

Via “The Upward Spiral“:

“Trying for the best, instead of good enough, brings too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal activity into the decision-making process. In contrast, recognizing that good enough is good enough activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, which helps you feel more in control …”

As Swarthmore professor Barry Schwartz said in my interview with him: “Good enough is almost always good enough.”

Sound too easy? Too simplistic? Okay, let’s look at a real world example of how people at the highest levels make decisions.

James Waters was Deputy Director of Scheduling at The White House. (Word on the street is they make some pretty big decisions there.) What did James tell me?

“A good decision now is better than a perfect decision in two days”:

“Being able to make decisions when you know you have imperfect data is so critical. I was always taught that ‘A good decision now is better than a perfect decision in two days.’ Many people I know in business recoil at that statement. Many colleagues in graduate school had come from places where they were analysts at a company and their job was to analyze and analyze and analyze. They couldn’t believe somebody would say that you should actually encourage people to make a decision with imperfect information — but I firmly believe you should. I think that’s really important for leaders to incorporate. It’s something that the White House has to do all the time. It’s great to analyze things but at some stage you’re just spinning your wheels.:

So focus on “good enough” instead of overthinking the problem. And if you do, you get an extra bonus: research shows your decisions are more likely to be ethical ones.

(To learn the four rituals that neuroscience says will make you happy, click here.)

Alright, we covered a lot. Let’s round everything up — and learn the one simple question that can help you make solid decisions when you’re crunched for time …

To sum up

Here’s how to make good decisions:

You don’t need more info, you need the right info: Clarify the problem and get relevant data, not all the data.
Feelings are not the enemy: For simple choices, use raw brainpower. For complex choices, trust intuition.
If you’re an expert in the area, trust your gut: Not sure if you’re an expert? Keep a decision diary.
“Good enough is almost always good enough”: Trying to be perfect makes your brain miserable.

And if you forget everything above, what one thing should you remember?

In my interview with Duke professor Dan Ariely (author of “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions“) he said you’re more likely to make a good decision if you “take the outside perspective.” What’s that mean?

Just ask yourself, “What advice would I give to someone else in this situation?”:

“If I had to give advice across many aspects of life, I would ask people to take what’s called ‘the outside perspective.’ And the outside perspective is easily thought about: ‘What would you do if you made the recommendation for another person?’ And I find that often when we’re recommending something to another person, we don’t think about our current state and we don’t think about our current emotions. We actually think a bit more distantly from the decision and often make the better decision because of that.”

Yeah, it can really be that simple: thinking about how you would help others is often the best way to help yourself.

Businessinsider.com | June 27, 2016 | Eric Barker

Your #Career : Networking- This Is What You Do When You Want to Own The Room Within 5 Minutes…When Applying these Steps, it Can be Hard to Know How Well you Did. Don’t Succumb to Doubt. Believe in Yourself & What you Have put Forward

June 27, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Owning a room is a quintessential skill when navigating both the professional and social worlds. It’s more than looking someone in the eye, having a firm handshake and bringing enough business cards.

These are the cornerstones of creating a rapport with others, but there’s so much more to presenting the best version of yourself. When you’re on your game, you’ll project charisma, command attention, and inspire trust with your confidence, openness and versatility. It’s about doing your homework, asserting leadership and connecting in a way that will leave an impression long after you’ve left.

Sound like you? If not, don’t worry. These things can be learned. Follow these nine easy tips, and you’ll be prepared to walk into that room as if it always belonged to you.

1. Be prepared.
You’ve heard it over and over, because it’s true — knowledge is power. Who are you meeting, and what is important to them? What are their interests, and what do you have to offer that might catch their attention? Giving yourself the time to formulate a strategy that’s targeted to your audience can make all the difference. To quote another aphorism, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

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2. Walk in with a firm (yet flexible) goal.

Know why you’re there and what you want. Bruce Lee once said, “a goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.” Think of your goal as a direction, rather than a destination, and you’ll have a much easier time finding your way. And on the way, to take another suggestion from Lee, learn to be like water. There are no perfect fits, but combining adaptability with a clear sense of your goals will allow you to find common ground. Still, water doesn’t mix with everything. In your search for common ground, know when you’ve hit a dead end. If your goals simply can’t align with who you’re talking to, don’t waste your time — or theirs. Walk with purpose.

3. Dress the part and enter strong.
British author Thomas Fuller said, “good clothes open all doors.” Dress to impress for a good first impression when you stride through that door. If you’re having trouble determining the dress code, go back to step one. Your research should provide you with a sense of what your audience will expect when they first see you. Then make sure that your ensemble is clean and pressed. This is the first impression you’ll be making, and you want to begin the race with a head start. That said, don’t be afraid to let a little personality show. Dressing professionally is all well and good, but think of it as a nice picture frame presenting you.

4. Put the phone down.
According to the Pew Research Center, 67 percent of people check their phone for messages or alerts, even without the prompt of a ring or vibration. Dividing your attention when it should be focused on the people in front of you is a major no-no. Unless you’re using it in your presentation, keep your phone in your pocket. You are there for the people you’re meeting, and if you’re checking your phone, it communicates that you’re not interested in them. Do yourself a favor, and turn the phone off. Your messages can wait. The people in front of you shouldn’t have to.

5. Smile and gesture.
If dressing the part is the cake, a good smile is the icing. Researchers at Harvard University and the University of California concluded that smiling is contagious. Your smile really can light up a room! Be the pleasant, friendly person they want to talk to. Make them want to engage. And gesticulate, using body language to draw others in. This magnifies your presence and joy, making you a bright personality that they won’t want to look away from.

6. Pay attention to what they’re saying, and what they’re not saying.
Like checking your rear view mirror, it’s vital to take stock of what isn’t in front of you in a conversation. What are they avoiding talking about? How are they holding themselves? Are they leaning forward? Are they drawing back or folding their arms and legs? Take these factors into account when you respond. And remember that this advice goes double for you. Like your expression and your gestures, your body language will communicate wordlessly with your audience.

7. Don’t commit until you’re convinced.
Research published by the Journal of Consumer Research found that rejecting projects that conflict with your core wants and beliefs leads to more productivity. Don’t say yes unless you can say it with confidence, because the people you bring into your life, and the projects that occupy your time, should be worthwhile. Networking and working for their own sake won’t make you look impressive. In fact, you might end up looking desperate. Don’t overcommit, and don’t accept just anything. Let them want to impress you.

8. Avoid complaining and criticizing.
“People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining,” says Stephen Hawking. Instead of looking for problems, find out what other people want and try to be their solution. Be that answer everyone has been looking for. Even if you don’t have a complete solution, look for ways to move toward one, as opposed to bashing the opposition. Presenting an understanding, positive viewpoint is better than being antagonistic.

9. Don’t just think it — know it.
I can’t stress it enough — be prepared. It is essential to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk. Come off as an expert, speaking confidently and fluently about what your goals are, what you know about them and why you’re there. And don’t fake it! The point isn’t to pretend you know what you mean, but to effectively translate that you do know your stuff, and you’re not afraid to step up.

When applying these steps, it can be hard to know how well you did. Don’t succumb to doubt. Believe in yourself and what you have put forward. Follow this advice, and you won’t need a receipt to prove you owned the room. The messages waiting when you turn your phone back on will be enough.

entrepreneur.com | June 2016 | Jennifer Cohen

Your #Career : 10 Middle Class Jobs That Will Be Gone Soon…Unemployment May have Returned to Pre-Recession Levels, But the Middle Class Jobs Americans Used to Rely On to Get by are Nowhere to Be Found.

June 23, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

A significant number of new jobs added since the 2008 economic meltdown are in low-paying industries like food service and home health care, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis found. At the same time, many traditional middle-class jobs, like those in construction and manufacturing, have vanished

The news isn’t all bad. The U.S. economy has also added well-paying jobs in information services, management and consulting, and software development, the WSJ’s research found. But there’s no doubt that many of the jobs that once provided a secure middle-class income to millions of Americans no longer exist. Some – especially government jobs – have vanished due to budget cuts, while others have been shifted offshore or eliminated when technology made workers obsolete. And the worst isn’t over yet, at least in some industries.

Though the job market is expected to grow by about 7% between 2014 and 2024, according to data from theBureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the growth won’t be shared equally across all industries. While certain fields, such as nursing and accounting, are looking at double-digit job growth, others are expected to shrink dramatically. The endangered jobs include many that pay enough to push someone into the middle class. (A family of four needed a household income of at least $48,000 to qualify as middle income in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.)

Here are 10 middle-class jobs that are quickly disappearing.

10. Bank tellers

Expected employment decline: 8%

When was the last time you waited in line to talk to a teller at your bank? ATMs and online banking have eliminated many of the functions bank tellers used to perform. While there will still be an estimated 480,500 people working as tellers in 2024, it’s significantly fewer than the 520,500 people currently working in this field.

Declining employment is another blow to bank tellers, whose jobs no longer offer a reliable middle-class income. About 30% of tellers rely on public assistance to supplement their wages, a 2014 study found, and some have called them the “fast food workers of Wall Street.”

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9. Home economics teachers

Expected employment decline: 12%

As recently as 2002, about 5.5 million high school students were enrolled in a home economics course (or “family and consumer science,” as it’s now officially known). By 2012, that number had fallen to just 3.5 million. The number of jobs for people willing to teach young people about cooking, budgeting, and other life skills is expected to continue to shrink. Today, there are 4,300 home economics teachers. By 2024, there will be 3,800.

8. Travel agents

Expected employment decline: 12%

Now that you can book a flight, hotel, and activities online in a matter of minutes, fewer Americans feel the need to call a travel agent when planning a vacation. The industry has already shrunk considerably, from 34,000 retail travel locations in the 1990s to 13,000 by 2013, according to CNN, and more contraction is on the horizon. The number of travel agents is expected to drop to 65,400 in 2024, down from 74,100 in 2014. Travel agents who work with luxury and corporate travelers or who specialize in booking specialty trips will likely still have a niche, though.

7. Printing workers

Expected employment decline: 14%

As people shun paper in favor of digital options, jobs in the printing industry have declined. In Illinois alone, a center of the printing industry, the number of jobs fell by 45% between 2001 and 2013, according to the Chicago Tribune. Jobs in the printing industry will continue to vanish, falling by 14% by 2024. Prepress technicians will be especially hard hit, with the number of jobs in this field falling from 36,500 to 27,500, a drop of 25%.

6. Parking enforcement workers

Expected employment decline: 21%

Parking enforcement workers earn an average salary of $36,530 for patrolling city streets and issuing tickets to illegally parked cars. In 2014, about 9,400 people worked in parking enforcement. By 2024, their ranks will shrink by 2,000, to 7,400. In times of tight budgets, many cities, like Chicago and San Francisco have laid off parking workers and shifted their responsibilities onto other workers.

5. Manufacturing jobs

Expected employment decline: About 20-25%, depending on specific job

Manufacturing jobs once provided a path to the middle class for many American workers. But these jobs are disappearing. The BLS provides data for a variety of different manufacturing and factory jobs, and the outlook is bleak for nearly all of them. The number of forging machine setters, operators, and tenders will shrink by 21% by 2024. Cutting machine jobs will decline by about 21% as well. Jobs for model makers and pattern makers will fall by 22%.

Not all manufacturing jobs are vanishing, though. In the next decade, companies will need to hire more people for highly skilled manufacturing jobs, including those who can operate and program computer-controlled machines. The number of jobs in this area will grow by 18%, to 204,700.

4. Watch repairers

Cell phones have replaced watches for many people, which means less demand for watch repair. Jobs in this highly specialized industry are already scarce – there are just 2,700 watch repairers in the U.S., according to the BLS. By 2024, there will be only 2,000, a drop of 26%. Trained horologists will still be needed to fix expensivedesigner watches, so this field, while shrinking, isn’t quite dead yet

3. Postal service workers

Expected employment decline: 28%

Landing a job for the U.S. Postal Service was once a route to the middle class for many Americans, but no more. The number of people working as letter sorters, mail sorters, and clerks has plummeted from 797,795 in 1999 to 491,863 in 2015. Employment at the USPS is expect to drop another 28% by 2024, to a little less than 350,000, about the number of employees the postal service had in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

2. Telephone and switchboard operators

Expected employment decline: 42%

Pre-Google and Siri, locating a telephone number often meant dialing 0 or 411. Now, telephone operators, who also help disabled callers and assist with emergency calls when you can’t reach 911, are a dying breed. In 2014, there were about 13,100 telephone operators, but by 2025, there will only be about 7,500, a drop of 42%.

Switchboard operators, who help relay calls in offices, hospitals, and other settings, are also disappearing. About 37,000 jobs in this field will vanish by 2024, a drop of 33%. The average switchboard operator makes $26,440 per year.

1. Locomotive firers

Expected employment decline: 70%

Locomotive firers – sometimes called assistant engineers — monitor equipment, watch for train signals, and look out for obstacles on the tracks. Back when freight trains ran with five-person crews, the job was more common, but as railroad companies have scaled back to two- or three-person crews, locomotive firer jobs have all but disappeared. In 2014, only 1,700 people were still working as locomotive firers, and their numbers are expected to fall to 500 by 2024.

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CheatSheet.com | June 23, 2016 | Megan Elliot

#Leadership : LinkedIn’s HR Chief says the Best Managers Exhibit these 7 Behaviors… The Best Managers Exhibit All of the Behaviors they Demand of their Employees.

June 22, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Microsoft may have recently announced that it is acquiring the professional social network LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, but LinkedIn will continue operating independently.

Its management culture has been shaped by its founder and chairman Reid Hoffman, its CEO Jeff Weiner, and its head of HR, SVP of Global Talent Organization Pat Wadors.

Wadors spoke with Business Insider earlier this year, and she told us that there is a set of criteria that every manager at LinkedIn is judged on. They apply to any leader at any organization.

These are the behaviors the best managers at LinkedIn exhibit.

1. They support their employees’ professional development

In his 2014 book “The Alliance,” cowritten with Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, Hoffman rethinks the relationship between managers and employees, explaining how employers can attract and retain the best employees through the formation of alliances where everyone wins.

Key to this approach is managers recognizing that the days of lifetime employment are long over, and that their employees won’t stay with them forever. At LinkedIn, Wadors said, the best managers push their employees to constantly grow and develop with new challenges and learning opportunities.

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2. They continually review performance

Rather than waiting for the annual review to reveal insights into an employee’s performance, managers constantly keep a dialogue open with their team members.

“Reviews should not come with any surprises,” Wadors said. “They should be actually quite boring.”

3. They clearly set expectations

The best managers ensure that their employees know what is expected of them, and communicate them through discussions rather than a list of demands.

4. They foster an entrepreneur’s mentality

The best LinkedIn managers empower employees, telling them that they should always be thinking of new and better ways of doing things.

5. They encourage measured risk-taking

Wadors said that all employees should be able to say, “I have the autonomy to use my own judgment in getting the job done, within a framework. I’m encouraged to take intelligent risks for the better of LinkedIn and learn from my mistakes.”

LinkedIn’s culture incorporates the Silicon Valley ethos of not being afraid of failure, in the sense that if an experiment fails, it should be evaluated for lessons that can be immediately acted on, without stopping to mourn the loss.

6. They explain the company’s direction

The best LinkedIn managers are transparent, communicating the direction of the company to their team and explaining how they fit into its overall mission.

7. They walk the talk

And finally, the best managers exhibit all of the behaviors they demand of their employees.

Wadors said that employees have the best possible role model with their CEO Jeff Weiner, who is a strong and supportive presence within LinkedIn.

6. They explain the company’s direction

The best LinkedIn managers are transparent, communicating the direction of the company to their team and explaining how they fit into its overall mission.

7. They walk the talk

And finally, the best managers exhibit all of the behaviors they demand of their employees.

Wadors said that employees have the best possible role model with their CEO Jeff Weiner, who is a strong and supportive presence within LinkedIn.

Businessinsider.com | June 18, 2016 |

Richard Feloni

#Leadership : 5 Signs You’re Much Smarter Than Average…If a Lot of These Items Do Apply to You, you Just Might be Smarter Than the Average Bear.

June 22, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Intelligence, or IQ, isn’t what you know, but rather the pace at which you acquire new information. Longitudinal studies have shown that IQ is fixed at an early age, so you’re stuck with what you’ve got.

While IQ is far from being the only thing that determines success in life — research shows that it isn’t even the most important factor — a high IQ still isn’t a bad thing to have. In fact, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t mind having one.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” — Albert Einstein

Most of us move through life never knowing exactly how smart we are. IQ is a difficult thing to measure, and unless you’re willing to fork over several hundred dollars to a trained professional, you’ll never know for certain what your IQ is.

New research provides some interesting clues linking early life experiences to, among other things, high intelligence. If any of the following apply to you, you just might have a high IQ.

1. You’re anxious. It’s hard to think of anxiety as a good thing, but evidence suggests that it might not be all bad. Psychiatrist Jeremy Coplan studied patients with anxiety disorders and found that the people with the worst symptoms had higher IQ scores than those with milder symptoms. Other studies have found higher verbal IQ scores in people with higher levels of anxiety. And then there was a more complex experiment conducted at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel.

Researchers asked participants to evaluate artwork presented by a software program and then triggered a fake computer virus, making it look as if it was the result of something that the participant did. They then sent the participants on an urgent mission to get tech support, only to throw yet another series of obstacles in their way. They found that the most anxious participants were also the most focused and effective at executing tasks. The next time somebody tells you to stop worrying so much, just tell them it’s your oversized intellect getting in the way.

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2. You were an early reader. A British study of 2,000 pairs of identical twins found that, despite their identical genes, the children who started reading earlier had higher IQ scores (both verbal and nonverbal) than their siblings. On the surface, this one seems easy enough to explain away: the kids who learned to read early did so because they were smarter. But that wasn’t the case. The researchers concluded that learning to read early actually had a developmental impact — it made the kids smarter. So, if you were an early reader, it might not be because you’re smart. It may be that you’re smart because you were an early reader.

3. You’re left-handed. It turns out that all of those teachers who tried to force lefties to write with their right hands may have had it backward. While there is a small and, as of yet, unexplained correlation between being left-handed and being a criminal, there are some intellectual benefits to being a southpaw. One large study demonstrated that left-handedness is associated with divergent thinking, all the more so in males. This unique ability to combine two unrelated objects in a meaningful way is a sign of intelligence.

4. You took music lessons as a kid. There are a number of studies demonstrating that musical training enhances verbal intelligence and executive function, a skill that’s critical to focus and self-control. In a study conducted by psychologist Sylvain Moreno, 48 children between the ages of four and six participated in a computerized training program that was led by a teacher. For one hour per day, five days a week for four weeks, half the students completed a musical program and the other half completed a visual arts program. At the end of the experiment, 90% of the children who received the musical training showed improvements in verbal IQ. So, if you took music lessons when you were a kid, that’s a good sign.

5. You’re funny. Class clowns rejoice! Research shows a strong connection between being funny and having high scores in both verbal intelligence and abstract reasoning. It appears that your witty banter is the product of a sharp mind. Now, you just need to come up with a joke about that.

Bringing It All Together

This list is far from exhaustive, so if none of the items above apply to you, it doesn’t exclude you from having a high IQ. But if a lot of these items do apply to you, you just might be smarter than the average bear.

Entrepreneur.com | June 2016 | Travis Bradberry

Your #Career : How to Answer ‘Why Should I Hire You?’…This is Where you Stand Out from the Crowd. Once you’ve Established your Ability to Deliver on Core Competencies of the Job you can Consider yourself at Least as Impressive as the Best Qualified Candidate.

June 20, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s one of the most popular questions in interviews, and also one of the most understandable. Why not hear why your future employee is right for the role straight from the horse’s mouth?

Why then, does it fill us with so much trepidation? Partly because there’s no way of tricking this question, you’ve just got to believably detail exactly why you’re better than all the other applicants for the job. You’ve got to tell them why what you’ve got is worth having.

The one key thing to remember is that the hiring manager is putting their reputation on the line, whoever they hire. Sell yourself into them with confidence and evidence that you’re the best person for the job, and this question can be the key to unlocking that job offer.

Work out what they want

Your first step, as always, is to do your research. Start by reading the job specification. Then read it again, looking between the lines. It might be that they’re asking for soft skills like flexibility or high emotional intelligence while what they’re really looking for is someone who can adapt to new tasks and be proactive with their work, or someone who understands others and can manage effectively.

By decrypting some of the jargon in job descriptions, you can gain an understanding of the kind of experience and skills you need to show the interviewer.

Next up, take a look at the usual avenues, quarterly reports, websites and industry or company news. This way you’ll be able to get a good idea of the kind of needs the company have, gain some insight into the focus of the business, and understand important growth areas across the industry or sector.

After this, explore their social media, blogs and general company output. This is key to preparing yourself to hit one of the most important factors in hiring nowadays; culture fit. You’ll know the kind of work environment you’re stepping into, and how to pull up old experience that is similar so that you can impress.

Once you’ve got a complete understanding, you can then start to tailor your answer to the interview. This is a chance to demonstrate that you’ve researched and care about the company, and you increase your chance that you’re saying what they want to hear.

It’s not about misrepresenting yourself in trying to plug a round hole with a square peg, but about selecting your most applicable qualities and demonstrating a particular problem you can solve.

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Quality over quantity

The key things you want to get across in your answer are experience, skills, accomplishments, training or education and culture fit.

You also want to keep it concise. The chances are that you’ll lose their attention if you use more than three or four examples to cover these areas, and the quality may start to go on. Besides this, you want to keep a few things back for questions later on, even if you’re using your killer answers straight away.

Experience & Training — To start with you want to use your experience to give a general picture of you as a candidate, and make sure it’s understood that you’ve got the knowledge to succeed. Having said that, if they’re hiring a project manager and you have project managing experience, the chances are that’s probably why they’re interviewing you in the first place. This is an opportunity to get specific, and correlate your experience to the specific industry, role or problems that you know the company has.

Accomplishments — employers love quantifiable accomplishments as they provide proof that you can offer a strong return on investment immediately. Wherever possible, deliver relevant numbers, whether that’s that you’ve managed 24 people, driven sales by 150%, or completed 9 successful projects with client A, B and C.

Skills & Culture Fit — Once you’ve identified the sort of soft skills that are key to the culture of your new company, provide some example of a time you’ve displayed them. Consider things like whether they want someone who is supremely organized, a great leader, or keen to come up with innovative solutions to problems.

React

No matter how much research you do, you might have missed something, particularly if it’s a part of the job that the company aren’t open about for whatever reason.

Think about all of your skills and experience beforehand so that you have bunch of great examples ready. No matter what, the things the interviewer tells you when you meet will be your best resource and you need to be prepared to react.

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in your answers that you forget to listen, but this is probably the most important skill in a job interview. Listen carefully to everything that’s been said and you should get a clear idea of what they want to hear from you.

Save something special

This is where you stand out from the crowd. Once you’ve established your ability to deliver on core competencies of the job you can consider yourself at least as impressive as the best qualified candidate. You’ve demonstrated that you’re safe and there’s minimal risk associated with hiring you.

So far so good. But what sets you above the next best qualified candidate? The answer is in a unique combination of skills. You need to offer something that others don’t.

Whether this is the fact that you have some coding experience despite coming in under a marketing remit or that you are fluent in a foreign language which could allow the sales team to develop into an emerging market, try to finish your answer off with something impressive, relevant and interesting.

If you can find an answer that wouldn’t be typically associated with the role, but could be advantageous, even better. This question is a great opportunity to set yourself apart from the rest, so don’t be afraid of doing so!

Entrepreneur.com | June 18, 2016 | Matt Arnerich

#Leadership : How Leaders Can Engage & Retain Top Sales Talent…Turnover: Minimum 20%. Fact: 71% of Companies take 6 Months or Longer to Onboard New Sales Reps; & at a Third of All Companies it Take 9 Months or More.

June 18, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

According to Glassdoor, professionals working in sales can make well into the six figures and are one of the most popular positions companies seek to fill. But retention tends to be low with the pressure to meet numbers, lack of adequate training and inevitable rejection.

71% of companies take 6 months or longer to onboard new sales reps; and at a third of all companies it take 9 months or more (source: ClearSlide and CSO Insights).

And there is a minimum 20% annual turnover in Sales—and it’s up to 34% if you include both voluntary + involuntary according to Bridge Group research.

Millennials are even more likely to turnover:

25% say they’ll leave their current job within a year; 44% say they’ll leave within two years. Research from Deloitte – The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey

51% will look for new job at another organization in the next year. Research from CEB – CEB – Attracting & Retaining Millennials

What’s happening here?

I pondered this recently with Dustin Grosse and Michael Shultz of ClearSlide, and here’s what we came up with—based on both research and our decades of experience in the world of Sales and Sales Management.

Here are the top 4 Reasons Why Sales People Quit—and what to do about them:

They don’t have coaches and mentors. New salespeople, and especially millennials, need strong coaches and mentors to find long-term success. When they’re left on their own without adequate support, they’re likely to hit a roadblock after a period of initial success.

According to CSO Insights, sales leaders spend only 20% of their time helping their team close deals. If your sales leaders are “too busy” to help, nobody wins. Make supporting your team a top priority. Give them best practices, be available for questions, ask how things are going and offer advice. Set up a mentorship program, pairing veteran sellers with new recruits. The initial time investment will motivate and inspire newer reps to commit and persevere, even through the rough patches.

According to the Deloitte and CEB studies above, Millennials cite lack of professional development, coaching and mentorship as top reasons why they transition out of companies.

Retention of millennials requires 2 things: continuous feedback so they can have insights, and an Individual Development Plan (career path with clear skills building plan) so they can aspire.

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They don’t have the latest sales tools. Millennial salespeople are typically tech savvy and eager to embrace modern sales technology. When they don’t have the latest tools and modern platforms, that can hurt morale and impede productivity.

Many salespeople — particularly younger ones — conduct business on mobile devices, but it can be impossible to access the content they need to close deals on their smartphone or tablet. In fact, according to a CSO Insights survey, 88% of sales professionals are unable to find or bring up critical sales material up on their smartphones, and 60% of sales organizations report a longer sales cycle due to a lack of proper tools. This hurts the sales professional’s long-term productivity and success. Companies that want to set their sales team up for success should move away from general purpose tools and invest in more modern sales-specific tools and platforms.

ClearSlide, for example, offers an engagement platform that helps companies to offer content to support the sales process (a video, a whitepaper) and then track which content is consumed: how and when. ClearSlide connects to the top CRMs, and real-time viewing stats and alerts are provided so the sales people can connect with the prospect as they are in process of consuming the content. This dramatically increases the quality of engagement.

They don’t understand that data and insights are their secret weapons. Salespeople need to embrace the advanced analytics that can give them an edge.

Today, there are more people involved in the buying process than in the past. Buyers are typically more sophisticated too since they can conduct research online before they ever respond to an offer. According to research from CEB, the average B2B buyer is at least 57% through a purchase decision before ever connecting with a salesperson. This means sellers need to engage with prospects very differently – selling in a way that maps to the buyer’s journey and expectations. Give young sellers data that help them identify, target, and interact with the right context at the right time. Sales Engagement Platforms allow sellers to track genuine customer interactions across channels, giving them the insights they need to accelerate sales cycles

They don’t have a playbook. Salespeople need to ramp up rapidly, and have a clear playbook to navigate prospects and the selling process.

Our clients find that the key components to a sales playbook are:

Buyer personas – These are the generally 3-6 profiles of prospects your company sells to. Included should be their customer journey, meta program profile, and safety/belonging/mattering trigger.

Sample messages for each persona – Providing sample email messages and scripts for outreach, follow up, nurturing and revival are key. When a salesperson sees how to most effectively communicate with a particular persona they can simply edit and send the message. This saves them hours each week and keeps them focused on what they do best: prospect, nurture and close. LinkedIn, for example, has a Perfect Pitch Library which is a library of videos of actual prospect interactions from a video call.
Tools and resources per sales stage – New salespeople need to have quick and clear access to tools and resources (such as content) to move prospects through the sales process swiftly. Guiding the sales process with content helps both newer and experienced reps to reduce the sales cycle base on the best practices of their top reps.
Industry fluency – millennials struggle to understand the industry that the prospect works in. For example if selling into financial services and having no background there, have industry executive summaries, key pains in the industry, key trends and buzzwords, internal case studies and use cases. This helps the prospect have the experience of “same as” and helps the salesperson build both rapid rapport and to do reference selling to get rapid credibility with the prospect.

Also it’s key to note that inside selling and field selling are converging. Insiders are now expecting to get out into the field, and field reps are doing more video conferences and “inside” work than ever before. Both need to learn new tools and techniques.

How is your sales force doing?

Christine Comaford is the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.

Forbes.com | June 18, 2016 | Christine Comaford

#Leadership : Are You Hurting Your Career With Corporate Jargon?…When we have to Dedicate Time & Energy towards Figuring out What someone is actually Talking About, we(your Team) is Inherently taking Away Time & Energy we Could be Putting Towards our Work.

June 18, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Mindshare? Sticky wicket? Straw man? Power alley? Can you improve your credibility and achieve better results simply by eliminating corporate jargon from your vocabulary?

James Sudakow had declared war on the use of stupid corporate lingo. In his new book, Picking the Low Hanging Fruit…and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World, Sudakow not only advocates for speaking in plain English for his own sanity but articulates compelling reasons why doing so can have positive impacts on the work you do, the relationships you form, and even counterintuitively can help you be perceived as more credible.

Having held leadership roles in multi-billion dollar global technology companies and now serving as the Principal of CH Consulting–a boutique organizational transformation and talent management consulting practice–James is no stranger to the perils of swimming through murky jargon and the unintended consequences of its overuse.

Picking the Low Hanging Fruit is a humorous glossary where we find strange but surprisingly common business expressions from burning platforms and paradigm shifts, to tissue rejection and open kimonos. Sudakow defines these terms and takes a witty jab at the corporate culture by calling out exactly what these terms do not mean, and also sites real examples from his own experiences that show the consequences of overusing these expressions.

People might not understand as much of what you are saying as you think

Most of us move so quickly in the corporate world that we might not recognize that the number of employees who are scratching their heads and simply don’t understand these expressions is larger than we think. As a young consultant working for a Big 4 global consulting firm, Sudakow would find himself sitting quietly in a state of confusion but hesitant to mention that he was lost.

“We all figure it out sooner or later. But why put ourselves through that?” Sudakow states. “Figuring out how to do the work amidst corporate politics and culture is hard enough without throwing a language barrier into the gauntlet.”

When we have to dedicate time and energy towards figuring out what someone is actually talking about, we are inherently taking away time and energy we could be putting towards our work.

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Relatability and Credibility–Corporate jargon doesn’t help

It doesn’t stop with simply not being understood. Credibility is at stake. In some ways, the credibility of the person using the terms can be damaged because his or her language feels inauthentic and doesn’t connect or resonate with people—even if the speaker actually has something very valuable to say.

Why is this so important? More and more have been written recently about the importance for leaders, in particular, to be relatable to their people–this relatability serving as a way to build common ground with the very teams they are asking a lot of. Many factors contribute to how successfully anyone can be in their goal of becoming a relatable leader or colleague, but overusing corporate jargon doesn’t establish anyone as “the common person.” It’s much more powerful to speak in plain English.

So what can we do about it?

Think about what you might say if you were talking to friends outside of work where corporate jargon simply wouldn’t fit. When preparing for formal presentations to groups, think about where you might slip into a corporate jargon violation and think about how you might replace it with a normal word.

If you are a leader of people, ask your teams for help monitoring your corporate jargon violations. It will likely be met with enthusiasm and move you one step further on the path of relatability. Corporate jargon bingo, anyone? At the very least, be a good corporate citizen and help someone who might be a corporate jargon abuser by simply pulling him or her aside and constructively mentioning that the message might have resonated better in plain English.

For many of us, using corporate jargon has simply become a habit resulting from being immersed in the corporate world. In Picking the Low Hanging Fruit…and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World, Sudakow helps us understand in a fun and lighthearted way that the words we choose are important and that we can all make ourselves better understood by staying away from jargon.

Forbes.com | June 17, 2016 | Kevin Kruse

#Leadership : We Bet You Never Knew Your iPhone Could Do These 10 Things…If you’d Like to Tap into the True Potential of your iPhone, Check Out the Below Cool Features.

June 17, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

With so much tech out there these days, the learning curve for what different devices can do can be quick and easy. However, not everyone knows about some of these handy capabilities to help make your life easier.

For instance, iPhones — a device most use every day — can do anything to sending tweets, identify planes overhead or have self-destructing messages.

If you’d like to tap into the true potential of your iPhone, check out the below cool features. Before you get started, it is important to note, not all may work with your current model or operating system.

1. SEE WHAT PLANES ARE OVERHEAD.

It’s really as easy as just asking Siri “What flights are overhead?”

A list will pop up with detailed information about different flights currently right above you high in the skies.

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2. HAVE SIRI READ YOUR TEXTS OUT LOUD.

This is a great tool to use if your hands aren’t free or you’re on the road. It’s a simple process, too.

Press the “Home” button and hold it.
When you hear a beep, tell Siri a command, like “Read my texts.”
After she has finished reading you her texts, Siri will ask what she should do with the messages. You can either have her reply to a text, or if you need her to read them again, you can ask her to do so.

3. USE YOUR IPHONE AS A LEVEL.

You know that compass app everyone always forgets about and hardly uses? Well, just swipe left and you’ll discover your iPhone comes complete with a functioning level, too. Who knows when that might come in handy!

4. TAKE A PHOTO WITH THE VOLUME BUTTON OR YOUR HEADPHONES.

This tip could be what you needed and finally get the ultimate selfie, especially since taking a photo with one hand can get a bit tricky.

Make it easier by holding your iPhone with two hands horizontally and opening the camera app. To take a picture, press down on the “+” button for volume on the side of your phone. The same trick works for your headphones, too. Just hit the volume up button on the Apple Remote Earphones to snap a pic.

5. OMIT LIGHTS RATHER THAN NOISE

Tired of annoying ringtones or vibrations? Why not use the built in LED on your iPhone, instead?

Go to Settings, General and then Accessibility and turn on the slider for LED Flash for Alerts, and the next time something comes in, the LED will flash whenever you have a corresponding notification.

Previous Slide

6. RESPOND TO TEXTS WITHOUT UNLOCKING IPHONE

Sometimes you’re just on the go and don’t want to have to go through the flak of dealing with the lock screen to respond to a message. Luckily, there’s a way you don’t have to.

When you get a notification, just swipe left on the message and blue “Reply” button will appear. Tap it, and then you’re free to type your message and send it on its way.

7. SEND AUDIO MESSAGES THAT SELF DESTRUCT.

Turns out you don’t exactly need Snapchat to send a photo or video that would disappear after a set amount of time. You can actually just use your own iPhone and a handy settings shortcut.

Once in settings, press the green messages icon and go to the audio messages section. There, you’ll see an option to set messages to expire after two minutes.

8. LEAVE A GROUP CONVERSATION.

Sometimes, group conversations can more annoying than they are useful. But unlike Facebook chats, there’s an easy way to escape the clutches of group messages on your iPhone.

It’s simply a three step process:

In your Messages app, select the group message you don’t want to be a part of anymore
Hit the word “Details” in the top right corner
You will be taken to a page with information pertaining to the conversation (e.g. who is taking part in it). At the bottom, in red lettering, you will see, “Leave this Conversation.” Tap it, and you are out.

9. READ ARTICLES, WITHOUT DISTRACTING ADS

If you’d like to streamline the process of making a reading list free of advertisements, Reader may be the way to go. The tool itself is built into Safari. All you have to do is click on the small “Reader” button located to the left of the URL and the article will appear without any other distractions, with just the text.

10.. LOCATION-BASED REMINDERS

We’ve got reminders and alarms set for time, but what about tapping into that phone GPS for reminders sent by location?

All you have to do is go into the Reminders app on your iPhone, make a reminder and then select the option “remind me at a location.” You are then taken to a page, where you can choose your current location, or a specific address. Once you insert the information, it will ask if you want the reminder to come up for when you leave or when you arrive. Be warned, however, since the app would constantly access the GPS, it would eat up your battery.

Entrepreneur.com| June 2016 | Lindsay Friedman