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Leadership: How America’s Top CEOs Motivate Employees & Get Results…What are the best ways to motivate your employees? We asked America’s Leading CEOs What it Takes.

February 25, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

What are the best ways to motivate your employees?

We asked America’s leading CEOs what it takes:

Don Bailey, CEO, Questcor

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
BAILEY: Listen to them, have sincere respect for what they do and understand that they have families as well. Communicate with them as often as possible

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Brian Mueller, CEO, Grand Canyon Education

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
MUELLER: You have to do two things. First, you have to understand that everyone needs a path to significance that comes as a result of the work they do. GCU has 3,000 people, and I can’t meet with everyone individually. But what we try to do as a large management leadership group is make sure we’re looking at every job classification in the university and figuring out a way for that job to have significance, monetarily and otherwise, for the people who are doing them. People work, first and foremost, for themselves and their families. There has to be a path that leads to significance for them individually. That’s highly motivating.

Brad Cleveland, CEO, Proto Labs

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
CLEVELAND: I’ve been fortunate to attract and retain some of the brightest people in our industry at each of our lead management positions. We have exceptional talent in our international leadership positions, research & development, program management, software development, finance, human resources, sales and marketing. To retain these types of high-level people, in my experience it works best to help identify the goals, set priorities, ask the experts what they need to get the job done and then get out of their way. This approach continues to work very well at Proto Labs and I do not anticipate it changing.

Behrooz Abdi, CEO, InvenSense

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
ABDI: Communicating the vision, empowering the team to execute to the vision, celebrating their wins, and communicating more.

Mike Fifer, CEO, Sturm, Ruger & Company

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your team?
FIFER: Communication is key and it must be frequent and honest (whether the news is good or bad). Backing that up, however, is the concept of “it’s all about the incentives.” We have very simple, clear and concise incentives.The most important incentive is profit sharing for all of our employees and contractors, including employees provided by temporary services agencies.

We allocate 15% of the pretax profits every quarter to profit sharing. The first year it averaged less than 5% of pay so it was important, but not yet a game changer. Now it is more than 30% of pay and everyone is paying attention and pulling together in the same direction. Typically this sort of incentive takes a couple of years to take root in an organization; junior participants have to trust that it is real, non-arbitrary, and here for the long term.

As a manager, you know it is starting to work when a junior employee takes independent initiative to save expenses or to push for higher efficiency. Once the employees of an organization believe in the profit sharing, it becomes an incredibly important driver of day-to-day performance. The keys to success with profit sharing are that everyone participates, pro-rata with their earned base wages for the period, and that it be based on a pre-determined formula that does not change. It will fail if the employees believe it to be discretionary.

Arkadiy Dobkin, CEO, EPAM Systems

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
DOBKIN: I do believe it is rather simple… While there are many different ways to motivate people and many of them are very critical to be present in the company…I think that our best people are motivated the most by tangible results they contributed to…And specifically, results recognized by clients themselves.In our business the real clients’ success, the significance and importance of the solutions, their complexity and technical and business challenges solved on the way to deliver those solutions is the best motivation in my opinion. When client directly attributed the success to our people, our teams, and our experience and skills – it is BIG.

Bryan Shinn, CEO, U.S. Silica

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
SHINN: I try to treat folks as I want to be treated and I think that’s one of the most motivating things to an organization, no matter where you are in the leadership hierarchy if you’re engaged and empathetic and just real with people I think it goes a long way, I also put a lot of effort into recognizing the small things, you don’t have to wait until someone has a major accomplishment. One of the things I’ve learned is don’t be afraid to challenge the rules or do something unconventional around reward and recognition, just calling somebody up to say thank you or finding a way to find out what they like to do in their spare time and reward them with it – it really goes a long way and can be tremendously motivational for a team.

Jason Rhode, CEO, Cirrus

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
RHODE: Cirrus’ founding CEO Mike Hackworth often said that morale and motivation in the workplace comes from having a meaningful and worthwhile goal, a reasonable plan to achieve the goal, and being able to measure yourself making progress on the plan. In my view, ensuring that we have such a vision, plan, and visibility at a corporate and individual level is a tremendously very powerful motivator.

Harry Herington, CEO, NIC

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
HERINGTON: It all comes down to culture and trust. There is no better way to motivate employees than to establish a culture of trust. Employees must trust the person who is leading the company. Most employees are not involved in setting the strategic direction of the company — in many ways, my decisions dictate their future. That’s why I believe trust is so important, and I created a special program called, “Ask the CEO” to help establish trust.

John Foraker, CEO, Annie's

John Foraker, CEO, Annie’s

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
FORAKER: Annie’s is a mission driven business, and our employees are highly engaged in delivering on that mission. They really care about it, and also about how we achieve success. We operate the business according to a set of well-defined values around quality, sustainability, honesty, and doing the right thing even and especially when no one is looking. Because of our mission driven approach we attract really smart, highly engaged, and highly capable people who care and want to make a difference in the world. This set of common values and mission is highly motivating to people, as they see their work furthering the success of the business beyond just simple financial metrics. Pay, benefits, and a comfortable work environment are all important, but being bound by a common higher purpose is motivating to our employees.

Jim Koch, Founder and Brewer, Boston Beer Company

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your team?
KOCH: The best way to motivate is to lead by example and encourage creativity. One way I’ve done this is something I call the “string theory.” In the middle of graduate school, I decided to take a break and became an instructor with Outward Bound. At the beginning of each four-week course I gave everyone a supply of Alpine cord (a kind of string for lashing gear, pitching tarps, etc.) Consistently, if I gave my group plenty of string, they would run out and need more. But, if I gave them less and told them they had only two-thirds of what they really needed, they would get incredibly creative and make that cord last. They’d splice, they’d share, they’d save; they’d forage for bits of rope left behind by others. Through this exercise, I learned that culture and values can substitute for money and resources. Since we were on a tight budget in the early days, we used every piece of “string” we had, and that created a corporate culture of innovation and creativity. I’ve found that this motivates people to do the best and achieve terrific results with what they are given.

Steve Fredrickson, CEO, Portfolio Recovery Associates

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your team?
FREDRICKSON: If you have the right team, the best way to motivate them is to hand them a challenge, provide appropriate resources, and then get out of their way, while monitoring progress and results. Then, once final results are delivered, insure that fair rewards are provided.

Kevin Thompson, CEO, Solarwinds

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your team?
THOMPSON: At my company, SolarWinds, we focus on creating an environment where employees have the opportunity to create a unique place within the company – their “sweet spot.” Like the manager of a playoff-bound baseball team, we fill out our line-up so that everyone has their own role to play and brings their unique skillsets to the game. That line-up is calibrated to combine skill and passion, and we work hard to make sure that each employee plays a position that complements the rest of the organization. It’s how we win.

Wallace E. Boston, CEO, Amerian Public University System

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
BOSTON: Establish a mission that everyone can relate to and rally around. Reinforce that mission with actions from the top down. Be consistent, through good times and bad.

Cheri Beranek, CEO, Clearfield

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
BERANEK: When we started Clearfield, my COO and I wrote the core values of the company on an airplane. We didn’t need a focus group or multiple committee meetings, because we were living the values every day – They start with LISTENING and conclude with CELEBRATING our every success – in the early days we didn’t have many successes, so we hung a ship’s bell that we ran with a $10,000 order. Later, as we grew, we hung a $100,000 bell. When we got our first million dollar order, we didn’t yet have the $1,000,000 bell – but today, all three hang on our sales floor to remind us where we’ve been – and where we need to go. The culture of celebration, builds upon our philosophy that while we may feel like a family, we choose to operate our business as a small town – with each individual motivated to make active choices to continue to belong to the group – not feeling any level of entitlement.

Mike MacDonald, CEO Medifast

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
MACDONALD: The best way to motivate a team is to create a very open work environment where people have the ability to make suggestions and comments. At Medifast, we encourage a leadership style that is highly participative and allows for open communication between all levels of the organization to accomplish business objectives.We’ve found that when you empower people to do their jobs within their style, they enjoy their work and can achieve their goals.

Rick Bergman, CEO, Synaptics

FORBES: What are the best ways to motivate your people?
BERGMAN: At Synaptics, we have a great culture where everyone works as a team. We try to remove any bureaucracy and hierarchy within the organization. Despite our growth over the past couple of years, any employee can still have major impact on the outcome of the company as long as they are innovative and driven. So openness to new ideas at any level and working together as a team keeps Synaptics employees highly motivated.

Forbes.com | February 25, 2015 | Vanessa Loder

Your Career: How to Optimize your LinkedIn Profile so Recruiters Come to You…Recruiting is What sets Linkedin apart as a Business, So it’s What Users Should Focus on, Too

February 25, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

As a business, LinkedIn relies on Talent Solutions, the professional social network’s influential recruitment product. In the fourth quarter of 2014, Talent Solutions brought in nearly $369 million in revenue on its own — accounting for 57% of LinkedIn’s overall revenue, according to reports.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

As Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Piskorski explains in his book, “A Social Strategy: How We Profit From Social Media,” recruiting is what sets Linkedin apart as a business, so it’s what users should should focus on, too.

“Most of the activity on LinkedIn is recruiters going and searching through your profiles again and again and again,” Piskorski tells Business Insider. “That’s where most of the action is.”

With that in mind, check out the below infographic from British social media consultancy LinkHumans, which explains how to optimize your profile so that recruiters come to you.

Businessinsider.com | February 25, 2015 | Drake Baer

http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-profile-optimization-2015-2

Leadership:13 Personality Traits of Toxic Employees…Is Your Office a Den of Negativity?

February 25, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

If you’re constantly complaining to coworkers about how much you hate your job, looking for any and every excuse to get away from your desk, and gossiping more than talking about work projects, the problem might be you.

stressed office work burned out upset

Find out if you possess any or all of the 13 most common traits of a disengaged and toxic employee, and change your ways before you tank your career.

If you’re like the vast majority of working individuals, going to work isn’t something you’re jumping for joy about.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to make it miserable for the rest of the office. By contributing to the gossip, office politics, and complaining, you’re only making it worse for yourself (and for morale) by “spreading the cancer” throughout the office.

What’s scary is that many habitual complainers don’t even realize that they’re the culprits of their own toxic work environments. These types of employees are usually disengaged, unhappy, and try to recruiter others to join in on their misery — because, after all, misery does love company.

To help you identify whether or not you’re “one of them,” take a look at Officevibe’s infographic below to see if you relate. Then, read on to find out how to fix your problem.

infographic disengaged employee

Instead of being a Debbie Downer and promoting a toxic work environment, why not be the change that you want to see in the ~~world~~ office?

To help steer you in the right direction to turn that frown upside down, consider trying your hand at one of the following:

1. Learn a new skill that will enhance your career knowledge and, possibly, warrant a raise.

2. Negotiate a raise. If a measly salary is what’s got you down and out, then learn the tricks of the trade and negotiate yourself a fair wage.

3. Change up your morning and evening routines, or try out these three lifehacks to improve your mood and boost your health.

4. Talk to your boss about the possibility of working a more flexible work schedule to promote higher productivity.

5. Consider changing careers to something that better suits your personality type and skills.

Bonus: You can also read this post to see three ways to cope with office politics effectively and professionally.

Businessinsider.com | February 25, 2015 | LEAH ARNOLD-SMEETS, PAYSCALE

http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2015/02/are-you-a-toxic-employee-infographic-#ixzz3SmxypGkq

Your Career: How To Follow Up On A Job Interview…Ask the HR person During the Interview How He/She Would Like You to Stay in Touch

February 25, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Sarah Stamboulie, a New York career consultant, had a young Japanese client whose work visa was due to expire in just six weeks. The man was determined to get a job at a hedge fund that would allow him to stay in the U.S., but he spoke with a strong accent, his written English was poor, and he had made a weak impression on job interviews. Stamboulie, who has worked in human resources departments for both corporations and nonprofits, encouraged him to follow up with an interviewer at a Japan-based fund who had already turned him down.

How To Follow Up After A Job Interview

Impressed by the young man’s persistence, the hiring manager recommended him to another Japanese fund that had an opening. Stamboulie’s client got the job. “It was like a semi-hostile referral, but it worked,” she recalls.

Lesson learned: Following up on a job interview is crucial. Even if you blow the interview, it pays to get in touch after the fact.

Ideally your interviews always go smoothly, and after each one you craft an effective note thanking the interviewer for the time, expressing enthusiasm and making it clear you listened closely to the hirer’s requirements. “The follow-up letter is almost like a proposal letter,” Stamboulie says. You should tailor it to the company and suggest specific ways you can address the needs you discussed when you met.

Roy Cohen, author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide: Success Secrets of a Career Coach, agrees that a follow-up note should always focus on what the hiring manager’s looking for. “You should say, ‘I listened, I understand your needs and your challenges, and here’s how I can help you address those,’” he says. Concisely remind the interviewer of what you’ve accomplished in the past, and make a couple of concrete suggestions for how you can help the company.

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Do send the follow-up note as soon as possible. “If you don’t, someone else may send a message more quickly,” Cohen advises. If you don’t have time to craft a longer note, consider sending a short thank-you immediately, mentioning that you want to give further thought to the challenges you discussed and promising to send a more in-depth message soon.

Do send e-mails rather than handwritten notes, Stamboulie and Cohen agree. “People say that snail mail stands out, but it stands out for the wrong reason,” Cohen says. “It will make you look like a dinosaur.”

If you’ve met with more than one person in the interview process, think about what will make for an appropriate note to each, Cohen advises. For instance, if you interviewed with someone who would be reporting to you if you get the job, you can say something like, “It sounds like you’re working on some interesting projects. It would be great to have you as a colleague.”

David Couper, a career coach in Los Angeles and author of Outsiders on the Inside: How to Create a Winning Career Even When You Don’t Fit In, recommends a different tack if you’re following up on a meeting with human resources staff, as opposed to a hiring manager. HR professionals tend to struggle with overloaded calendars. He says it’s always a good idea to send a follow-up e-mail, but if the interview was at a large company, “don’t be surprised if you don’t hear back.” He recommends asking the HR person during the interview how he or she would like you to stay in touch.

Couper also suggests leapfrogging over HR if you get no response to your follow-up note. A client of Couper’s who was interviewing for a vice president-level job at an entertainment company did just that. It took several phone calls, but he eventually got the hiring manager to put pressure on the overworked HR team to hire him. He got the job.

This is an update of a story that ran previously.

Forbes.com | February 25, 2015 | Susan Adams

Got Kids? The 25 Best Companies for Internships Right Now…Only the Savvy Students Know This is the Time to Start Applying for Summer Internships

February 25, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s only February —but only the savvy students know this is the time to start applying for summer internships. According to Glassdoor, there are more than 27,500 open positions in the US right now. According to Glassdoor, there are more than 27,500 open positions in the US right now. So to help internship-seekers find the very best ones, Glassdoor combed through thousands of reviews shared on its site by interns over the past year.

Facebook takes the top spot for a second consecutive year, with a company rating of 4.6 out of 5.

The social networking giant’s interns report a great company culture that “embraces inclusiveness and creativity, feeling like part of the team, working with smart engineers and colleagues on projects that actually get built and impact billions of people,” says Glassdoor.

A software engineering intern at the social media giant wrote on the Glassdoor site: “Great culture, easy to talk to anyone you want throughout the company. I felt like I was given a challenging task and able to grow as an engineer.”

Another intern said: “You are working on a very interesting problems, which actually affect more than a billion people. You also learn a lot from people around you.”

Here’s the full list of the 25 best companies for internships this year:

Glassdoor

Now check out this video that takes a look inside Facebook:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-best-companies-for-internships-right-now-2015-2#ixzz3SluSXBsw

Leadership: What Being a Navy SEAL Sniper Taught Me About Good Business…As a Navy SEAL & Entrepreneur/Manager the Word NO Doesn’t Exist for Me & my Fellow EO’ers.

February 24, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

I spent over a decade as a Navy SEAL. I was deployed five times to not very pleasant countries, I was in Afghanistan in 2001 when my first child was born, and finished up my last tour as the head instructor for the U.S. Navy SEAL sniper program, one of the best sniper courses in the world. I gave up my career early to spend more time with my kids and to pursue entrepreneurship.

It hasn’t been an easy transition, and my first business venture was a colossal failure. However, as the saying goes, “fall down five times, get up six.” Today I own a growing and successful digital publishing company, Force12 Media. I’ve learned so many great lessons from my SEAL Team days that I apply to my business today. I hope you find the following useful for your own organization—thank you for letting me share my experiences with you. Now, on to chemistry…

1. Good Chemistry—It Matters.
Having an organization with members who work well together is extremely important, and nowhere is that more important than in a SEAL Team, where lives are on the line.

When I was a freshly minted SEAL and stationed in Coronado, California, I actually saw an entire 16-man SEAL platoon get disbanded. Command did this because they had an issue with several people not meshing together. Nobody was to blame, it just wasn’t working.

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Chemistry matters—and it’s just as crucial when it comes to creating a successful business, with employees who enjoy doing their work. For instance, if you have a problem employee who’s busy spreading hate and discontent, that’s like a cancer. The more quickly you can get rid of a bad employee, the better off everyone will be.

I recently hired and fired a very smart and productive person in the span of two months purely because of his poor treatment of another of my employees, who had been with me for years.

The guy I had to fire was definitely talented, and he knew it. What he didn’t know was how to work as a part of a team and how to respect other people. I saw the early warning signs and took swift action to resolve the situation. It reminded me of the recent hit movie The Imitation Game, based on the life of the legendary World War II cryptanalyst Alan Turing. As he’s portrayed in the movie, Turing is brilliant, but he soon disrespects everyone on his team. Resentment builds, and they quit him. Only at that moment does he realize that he can’t be successful just by himself.

Life is simply too short to keep problem employees around. We have a term in the SEAL Teams called “Violence of Action,” meaning that all resources are to be deployed to overcome an enemy. That’s how I approach problems.

It didn’t matter if you were a sniper or a heavy weapons gunner. In the SEAL Teams we trained hard together, fought hard together, and played hard together. It builds chemistry and alignment, creating an unbreakable bond within the SEAL platoon environment. I’ve sought to create esprit de corps in my own business through team-building events, dinners, outings, and creative off-site meetings (race-track driving or sky-diving, anyone?).

2. Stay Calm Under Pressure
As a former head sniper instructor for the SEALs, I had my very own “stress lab” to run. My fellow cadre and I created hundreds of high-pressure situations to make or break our students.

For instance, we used to have a drill called “Edge Shot.” We’d place all the students 800 yards away and inform them that their targets would appear sometime between now and three hours. They then had three hours on the scope, concentrating and waiting. I remember one student who took his eyes off his line of view to wipe the sweat from his brow. When he looked back up he saw his target disappearing into the distance, and he received a failing grade. A little sweat and discomfort is no excuse to take away your focus.

Having gone through the stress of SEAL training and then sniper school was an enormous gift that has taught me how to remain calm under corporate fire, as when dealing with difficult customers, vendors, and legal matters (you know what I’m talking about here).

It has also helped me model behavior for the rest of my team; they know I expect cool heads during stressful times.

I can also think of some great offsite team-building scenarios that include situational drills to stimulate and stress employees to the point where they become practiced in the art of cool under pressure, but more on that next time.

3. Adversity Is Opportunity Knocking
As a Navy SEAL and entrepreneur the word NO doesn’t exist for me and my fellow EO’ers. I try to see every problem as a chance to learn, a gift, and having this mindset has been extremely powerful in my business.

A few years ago my company was working with an advertising agency that had become extremely difficult to work with. They had been known to be extremely slow to pay–sometimes close to 180 days late.

While we were working on a branded video project, a young agency rep decided to cancel the entire campaign. The only problem was that it was noncancelable due to the video production we’d been doing on their behalf.

My team had spent a lot of time and money producing this project, and I had just returned back from shooting with them in Europe when I got the news.

I had every reason to give this young agency person a lesson in business ethics and contracting. In fact, I would have loved to just lay into them, but I kept my cool on the call (see lesson 2). After hanging up, I thought about the situation for a moment. What were my options?

A) I could have my lawyer send a letter demanding payment, and they would have had to pay. (I’ve never found this route to be a good idea.)

B) I could try to work through this already difficult agency relationship.

C) I could use this problem as an excuse to go to the brand directly and build a stronger relationship with my ultimate customer. I chose this option.

So I flew out to the brand’s corporate headquarters and met with the digital team. I was honest, laying out the situation and informing them that although we loved their brand and our relationship with them, we were prepared to walk away from the business if the ad agency didn’t start treating us as a partner.

It worked. Our customer had had no idea these problems were ongoing, and soon realized that other partners were experiencing similar issues. The brand client was grateful and committed to put pressure on the advertising agency to do right by us.
By facing the issue head-on, I turned a six-figure problem into an opportunity to develop a stronger relationship with a core client. Today they are one of our biggest clients, and we have an incredible relationship with them—regardless of which ad agency they’re with now or in the future.

Not everything I learned in the SEAL Teams can be applied to business—for instance, I can no longer settle personal issues by suggesting we “take it out back.” That said, I am amazed at how many of the lessons I’ve learned in SEAL training and as a sniper can be applied to running a successful business..

Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, is an EONYC chapter member. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Red Circle. His next book, Among Heroes (Penguin Random House), will be published in May 2015.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, its management, or its other members.

Forbes.com | February 23, 2015 | Entrepreneurs Organization

Strategy: The Key To Office Productivity- Get Out Of The Office… I get More Work Done on a 2 Hour Flight than I Do All Day at the Office, Because I’m Not being Interrupted

February 24, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Productivity is a big topic these days. In an era of always-on technology and constant interruptions, getting more done in less time is the holy grail. Evidently, the answer is simple: Get out of the office.

Don't panic! There are ways to cut down on interruptions when you're on deadline. (Photo credit: star5112)

Don’t panic! There are ways to cut down on interruptions when you’re on deadline. (Photo credit: star5112)

Of employees who work remotely at least a few times per month, more than three-quarters of them report greater productivity while working off site, according to a recent survey from ConnectSolutions. Some 30% complete more work in less time, and 24% get more done in the same time, the survey found.

What makes the difference, you ask? No one is popping into your home office to ask if you watched the Oscars last night or if you can help them with that spreadsheet. “Clients have said to me that they get more work done on a two-hour flight than they do all day at the office, because they’re not being interrupted,” says Mitzi Weinman, founder of productivity company TimeFinder and author of It’s About Time.

That’s great for those workers whose employers let them telecommute for work, of course. But what if you’re chained to your desk? What if you can’t do your job from someplace else, or your boss simply isn’t inclined to let you? There are ways to mimic the experience of working remotely—you just have to cut down on the interruptions in the workplace.

Here are some pointers:

Look at the big picture. Spend a little time thinking about why you’re getting interrupted at work. If it’s because you sit by the printer and people are constantly strolling by your desk, that’s one thing. But if you’re a manager and you’re fielding questions from the same people all day long, you might be at fault. “Are you giving your team enough information to be able to do what they need to do and enough authority to be able to move forward without having to come back to you?” Weinman says. If not, now is the time to figure out what needs to change.

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Set no-interrupt times. If there’s a time of day when you really work efficiently and can get a lot accomplished, try to preserve it as your own. Post a sign on your cube or your door indicating that you’re working between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., and unless it’s an emergency, to please leave a note or come back later. If you’re consistent, your team will learn not to bug you during those hours.

Move. If you work in an open-space office or a cube farm, you might be better served by going elsewhere when you’re on a deadline—even if it’s just a quiet conference room or an unused office. “I had a client who used to hide under his desk and turn the lights out,” Weinman says.

Wear headphones or a headset. People are less likely to stop and chat if you look like you’re concentrating or that you’re already on the phone. You can also try setting up visual barriers, such as plants or a lamp, that make it harder for people to glance over and make eye contact.

Change your office culture. Suggest a no-meeting day once a week, or every other week. Or try this: “I was doing a workshop with a company and we put into place that once or twice a week, for the first two hours of the day, nobody could interrupt anybody in a particular department,” Weinman says. “Because they were yelling over cubes. That made them so much more productive for those two hours.”

Take advantage of quiet times. Think about the times that your office is deserted. Does everyone arrive at 9 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m.? Consider coming in at 8 a.m. a couple of times a week, or working until 6 p.m. now and then. You can get a lot done in an hour of focused time.

Silence all the beeps. Coworkers aren’t the only ones who interrupt. You’re probably also dealing with a steady stream of emails, texts and other notifications from your computer and smartphone. When you’re under the gun, close your email program and put your phone on silent to avoid getting thrown off track. “There’s a statistic that every time you’re interrupted, whether it’s something dinging or somebody standing in the door, that it takes 20 minutes to get back to where you were,” Weinman says. “It’s so frustrating.”

– Follow Kate Ashford on Twitter.

Forbes.com | February 24, 2015 | Kate Ashford

Strategy: 11 lessons from ‘The Art of War’ on Getting Ahead at Work…Who Survives? Those Best Able to Adapt to the Changing Circumstances

February 23, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Visualized,” cartoonist Jessica Hagy brings the ancient wisdom of Sun Tzu to a new generation. The creator of Indexed has updated Tzu’s famous Chinese military book “The Art of War” with original illustrations to explain how to apply his advice to the modern business world.

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“The Art of War” contains more than military strategy. It’s also a guide for getting ahead at work.

Business Insider asked Hagy to annotate a few of her favorite pages from the book.

Continue reading to find out how to harness “The Art of War” in your life.

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Now see more life lessons:

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Leadership: Less Is More: Why You Don’t Need To Network To Get Big Things Done…The Key to Getting Big Things Done is Not Contacts, it is Connection

February 23, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

We’ve all heard it a thousand times: when it comes to getting ahead professionally, what matters is “who you know.” This phrase might be helpful to many, but I find it discouraging at best and paralyzing at worst. Having 10,000 contacts in my rolodex will not make me “go viral,” nor will it make me happier or more successful. I have a different theory about the key way that individuals can achieve big results, and it is accessible to everyone.

So what do we really need to get big things done? Not influencer status. Not a million Twitter TWTR -0.86% followers. Not even a connection to Richard Branson. All too often, we think affecting change requires amassing a bloated LinkedIn LNKD -0.03% profile, Twitter feed and Facebook fan page, but we’re overlooking an important point. Nothing has changed about our basic need to find value and meaning in our work. The difference today is how we combine our vision with our connections to achieving meaningful goals.

One problem is that many people think all young people are “social media obsessed” or “social media gurus” — which is not necessarily true and can create a dangerous expectation. For example, my friend who graduated from Columbia journalism school was told she needed more Twitter followers to be successful. She has now written over twenty pieces for the New York Times with only 151 followers on social media. Another friend, a young author, was told he needed to become a Linkedin Influencer to “make it.” He did not become an influencer but he did write a Wall Street Journal bestseller. There is no doubt that success is about making connections, but I do not believe that traditional networking is the key to getting big things done.

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Rather than get lost in the time we spend collecting business cards, we need a whole new way of thinking about the potential of our connections. In a world where connections are commonly defined as digital, social, and mobile, I think the conversation needs to shift back to how we use our human ingenuity, or better described as our “connectional intelligence.” Instead of 10,000 LinkedIn connections, we really only need the right five or seven smart, passionate individuals to start. We need a mastermind group, the coterie that Deresiewicz describes in his Atlantic article, “The Death of the Artist and The Rise of the Creative Entrepreneur.” Getting big things done truly can start at a dinner table if the right people are sitting around it.

Take the viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. As Mrs. Frates described in her TED talk, her son, Pete was a visionary. After he received his diagnosis, Pete declared to the family over dinner, “we’re not looking back, we’re looking forward. What an amazing opportunity we have to change the world.” Pete Frates certainly did not have 10,000 contacts.

Instead, Pete enlisted relatives to start building what Nancy Frates called “Team FrateTrain.” His uncle Dave became the webmaster, Uncle Artie became the accountant, and his aunt Dana was the graphic designer. Then Pete engaged friends and old baseball teammates to start the first Ice Bucket Challenge videos. What began as a mere handful of committed family members and select friends, eventually became a new voice that engaged people around a rare disease that nobody was talking about.

Focusing solely on networking is not only unnecessary but can be paralyzing to anyone who wants to get big things done. The magic of creation comes in combining people, ideas and resources in the right way. Frates’ ALS challenge did just that. He asked people to use resources they already had – ice, water and Youtube – to start and spread a conversation in an unprecedented way. Only after the challenge gained national media attention, did the big contacts, like Bill Gates and Justin Timberlake, show up. The Frates family is now projected to have raised over $160 million for ALS research.

The lessons from the Frates Family, and my journalist and author friends, could be applied to anyone creating something today, whether a campaign or a business. We all have the ability to become visionaries, seek solutions to unacceptable situations, and combine things in a new way to take action. The people who achieve today know that success is not about sheer numbers of contacts, but about what you do with the strong connections that you have. The key to getting big things done is not contacts, it is connection.

Erica Dhawan is the co-author of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence by Erica Dhawan and Saj-nicole Joni. She is CEO of Cotential. Follow her @edhawan

Leadership: 6 Ways Vision Will Inspire Your Employees & Culture…Today, Vision’s has Become a ‘Buzzword’, to the Point Where a Leader with a Real vision can Simply mean Nice Marketing Strategy

February 23, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Even as kids, we developed radar on leadership. Consider the classic schoolyard game, Follow the Leader. Everyone has to do exactly what the leader does, or they’re out. Growing up, I remember watching that game dissolve time after time. The leader would start doing scary climbs or huge leaps, and the followers felt put at risk. The leader would make seemingly pointless changes in direction, the followers got frustrated. Finally someone would yell, What are you doing? You’re a terrible leader! And set off a culture mutiny.

Since we left the playground for the workplace, what’s changed? Not much. Though these days, vision’s become a buzzword — to the point where She’s a leader with a real vision can simply mean Nice marketing strategy. But still: effective leadership, particularly at the juncture between the old ways of working and the new, requires far more than a charismatic, alpha personality, and far more than a good PR team.

Here’s how to hone its critical ingredient, Vision, To Stay On Pace With The Future of Work:

1) Vision Is Mission Plus Tech Strategy

True vision involves a clear mission that informs every strategic action and decision. Bring that into a talent management context for a moment. If a CEO’s vision includes attracting the best and the brightest minds to the organization on a global scale, a visionary talent strategy will include a platform that’s social and mobile, agile and timely, shaped with this clear target group in mind. If it doesn’t, the strategy isn’t supporting the vision.

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2) Vision Should Come From Within

Consider our iconic leaders. They appear to be so filled with their vision that they’re incandescent with it; lit from within. Steve Jobs is a great example: he lived and breathed his vision; such a part of Apple’s mission that “Think Different” could have had a black turtleneck as a flag. Such distilled strength gives a brand coherency and momentum. But to transmit your vision to others and inspire them, you first have to be filled with it yourself.

3) Vision Is Creative

What makes a leader stand out is that their ability to conceive of an objective that may not even exist: stores serving nothing but fancy coffee, cars a working family can afford to buy, a system of storing data without physical form or shape, yet nearly infinite capacity and capabilities. Then, when it comes to problem solving, where one person sees a dead end, the leader sees a road ahead. Bolstered by an unshakeable faith in their own vision, leaders see obstacles as opportunities.

4) Vision Takes Tenacity

It takes tenacity to adhere to a vision and defend it against the prospect of failure. But leaders roll up their sleeves and the world throws in behind them. Consider the recent news that insurance giant Aetnaand retail mammoth Walmart are both raising wages is bound to cause ripples in the pond, as businesses are forced to similarly act in order to keep pace and attract employees — that’s one of the byproducts of a firmer job market. But the cost of these decisions is immense: Walmart, for once, has 1.3 million U.S. workers. It’s not hard to imagine the resistance such a strategy could come up against within the organization, and how hard fought the battle to get it done.

5) Vision Takes Vision

No, it’s not a typo: vision requires a sense of the big picture and a laser-sharp view of the future. This kind of foresight takes practice, but it’s part of what keeps the train on the track. Leaders need to be able to look at past performances, whether successes or failures, and be able to use that to predict future outcomes. Further, a leader can envision more than one possible outcome, and still have it adhere to their stated objective.

6) Vision Requires Communication

None of this will go anywhere if a leader doesn’t also have the tools to convey that vision to the organization, and inspire them to get the job done. That may also be why marketing has taken such a hold on the term: marketing is about creating the most engaging expression of an idea.

Implicit in our ability to convey our vision is that vital compact that leadership needs to have with employees: one of consideration, and inclusion, and respect.Together, we can do it, as the slogan goes. And that, drives employee engagement and helps talent attraction and retention across the board.

Forbes.com | February 22, 2015 | Meghan M. Biro