How can your weak areas

How can your weak areas affect the ways other peopleperceive you?

If a leader lacks conviction, commitment, integrity,
consistency, curiosity, loving-kindness, drive or
determination, credibility or mercy, that leader will most
certainly be seen as weak, domineering, wishy-washy, evil,
mean-spirited, or conceited,... well, I think you get the
idea.

Leaders must, in general, present a public image that is
full of positive attributes or admirable worthiness. Of
course, all human beings harbor doubts, act with
compromised values, and are held captive by other dark
thoughts or feelings.

So what is a leader to do?

The successful leader holds on and remains faithful to a
strongly held belief system that advocates a mission of
service - leaders make themselves useful in varying ways.
Typically, they can serve:
=> as a solution,
=> as the facilitator who empowers people,
=> the specifc needs of some group,
=> a greater good,
=> a higher power or purpose.

Why Use a Strategy of Service?

Strategies help you to define your approach, position or
direction. Your leadership strategy should reflect the tone
of your intention. In other words, your strategy should act
as a guideline for your leadership style, role, behavior,
agenda or patterns of work.

We know that great leaders have always demonstrated a
strong commitment to serving others. In fact all enduring
acts of leadership have been based on a service philosophy
- witness the impact of Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie,
Nelson Mandela and so many others.

Will you strive towards 'greatness'? Will you rise to the
challenge to be 'the servant of all'? Will you transform
your vain weaknesses into proud displays of humble service?

Are You Ready to Make Your Leadership Service Display
Greatness?

Effective leaders seek ways to 'enrich' their contributions
- your 'Leadership UltraNet!' is your life-long,
comprehensive, all-in-one leadership skills enrichment tool.

Jokes

They won't stop with my Igbo brothers:An Igbo man went on pilgrimage। He wanted a boat trip across the Jordan, He was told it costs N500:00, "Nna Na Wa for you people o!" he said,"No wonder Jesus kuku waka for top de water!"

One day in d front seat of a bus, a boy said 2 himself -if my Papa na King, my mama na Queen, I go be Prince;If my Papa na Lion, my mama be Lioness, I go strong।The bus driver asked him - 4 say ur papa na Agbero and ur mama na Ashawo, wetin u 4 be?The boy looked at him and said: Bus Driver!

Naija Translation of Some Popular SayingsA rolling stone -> Na person push am.A stitch in time -> Dey avoid futher tear tear.Birds of the same feather -> Na de same mama.One good turn -> Na power steering be dat.A friend in need -> Na long throat kill am.A bird in hand -> Na chops be dat.

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11 Super Businesses You Can Start With Little Capital and Make Big Money This Christmas!

This article was published in the recent edition of Success Digest Extra but I have decided to publish it here because I know you will gain one or two things from it.

It has been established that people spend more money at Christmas so why don’t you also take advantage of the period to make good bucks for yourself? The tips below will help you!

1.Greeting Card Business

Christmas is a fantastic time for this special business that doesn’t require too much stress and capital. And if you ask any greeting cards seller, he or she will tell you the best time to make money from this business is the Christmas season so why don’t you cash in on this season to make good money from this business? You don’t have to be a graduate to get into this business, just as you don’t have to be computer literate. What’s more, you can do this business on a part time basis. Return on investment is also high and if you don’t sell all your cards this season, just keep your cards neatly and sell them the next Christmas season. To get into this business, you need the know-how,so,I suggest you attend a seminar by someone who is in the business.

2.Decorating Business

Have you noticed how everywhere looks nice at Christmas? Georgeous trees, twinkling lights etc.Every organization wants to get into the Christmas mood and you can cash in on this craze to get decoration jobs and make cool cash.However,you must have an eye for colour combinations as well as the willingness to express yourself creatively. If you have these 2,you can make good money this Christmas, just print out some cards and begin to give them out but I doubt if this will bring you much work.Rather,do a decoration job for a friend or church member and then use it as a reference point to get other jobs. And if you see a potential client, please approach him or her confidently. Your potential clients include schools,companies,banks,etc

3.Cake/Pastry Making

Christmas and we all love cakes is a time when cakes are given out as gifts,etc if you can make good cakes and pastries, I can assure you, you are in business already. Just find a way of getting word across about your outfit. Print fliers,handbills,cards,etc but more than that,network creatively to start getting jobs.And I tell you,your first job is already on the way!

4.Hairdressing

Women love to look beautiful all year round but their craving for hairdressing at christmas is simply unimaginable.If you have a flair for hairdressing and can actually deliver,you will make good money this christmas.You may not set up shop,just do a mobile,house-to-house thing,you’ll be amazed at how much you can make.

5.Hampers

Christmas is a period for giving and receiving and a lot of hampers change hands at christmas.You can make your own hampers unique by not placing the usual candy,biscuits and wine.You can put adire/batik,mini-perfumes,handkerchiefs,toys,etc.You can even have themed hampers with items tailored towards the needs of a particular person,eg,invalid.You can also have general pampers,just let your imagination run wild.

6.MC or Disc Jockey

A lot of parties will be going on at this season and you can make good money as a MC or disc Jockey.Make sure you have a flair for both and then roll out your services even if you have to rent equipment initially.Have fun making money this way.However,you must be able to deliver as in make people laugh until they forget their name(apologies to Papa Ajasco).As a DJ,you must also be able to give your clients the kind of songs they like.

7.Event Coordinator/Party Planner

Most companies will hold end of year parties and will require this service so if you have a flair for it,why don’t you get in and make some good money for yourself.However,you must approach your potential clients and convince them to give you the job.There is always a first time,don’t fret.You will be amazed that you will deliver above expectation.

8.Fashion Designing

Even though people complain of poverty in the land,I can assure you that people will make clothes this christmas and if you are talented in it,you will smile to the bank.You will have more clients than you can contend with.But please be creative and give people good finishing on their clothes.Let the clothes you make stand out.

9.Christmas Santa

Kiddies love to visit Father Christmas to receive gifts during christmas so you can be a father christmas and make good money.Your clients include Schools,TV stations that hold father christmas fair,Big Supermarkets that hold Santa Fairs,etc.Just be creative and then get your costume right.You can even take this idea to the next level by entirely organising the fair and sharing the profits with the organisation.What you can do in this regard is unlimited,just let your imagination guide you.

10.Digital Photography

Many people who ordinarily don’t take pictures will take during christmas and most of them will want their pictures instantly instead of waiting for 3 or more days to collect it.So,if you can do this business,you will make good money.Digital photography is the latest form of photography whereby you take shots of people at an event,but instead of printing them out on paper,you give them the electronic version of their photographs in a CD-Rom.You can hang out at Holiday Spots,Churches and Beaches to land more jobs this season.

11.Jewellery/Bead Making

Women love accesorizing themselves during christmas and you can make good money from producing fanciful beads and jewellery this season.To make faster sales,you can do direct marketing of your products by visiting offices,popular markets,etc,just put your thinking caps on,you can make good money from this business this season.

Iyabo Oyawale assists people achieve success in Small Business,
Internet Marketing and in Life generally. You can download her 100%
Free success manuals at the free ebooks section of http://naijanetwarriors.com
and http://iyabooyawale.com/blog.

7 Mistakes To Avoid When Blogging For Cash!

While there are loads of people blogging there are 1000 times more that aren’t getting any traffic to their blog at all.

That’s pretty sad isn’t it?

After all, the whole point of having a blog online is so you can share your thought and insights with like-minded people and communicate about them.

So what is it that makes a blog fail? Several things do but here are 7.

1) Not having a goal for blogging.Before you start a blog, ask yourself, what do I want to achieve with this blog? I believe answering that question objectively will assist you stay on focus.

2)Content isn’t updated regularly - with a blog you need to post at least once a week to keep the search engines interested and sending you traffic.I make posts almost on a daily basis and if you must succeed as a blogger,you need to update your blog frequently.

3) The content isn’t targeted - if your content isn’t targeted and is too broad, no one will read your content; stay on your blog or return. Focus on the focus of your blog and I tell you, you will make good money sooner than you can ever imagine.I see people make this mistake often.Posting articles on internet marketing on a mother care blog.Please avoid this if you want to suceed as a blogger.As Bishop David Oyedepo will say,focus on your focus.

4)Another mistake is to write about a topic you don’t care about just for money. You have to be able to sustain your own interest over the long term, or blogging about the topic will be too much of a chore to keep up.

5)Giving up too easily and too early. Our expectations of instant gratification in the internet age make us impatient for results. Sure there are bloggers who get instant success, getting 4,000 readers a day within 3 weeks of launching a blog. But that kind of success is the exception, not the norm. A successful blogger said that blogging is not a sprint but a long distance marathon. The ones with consistency and perserverance will triumph ultimately simply because the others have given up too soon.

6)Expecting people to visit
Most of us make this mistake when we begin blogging.When I first started out I had no idea how to attract new readers, commenters, interaction etc. I had the impression that if I published new content I’d automatically find readers in my niche.

How wrong I was.Successful blogging involves time, effort, and reaching out to fellow bloggers / publishers / authors (whatever you prefer). You can find articles on getting readers to your blog right on this blog.

7)Underestimating the time commitment.Blogging is not for lazy people,it is for people who are serious about making a living online,so,don’t underestimate the time commitment.It requires time to research your articles,write them and publish them.

If you watch out for these 7 pitfalls, you’re already way ahead of the crowd.

Tomorrow,I will post an article on Understanding RSS Technology.Please stay tuned!

Beginners Blog

I’m sure you have heard of blogs and if you haven’t,thank God you are hearing it now because it is one perfect way to transform your bank account within days.Now,What is blogging?

Blogging is a way of collecting links to webpages and sharing thoughts and ideas with people online.Blogs (or Weblogs) are basically online journals or diaries which are great for sharing information and ideas.If you are familiar with the concept of keeping a diary,you will understand what blogging means.

Blogger.com says:

“A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.”

As well as text, blogs often contain audio, music, images and video.They’re also really easy to make, so you can have one even if you aren’t very technical.

Anything can be posted instantly to a blog.Now,Why should you blog?

Surfing’s no fun if you can’t tell people what you’ve found.

How many times have you sent e-mails to your mates with the address of a particularly interesting web page, annotated with your own hilarious comments? Wouldn’t it be good to get your own web page where you could publish these comments, plus the links you find, turn it into a daily journal of thoughts and ideas and make the whole thing available to the world?

Well now you can, and if you do, you’ll be joining the phenomenon that has become ‘blogging’.Before I tell you how to blog your way to the bank,let me quickly tell you the history of blogs.

Blogging has become something of a big thing in the last few years, and some of the biggest and best known weblogs attract the kind of traffic that even big name e-commerce sites would be jealous of.Weblogs are more than pages of links - they tend to reflect the personalities of their owners. They are personal web pages, updated very often.

They are the product of their owners’ imaginations, interests and wit, and it’s probably this personal touch which has made them so popular, especially for political issues.

The word ‘weblog’ was coined by Jorn Barger, owner of the long-established and extremely popular Robot Wisdom weblog. You can get a lot more about the history of weblogs from his site at http://robotwisdom.com.

Written by Iyabo Oyawale(2007),you can use the above article and all the others on my blog f-r-e-e- if you include the following:

Iyabo Oyawale assists people achieve success in small business,Internet Marketing and in life generally.You can download her 100% free success manuals at the free ebooks section of http://naijanetwarriors.com and http://iyabooyawale.com/blog.

If you found this article useful,discuss it at http://naijanetwarriors.com

How to Get Loyal Readers for Your Blog!

1.Submit your articles to EzineArticles
Submit your Tutorial articles to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish them on their website or in their newsletter while linking back to you. If your article is republished on a site with good traffic, you will get a lot of new readers at once. Many people underestimate the power of article submission but I tell you,it works.Aside EzineArticles.com,you can submit your articles to other sites such as goarticles.com,articlestree.com,articlescity.com,etc

2.Tag Technorati
Technorati is one of the best traffic providers for bloggers. People find your blogs easily when they search by technorati tags. Technorati will rank your blog based on the number of links from other websites.The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things.

If you do not have a Technorati account, signup at http://technorati.com. After you have setup the main settings, such as your profile, you need to claim your blog.

3.Take part in Blog Networks
Submitting your blog to blog networks like topblogsites.net, blogtopsites.com and top100bloggers.com is another way to get more readers. These networks make your blog easier to find and search for as well. After you sign up for an account on their website, you just need to copy a bit of code and paste it somewhere on your blog

4.Hold a Blog Contest
There are an estimated 60 million bloggers around the world - and if you are one of them you will be fighting for attention like everyone else. So,holding a blog contest is a perfect way to drive traffic like crazy to your blog.And please don’t be scared of doing this because of the cash reward involved.You can give out non-cash prizes,such as links,branded T-shirts,mugs,etc

5.Another step in getting more readers is to find out about other blogs which might wish to carry material from your blog. To do that, you will need to search for blogs - perhaps at http://blogsearch.google.com

Once you have found some blogs of interest you can do a couple of things. Add a comment or two to postings within the blog, ensuring you include a link to your own blog. Also, contact the blogger and ask them to read your blog and perhaps include a mention of it in their own blog.

6.You can also use social networking sites to increase the likelihood of bloggers using your blog within their postings.

7.Another way of getting readers to find your blog is to issue a press release. Write a press release about something your blog has covered and submit it to all the relevant online press release directories. This may get coverage for your blog - but importantly some of the main press release directories are used by Google in its News search system.

8.Mention your blog at business networking meetings. If your blog has an easy to remember name, pass it on during conversation. Otherwise, get business cards printed with just the domain name of your blog, and some basic information about what it covers. Hand these around at meetings and other bloggers will be able to mention you in their blog, bringing you more readers.

9.Finally, give people a reason to mention your blog - use the power of “word of mouth”. That means your blog must be useful - provide practical help, rather than just opinion. Also, be “unusual” - don’t just do what everyone else is doing. If you do, you won’t get noticed.

Apply these tips and see your blog readership grow almost overnight!

Written by Iyabo Oyawale (2007),you can use the above article and all the others on my blog f-r-e-e- if you include the following:

Iyabo Oyawale assists people achieve success in small business, Internet Marketing and in life generally. You can download her 100% free success manuals at the free ebooks section of http://naijanetwarriors.com and http://iyabooyawale.com/blog

If you have found this article useful, please discuss it at http://naijanetwarriors.com.

101 Topics You Can Blog About and Make Money Without Stress!

Most times, logging newbies ask topics they can blog about so I have decided to make this post to help out. I hope you do find them useful.

Accounting
Acne
Adsense
Advertising
Aerobics
Affiliate
Alternative
Articles
Attraction
Auctions
Audio Streaming
Auto Care
Auto Parts
Auto Responders
Aviation
——————————————————————————–
Babies Toddler
Baby
Bankruptcy
Bathroom
Beauty
Bedroom
Blogging
Body Building
Book Marketing
Book Review
Branding
Breast Cancer
Broadband Internet
Business
Business Loan
Business Plan
——————————————————————————–
Cance
Car Buying
Career
Car Insurance
Car Loan
Car Maintenance
Cars
Casino
Cell Phone
Chat
Christmas
Claims
Coaching
Coffee
College University
Computer Tips
Cooking
Cooking Tips
Copywriting
Cosmetics
Craft
Creative Writing
Credit
Credit Cards
Credit Repair
Currency Trading
————————————————————————————-
Data Recovery
Dating
Debt Relief
Diabetics
Diet
Digital Camera
Diving
Divorce
Domain
Driving Tips
——————————————————————————–
Ebay
Ebook
Ecommerce
Email Marketing
E Marketing
Essay
Ezine
——————————————————————————–
Fashion
Finance
Fishing
Fitness
Flu
Furniture
——————————————————————————–
Gambling
Golf
Google
GPS
——————————————————————————–
Hair
Hair Loss
HDTV
Health Insurance
Heart Disease
Hobbies
Holiday
Home Business
Home Improvement
Home Organization
——————————————————————————–
Interior Design
Internet Tips
Investment
——————————————————————————–
Jewelry
——————————————————————————–
Kitchen
——————————————————————————–
Ladies Accessories
Lawyer
LCD / PLASMA
Legal
Life Insurance
Lingerie
Love
———————————————————————————-
Mailing List
Make Money
Mortgage
MP3
Music
——————————————————————————–
Network Marketing
——————————————————————————–
Online Shopping
——————————————————————————–
Paid Survey
PC Games
Perfume
Personal Injury
Pay Per Click
Pregnancy
Publishing
——————————————————————————–
Real Estate
Recipe
Recreation
Relationship
Resume
Romance
RSS
——————————————————————————–
Sales Letter
Self Employment
SEO
Shoes
Small Business
Smoking
Software
Spam
Sports
Spyware
Stress
——————————————————————————–
Trading
Travel
——————————————————————————–
Vacation Rental
Video Conferencing
Video Streaming
Virus
VOIP
Web Design
Web Development
Web Hosting
Website Traffic
Wedding
Weight Loss
Wine
Women
Writing Tips

Your Guide to Women's Fashion.

5 Holiday Fashion Mistakes

Your Guide to Women's Fashion.

If you've ever dressed up shinier than a Christmas tree or turned down last-minute party invitations because you had nothing to wear, you'll know that the holiday season is loaded with chances for fashion disasters.

With a little help and preparation, you can learn how to avoid common holiday fashion mistakes and look your prettiest this year.

Common holiday fashion faux pas:

Wearing Too Much Glitz

Beading, metallic and shimmer are all fine for the holidays. In fact, most women wait until a good party to break out all of the glitzy finery. But too much shine can overwhelm anyone, especially if you wear it in areas that you don't necessarily want to highlight (like a beaded chest sweater for a busty gal).

Find out how to wear glitz right: How to Wear Embellishment.

Showing Too Much Skin Thigh-high miniskirts and cut-to-the-navel dresses may look great on the runway, but in reality they are almost impossible to carry off. Not only is it possible to dress sexy while leaving lots to the imagination, it's also the best way to look your prettiest for the holidays. The secret here is to accentuate your best features with a suggestion: a lace trimmed camisole under a blazer hints at great cleavage, a small slit on a skirt gives a glimpse at gorgeous legs, a halter dress shows off toned arms.

More ideas: Dress Sexy, Not Sleazy
Getting Caught With Nothing to Wear

Nothing is worse than being invited to a fabulous party and having nothing to wear. By keeping a few dressy basics in your closet you can always be prepared for last-minute invitations. You can even re-wear the items and make them look totally different just with accessories.

Find your holiday basics: 10 Party Musts
Making It Too Complicated

No wonder women approach the holidays with dread: trying to coordinate outfits, gifts, travel and parties can overload even the most organized woman.

Instead of trying to match up dressy separates, try a little black dress this season. Not only is it universally flattering, it will take you to almost any event in style. Just add accessories and you're set.

Shop now: Little Black Dresses
Being Under or Over Dressed

You show up in jeans, everyone else wears velvet; you wear a long dress and others wear business clothes. You're not alone if you have trouble deciphering dress codes on a party invitation: most people get confused by designations as ambiguous as "Dressy Casual" or "Cocktail Attire." A few dressy items span several categories -- such as the little black dress for her or dark suit for him -- both of which can attend everything from semi-formal to cocktail parties.

Brush up on dress codes: Party Definitions

Holiday Cheer or Holiday Nightmare?

It is that time of the year again, where many companies decide to have or not to have a company holiday party। Sounds a little like Shakespeare. The figures are a mixed bag depending on who you listen too.

According to the 19th Annual Survey on Corporate Holiday Celebrations, Battalia Winston, an executive search firm, tough times call for less partying 85 percent of 104 "leading businesses" say they will have some type of holiday celebration this year this is a 9 percent decrease from the previous year।

On the other hand, a survey by Chicago-based global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc। of 100 HR executives, found an 11 point increase, from 79 percent to 90 percent, of companies holding holiday parties.

The results do not mean that everyone should run right out and plan a big wild party that lasts all night with unlimited alcohol। So what are some of the options if you are still going ahead with a holiday festivity?

First, what is the purpose of the event? Is it to say thank you to your staff? Say thank you to you clients and customers? Or a combination of both?

If your clients and customers are going to be there, this can actually help you to keep the festivity from getting out of hand। Your staff should remember that they are still representatives of the company and that the clients that will be there will remember any over the top type performance well after the party is over. The detrimental effect on your company revenues could be disastrous. So self-restraint is the key in this situation.

Some of the ways to help maintain self-restraint are:

Plan the festivity in the late afternoon/early evening with a definite start and stop time; i।e., 4 pm to 7 pm for example. Do not have an open bar; instead use a ticket system to help control the amount of alcohol consumed. Do not have too many bar setups. If it takes a few minutes longer to get a drink, it will not hurt anything. Also, an entrance and exit arrangement at the bar station can make things flow much smoother rather than the typical free for all seen at most events. Serve only wine and beer. Beer from local or statewide brew houses is particularly in. Serve a controlled spiked punch and plain unspiked punch for everyone. Make sure that the place you are holding the party at or the bartenders that have been brought in have the last say as to when someone should be cut off. They have a liability issue under the Dram Shop laws of most states. Make it a sit-down affair. This also provides control on consumption. Invite spouses or significant others to attend -- this has an effect of reducing outlandish behavior. Plus spouses have a tendency of controlling things to the point that an offensive person's spouse may actually decide when it is time to go home. Of those holding actual parties, Battalia Winston's survey found that 70 percent of businesses plan to serve alcohol this year, a 15 percent drop from 2006. Of those serving alcohol, a majority (58 percent) are taking steps to restrict consumption. Of the holiday celebrations, 54 percent will be evening affairs, compared to 46 percent at lunch, with three-quarters (76 percent) of the celebrations will be off-site, compared to 24 percent at the office.

Even though the Challenger Gray report showed an increase in the number of parties this year, it also showed that these parties would be less alcohol-fueled, with only 46 percent of HR executives saying their companies plan to provide alcohol which is down from 60 percent a year ago।

Today, there is no doubt that you can have a major liability issue staring you in the face if someone attending your event is injured or injures someone in an accident। People are even being held responsible for parties that are conducted in their private homes. It is possible to have a fun and safe event with proper planning.

Other issues that should be addressed are:

Remind employees that this is a company function and that the company rules of conduct are in effect. Remind managers that they are "on duty" so to speak and are to oversee the event. The manager should also not attend any post event functions, as this can give the illusion that the post event function is company sponsored. Arrange for no-cost taxi service to take people home if needed. No one leaves the party with an open drink. This is a huge liability issue for the company and the caterer or banquet facility. It is a festive time of the year that is to be enjoyed; do not let something happen that can cast a dark cloud over it. Limit the time for the party and have plenty of food with the beverages being provided. In most cases there are only a handful of people that have the potential to become problems. The vast majority of people will maintain their own self-control and enjoy the festivities. A well planned and orchestrated party can have a long reaching positive image for your company. All it takes is some careful planning in advance. Happy holidays to all and great success in 2008!

Keep Your Employees Focused this Holiday Season

'Tis the season for all good employees to become distracted.

Stress. Gift shopping and giving. Sending holiday cards. Parties and holiday lunches. Decorating. Gift wrapping. Family obligations and gatherings. How can you keep your employees focused on their work-at-hand without them having visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads? Just what's an employer to do?

Set an example
Leadership is crucial to maintaining productivity during the holiday season. If your attitude and goals are lax during this time -- coming in excessively late and producing less than usual -- chances are your employees will take your lead and slack off as well. Stay focused on your end-of-year goals and chances are your employees will do the same.

Reinforce your mission statement
This might be a good time to remind employees of your company's fundamental purpose, and your short and long-term goals. Set some new goals, and let your inspired excitement and drive be contagious.

Don't be a “scrooge"
If you find yourself saying “Bah Humbug" to anything celebratory, think again. Perk up morale and productivity by giving your workers a holiday treat to look forward to or enjoy; i.e., a celebratory luncheon, festive decorations, or a holiday cookie or Secret Santa exchange. Consider giving each employee a company holiday gift, although this practice may be too costly for larger businesses. If this time of year is your busiest, keep employees' spirits high with small tokens of appreciation like bringing in bagels and coffee, or simply expressing your heartfelt thanks for a job well done.

If possible, try not to demand excessive overtime or weekend hours. When additional work time is necessary due to seasonal demands, consider using temporary help to augment your regular work force. If feasible, allow some flexibility in work-time shifts so employees can get those critical holiday errands accomplished. Contemplate scheduling company holiday celebrations and parties during normal business hours so you don't take away from workers' personal time.

Don't let history repeat itself
Did productivity suffer last holiday season? Identify what went wrong and come up with viable solutions, seeking input from workers whenever possible. If work time and employee relations suffered because certain employees took overly-long lunch breaks, set down strict guidelines about lunch-time limits for all. If company orders were up last holiday season but you didn't have enough customer service help to keep up in a timely fashion, plan on employing more people or temporarily shifting work responsibilities in order to handle the load.

Reflect on and share accomplishments
Take the time to think about all the great things you, your business and employees have accomplished during the year. Focus on the positive contributions and achievements, and be sure to share these with your staff, being certain to thank each and all for whatever part they played. Being appreciated lifts the spirits and goes a long way to staying motivated during stressful and harried times.

Employing some or all of these methods should help maintain your employee productivity level during the holiday season. But do keep in mind that realistically you may experience some decrease in worker output. If this should happen, eat one of those holiday cookies, take a sip of some company eggnog, smile and exclaim, “Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards Men."

RESOLUTIONS KO, RESOLUTIONS NI

by Chioma Ilozumba - 08026064787

We are more than half of the year gone, and the 'happy new year' anthem has died off, but the struggle to keep the resolutions continues। Like every other person, I had a long list of resolutions. Drawing up the list wasn't the problem, what was, was how to go about it.People like us pick up our biro and paper at the slightest inspiration, and I just did.

The inspiration? My friend is here, nagging about how she's finding it difficult to keep up with her resolutions। And it's just hit me that I'm having the same problems. Let's check some out. I resolved to get more polite on the phone. Believe me, I was nice for at least the first 10 days of the year. But the problem is that I'm this straight to the point kind of person, and it really infuriates me when people spend precious call money telling you "guess who's speaking?".

It's not like I hate surprises oh, but most times, before you even begin to guess, they go "so you've forgotten my voice eh? Am I supposed to be a robot that will remember every voice at replay? Of course, we know the guys are the guilty ones। And just when you call a name, it makes matters worse, because the next thing you'll be hearing is "Ehhen, who is Simeon?"It's just at this level I get angry and tell you to take a one-way trip to hell.

My girlfriends know better than to give a guy my number। But when they do, it's really annoying that a guy calls a girl he does not know from Adam and does not have the guts to explain how he got your number.

To make matters worse, I might say, "you sound like my 9yr old brother", and we cut the phone with two separate impressions, he lacks guts, and she's nasty। Sometimes when I pick the phone, my rough 'hello' as if we just had a quarrel makes whoever is on the other end cut the line. I really ought to change, because many times, I've ended up apologizing profusely to people who really mean a lot to me, not to talk of my Uncles and older people.

Maybe it's because I'm really stressed up sometimes, yeah, I could safely say that, or how can you explain the fact that you hear an entirely different angel whose voice could run you mad at 2।57am? But I will change, I just must.

I can't just live without my heels। People think I really should have nothing doing with heels considering my height. What they don't know is that my wearing heels is a personal victory over a childhood battle. You see, when I was younger, my mum got me this pair of real high slippers. I never wore them well, I would always trip, fall, and get laughed at. The beginning of it all was when I was right in the middle of Yaba Market, and as usual, I tripped and fell.

Now, falling wasn't bad. What was bad was the very 'ungraceful' manner in which I fell, and the whole of the market knew I had on a dotted pink and white? forget that. My mom burnt the slippers the very next day, but I silently vowed not to rest until I overcame the highest of heels.
I would practice at home alone with my mom's shoes। When we had female guests, I would quickly assess the heels and slip into them. A few more falls and sprains, and today, I cannot just walk, but run in every single collection of my high shoes and sandals. I really tried to change, at least for my 'brief' friends. What I just realized is that I've gotten used to swinging my hips on heels and when I'm not wearing them, there is nothing to support this hips and I really make a disgusting scene of dragging my legs and shuffling my feet while walking. Instead of this, isn't it just better I erase this resolution?

If I had any sense, with the holes in my jaw, I'd quit sweets and chewing gum। I had this terrible toothache last year. I swear eh, until you have it, you wont know what it's like. I would cry to God, and promise whoever cared to listen that I wouldn't chew gum again.

You can't imagine the temptation I face each time I pass Mallam Shehu's place। I began to deceive myself by taking Mint sweets, then mint gums, and now, I'm back to square one! Right now, I chew time bomb, and it's really sugar based. I just must quit, at least to make sure all my teeth don't fall out before I'm 76!

I also wrote to stop worrying। I worry too much for my age. I like to be up to date on whatever happens in Nigeria and if you know any one who's got this habit, come and tell me he doesn't worry.I'm always in the company of older people, listening to political and sports gist, and it just annoys my friends that I could pick the phone, and excitedly scream "GUESS WHAT?!!" And when they begin to think I just saw Beyonce's latest, or I just heard the latest stupid thing an actor did (which I always hear by the way), I begin to tell them that "Belgore did this, and Peter Obi did that, or a new governor would face so-so difficulty".

You can imagine how they'd tell me "Go get a life!" When we buy the Punch or the Sun which happens to be our favorite, I'm grabbing Femi Adeshina's, my beloved Keyamo or Usoro's Reality, or Bottom-line and they are busy checking out show biz or what that naughty Juliana Francis has up her sleeve। (Cant deny being her fan too sha).

So this year, I want to be the sweet teen, and then use the long spoon for these aforementioned issues when the need arises. Now my friend has quit ranting, because she has noticed that I'm flexing my fingers. "Chioma, is there any day we can gist, and I won't see my name in one of your write ups?" I replied, "The day I'm on P.O.P" This piece is in front of you, because I just saved it from the juice she poured on the table! And by the way, resolutions ko, resolutions ni - I'll be a better person, and there's no need for long stories.

Inspiring Short Stories

by Chichi Mozie - 08060391474

Read this.......
A man dies & goes to hell. There he finds that there is a different hell for each country and decides he'll pick the least painful to spend his eternity. He goes to the German hell & asks, "What do they do here?" He is told" first they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the German devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day"

The man does not like the sound of that at all so he moves on. He checks out the USA hell as well as the Russian hell and the many more. He discovers that they are all similar to the German hell. Then he comes to the Nigerian hell and finds that there is a long queue of people waiting to get in... Amazed he asks,
"what do they do here?"

he is told "first they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the Nigerian devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day" but that is exactly the same as all the other hells, why are there so many people waiting to get in?" asks the man.

A concerned fellow calls him aside and said, "Because there is never any electricity so the electric chair doesn't work। The nails were paid for but were never supplied by the contractor, so the bed is comfortable to sleep on.

And the Nigerian devil used to be a civil servant, so he comes in, signs his time sheet and goes back home for another business! Some people say that we are not really who we are; the country as a whole and what we decided to do with it what really matters

You! You!!
Yes You!!!!!!!
I am talking to you that is reading this.
Don't see Nigeria as the Living hell.
It is what you bring out that exists.

So what ever you do, do it for the better of your self and the country at large।

Nigeria is the Paradise we all can see।

Get up।

RISE and make use of what you've got.

UNDRESSING SEX

Sex Talkback with Praise - 08037269483

I have been opened up to a dimension of ignorance within the family set up that I suddenly realized that we as parents are too far away from reality and the communication gap between our generation and the younger generation is as far as from east to the west (if not farther)।

I shall delve into a few other issues like sexual dysfunction among couples and how to overcome it especially erectile problems and lack of sexual satisfaction।In all, I know we would have had a great time with your family intact and better. The homes on the verge of divorce will be restored and all the children we have lost to Aristos will come back to their right senses and return home like the prodigal son.

My target is to infiltrate at least 10,000 Nigerian homes with the new Undressing Sex Cds so that families can have the right sex education materials for their children thereby building the sexual values into our children from childhood।My greatest advice for you is not to miss any edition of your soar away column and if you do really love your children and neighbors, I beg you to ensure they all read the columns and discuss the issues raised among yourselves.

I shall start the Undressing Sex series which I believe will be helpful for most of us reading this column either as parents or as young people.


I conducted a survey last year among 200 young people in Lagos state and the result is as follows:

Number of respondents: 200

Age range: 16 - 24

Questions - Yes or नों

Were you sexually abused ?YES - 192, NO - 8

Have you ever had sex ?YES - 188, NO - 12

If no have you been involved in lesbianism/masturbation ?YES - 198, NO - 2

Did your parents know about your sexual behavior ?YES - 1, NO - 199

Failed in my effort to quit my sexual behavior ?YES - 196, NO - 4

Learnt about sex from my parents/religious organizations ?YES - 1, NO - 199

Urgently need help about my sexual behavior ?YES - 200, NO - 0

Been involved with more than one sexual partner ?YES - 192, NO - 8

9 Regret my sexual behavior but feel helpless ?YES - 198, NO - 2

10 My parents failed in their duty towards my emotional life ?YES - 200, NO -0

Respondents: male (60) female (140)

Age range: 16-19 (110), 20-24 (90)

What is sex to you: Fun (46), love (144), don't know (10)

I don't know how you feel at the moment if you know the implication of this statistics, then you will agree with me that we are in serious trouble because if the seed is a tree in disguise, and a girl is a woman in disguise, then our future is in jeopardy if nothing is done urgently because it just shows that we are a generation of sexual illiterates।

Assignment for Parents Sit your children down and ask them to give you their definition of sex।

I expect your responses।

Why We Make All the Mistakes,

When We Can Learn From Others


There are "tried-and-true" sales techniques that are so simplistic that it seems they cannot be really effective. Many times, we try to re-evaluate, improve upon, and complicate them. An experience I had once while on vacation reminds me of how we try to make some things harder than they really are.

I was in Hawaii enjoying the surf when, unbeknownst to me, the water became thick with Portuguese Man O'War jellyfish. Suddenly I felt a stinging sensation across my chest. I wiped my chest with my right wrist and arm and lifted my arm up out of the water. I saw the tentacles dripping off my arm and followed them with my eyes to the body of the Man O'War jellyfish about eight feet away. With mounting alarm, I shook the tentacles off my wrist back into the water and quickly swam out of the surf to the shore.

I ran up to the first hotel employee I saw, a cabana boy, who was serving drinks to a sunning couple just off the pool deck and urgently exclaimed, "I think I've just been hit in the chest by a Man O'War jellyfish! What should I do??"

"Are you feeling any pressure in your chest?" he wanted to know.

"No, none at all," I replied anxiously.

"OK, OK, here's what you need to do. Go on over to the market off the lobby and ask for some vinegar and meat tenderizer. You're going to want to spray the vinegar onto your chest and then shake the meat tenderizer onto the same spot and rub it all around. You'll be fine," he assured me.

Well, I must say that I was less than impressed with this bizarre advice. He was entirely too calm and that was entirely too easy to be a real solution--not to mention that it was just plain strange. I figured he was doing a version of "let's goof on the tourist," so I moved on to ask someone else for help. Strangely enough, I asked two more hotel employees what to do about my injury, and got the exact same answer: vinegar and meat tenderizer!

I reluctantly trucked down the hall to the store just knowing that they were all back there laughing at the goofy tourist who was actually going to do a self-imposed "meat rub" on his chest. I was sure they had some barbecue grill going for when I returned to the lobby all slathered up with vinegar and meat tenderizer.

I entered the small market off the lobby and started my search for char-grilled products when I started feeling short of breath. Suddenly, very quickly and forcefully, I began to experience a crushing weight on my chest. Was I having a heart attack? Great! I'm having a coronary after wasting so much time talking to members of the hotel staff, who were trying to get me to rub meat tenderizer on my chest. I walked out of the store and staggered to the front desk, which by now was very busy with new guests checking in to the hotel. I made eye contact with the hotel manager and almost immediately, dropped to the ground, clutching my chest, barely able to gasp, "Man O'War!"

What happened next was a total blur. I seem to remember a small child yelling and pointing at me as I lay there in my bathing suit, gasping for breath.

"Look mommy, there's a man on the floor." The mother said something about staying away from people who do drugs. I looked over and tried to say no, not drugs--jellyfish! But all that came out was gibberish.

The paramedics rushed to the scene. Finally, I was going to get the medical attention I needed. After determining what had happened, the paramedic opened his lifesaving kit, and I knew he was about to pull out a defibrillator. I made my peace with God and I braced myself for the big jolt. Instead, he pulled out--yes, you guessed it--vinegar in a spray bottle and some Adolf 's meat tenderizer! He then proceeded to spray the vinegar and sprinkle the meat tenderizer on my chest, and thoroughly rub the mixture around. Within seconds, literally seconds, the excruciating pain began to subside. Within a couple minutes it was almost completely gone.

What I thought was a big "barbeque joke" on the tourist turned out to be a well-known cure for some jellyfish strikes. You see, the meat tenderizer contains the enzyme papain, which breaks down the toxin proteins and neutralizes them. It sounds too simple to be really effective, but it is, in fact, one of the best things to do in that situation.

Thinking back on it, I am amazed at how many people gave me the solution before I had to learn the hard way. Sure, who's going to believe a cabana boy? I mean, what does he know, right? And the hotel employee--OK, maybe there's the start of a pattern here but, I have a doctoral degree--I'm "smart," and these guys have just got to be kidding me . . . Right? And then the hotel manager as well . . . OK, I admit it, at that point there's just no excuse. I should have figured out these guys knew what they were talking about, and I did not.

I made one of the biggest mistakes that people in business (and especially in sales) make--I didn't listen to the people who have experience. I assumed that I just had to know better . . . and the truth is, I didn't know better.

There is nothing like experience. It beats education every day of the week. The only thing better is a combination of education and experience . . . or a willingness to learn from other people's experience. There are many basic sales techniques that any good salesperson knows to be effective. They don't try to look for something more complicated or involved, because they know from their own experience, as well as the experience of others, what works in sales and what doesn't work in sales.

You may hear things that seem too simple to be effective or ideas that you've heard before. Never dismiss them. Embrace them. Go get that vinegar and meat tenderizer, and learn from the masters that sometimes the simplest ideas can have the biggest impact.

Terrorism and Indecent Dressingby Samuel Effiong Asuquo - 08067999730

The state of Akwa Ibom in the Niger delta is known for peace and normalcy, particularly the oil city of Eket where I was born. Sometimes though, the fact that we are almost entirely surrounded by water becomes a curse as armed bandits from neighboring states use this means to rob banks laying a siege on the city for hours, outsmarting the weak men in black and confidently carrying out their plan before escaping easily.
It was with this in mind that we welcomed the presence of military men, making an assurance of security to the foreign expatriates, not us.These men however exceeded the domain of what they feel is their absolute power by going about the street tearing people's clothes in the name of indecent dressing. Oh, Nigeria has always acted as a conservative country (pretence) but really is not such.
If I am not wrong, our constitution allows for freedom of choice. I am not in support of indecent dressing, but what would we use to measure the degree of indecency, is it the mind of these soldiers? Are we justified to do what is illegal just because we feel it is right? And it was so bad a sight to see people being harassed because they wore trousers, people being striped...is this really the problem of Nigeria or is this more serious an issue than the armed bandits that terrorize us?
And that is always our problem: trying to be cosmetic and neglecting the reality on ground.You could imagine what an insult it was for these self-acclaimed saints to take their illegal campaign to the university in the state's capital - an autonomous community.
Students stood up for their rights and the Governor intervened, pocketing the powers of the soldiers. We are too surprised to know that this abuse of both the rights and dignity of women occurred under our very noses so that money could be extorted from fellow citizens.
Oh Nigeria, Nigeria, when will I stop weeping for you? Maybe when all your children realize that to make Nigeria better is everybody's job!

Address to Bank Chief

Address to Bank Chief Executives
By
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu
Executive ChairmanEconomic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)

Introduction
I wish to cease this opportunity to thank you all for honouring our invitation to this important meeting at such a short notice and to also welcome you to the official headquarters of the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Furthermore, I wish to congratulate you all for successfully piloting your various institutions through the house cleansing recapitalization and consolidation exercise of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). We fully supported this initiative because of the low ebb into which banking had sunk. It is however, instructive to note that the emerging banking environment will certainly pose fresh challenges especially as you begin to aggressively resource for international business opportunities in order to meet the expectations of your shareholders, the banking public and other stakeholders. From our end, the enforcement of the provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004 is paramount. Under Section 7(2) of the EFCC (Establishment) Act, 2004, the Commission is “…the co-ordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions of – (a) the Money Laundering Act 2004; ….and (f) any other law or regulation relating to economic and financial crimes…” We take this responsibility very seriously. It brings to the fore the issue of compliance to the money laundering laws of our country. Bust first, let me address the issue of Nigeria on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list of Non-Cooperative Countries & Territories (NCCTs).

Nigeria in the FATF List of NCCTs
As you all know, Nigeria was placed on the FATF list of NCCTs in July 2001 because of identified deficiencies in the country’s Anti-Money Laundering/ Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. The FATF threatened countermeasures against Nigeria if by 31st October, 2002 the country did not engage it in constructive and sustained dialogue. We have since November 2001 taken practical steps to address most of the issues raised by the FATF. The establishment of the EFCC was in fact informed by pressure from the FATF. The country has since submitted an AML/CFT Strategy/Implementation Plan to the FATF and this have been accepted. The Task Force have in the past several months monitored the implementation of our Strategy Plan and will be meeting in February 2006 to consider constituting an Evaluation Team that will undertake an On-site Examination of the country’s AML/CFT programme. As a major stakeholder in this, we all have to be very ready.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Connection
A pre-condition for removal from the FATF list of NCCTs is the establishment of a Financial Intelligence Unit. The FATF does not prescribe FIU model for any country. The professional recommendation is to locate it with the principal agency responsible for enforcing money laundering laws in a country. This is exactly what we have done. Ours is domiciled in the EFCC. In October 2003, I constituted a 10-man Inter-Agency Technical Committee made up of officials from the CBN, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), law enforcement representatives, and the public sector to prepare a comprehensive Implementation Plan for the establishment of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU). That Committee met for about a year, visited four other jurisdictions to understudy the workings of their FIUs and eventually submitted its Report in June, 2004. Preliminary institutional framework for the take-off of the NFIU was put together in the last quarter of 2004. The NFIU became operational in January 2005 and it has since served as the official source of all FIU-type records from Nigeria to the FATF.

FATF FIU-type Records
FATF FIU-type records include STRs received from financial and designated non-financial institutions, the analysis process for transitioning STRs to intelligence packages, the number of money laundering investigations, prosecutions and convictions, the feedback mechanism existing between the NFIU, law enforcement agencies, regulatory/supervisory bodies, and other stakeholders, and a number of other records required by the FATF. The NFIU is the first in the West African Sub-region and it has been admitted into the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units as an Observer. We are currently processing the NFIU into full membership of the Egmont Group. Our relationship with the Egmont Group has greatly assisted us in collaborating with other FIUs around the world for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting money laundering cases.








Areas of Concern
Our experiences show that there is a pressing need for all banks to develop programmes on Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) along the lines recommended by the FATF. Your ICT deployment must include proprietary applications to assist in flagging potential money laundering transactions and enabling you meet compliance obligations as is the custom in all other parts of the world. You must undertake proper vetting of your employees and implement a continuous monitoring regime especially on changes in their lifestyle. All banking transactions must take cognizance of basic KYC, KYB and CDD principles. We associate ourselves completely with the contents of the code of corporate governance and the framework for risk-based supervision of banks recently released by the CBN. You must also not forget your obligation to make CTR & STR renditions to the NFIU. It will be necessary to spend some money educating your staff and the banking public about these obligations because we plan to make it a level playing ground for all banks in the country.

FIU Is Expensive
Establishing a fully functional and operational FIU is a very expensive venture. Those familiar with the duties of typical FIUs will agree with me. First, it is ICT driven with state of the art technology together with all the costs associated with the ever changing nature of technology. Secondly, it has to meet certain minimum international standards because of the requirement of a seamless inter-exchange of intelligence information among all FIUs around the world. The Commission have since implemented a basic STR Reporting System in addition to conducting several pilots designed to automate the receipt and analysis of the enormous financial data from all reporting entities. As we move into the post recapitalization and consolidation era, it has become imperative to quickly deploy a very robust STR Reporting System for the NFIU in order to better position the financial sector, especially banks, to be more competitive internationally. Needless to add that this will facilitate the application of efficient business risk models to better manage your assets and liabilities.

Funding the STR Reporting System for the NFIU
Given our estimate for this project, we would wish to request for a voluntary contribution of at least N20 million each paid into an account with the CBN and administered from there to fund this. We plan to share with you the IT Architecture of the proposed STR Reporting System for the NFIU and to secure your buy-in. We are very ready. I have a full-blown team eager to take questions on all the specifics of this project.

Thank you very much.

The 11 Simple Secrets

Being an entrepreneur is simply living a business life as it should be led.Mention the word entrepreneur and most folks conjure up an image of a wild dreamer who goes into business by the seat of his pants and risks all to make some elusive pipe dream come true. Nothing could be further from the truth.The word entrepreneur was gifted to us by the French (along with wine, mayonnaise, and arrogance). It comes from the French word entreprendre, which simply means to undertake or to set out on a new mission or venture. As you can see, nothing in that description harkens any visions of high-stakes gambling or wild-eyed schemes to turn a buck.Sure, there are those over-the-top entrepreneurs who perpetuate that swashbuckling image. Guys like Sir Richard Branson exude the sort of swaggering, risk-taking conduct that the term entrepreneur usually evokes. Branson, of course, is the founder of Virgin Records and an eclectic stable of pubescent virgins: Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Mobil, Virgin Blue, Virgin Cola, Virgin Express, Virgin America, and so on.One minute Branson's risking millions of dollars founding a new company, and the next he's risking life and limb setting a world powerboat record or attempting a transglobal hot-air balloon flight. I can almost see Brad Pitt reprising the Branson role now.Will the Real Entrepreneur Please Stand?The image of the entrepreneur as a daring adventurer who recklessly gambles with his life and fortune is grossly inaccurate. Historically, we think of such luminaries as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and J. Pierpont Morgan as the epitome of the entrepreneur. More contemporary figures include Steve Jobs, the Apple entrepreneur; Bill Gates, the tycoon of computer operating systems; or Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx. These are the kind of entrepreneurs that management consultant and author Peter Drucker had in mind when he said "an entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity" (Innovation and Entrepreneurship, New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1993).These business entrepreneurs and others like them had strong beliefs about a market opportunity and were willing to accept what others viewed as a high level of personal, professional, or financial risk to pursue that opportunity. They all understood that the real risk for a true entrepreneur is in not taking the risk of success because the true risk is in not risking. It would be a mistake to limit our concept of the entrepreneur to these business giants. The true entrepreneur is not defined by the size of the empire, but by the style of the emperor. By that I mean that you can be an entrepreneur by running a mail room just as much as by starting a FedEx. An individual managing a computer department can be just as entrepreneurial as Bill Gates. The guy who owns a gas station can be just as much of an entrepreneur as the guy who started Ford Motors.A true entrepreneur is not determined by the measure of his or her results, but by how those results were attained. Being an entrepreneur is more about attitude than aptitude. There have been some very talented business managers who failed because they failed the test of entrepreneurialism. (We call them bureaucrats.) Likewise, there have been some people with very little apparent talent who achieve remarkable success as entrepreneurs. (These types are usually abysmal failures in a bureaucratic world.)Entrepreneurialism is a way of living life, not a way of managing life. The real entrepreneur has a certain spirit, an élan and an approach to issues that is just different. And that is the key. In a system that demands sameness, the entrepreneur is willing to be different. Only by being different can things be made better. That is the philosophy at the heart of being an entrepreneur.Taking this approach, a more useful definition of an entrepreneur might be this: "An entrepreneur is an individual with the experience to recognize an opportunity, the inherent instinct to visualize its fulfillment, and the courage to reach for it. An entrepreneur is, by nature, a leader who has the talent to clearly, simply, consistently, and relentlessly communicate his vision to employees and to others; one who can motivate others to be successful because they believe it is in their own best interest to do so. And it is." Although I used the masculine tense in this definition, an entrepreneur can be male or female, young or old.Using this definition, then, "an entrepreneurial culture consists of a group of individuals who have suppressed individual interests in an effort to achieve group success because group success will advance their individual interests."These are pretty solid definitions but the devil is in the details -- the actual practice of instituting an entrepreneurial culture in your job, your department, or your business. The good news is that entrepreneurs are made not born. The better news is that anyone with the right desire and commitment can achieve success as an entrepreneur. The secret to being a good entrepreneur lies in the simplicity of the concept. In reality, it is easier to be a successful entrepreneur than a bureaucrat. The entrepreneur acts with instinct and good common sense, while a bureaucrat has to know and follow the strict rules of the system.The key to becoming an entrepreneur lies in the implementation of basic concepts and, as the title of this book suggests, there are only 11 simple secrets to learn to make it happen. But there is no need for you to carry out this task with the precision of a military field manual. The secrets are simple to learn, but don't let their simplicity fool you:Secret 1: Build parallel interests. Secret 2: Be an architect of the future. Secret 3: Be decisive, multifaceted, and ethical to a fault. Secret 4: Know the risk -- measure the reward. Secret 5: Communication -- be a shower not a teller.Secret 6: Power to the people.Secret 7: Become a trust builder. Secret 8: Sharing wealth increases wealth. Secret 9: Be constant, consistent, and concise. Secret 10: Treat important people like important people.Secret 11: Do simple things -- simply do them.Learning These SecretsThe important thing to remember in putting these 11 practical secrets to work in your life and in your business is to remember that together, they present a cohesive philosophy for being an entrepreneur. When I say philosophy, I mean that these secrets are a way to think and behave, and as such, it's extremely difficult to distill them into a series of steps the would-be entrepreneur can invoke like a some-assembly-required Christmas toy.The reality is that these secrets do not stand alone. They are interdependent. It's not like you can accept five of the secrets and ignore the others. This really is an all-or-nothing proposition -- a little like constructing a building. Each of the beams used in a building are strong and, in and of themselves, important. However, no single beam or even several are enough to support the building. They all need to be used and put in their right place. When in place, they support each of the other beams. Using the secrets to build an entrepreneurial culture is much the same.

Small-Business Financing: Debt vs. Equity

Small-Business Financing: Debt vs Equity

Small-business owners can choose from two basic types of financing -- debt and equity. This article looks at the advantages and disadvantages of each type and how they may be used for different purposes.

Before You Start Gather your company's most recent financial records (balance sheet, income statement, etc.).Speak with business partners or family members about how comfortable you would be handing over partial control of the company to outside investors.

Request copies of your personal and business credit reports. How-To Guides Your Retirement Checklist Using Credit Wisely Buying Your First Home Financing a New Car View more how-to guides Calculators Comprehensive mortgage calculator How much am I spending? How will payroll adjustments affect my take-home pay? How much will college cost? How much will I need to save for retirement?

View more calculators Topics Small-Business Financing: Debt vs. Equity

Striking a Balance1Small-Business Financing Business owners who seek financing face a fundamental choice: Should they borrow funds or take in new investment capital? Since debt and equity are accounted for differently, each has a different impact on earnings, cash flow, and taxes. Each also has a different effect on leverage, dilution, and a host of other metrics by which businesses are measured.

The planned use of funds will also affect the choice of financing, with one option more appropriate for certain uses than the other.

Back to top2DebtDebt can be a loan, line of credit, bond, or even an IOU -- any promise to repay borrowed amounts over a certain time with a specified interest rate and other terms. Debt is accounted for as a liability of the company, and interest payments are deductible business expenses. In the event of bankruptcy or insolvency, debt holders take priority over equity holders.

For a small business, debt financing has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, debt can be relatively simple to secure through a bank or other financial institution and is available with a broad range of terms, allowing you to customize the debt to meet your specific needs.

Whether you are seeking a three-month bridge loan or a long-term commitment, you can usually find an institution that's willing to work with you. And since most debt entails regularly scheduled payments of interest and often principal as well, debt is easy to plan around. Perhaps most important, debt, unlike equity, will not dilute your ownership interest in your company.

On the minus side, however, financing with debt can be more expensive, and you will have to meet scheduled interest and principal payments regardless of your cash flow. Although loan terms can be negotiated to build in flexibility, ultimately the money must be paid back.

Debt is most often used to fund a specific project or initiative that has an identifiable implementation time frame. It's also used as a cash flow backup in the form of a revolving line of credit. To attract lenders, you will need to have a good personal and business credit history, sufficient cash flow to repay the loan, and/or sufficient collateral to offer as a second source of loan repayment. In smaller businesses, personal guarantees are likely to be required on most debt instruments. You should also not be carrying significant debt already.

DEBT-TO-CAPITAL RATIOS FOR SELECTED INDUSTRIES Publishing 34% Homebuilding 37% Advertising & Marketing 37% Lodging & Gaming 56% General Retailing 24% Supermarkets & Drugstores 33% Commercial Transportation 18% Packaged Foods 27% Restaurants 23% Health Care: Managed Care 20% Movies & Home Entertainment 17% Source: Standard & Poor's.

3EquityEquity differs from debt in that it represents a permanent ownership stake in the company. When you finance with equity, you are giving up a portion of your ownership interest in -- and control of -- the company in exchange for cash. Equity investors may demand dividends or a portion of annual profits. But most investors in small businesses seek long-term capital gains on their investment, meaning that at some point these investors may look to opt out.

This can mean the eventual sale of the business or the need to bring in replacement investors in the future.

The most common sources of equity financing for small businesses are personal savings or contributions from family, friends, and business associates. Venture or seed capital companies can also be sources of new capital, although they generally deal in larger financings. If your business is incorporated, anyone contributing equity capital would receive shares in the business. If it is a sole proprietorship or a partnership, they would receive an ownership share of the business.

While equity financing can be used for many different purposes, it is usually used for long-term general funding and not tied to specific projects or time frames. The major disadvantage to equity financing is the dilution of your ownership interest and the possible loss of control.

Moreover, equity investors in smaller businesses generally look for high returns over time to compensate for the risk. Back to top4Striking a Balance In practice, most businesses use a combination of debt and equity financing. The trick is getting the right balance. If you have too much debt, you may overextend your ability to service the debt and can be vulnerable to business downturns and changes in interest rates. On the other hand, too much equity dilutes your ownership interest and can expose you to outside control. The mix that best suits your company will depend on the type of business, its age, and a number of other factors.

For a small business, a local community bank will consider an acceptable debt-to-equity ratio to be between 1:2 and 1:1, although debt ratios vary significantly from industry to industry. Startups and newly launched firms will likely be heavily weighted toward equity since they have not had time to establish a credit history and may face negative cash flow in the early years. Whatever your mix, keep in mind that you can often negotiate terms with both lenders and investors, making debt more like equity and equity more like debt.

Summary Since debt and equity are accounted for differently, each has a different impact on earnings, cash flow and taxes, and each also has a different effect on leverage, dilution and a host of other metrics.

Debt can be a loan, line of credit, bond or even an IOU -- any promise to repay borrowed amounts over a certain time with a specified interest rate and other terms. When you finance with equity, you are giving up a portion of your ownership interest in -- and control of -- the company in exchange for cash.

While equity financing can be used for many different purposes, it is usually used for long-term general funding and not tied to specific projects or time frames.

The mix of debt and equity that best suits your company will depend on the type of business, its age, and a number of other factors.

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

What criteria should be used to determine if you have been with the same company too long?-- Jason Morrow, Salt Lake CityYour question reminds us of a friend of ours, an investment manager at a highly regarded company in the Midwest, who drove to work one morning, parked his car in the usual spot, and then found he simply could not bring himself to get out of the car. "I guess I stayed on the farm one day too long," he joked later. When we asked him what went wrong, he answered, "It wasn't one thing. It was everything." No wonder he drove home and called in his resignation.Obviously, most people don't decide they've over-stayed at their companies in such a dramatic fashion. Usually, angst about work creeps in, and then builds until it consumes you. And that can happen early or late in a career. Gone are the days when, after graduation, you took the best available job and stayed for as many years as you could possibly stand, frustration be damned. These days, it is not unusual to hear of perfectly legitimate careers built on multiple job stints.More from BusinessWeek Online:• Ten Tips for Negotiating Pay and Perks• How to Field the Headhunter's Call• Wacky Ways to Land a Job So, to your question, how can you tell when it's time to move on? We wouldn't set out specific criteria as much as offer four questions to help sort out an answer.The first is so simple it almost goes without saying, but the fact that a lot of people don't confront it, including our friend who ended up stuck in his car -- a Harvard MBA, by the way -- suggests we should go ahead and put it out there: Do you want to go to work every morning?This is not a matter to be over-brained. Does the prospect of going in each day excite you or fill you with dread? Does the work feel interesting and meaningful or are you just going through motions to pull a paycheck? Are you still learning and growing?We know of a woman who worked in consulting for seven years. She loved her firm and had originally planned a career with it, but suddenly started noticing that she wished every weekend was five days long. "Basically, I felt like we were putting together massive books in order to make recommendations to people who knew more than we did," she said. "Every day at the office, I felt a little bit more of a hypocrite." She now happily works on the "front lines," to use her phrase, in the marketing department of a retail company.Second, do you enjoy spending time with your co-workers or do they generally bug the living daylights out of you? We're not saying you should only stay at your company if you want to barbecue with your team every weekend, but if you don't sincerely enjoy and respect the people you spend 10 hours a day with, you can be sure you will eventually decide to leave your organization. Why not make the break sooner rather than later and start cultivating relationships at a company where you might actually plant roots?Third, does your company help you fulfill your personal mission? Essentially, this question asks whether your company jibes with your life's goals and values. Does it require you, for instance, to travel more than you'd like, given your chosen work-life balance? Does it offer enough upward mobility, given your level of ambition? There are no right or wrong answers to such questions, only a sense of whether you are investing your time at the right or wrong company for you.Fourth and finally, can you picture yourself at your company in a year? We use that time frame because that's how long it usually takes to find a new, better job once you decide to move on. So peer, as best you can, into the future, and predict where you'll be in the organization, what work you'll be doing, whom you will be managing, and who will be managing you. If that scenario strikes you with anything short of excitement, then you're spinning your wheels. Or put another way, you're just about to stay too long.To be clear: We're not suggesting people quit at the first inkling of discontent. No matter where you work, at some point you will have to endure difficult times, and even a deadly dull assignment, to survive a crisis or move up. But it makes little sense to stay and stay at a company because of inertia. Unlock your door and get out.

Strategic Business Issues, Trends and Questions for Researchers

Strategic Business Issues, Trends and Questions for Researchers


It's not unusual to find executives searching the Web for critical information, knowledge, new ideas or proven solutions they need for their decisions. Unfortunately it's a rare occurrence when their research efforts yield the number of data sources necessary to assure those managers they have found reliable answers.

Executives, managers and entrepreneurs spend their valuable time picking at piles and piles of data - while many expect to discover that perfect mother lode, they either leave the mountain in disgust or have too much weight and bits they still need to sift through.

While pots of gold may not be found at the end of every search, there are approaches you can use to decipher the clues and find more of the treasures you seek from your online research.

Recognize Your Roles and Responsibilities!

Executives provide leadership. You lead yourself and others to a promised land of growth, new possibilities or envisioned prosperity.

Leaders and entrepreneurs realize they have to employ two forms of leadership to achieve success - thought and activity leadership.

Thought leaders attempt to comprehend the nature of their world, they continuously seek the meanings of living; they read the ebbs and flows of their existence. They are curious and are eager to learn, experience and work with new ideas or concepts.

In the minds of thought leaders there are visions of limitless opportunities for the future, there are numerous paths leading them forward and these leaders look for ways to help more people realize their dreams.

On the other hand, activity leaders use research to find out if their paths to progress will be wide or tight, be curved or bent, be easy or hard, be safe or dangerous, be open or closed, be shaped or formless.

The action leader investigates, scouts and maps out the terrain where actors will perform, where key activities and critical priorities will play themselves out, where the imagined meets reality.

Regardless of which leadership role you play, you must apply the information you gather to be an effective learner, teacher, navigator, coach or counselor and mentor for your own and your organization's growth.

Regale Your Stakeholders!

The World Wide Web is a collection of information sources; the Internet is a communications network.

Effective executives, professionals and entrepreneurs would do well if they took full and competent advantage of both mediums.

The lines between the Web and Net are beginning to disappear and becoming transparent.

Wise leaders know communications can help people:


Absorb new knowledge

Understand the relevance of information

Share and work with their knowledge

Question beliefs, meanings and feelings

Expand their worldview, enlarge their perspectives

Incorporate newly gained information into their prevailing paradigms or current thinking
A number of companies support a blend of customer communities, where their clients are separated into different roles - where clients do the leading, contributing, promoting or consulting. These businesses use their online forums to provide them with the missing pieces of the puzzle they need to transform their innovative brainstorms into blockbuster successes.

5 Leadership Guidelines For Enriching Human Capital!

5 Leadership Guidelines For Enriching Human Capital!

Want an easy formula for understanding the engaging, energizing styles of inspirational leadership?

When I hear questions like these being asked about leadership, then I know there is still a bunch more work needed to be done:

1) Who should leaders lead?

2) What exactly are leaders supposedly responsible for doing?

3) How does a group leader go about taking the lead?

Maybe you will use this article in learning how discerning leaders dissect, plan their strategy for and go about performing their most imperative work - that is, to leverage of their group's human capital.

Hopefully you will appreciate this single undeniable truth: competent leadership means multiplying the powers of your "human capital equation".

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Human Capital Asset Enrichment Strategy 1:

Learn The Operational Characteristics of Your Capital Assets!

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You will discover there are four generic groupings of human capital "assets".

Because your leadership success is based on your comprehension of these assets, you need to view them in your mind as being those means by which all of us add value to our world, to our environment and to our social evolution.

Regardless of the situation, people purposely try to make an impact upon their fellow creatures - I call those value-appreciating impacts, "capital assets".

Here are those value-leveraging capabilities:

Production - measured as the ability to create, evaluate, perform, deliver, process, supply, execute, apply or produce and any other "functional" activities which yield tangible results.

Knowledge - may be thought of as having an ability to think, analyze, conceive, extrapolate, interpret or translate and other mental, reasoning, cogitating or intellectual actions.

Social - the forming or strengthening of relationships, communities, teams, partnerships or alliances, along with the creation and management of networks, interactions, exchanges or transactions with as well as between other people.

Utilization - applies the ideas of migrating and involves the capabilities needed for moving towards developing, growing, acquiring new knowledge, improving, enhancing, adapting or expanding oneself, training, perceiving and conceptualizing beyond one's present state or native abilities - could be considered to be a motivation to act towards realizing, attaining or pushing past one's potential.

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Human Capital Asset Enrichment Strategy 2:

Magnify the Awesome Impacts of Our Capital Assets!

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If you are focusing your attention on, sharpening your oversight of and magnifying the impacts for each of the four workplace-expanding areas of: Production, Knowledge, Social Capital and Utilization, you will certainly enjoy an inexhaustible treasure trove of positive outcomes.

However what other goals might deliver even larger, more sustainable pay-offs if you concentrate your efforts on developing them?

Here are some ways your leadership efforts can help others produce mutually beneficial results:

Value - you will increase the impact of this desirable benefit simply by constantly questioning the meaning of your group's work engagements - are we doing this task to add value or because we have always done it or because we are supposed to do it this way?

Quality - improving the quality of the processes that your group uses to accomplish its work must be a continual process unto itself - how much and in what ways do we leverage the 4 areas to enhance our efficiency, improve our resourcefulness and increase our effectiveness?

Motives - what inspires you is many times just as important as what your motivation inspires you to achieve - does your group invest any of their time and energies into exploring the values, beliefs, meanings, purposes and objectives propelling their daily efforts?

Capacity - building upon the competencies, performances, know-how and knowledge, facts and figures and growth opportunities are critical in these days of disruptive, brutally dynamic, Warp-9 like pace of change - how do you develop the capacity or potential for innovating each of those critical 4 areas?

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Human Capital Asset Enrichment Strategy 3:

Harness The Awesome Power of Your Capital Attributes!

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You are already very familiar with each of your individual capital attributes - they are, your physical, intellectual, spiritual and developmental natures.

Successful leaders wisely inspire us to fully involve those attributes of our human natures - they understand that people endeavor to be at their best when they allowed to totally apply:

- Their 5 physical senses - consists of their 'actions-on' the world (called the physical nature),

- Their creative and cognitive minds - characterized by their 'actions-with' the world (our intellectual or mental nature),

- Their soul [their will, psychological and emotional natures] and spirit - perceived as their 'actions-for' rationalizing worldly realities (your spiritual side)

- Their ability to learn new things and then innovate and apply their new knowledge to resolve problems, work-through challenges and handle situations - apprehended by their 'actions-towards' handling the world's challenges (I call this our potential for developing skills or knowledge beyond our current state).

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Human Capital Asset Enrichment Strategy 4:

Elegantly Evolve, Expand and Energize Your Resources!

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The most important element in every organized effort is the human resource.

Leaders must obey the three laws of human resources

- Humans should never be under-utilized,

- Humans should never be looked-down upon by their leaders and

- Humans should never be short-changed in their training and development.

Failure to observe those warnings is a sickness many leaders inflict on the people in their teams.

Yet a whopping 95% of all organizations violate most of those precepts everyday - want proof?

Just look for and you will likely find one or more symptoms of this disease thriving in your organization, your partner networks or within your own heart, mind or behaviors:

- Unimaginative, uninspired work products or practices

- Frustrated, fearful, worried people

- Acts of sabotage or theft [minor items like pens, paper, etc.]

- Lapses in ethical behaviors, morality and truthfulness

- Absence of leaders who are or feel empowered to act

Excellent leaders seek ways to maximize, expand-upon and broaden the scope of involvement of their people's bodies, minds, spirits and souls - nurture your people and they'll nourish your prosperity.

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Human Capital Asset Enrichment Strategy 5:

Inspire, Influence, Involve, Incite, Instigate, Incentives, Include, Incorporate, Increase, Incubate, Inculcate, Indemnify, Induce Them to Enrich Their Capital Assets!

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Leaders are "In-" it all for the long haul - leaders always "In-"vest their energies "In-"to the growth and enrichment of their people.

You should attempt to follow this strategy with all the zeal, enthusiasm and love that you can muster - when you do, you will discover that literal chest of treasures which normally lies hidden deep "In-"side your people.

You'll discover that there are numerous opportunities "In-" the resources, attributes, potential impacts and assets of human beings for you to "In-"geniously, "In-"variably "In-"veigle and demonstrate your care and concern for your people's welfare and advancement.

It's "In-" your best interests to work exclusively and fully "In-"volve yourself "In-" the critical activities of coaching, mentoring, counseling, guiding, challenging, educating, "In-"spiring and empowering your people "In-" all that they do.

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Whether you are called a leader or think of yourself as just a follower you can enrich the human capital assets of the people within your operating circle.

If you work at creating or organizing knowledge, performing customer or supplier services or supervising the activities of people, you too can leverage your human resources.

Now that you have seen the strategies of human capital appreciation, I would suggest you follow these guidelines:

First, play with them in your own activities;

Next, try these practices on your friends, families and associates at work;

Finally, master these techniques and make our world a better, more enjoyable place, today.

Jesus Christ wisely pointed out the easiest way to gauge a person's performance - he said: "You shall know them by their fruits!"

I urge you to apply this enrichment strategy and transform your knowledge into productive actions, which express your vision and become a glorious reality in your own life.

You don't need a business card to tell others you are a leader. Follow the sage advice of that famous advertisement which urges us to: "Just Do It!"

Leadership: Knowledge

What is Knowledge?

Most experts, writers and gurus say that we live and work in a knowledge-based economy.

Some call knowledge the new currency; they believe that those who amass more knowledge hold a 'winning hand'.

Others urge us all to manage our knowledge assets more effectively.

Dr. Daniel Tobin, author of, The Knowledge-enabled Organization [1], tells us to "focus all [of our] learning activities" on the "development [or evolution] of knowledge":

Stage 1 - when you mix raw "Data with Relevance and Purpose"


Stage 2 - you now have "Information [which has or can find some useful] "Application


Stage 3 - by applying information to your work you develop "Knowledge [which comes through your experiences and then combines with your new found] "Intuition"


Stage 4 - your knowledge and intuition then becomes "Wisdom"
We learn that there are different types of knowledge - there's the tacit kind of knowledge [intuitive, unconscious thoughts, individual experiential knowledge], and then there is the explicit stuff [articulated, formalized, expressed knowledge].

What secrets or hidden mysteries are being concealed by all this talk about the age of knowledge?

Do you wonder how you are going to become a more efficient, effective and valuable 'knowledge worker'?

This book will help you understand how you can survive, thrive and prosper in this brave new world of knowledge work.

Hopefully you will use this book as one of your key resources, [find "volumes" of resources for knowledge professionals] to skillfully take advantage of your expertise, and effectively leverage your social capital.


Who are the knowledge workers?

In his 1991 book, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism, former USA Secretary of Labor, Dr. Robert Reich said "essentially, three broad categories of work are emerging...routine production services, in-person services, and symbolic-analytic services."

In adapting Adam Smith's, Wealth of Nations, to the 21st century, Secretary Reich points to a growing problem in the majority of the workforce - that is, many workers are unskilled in the decoding or in making the most profitable use of their available information.

Dr. Reich defines world-class knowledge workers, about 20% of the entire workforce, as those who can competently, "solve, identify, and broker problems by manipulating symbols.

They simplify reality into abstract images that can be rearranged, juggled, experimented with, communicated to other specialists, and then, eventually, transformed back into reality."

Included in this population of information brokers and problem solvers we find many other unexpected professions - such as, software developers, investment bankers, accountants [CPAs], filmmakers, corporate executives, architects, and engineers.

Now, we can add together the numbers of knowledge workers predicted by Professor Reich with those revealed in a recent study led by the Jensen Group who observed, "The majority of the workforce -- even many manual laborers -- must perform information processing, brokering and analyzing; understanding and using the information involved in getting work done". [2]

What are the challenges facing knowledge workers?

The "father of modern management", Peter F. Drucker, described what the true knowledge workers would require: "…a good deal of formal education and the ability to acquire and to apply theoretical and analytical knowledge.

Above all, they require the habit of continuous learning. Knowledge workers will [make up to 33 or more percent of the workforce by 2000] …give the emerging knowledge society its character, its leadership, its social profile." [3]

In essence, to understand what knowledge workers do we must admit that, "Knowledge does not exist without practice. Practice does not exist without action". "Acting is creating knowledge and thus learning at the same time - [so then] acting is knowledge creation in action." [4]

The challenge facing every knowledge worker is found in three key areas:

How can your work deliver or contribute to the 'value' received by customers?
How will your knowledge work products enhance 'quality' or ensure that it is provided to and realized by customers?
How will your knowledge products, processes or skills increase the 'growth' of your enterprise and its customers?

References:

[1] The Knowledge-enabled Organization - Moving from "Training" to "Learning" to meet Business goals, Copyright © 1997 , Daniel Tobin, Ph.D.,


[2] Changing How We Work: The Search for a Simpler Way, Copyright © 2000, The Jensen Group, Northern Illinois University - Knowledge Management - Part 4

[3] "The Age of Social Transformation," Peter F. Drucker, ©1994, Atlantic Monthly,

[4] Knowledge, Practice, Activities and People, Maarten Sierhuis & William J. Clancy, posted on World Wide Web - 1997-99



How Can 'Value', 'Quality' & 'Growth' Open-up the "Gates of Knowledge"?

We know that knowledge needs practice and practice means taking action. The results of any given action will show you a form of value, an aspect of quality and the signs of growth.

You know that every action produces an outcome, so what we are describing here is how you can divide that 'outcome' into three major parts or portions.

Each portion promises huge opportunities for the knowledge worker - each one shows where, what, and how you can make inroads into the treasure troves of the knowledge world.

However, please be careful, this journey of ours is heading deep into the very depths of the human experience [a brief glimpse into the cosmological anthropic principles].


We need to look closely at a few primordial meanings to see how these concepts can be assimilated, understood, mastered by you and then incorporated into your daily work.

Value usually reflects or reveals the physical, tangible nature of our activities. For example, we say that something has value because we got [or believed that we got a better deal or] a larger amount for our money than what we might have expected or felt we deserved.

Value can be added, reduced, combined, rearranged, eliminated - it can be manipulated, adjusted or ordered by you - in a word, value can be "acted-on". The dynamic forces that are operating within the phenomena of value can "act-on" us too.

Do you value that person or their opinion, do those activities or goals hold any value for you, and so on?

You probably think "quality" is something that we know about and clearly understand. If I were to ask you what it means, your answer is likely to be different from all the other people reading these words.

Why is that?

That is because quality is mainly a subjective concept - what is quality to me, may not be of importance to you in the least.

That does not make you a bad person, it means that your ideas about it have been shaped by your own very unique and personal or environmental past, present and future motives.

For example, US dollar bills could get pretty ragged, and most were cut unevenly and inconsistently.

Whenever someone from another country handled this currency, they quickly noticed those flaws and irregularities.

However when Americans paid for their goods and services with those 'uneven' bills, they didn't see any of those problems, in fact, they were perfectly happy to get their hands on those bills, to use them and spend them.

Quality can best be described as an "action-with" - a mind-centric, intellectual or mental exercise.

To conceptualize, evaluate and understand quality, we may wish to ask, what are you [or your customer] "in pursuit of"?

Another approach might begin with this question, who or what leads you towards or in your hunt for qualitative attributes?

To help you 'manage' or assess and sustain quality, you certainly should employ systems thinking, statistical trending and graphing methods.

However for knowledge pros like us, quality always involves the in-depth, continuous, rigorous search for focus, purpose, definition, meaning, control, satisfaction, improvement, and direction.

Finally, another essential and measurable outcome for knowledge workers involves the concept of growth.

Many professionals assume that growth is a natural by-product of their daily labors - of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Growth is an "action-for" something - a hope, desire, intent, objective, goal, milestone, etc.

Within every action we take, there is that aspect of acting-for some future-oriented object.

For example, we can act-for the purpose of reaching a long-term goal - I begin taking classes that will help me earn more money to enable me to buy a more luxurious car or the largest mansion in town.

We can act-for the object of achieving intangible milestones - I begin saying positive affirmations today so that in a few weeks I have less of an urge to smoke [my 'intangible' goal] and in a few weeks after that I will begin an exercise program [a tangible goal].

Wanted: Effective Strategies for Motivational or Transformational Leadership

"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in Familiar Studies of Men and Books [See Reference 1 below].

Diane M. Eade observes that as, "Simple as that goal may sound, most people get so caught up in the day-to-day activities of living that they never come even close to realizing their full potential or their lifelong dreams."

Ms. Eade, who is a Professional Clinician, Author and Publisher, encourages each of us to, "ask yourself how satisfied you are with your: financial situation and career; social and cultural situations; spirituality and ethics; family and home; mental and educational levels; and physical well-being and health".[2]

What Stevenson, Eade, and countless others understand about leadership is that it, leadership, really applies to everyone regardless of title, position, or job - that means you, your associates, me, we're all leaders - at least of our own lives, personal choices, or individual pursuits.

We can use motivational leadership strategies to propel ourselves towards the places we want to be - for instance, a better paying job, an interesting or more challenging career, a thriving community or cleaner environment to live in, etc. Motivational leadership takes advantage of the key elements of popular attitude-based, mental visualization, positive motivational techniques. For example - there is:

Goal, objective, outcome specification - Goal Pro gets you "going" in the right direction! - FREE 30-day Trial;

Positive affirmations, meditation, self-hynopsis - Use Noah St. John's secrets to break-through your mental & emotional blocks:
"Permission To Succeed: Unlocking The Mystery of Success..." ;

Graphic visualizations, like pictures, drawings, scale models, etc. - Visit successories.com! - Successories helps you "see" all your potential;

Define tasks/actions to reach step-by-step or incremental targets, milestones, small wins - Click HERE to visit our Amazon "Resource Center";

Record, evaluate & recognize/celebrate progress, set-backs, major achievements and then adjust plans as needed - Request your copy(s) of our Performance Enhancers - Action Guide Workbook

Anyone who yearns for success, fulfillment, or continuing prosperity must own a crystal-clear, recorded, compelling vision of their goal, endpoint, or outcome. This nifty online software helps you define specific goals, determine measurable objectives, and helps you reach for and attain your career, personal or organizational success

Motivational or Transformational Leadership Styles?
The differences between motivational and transformational leadership strategies are found within the context of the situations or opportunities facing you. You might employ motivational techniques for slow-moving change initiatives or programs and campaigns needing a longer time frame.

However, for circumstances requiring radical, fundamental or extraordinary change, you might want to adopt a transformational leadership strategy or strategic approach.

Dr. Colvin, who admires the findings of J.M. Burns [3], highlights Burns' definition of leadership as "inducing followers to act for certain goals that represent the values and the motivations - the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations - of both leaders and followers".

Colvin continues his prescription for organizations by citing Burns' view of leadership as, the relationship between leaders and followers who are acting interactively to attain some purpose. The nature of that interaction can be either transactional or transformational in nature.[4]

Want to apply these and other effective Leadership principles to your personal life, daily work activities or long-term career prospects?

Do you crave more visibility, persuasive written or oral communications or better teamwork and collaboration skills?

Should you aspire to be perceived as a "thought-leader", a valuable knowledge resource or a highly esteemed adviser?

If you desire to strengthen your motivational or transformational leadership impact, you might take a hard look at our:

Leadership Tutorials,


Special Knowledge Masters series, or


"live", web based, in-depth Workshop Programs.

REFERENCES

1. Stevenson RL: Familiar Studies of Men and Books. Copyright © 1902, C. Scribner's and Sons
Get Your Copy of This Book From Amazon - Familiar Studies of Men and Books

2. "Goal Setting - Strategies for a Balanced Life" by Diane M. Eade, Copyright © 1995 Clinicians Publishing Group.

3. Burns, J. M.,"Leadership", Copyright © 1978, Harper and Row.

4. "Transformational Leadership: A Prescription for Contemporary Organizations", Copyright © 1999, Robert E. Colvin, Ph.D.