From the mountains of resumes to the endless “how to fake the interview” courses, companies are doing more and more detective work and adding automatic disqualifiers in order to end the hiring nightmare. All at a time when it seems each and every day brings new roadblocks to streamlining the hiring process.

Over 51% of organizations expect to increase in size over the next 12 months, according to a recent survey through Talent Technology. Meanwhile, experts estimate that 1% of the resumes received for an average job represent qualified applicants.

So what can you do to get results, reduce hiring stress and keep compliant? TTI has five simple steps to get you started.
1. Let the Job Talk - Spend more time determining what the ideal candidate looks like from not only a hard skills and experience perspective, but also from a behavioral, motivational and personal skills point of view.
2. Protect Yourself Against EEOC and OFCCP - Verify how all of the screening requirements are job-related and predictable in determining superior performance for your organization.
3. Plan for Hiring Success - Create a plan for consistency without over-exposing your opinions and viewpoints. Document the process and completion of steps without documenting every thought or interaction.
4. Structured Screening Process - Create a phone or online interview and assessment process to help lower-performing applicants decide this job isn’t for them.
5. Keep Your Biases Out of the Process - Conduct consistent and objective face-to-face interviews that are structured and cover the same questions for each applicant.
Once you have fought your way through the hiring puzzle, be sure to on-board quickly and effectively, as superior performers want to be productive as soon as possible. Remember, if a new hire is not properly on-boarded, your chances of repeating your hiring nightmare will increase dramatically.
Want more information on the proper implementation of these five steps and simple to use forms to guide you through the process? We’ll have a FREE 30-minute, action-oriented webinar on March 22nd.

By: Ashley Bowers Reprinted with permission from TTI Performance Systems People Energizing People Newsletter 02/21/2012

The Institute for Supply Management-New York reported this month that 20 percent of its members say the shortage of skilled labor is an obstacle to business. The National Federation of Independent Business reported a rising share of small business owners who say they have jobs that are hard to fill. A Manpower Group survey revealed that 52 percent of U.S. companies report difficulty filling jobs.

The list goes on and on.

First we need to end the finger-pointing. The truth is that no entity caused the problem and no one entity can fix it.

Let’s start with employers. Yes – despite 8-plus percent unemployment, employers can’t find enough skilled workers. Every day another publication, another industry highlights the plight of companies struggling with unfilled positions.

Part of the problem can be laid squarely at the feet of employers. Committed to maximize productivity, employers are expecting more from workers than ever before. That approach makes good business sense. But the need to fill open positions has such urgency that employers seek workers who can hit the ground running with little training and no on-boarding. In the past, new workers were observed, mentored and brought up to speed gradually. Today, employers expect the new hire “to have that job already,” according to Dr. Peter Cappelli, director of University of Pennsylvania Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. He recommends that employers need to “drop the idea of finding perfect candidates and look for people who could do the job with a bit of training and practice.”

That seems to place on the blame on education. While deserving of some of the blame, schools can’t be held responsible for all things wrong. The nature of work has changed. The number of available low-skilled jobs is evaporating faster than water on a hot summer day. According to Edward Gordon, “between today and 2020, low-paying, low-skill jobs will shrink to just 26 percent of the total jobs in the U.S. Worst of all, just 44 million people will be needed for those jobs, but 150 million or more candidates will be seeking those jobs.”

It used to be that if you worked with your hands and had a good work ethic, you had a lifelong career. But now it’s not the worker’s hands and back that does the grunt work – it’s a robot. And workers that are needed by employers must understand how to program, operate, and repair a robot. That requires good math skills…and good critical thinking skills… computer skills. And it’s not just skills that are needed. It’s the ability to apply those skills on the job. And that requirement is a problem.

Read more about the Benefits of Math Aptitude Tests.

A headline earlier this month in the Philadelphia Inquirer read “job seekers can’t do math.” That shouldn’t come as any surprise. It’s been reported for years that the high school dropout rate in the U.S. approaches 30 percent year. Among the 33 other OECD countries, 17 countries had higher average scores than the United States. When it comes to preparing students for future jobs requiring basic math skills, schools deservedly earn a failing grade.

But to be fair, shouldn’t employees assume some responsibility to develop and maintain job relevance? The answer is an unequivocal Y-E-S. Every organization has a responsibility to its stakeholders and/or shareholders to be productive and profitable. They can’t do that with employees who don’t come to work with the most basic of skills – reading, writing, and arithmetic. It’s not in the best interest of business to set their job skill requirements to the lowest common denominator. That places responsibility for acquiring and continually upgrading minimum job skills on the shoulders of job seekers. Everyone is entitled to the opportunity to work. But entitlement doesn’t include the right to middle class wages and lifestyle when the skills they bring to work are for obsolete or lower-skill jobs.

The major workplace transformation however will be driven by technology and globalization – and working with those conditions requires new skill sets. The definition of work has changed … and will change again sooner than later. Employers, workers, and schools need to get a grip on reality and start working together to prepare for employment in the future workplace.

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.”

For sales organizations recruiting on a large scale, demand will far outweigh supply. Access to the highly desirable demographic of college educated salespeople with 3 to 5 years of sales experience will be extremely limited. An extreme shortage of college educated sales candidates with 1-5 years already exists in several markets.

Fewer qualified salespeople sets the stage for increased competition. Most salespeople who are worth their salt are already working. The pool of available sales talent is shrinking. More competition means the cost of finding and attracting candidates will increase. The balance of power is shifting from business to the candidate. Organizations of all sizes will find themselves in a war for sales talent unlike anything we have experienced in the past 5 years.

Most companies invest between $250 and $1000 just to get a single sales candidate in for an interview. With this level of investment on the line (not to mention the soft cost of time invested by recruiters) it is imperative that your hiring team put the best foot forward with potential candidates.

There is no magic pill for winning the sales talent war. The market for sales talent has changed. Many organizations are simply ill equipped to compete for sales talent in the new market paradigm. The brutal reality is if you hope to take advantage of growth opportunities presented by the improving economy, and stay ahead of your competition you must be fully staffed with qualified salespeople ready to sell.

Trends in 2012
• It will likely cost more to compete for top sales talent. Analyze your current sales recruiting budget.
• Employer branding is critical to attracting top sales talent. The best salespeople want to work for the best companies. Consider enhancing your employment brand.
• Leading edge organizations will utilize multiple recruiting sources that help them reach as many sales candidates as possible. Multiple sources improve your probability of getting in front the right sales candidate at just the right time.
• Your existing sales team is at risk when competition is high. Other companies will gladly promise your best people more money, benefits, opportunities for promotion etc., to lure them away from you.
• The pressure to increase and maintain sales headcount will place a premium on sales recruiting and retention efforts.
In 2012 the job market will be flooded with available sales jobs. With so many choices available to candidates, sales recruiters and hiring managers will be challenged with gaining the attention of potential sales candidates. Maintaining a robust pipeline of qualified candidates will become a huge challenge.

Source: The Emerging War for Talent (SalesGravy.com)
“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and
Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.”

Traits like assertiveness, criticism tolerance (ability to take a no), and resilience may be good enough to have when “getting past the gatekeeper”and “closing a sale” are the two most critical skills required. But selling complex products or differentiating a company’s services from its competitors require consultative and relationship selling skills that many salespeople do not have.

For example, transactional sales, especially those based on primarily on price, depend upon the ability to get people to accept your call, negotiate the best deal, and close quickly. More complex selling opportunities require extensive product knowledge, broad competitive intelligence, excellent relationship management skills, and resilience. Years of experience and a decade’s worth of President Club awards are not necessarily transferrable from one industry to another, one company to another, or even one territory or product from another.

Before hiring or promoting your salesperson, here are eight questions you must ask before interviewing and assessing candidates.

1. What product or services are you selling? Success in selling requires a lot more than a few years of experience and the completion of a sales skills training. Adding value and differentiating your company from the rest of a crowded market requires finesse and advanced skills.

2. To whom are you selling? Selling promotional products to a retail shop owner compared to selling an enterprise wide human resource information system require very different sales skill sets.

3. How competitive is the market place? If you are the only game in town, or at least considered the industry leader, salespeople can lean on the company’s reputation for credibility. But what if your company or product is unfamiliar to your prospects? The most important skill a salesperson might need is the ability to build endorsement.

4. Is this a new territory or a mature one? Similar to the competitiveness of the market place, developing a new territory or working a mature market require different selling styles and skills. You are likely familiar with “hunters” and “farmers.” It’s much easier to introduce yourself as the new account manager when a customer down the street has been doing business with your company for several years than trying to get the prospect to take a chance on an unknown.

5. How long is a typical sales cycle? The longer the cycle, the more skills are required. The longer the selling cycle, the more the salesperson will have to have a process and system in place to track and follow leads and referrals. The salesperson must be patient and resilient and equipped to stick it out for the long haul. Products or services will long selling cycles often have bigger rewards but many salespeople are more motivated and skilled at shorter cycle, faster rewards. That leads us to the compensation question.

6. How do salespeople get paid? This is a complex and complicated question. But the more commission based the compensation, the more money management skills the salesperson must have to deal with the ups and downs of income, especially for longer selling cycles. Few hiring managers take this into consideration before hiring the high potential candidate. Unfortunately many sales failures have nothing to do with sales skills but the short term income to pay the mortgage and put food on the table while waiting for the big commission check.

7. Who is responsible for lead generation? If developing new business is a requirement for the job, then assessing the sales candidate’s track record or potential for identifying new customers, cold calling, qualifying them, and developing new relationships must be part of the hiring equation. For the company that has a steady stream of warm leads, finding qualified candidates just got a lot easier. Do not assume however that the ability to contact warm leads and qualify them is a predictive indicator of the ability to identify new customers and cold call them.

8. Who is responsible for writing and presenting proposals? The ability to write and present are critical communication skills in today’s marketplace. Unfortunately few salespeople have mastered these skills at a level necessary to compete effectively.

Asking these questions is one thing. Getting this information quickly and accurately is another. Sales pre-employment tests are an excellent way to complement and enhance the interview and reference check process. The right combination of assessments can confirm if a candidate has the potential to learn or meet your job requirements as well as the resilience and motivation to persist through good times and bad.

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.”

3. Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.

4. Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.

5. Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead.

6. Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.

7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

by Ilya Pozin Newsletter: a Positive Moment March 08, 2012
Dr. James M. Wendling – The Wendling Group

2. You must have a committed listener
Look at the above from the receiver’s point of view. Can they focus on what you’re asking? Are they rushing around and not really hearing what you ask? But another issue here beyond the ability to focus – are they competent, trustworthy and capable to pull off the task or assignment?

Competent: Are they qualified for the specified process?
Trustworthy: Are they reliable?
Capable: Are they “open and willing”?
Think of these 3 elements when you choose to whom you delegate to. How many times have you delegated something to someone who is unreliable or doesn’t have the skill set to pull it off?

3. http://www.hiremax.com/developing.general.cfmin the request
Assuming you’ve satisfied the above, be sure you communicate timelines and completion dates. My suggestion: If it’s not urgent, then tell the listener so, BUT still give them a check in date for progress or the end date for completion. BTW, put it on your calendar to check in and follow up. The follow up introduces accountability – both yours and theirs.

4. Communicate the conditions of satisfaction
What is the outcome? What are the deliverables? What does success look like? My experience has taught me to do your best, paint a picture of the outcome then ask the listener to tell you what it looks like in their words. The complexity of the assignment to be delegated should dictate how much dialogue should occur in this final step. Here too, the higher the risk or reward for the issue delegated, means making sure you thoroughly discuss, then agree upon the expectations for success.

by Craig Juengling Newsletter: a Positive Moment March 13, 2012 The Wendling Group

It’s on every businessman’s mind, “Will the return be a higher value than the investment?” Not one supervisor would purchase a worn-out, problems-included, less beneficial piece of equipment when he has an opportunity for an extremely efficient competitor’s version for the same price. So why would any supervisor employ a C player when he could benefit so much more from an A player? Some don’t even realize that their employees are on the lower end of the performance scale. Organizations that hire solely based on interviews and resumés are missing out on the bigger picture: this potential employee might have experience and education, but does he fit well with the job and the culture of the company? Behavior, motivators and values assessments along with job matching will answer these questions and ensure that the organization is getting the most out of its investment on its most valuable (and most likely expensive) asset.

The time and effort invested to turn your C teams into A teams is well worth it. Both employers and managers may be concerned regarding an adverse effect on their productivity when they take time from daily activities for assessment surveys, and participation in professional development and job matching sessions. However, they can rest assured that this investment in defining jobs in terms of behavior, rewards and attributes will result in the ability to better match employees with jobs. When a person is well matched, instead of the stress of struggling to keep up, the employee’s energy flows into building momentum on the job, and he enjoys an experience of success. Productivity goes up and labor costs come down because there is a higher level of performance requiring fewer staff members. Not only that, but employees who like their jobs take fewer sick days and tend to show up on time because they want to come to work.

When thinking about the return on investing in A players, it is also important to look at the downfalls of keeping your C players. Low performers have a poor quality of output for several reasons, some of which can be attributed to their lack of engagement to the job because they are not well matched in definable terms of behavior, rewards or attributes. It is undeniable that when an employee isn’t engaged, their productivity suffers. But there is also a wider cost to the organization of lost opportunity. There are untold business benefits that the person could have contributed if their energy and creativity were flowing into their work. Imagine an employee who does not fit well with his key accountabilities. This employee is generally the one standing at the water cooler or surfing the Internet to entertain himself. And when that person goes beyond being disengaged to becoming negative, the effect on the organization can be devastating because the potential for teams to collaborate effectively is lost.

While it might seem like a time consuming effort to transform your C teams into A teams, the benefits of top performers in your organization heavily outweigh the steps it takes to get those winning teams in order. Still concerned about your ROI? Let’s break it down. What is being invested? Time and effort to distinguish which employees are top performers and which need some guidance. After identifying your two groups, time will need to be spent developing C players into A players. Now let’s review the return for your organization. When more top performers are present, there will be a higher level of efficiency, which means greater productivity and in turn an increase in profits. Those are the monetary advantages, but there are other benefits that may be overlooked. Top performers are such because they have an excellent job match. This suggests the employee is happy doing their job. An office full of content employees means an office with great morale, leading to positive talk about the organization and a stronger brand. In short, the benefits from having A players in the organization is unparalleled to improvements made on other assets.

Want to know more about ROI or understanding the cost of a C team? Don’t forget to take a look at TTI’s white papers, ROI: Big Results in a Small Growth Economy and Understanding the Cost of a C- Team. E-mail us at hireMAX and we will send you a copy. info@hiremax.com
May 16, 2011 TTI Performance Systems

Behavioral assessments are one of the most popular tools used. They’re great for communication and basic management ideas. However, behavioral assessments only look at HOW a person does something. It won’t tell WHY a person would do something or even if they CAN DO what the job requires.

By looking at how a person acts, why they act and what skills they have, an organization can start to place people in the right positions, develop them according to their needs and tap into their own intrinsic motivators. Each and every organization needs to be taking a total person analysis approach in order to minimize limitations, maximize strengths and increase overall productivity.

TTI has more than seven assessments to look at the person and over five ways to look at the job. This allows any organization to get a full view of what a person brings to the workplace as well as what the job requires. When the two are in sync, productivity and job satisfaction will skyrocket.

Behaviors, Skills or Attitude? What’s more important when hiring or developing employees, behavior, skills or attitude? This is a trick question and cannot be answered without identifying the job. During the hiring process, all of these aspects need to be considered because people bring their knowledge, skills, behavior and attitudes along with them to the job. If you are biased and only look at one part of the person, chances are they won’t work out.

If the job could talk, it would explain precisely what is necessary to achieve superior performance. We could ask the job to tell us about:
Knowledge required
Personal attributes (skills)
Hard skills vital for the job
Behaviors necessary to perform at peak levels
Intrinsic rewards
Proper attitude

Listening to the job talk is difficult. Only when recruiters or managers have identified and acknowledge their biases can they deliver a true set of job requirements that will lead to superior performance.

Many hiring managers and recruiters are willing to defend their emotional biases. But these biases create a blind spot and, sometimes, make it impossible to actually hire the right person.
The best way to strip away biases is with an impartial facilitator. A skilled facilitator can lead subject matter experts into discovering the real performance issues for any job.

If you cannot hear the job talk or if you are not happy with the performance of the people you are hiring, you need to contact hireMAX at 888-251-7606 info@hiremax.com. Your ROI will reflect one of your best investments in 2010.
People Energizing People Newsletter

That said, there always has and always will be differences between the youngest generation in the workforce and older generations, and that’s a good thing. Young people of every generation have a fresh perspective, a youthful energy and a burning desire to accomplish something worthwhile. If your organization treats them with respect and engages their enthusiasm, they will bring that attitude to work and accomplish something worthwhile for you.

Millennials will tend to have a lop-sided skill set when it comes to professional life; they aren’t alone. Our research at TTI shows that most young people graduate from college with little in the way of crucial professional skills such as decision making, problem solving and conflict management abilities. But older generations have skill deficits too, and often they don’t realize this until they are promoted into a position that requires skills they haven’t mastered yet or haven’t used in a long time. Comprehensive TTI job matching identifies which skills a person has some mastery in and which skills they need help building. And the TTI process provides their manager with a guide for professional development that is unique to each employee’s needs at every stage of their career.

Older generations have an outlook tempered by past experience allowing them to help younger workers avoid potential pitfalls before mistakes become real problems. They also have the battle-tested skills to realistically anticipate what it will take to move a business initiative from being just a great idea to becoming your company’s game-changing competitive advantage. But it can be all too easy for seasoned business people to let past experience limit what they think can be done. Millennials and Gen Xers can help them see new possibilities.

Young people may be idealistic about the extent and speed of change that’s possible in your organization, but then again, they may be the very change agents who make it happen! They aren’t limited by the way things have always been done and many are technologically advanced. Those that are tech savvy will be great candidates for mutual mentoring relationships with older workers who need to update their knowledge of social media and technical skills. Imagine this scenario: Jim, a recent college graduate, needs to upgrade his presentation skills in order to move from a help desk position to a sales position. Karen, a baby boomer with a strong sales career, needs to get up-to-speed quickly on new software to stay current in her role. Karen can help Jim hone his presentation skills, and Jim can coach her on mastering the new software. With his help, Karen can better integrate technology into her sales presentations, and Jim will be ready to hit the ground running after practicing his presentations with her. The key is for both parties to recognize the value that the other brings to the table.

Sounds ideal, right? But imagine if Jim and Karen have very different communication styles. Karen may favor quick decision-making and a rapid pace, while Jim may prefer to establish a steady pattern and a relationship with others over time. For their mutual mentoring relationship to be successful, they need an accurate understanding of each other’s way of getting things done and communicating, and they can get that information about each other very easily with the TTI process.

The preferences of younger workers can improve communication and connection within your company and with customers. A great example of Gen X and Millennial-inspired business change is using social media to share consumer opinions about products and service experiences. Facebook and Twitter have become vital ways for businesses to respond quickly to customers and demonstrate to the world that the company cares about them. Millennials drove this change because they like to connect with others to share their experiences, and they like to use social media for consumer reviews. The youngest generation also prefers to get feedback on their own on-the-job performance in the form of frequent, small course corrections, not just once or twice a year in a formal review. This change is also gaining momentum as a best practice.

Are you curious about what other new business practices are headed your way? When it comes to being prepared for change, part of your strategy should be to listen to your Gen Xs and Gen Ys. Change is inevitable, and the priorities and concerns these two generations express will drive much of the change that’s coming. Many of the preferences of Millennials will boost productivity and engagement and often are preferences shared by Boomers and Gen Xers.

For example, younger generations have a real commitment to work/life balance. After hearing their Boomer parents complain about growing up without Dad ever attending a soccer game, they’re not going to do that to their own kids. They are fine with taking care of business through email or text at all hours, but they are resolute about wanting the flexibility to get work done without neglecting their personal lives, too.

When you think about their circumstances, it makes sense. Unlike older generations, who often had a wife at home to take care of family necessities, couples today are probably both employed. This means that someone has to take time off from work to take the kids to the dentist or attend the school play. They must shift focus from work to home as situations evolve; and if we want to retain them, we need to make it possible for them to do it while continuing to be productive at work.

Using technology to enable life balance and provide flexible work options makes sense. There is a shift underway in the business world, from defining work as time spent at the office to measuring performance by the results produced. Using mobile technology and flexible scheduling makes it possible to shift the focus toward results.

The flexible work options Millennials and Gen Xers want will support organizations in building bench strength. Companies that offer flexible work options will encourage Baby Boomers and Silent Generation workers to stick around long enough to cultivate the next group of rising stars. Many of them will use this flexibility to ease into retirement gradually, which will give the organization time to transfer their knowledge and engage them to help cultivate the next group of leaders. Think of the possibilities when the valuable knowledge of long-term employees can be easily passed to newer ones.

As time goes by and older generations do retire, the pool of available workers will be Gen X and Millennials who tend to have a dual-centric (i.e, work/life balance), rather than a work-centric focus. In order to attract the best and brightest candidates, employers will have to compete by offering the best employment proposition possible. Being branded as an employer who makes it possible to thrive both personally and professionally may shift from being a competitive advantage to being a necessity. To make the most of the talent you have:

Don’t dismiss older generations: The Silent Generation grew up with face-to-face staff meetings that encouraged the development of relationships. There is something to be said about seeing a person while talking to them versus chatting over instant-messaging. Body language and voice intonation are lost in newer forms of communication, meaning that newer isn’t always better.

Provide variety and engaging development experiences for younger workers: Stretch assignments and cross training keep them interested and build their career prospects while enhancing their value to your organization. Help them develop a career path and give personalized development plans that encourage them to stay engaged with your company as they grow. Use TTI job benchmarks to give clear expectations and match them to the right job for success.

Make good use of Millennials’ strong team orientation and global, networking mindset: If you’re not using informal learning networks and information sharing tools yet, younger workers can show you how they do it. For the generation that grew up with massive multi-player online video games, team work is second nature.

Give everyone the tools to engage in meaningful, mutual mentoring efforts: Be sure that everyone’s contributions are heard and respected and help them share their strengths. When both parties understand how the other likes to receive communication, make decisions, pace their work and what motivates them to action, it smooths the way for collaboration. Use TTI assessments and team training to blend generations successfully.

Established ways of doing business will continue to change as global markets expand and technology accelerates. TTI research shows that the primary skills to thrive with change are flexibility, resiliency, personal accountability and a willingness to keep learning. These are the most important characteristics for being successful. That’s true for every generation.

The Speed of Change
Today, perhaps the most important factor affecting your life is the speed of change. We are living in an age where change is taking place at a faster rate than ever before in human history. And if anything, the rate is increasing, year by year. Change today is not only faster, but it is also discontinuous, not following a straight line but starting, stopping, and moving in unpredictable directions. Change is coming at us from all sides and in so many different ways that it is often impossible to anticipate what might happen next.

A Major Cause of Stress
Change causes enormous stress for people who are fixed or rigid in their beliefs about how things “should be.” They fall in love with what they are doing, with their current methods and processes, and are unwilling to change, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Don’t let this happen to you.
Be Open to New Information

To remain flexible, you must constantly be open, alert to new ideas, information, and knowledge that can help you or hurt you in your business or in the achievement of your goals. One new idea can be enough to make or lose you a fortune. One idea can start you on the road to riches or knock you off of it.

The Tide of New Technology
The second factor driving change is the rapid growth and development of new technology. Every new piece of scientific or technical knowledge leads to an advance in technology aimed at helping people and companies get things done faster, better, cheaper, or easier. And the speed of technological change is increasing every day.

Playing Leapfrog
Being in business is like playing an endless game of leapfrog. You look for a way to leapfrog over your competitor and serve your customers, better, faster, and cheaper. Your competitor then leapfrogs over you with a new or better product or service. You quickly regroup and leap over your competitor with a new innovation or improvement. Your competitor then leaps over you, and the game goes on without end.

Action Exercise
Be willing to admit, in each area of your life where you experience stress or resistance, that you could be wrong or that you have made a mistake. Resolve today to cut your losses wherever possible.

By Brian Tracy – From The Wendling Group Newsletter Jan 20, 2011