Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and frequently virtualized sources are offered as a service above the World wide web. Through cloud computing, a globe-class data center service and colocation provider such as Consonus presents managed IT services by means of a hosted or “Software package as a Service” model. A server or database can be physically situated in a extremely-secure, remote area whilst the data is accessed from a client’s personal computer, employing the database’s server to retrieve, sort, and analyze the information. This arrangement eliminates the need for a pricey in-house IT department and hardware and the linked capital expense. As an alternative, a cloud computing provider owns the hardware although supplying hosted, managed solutions to its clients on a usage basis. Cloud computing typically utilizes virtualized IT sources this kind of as networks, servers, and computing devices.

Virtualization Paradigm

Virtualization comes in a lot of sorts, all focusing on manage and usage schemes that emphasize efficiency. This efficiency is witnessed as a single terminal staying capable to run several machines, or a single task operating above numerous computers through idle computing power. Virtualization is also seen in a central laptop or computer hosting an application to numerous customers, preventing the need to have for that computer software to be repeatedly installed on each and every terminal. Data from various challenging drives, USB drives, and databases can be coalesced into a central place, the two increasing accessibility and safety by way of replication. Physical laptop or computer networks can be split into many virtual networks, allowing a company’s central IT resources to service each and every department with individual nearby region networks.

A computing gadget devoted to person members of staff or allocated to 1 specialized computer software application is hugely inefficient, not to mention high-priced.. Just as the industrial revolution blossomed when folks realized a single water wheel could run numerous textile looms, so can today’s substantial-powered computer systems run numerous processes. Virtualization is an approach to consolidating technological innovation resources for improved efficiency and the elimination of redundancy by leveraging every single chance to make use of idle resources and discover locations exactly where several processes can be run at 1 time.

Cloud Computing

The widespread availability of cheap computing energy in company and in residences has produced the up coming advance in data technologies. With all of the spare computing devices accessible, the time has come where the require for a organization to very own their personal central server and database can be deemed an obsolete notion.

By not locating a server or database in-residence, data center companies can be get from an IT server provider that has invested in building planet-class IT infrastructures that are safe, resilient, and robust. The whole capital expenditure of a state-of-the-art server area can be avoided even though getting those companies on a usage basis. Managed IT Service fees are equivalent to or much less than the operating charges of an in-residence information center resolution. With the potential to entirely stay away from capital expenses and eliminate any increases in operating fees, cloud computing is an really beautiful choice.

This price savings is probable thanks to the leverage of efficiencies. A typical IT department is developed to service the peak usage wants of a organization. However, the huge majority of the time, that potential sits idle. Most servers are not operational outdoors of business hours and when they are in use, they rarely operate at 100% of their capabilities. Information center services supplied by a third party are in dynamic use. Highly effective computing resources and robust hosted, managed solutions grow to be available 24×7x365. This fluid scaling of computing resources allows every single client to make use of these resources at a competitive value.

A crucial advantage of Virtualization and Cloud Computing is a significant improvement in security, availability, and data protection. A decentralized IT infrastructure managed by an IT service provider that is wholly committed to its resilience and availability is immune to physical or data disasters. Replication more than many systems guarantees information backups. A committed information center service provider is far better ready to maintain up with the most current safety techniques and technological innovation upgrades. Through the provision of managed IT services, all of these benefits are embedded in the cloud computing model.

Ultimately cloud computing is about leveraging computing resources to their fullest potential. For the majority of businesses outdoors of the technologies business, this implies using hosted, managed companies rather than attempting to maintain an in-residence method that would ultimately prove wasteful. This fits into the virtualization paradigm whereby the efficient utilization of an IT service provider renders unnecessary an in-residence IT answer. Together, they represent the subsequent step in IT infrastructure: reducing fees while growing efficiency.

Author: Steve Bulmer

Cloud computing can represent a net gain in data security and system reliability – especially for small businesses with aging computers and data stored on hard drives that rarely — if ever — experience a back up.

But that doesn’t mean you can take security and reliability for granted. Protecting your company in the cloud requires careful due diligence and planning. Start here with these 10 cloud computing security tips.

1. Identify and Assign Value to Assets

Assets could be include applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) or accounting; data, including private customer information; or infrastructure such as hosted servers and operating systems.

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), an industry association set up to promote security in the cloud, recommends a structured, step-by-step approach to planning and managing cloud security, and this is where it starts.

Ask yourself how valuable the assets that you’re considering moving to the cloud are to your organization, said CSA advisor Raj Samani, the London-based chief technology officer for security software vendor McAfee.

What would happen if you couldn’t access online software for an hour or a day, for example, or the provider lost your data or hackers stole sensitive information from the providers’ computers?

“Not all cloud providers are the same,” Samani noted. “If you assign a value to your assets, then it’s easier to decide what level of security you’re going to need.”

2. Assess Your Liabilities

One of the biggest cloud security concerns is the risk of breaches resulting in loss or theft of sensitive private data. If the information leaked is proprietary only to your company, liability is not a concern. But you need to know where responsibility lies if customer or patient information goes missing.

“If there’s a breach and data is lost, it’s not the cloud provider who is on the hook,” saed James Quin, lead analyst at Info-Tech Research Group Inc.  “It’s the way all the regulatory bodies are coming down on this. You collected the data and chose how to store it. So you’re on the hook if something goes wrong.”

In other words, caveat emptor — let the buyer beware. And in this case, you’re the buyer.

3. Research Compliance Requirements

In some industries — banking and health care are examples — government or industry regulations establish standards for how electronic data is handled, including stipulating the level of security in place. You may not even be permitted to use cloud services, or there may be restrictions, such as the data must be stored within the borders of your own country.

“The number and type of security controls in place may well be defined by regulation,” Samani said. “If you’re processing credit card transactions, for example, you may need to comply with PCI-DSS standards. Long before you engage with potential providers, you need to build a list of regulatory requirements for security.”

Even if nothing ever goes wrong security-wise, failing to comply with regulations can land you in hot water.

4. Determine Your Risk Tolerance

These initial steps all play into this admittedly somewhat nebulous, but pivotal, next step. How much are you willing to risk, how much can you afford to risk — given the liabilities, the regulatory requirements, the importance of the assets to your organization?

“Based on the level of risk I’m willing to tolerate, do I, for example, have to look at a hybrid cloud solution,” Samani said referring to a cloud implementation that involves some data or program logic remaining on your business premises.

The other critical consideration is the cost of ensuring security, whether in the cloud or at your own offices. The more security controls you demand from cloud providers, the more expensive their services will be, Samani said.

“But if we could give any advice to small businesses, it would be to not necessarily accept the lowest-cost solution,” he added. “Cost is not the only thing [to consider].”

5. Research Potential Providers’ Processes

With this preparatory work behind you, it’s time to start assessing what’s available in the cloud services market.

You can begin by studying their marketing literature, but to find out in detail how the service works — where and how data moves and where it resides, what security controls are in place by default and the extent to which the provider is willing to tailor a security solution for you — you will have to talk to them.

Ask a lot of questions.

You will need to know what types and levels of encryption the provider can offer to ensure that even if data is leaked it cannot be read. Encryption is the key protection against security breaches that can result in loss of sensitive data.

You also need to know about the provider’s business continuity provisions. What happens if its main data center burns down? Does it only have one data center? In how many places does it store your data and how? Ask about security monitoring and auditing processes, and what kind of reporting the provider does. If there is a breach, will the company tell you?

Samani admitted that small businesses may be daunted by the complexity and rigor of the due diligence around cloud security his organization recommends. And for many, he said, hiring a consultant to help them with it will defeat the cost-saving purpose of considering cloud services in the first place.

“But all this work will make life a lot easier later,” Samani said. “After the implementation, it will be much more complicated and expensive to make changes. So you need to map everything out in advance.”

6. Ask About Security and Reliability Certifications

One way small businesses can short-circuit due diligence on providers’ security controls is to ask about various certifications they may have, or look for mention of them at the provider’s website. By considering only those providers with documented, verifiably sound security practices may eliminate some of the need to delve deeper.

The CSA itself has developed a certification program under its Trusted Cloud Initiative, which some providers are beginning to use, Samani said. There are also more general certifications that any organization can get, not just cloud providers, such as ISO27001 Information Security Standards and ISACA IT Audit, Security, Governance and Risk Certification.

7. Build Security Controls into the Contract

This is where the rubber hits the road. With any cloud service, you will be entering into a contract. The provider may not be willing to negotiate anything, or may not be willing to extend much flexibility to smaller customers. At the very least, you need to carefully study the contract language as it relates to security controls.

And if the provider is willing to negotiate, you need to establish in the contract the type and level of encryption to be used, where and when — all determined by the analysis in earlier steps — and the safeguards against data loss to be used, such as redundant storage.

You may also be able to negotiate the right to audit the company’s facilities or security practices (although the cost of doing so may be out of the price range of many small businesses.)

“Many cloud providers will never give the right to audit,” Samani acknowledged. “And the more security you ask for in general, the more the cost is going to go up. But we suggest asking for the right to audit.”

8. Negotiate Service Levels and Exit Strategies

Security in the cloud is not just about protecting data. It’s also about ensuring your own business continuity. Your ongoing operations may now utterly depend on being able to access a cloud service. What happens if the provider’s service is unavailable for a short or a long period?

Some providers will negotiate a service level agreement (SLA) specifying uptime percentages and the time to respond to trouble calls. SLAs may include financial penalties, often a discounting of service fees, if the provider fails to meet the terms. The stricter the terms, though, typically, the more you will pay for the service.

It’s also important to ensure that you’re not locked in to the provider’s service so that it’s difficult, expensive or virtually impossible to disengage and take your business and data to a different provider in the event you become dissatisfied or find a better deal.

And try to pre-negotiate the terms for changing contracted services in response to changes in your business to guard against prohibitively expensive fees for doing this.

9. Pursue Offline Security Measures

As Quin pointed out, one of the problems with moving to the cloud is the loss of control over your “security profile.” But in some cases, it may be possible to preserve some control — by using offline backup of data stored in the cloud, for example, or preserving the right to control encryption keys so that in the event a provider’s system is compromised, there is no possibility of keys falling into the wrong hands.
10. Read the Cloud Security Alliance Guidance Document

The CSA has prepared a detailed document outlining the due diligence it recommends companies undertake when considering moving applications and data into the cloud. Read it, and follow it to the best of your ability.

Author: Gerry Blackwell

They verbally abuse you, humiliate you in front of others. Maybe it’s because power hovers in the air, but offices tend to bring out the bully in people. We offer strategies for handling such bad bosses.

If the schoolyard is the stomping ground of bully boys and bully girls, then the office is the playground of adult bullies. Perhaps because power is the chief perk in most companies, especially those with tight hierarchies, offices can bring out the bully in people.

Everyone has a war story. There’s the boss who calls at 2 A.M. from Paris–just because he’s there. The boss who asks for your evaluation of a problem and then proceeds to denigrate you and your opinion in front of the whole staff as you seethe with hopefully hidden rage. “It’s a demonstration of power. It’s demeaning,” contends Harry Levinson, Ph.D., the dean of organizational psychologists and head of the Levinson Institute in Waltham, Massachusetts.

“I haven’t studied office bullying systematically,” he says. In fact, no one has. Despite common perceptions of its prevalence, it’s essentially virgin turf for organizational psychology. Trouble is, organizational psychologists are often called in at the highest level of management; nowadays, most bullies are weeded out before they get to the top.

Nevertheless, says Levinson, 40 years of consulting have given him some idea of what they do and why. They over-control, micromanage, and display contempt for others, usually by repeated verbal abuse and sheer exploitation. They constantly put others down with snide remarks or harsh, repetitive, and unfair criticism. They don’t just differ with you, they differ with you contemptuously; they question your adequacy and your commitment. They humiliate you in front of others.

There are two kinds of bullies, observes organizational psychologist Laurence Stybel, Ph.D., a principal of Boston’s Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire & Associates: “Successful ones and unsuccessful ones. The latter don’t last long in organizations. The successful bullies create problems, but they are competent”

Often they are very bright workers. And therein lies the problem. They make a significant contribution to the company as workers. They get promoted because of their technical expertise. Then they wind up supervising others, and spew on people in support functions, on competitors, perhaps even their own bosses.

They are especially rampant in high-tech companies, engineering firms, and financial organizations–a stock fund manager doing an incredible job with investments, for example. “The typical successful bully thinks, ‘They won’t do anything to me–I’m the best they’ve got,”‘Stybel says. But sooner or later, it’s too costly to tolerate their behavior.

It’s getting too costly much sooner in most companies. Stybel cites the example of a large New England hospital where the bully is a brilliant physician who has been the director of radiology for 11 years. The bullying was an issue over the years–in the exit interviews of departing technical staff.

Why did the hospital decide to do something only now? The administrator told Stybel: “We can’t tolerate the high turnover anymore. It’s too costly in the face of managed care.”

Occasionally, bullies do get to the very top. Levinson points to Harold Geneen, the legendary head of ITT, and coach Vince Lombardi. And then there’s the issue of Fortune magazine devoted every couple of years to America’s “toughest” bosses. Take the female CEO who reportedly yelled at the executives of a division she felt was underperforming: “You’re eunuchs! How can your wives stand you? You’ve got nothing between your legs!”

At least in large corporations, bullying is not as blatant as it once was. “The John Wayne image of a leader doesn’t go over so well in the ’90s” notes Pat Alexander of the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. “It affects the efficiency of the entire organization.” Intimidation tends to be more polished.

While it’s no longer cool to throw around your authority, counterforces are leading to greater tolerance of negative behavior. Stybel points to a growing ‘What can you do for me now?’ stance. “There’s a new generation of CEOs who expect to be in place four years and move on. This fosters emotional distancing from employees, an excessive focus on transactions; it does not foster a positive relationship mode. Companies are growing increasingly performance-oriented; do they care how anyone feels about an executive’s behavior?

“Where I have been retained, it’s not because they don’t like bullies” notes Stybel. “Only the underlying economics make it a dysfunctional behavior.”

While bullies inhabit the middle ranks of large concerns, they are positively thriving at small companies. “There are lots of bad bosses out there,’ says Atlanta-based management consultant Neil Lewis, Ph.D. “In smaller companies the quality of management is not as good as at large companies. They’re not professional managers.”

Stybel warns workers not to focus on where bullying comes from. “When observers see a boss behave as a bully, they attribute it to trait characteristics. That may not be the case. It’s almost always a product of individual history and make-up–and the company atmosphere. But who cares? The most important thing is the behavior.”

Bullies do a lot of damage in organizations. They make subordinates run scared. They put people in a protective mode, which interferes with the company’s ability to generate innovation. They don’t build in perpetuation of the organization, says Levinson. “It keeps you in a state of psychological emergency. And add to it the rage you feel towards the bully and a sense of self-rage for putting up with such behavior.” These are hardly prime conditions for doing your best work–any work.

As with kids, bully bosses have blind spots. They don’t see themselves accurately. They see themselves as better than others–which only acts to justify their bullying behavior–a feeling reinforced by promotion. Another big blind spot: sensitivity to others’ feelings. Often, says Levinson, this arises in competitive settings, where “you learn to focus on your own behavior. It breeds a kind of psychological ignorance.”

Stybel has developed a psychological karate chop to “unfreeze” executives’s attitudes–a customized letter of probation. It essentially tells an executive that, due to changes in market conditions, or some other external factor, his weaknesses now outweigh the strengths he has long displayed. “It spells out desired behavioral changes in a positive way–not ‘people are complaining that you are a bully’ but ‘if you make these changes you’ll have a reputation as someone who is considerate.’” It gives honchos 90 days to shape up–or else.

It’s never easy to make headway with an office bully, observers agree. The first step is to recognize when it’s happening. Repetitive verbal abuse. Micromanagement. Exploitation. Any activity that repeatedly demeans you or is discourteous. “Whenever you’re dissed, you’re dealing with a bully,” says Levinson. “Sometimes it’s inadvertent. We all get caught up in that–once. You apologize and it’s over. But bullies don’t recognize their impoliteness and they don’t apologize.”

Tactics from the Pros
Here are tactics from seasoned organizational consultants:

o Confront the bully: “I’m sorry you feel you have to do that, but I will not put up with that kind of behavior. It has no place here.” It can be startlingly effective. “Bullies lack boundaries on their own behavior. Some external controls may force them to back off” says Levinson. “A bully can’t bully if you don’t let yourself be bullied.”

o Conduct the confrontation in private–behind dosed doors in the bully’s office, at lunch outside the office. The bully won’t back down in front of an audience.

o Specify the behavior that’s unworkable: “You can’t just fire from the hip and demean me in front of my staff or others.”

o Don’t play armchair psychologist. Restrict the discussion to specific behaviors, not theories of motivation.

o Make your boss aware by showing him or her the consequences of his behavior on others. “I’ve been noticing how Jim seems so demoralized lately. I think one of the contributing factors may be last week’s meeting when you ridiculed him for producing an inadequate sales report.” Many executives have no information on how their leadership style impacts others, says Alexander. “Peers don’t tell them they are in competition. Why feed information that may make your competitor more effective?”

o Awareness is not enough; help your boss figure out what to do. Specify the behavioral change you want. “Your boss is likely to brush off criticism with, ‘That’s just my style,’” observes Marquand. “Furnish your boss with an example of desirable behavior-from his or her own repertoire of actions. Jump in with ‘But I can recall a month ago when you were . . . lavish in your praise of that new assistant,’ or whatever.”

o Point out how the boss’s behavior is seen by others. “You embarrass me when you publicly humiliate me in a meeting, but you also embarrass yourself. You’re demonstrating your weakness.” Comparing self-perceptions and the perceptions of others is often a “grabber,” finds Alexander. “The fact of difference gets people’s attention.”

o Try humor. If you point out to your boss that she’s acting like a caricature, that may be enough to make her aware.

o Recruit an ally or allies. Standing up for yourself can stop a bully by earning his/her respect. But it could also cost your job. The higher your boss is in the organization, says Lewis, the more you need allies. “It pays to check out with other workers whether the behavior you are experiencing is generalized or idiosyncratic,” says Levinson. “If it’s generalized, it’s easier for two or three people to confront a boss than one alone.”

o If the company you work for is large enough to have one, talk to the human resources department. Unfortunately, says Levinson, companies often don’t learn about bullying experiences until an exit interview. But the larger the company you work for, the more mechanisms there are in place to deal with bullies. Unfortunately, the corollary is that in a smaller organization you may have little choice except to leave.

o If you are important to the organization, you may accomplish your goal by going to your boss’s boss. But that’s always a chancy move; you’ll have to live with your boss in the morning.

Author: Hara Estroff Marano

Sadistic, narcissistic bully
Lacks empathy for others. Has low degree of anxiety about consequences. Narcissistic need to feel omnipotent. May appear to have a high self esteem but it is actually a brittle narcissism.

Imitative bully
May have low self esteem or be depressed. Influenced by the surrounding social climate. May use whining or tattling or be manipulative.

Impulsive bully
He/she is less likely to be part of a group. His/her bullying is more spontaneous and may appear more random. He/she has difficulty restraining him/herself from the behaviour even when authorities are likely to impose consequences. He/she is also likely to be bullied.

Physical Bullies
Physical bullies are action-oriented. This type of bullying includes hitting or kicking the victim, or, taking or damaging the victim’s property. This is the least sophisticated type of bullying because it is so easy to identify.

Verbal Bullies
Verbal bullies use words to hurt or humiliate another person. Verbal bullying includes name-calling, insulting, making racist comments and constant teasing. This type of bullying is the easiest to inflict on others. It is quick and to the point. It can occur in the least amount of time available, when no one else is around and its effects can be more devastating in some ways than physical bullying because there are no visible scars.
The lack of visible scars often leads people to think that the victim is exagerating and so cutting off support that the person needs as there is no visible trail for others to follow.
The effects of bullying on a victim can be a good clue also any other reports about the bully, talking to co-workers and discussing it with the bully looking at how they behave when confronted with whats happened. The last needs to be done with care as it may make matters worse for the victim.

Stressed, impulsive or unintentional bully
Occurs when someone is under stress or an institution is undergoing confusing, disorienting changes. This is the easiest to redirect.

Cyber bully
This includes hateful emails and cyber stalking. Some feel that employers who monitor employees’ email are using intimidation but this position can be debated. If it is used unfairly, it can be seen as intimidation.

Subordinate bully
Bullying perpetrated by subordinates (such as boss being bullied by an employee, nursing staff being bullied by a patient.)

Serial bully
An individual who repeatedly intimidates or harasses one individual after another. A victim is selected and bullied for an extended period of time until he/she leaves or asserts himself/herself and goes to Human Resources (HR)

The bully sometimes deceives HR by being charming while the victim appears emotional and angry.
Since there are often no witnesses, HR may accept the account of the bullying staff member, possibly a serial bully.  The bully may even convince the organization to get rid of the troublesome victim. Once the victim is out of the organization, the bully usually needs to find a new victim. This is because the bully needs someone on whom he can project his inner feelings of inadequacy. The bully may prevent others from sharing negative information about him by sowing conflict.

If the organization eventually realizes that it has made a mistake, it can difficult for them to publicly admit as they  feel to do so might make them legally liable.

This is very risky for the company.
A good set of policies and procedures should be in place to avoid this problem.

Secondary bully
Others in the office or social group start to react to bullying by imitating or joining in on the behaviour. This can lead to institutional bullying. Even if the primary bullying individual is removed, the secondary bullies may fill in the gap because they have learned that this is how to survive in this organization.

Pair bullies
Two individuals, sometimes people who are having an affair, or who are just peers collude to intimidate others. The participation of the second individual may be covert.

Gang bullies
The primary bully gathers a number of followers. He may be a loud, highly visible leader. If he is a quieter sort, his role may be more insidious. Some members of the group may actively enjoy being part of the bullying. They like the reflected power of the primary bully. If the primary bully leaves the organization, and the institution does not change, one of these individuals may step in to fill the shoes of the primary bully. Others of the gang join in because they feel coerced. They fear that if they do not participate, they will be the next victims. Indeed some of these individuals do become victims at some point in time.

Pressure bullying or unwitting bullying
Is where the stress of the moment causes behaviour to deteriorate; the person becomes short-tempered, irritable and may shout or swear at others. Everybody does this from time to time, but when the pressure is removed, behaviour returns to normal, the person recognises the inappropriateness of their behaviour, makes amends, and may apologise, and - crucially - learns from the experience so that next time the situation arises they are better able to deal with it. This is “normal” behaviour and I do not include pressure bullying in my definition of workplace bullying.

Regulation bullying
Is where a serial bully forces their target to comply with rules, regulations, procedures or laws regardless of their appropriateness, applicability or necessity.  Legal bullying - the bringing of a vexatious legal action to control and punish a person - is one of the nastiest forms of bullying.
It is often done “upwards” with financial gain in mind however this is not always the case.

Residual bullying
Is the bullying of all kinds that continues after the serial bully has left. Like recruits like and like promotes like, therefore the serial bully bequeaths a dysfunctional environment to those who are left. This can last for years.

Client bullying
Is where employees are bullied by those they serve, eg teachers are bullied (and often assaulted) by pupils and their parents, nurses are bullied by patients and their relatives, social workers are bullied by their clients, and shop/bank/building society staff are bullied by customers. Often the client is claiming their perceived right (eg to better service) in an abusive,  derogatory and often physically violent manner. Client bullying can also be employees bullying their clients.

Institutional bullying
Is similar to corporate bullying and arises when bullying becomes entrenched and accepted as part of the culture,and all of this is without consultation.
# People are moved
# Long-existing contracts are replaced with new short-term contracts on less favourable terms with the accompanying threat of “agree to this or else”
# Workloads are increased
# Work schedules are changed
# Roles are changed
# Career progression paths are blocked or terminated

Corporate bullying
# May occours when an organisation struggles to adapt to changing markets, reduced income, cuts in budgets, imposed expectations, and other external pressures.
Or where the employer abuses employees with impunity knowing/thinking that the law is weak and jobs are scarce, eg:

# Coercing employees to work after hours days or weeks on a regular basis then making life hell for (or dismissing) anyone who objects

# Dismissing anyone who looks like having a stress breakdown as it’s cheaper (in the UK) to pay the costs of unfair dismissal at Employment Tribunal (eg £50K maximum, but awards are usually paltry) than risk facing a personal injury claim for stress breakdown (eg £175K as in the John Walker case)
This behaviour can back fire on the company but short sighted employers may take the risk.

# Introduces “absence management” to deny employees annual or sick leave to which they are genuinely entitled. Company sick pay in itself is not an entitlement but statutory sick pay may be.

# Deems any employee suffering from stress as weak and inadequate whilst aggressively ignoring and denying the cause of stress (bad management and bullying)

# “Encourages” employees (with promises of promotion and/or threats of disciplinary action) to fabricate complaints about their colleagues The above 2 are very risky but go on never the less.

# Employees are “encouraged” to give up full-time permanent positions in favour of short-term contracts; anyone who resists has their life made hell.

# The following may be a normal practice, especially for a big company but the employee should be made aware of the practices when they go for the interview. The company must also make sure that the practices are not abused in any way and should also study the Data Protection Acts about collection and acess to information

Listening in to telephone conversations, using the mystery shopper, contacting customers behind employees backs and asking leading questions, conducting covert video surveillance (perhaps by fellow employees), sending personnel officers or private investigators to an employee’s home to interview the employees whilst on sick leave, interview the moment they return from sick leave. And possibly other practices that may be taken as bullying if the employee is unaware of them.

Bullies are inventive so the following list of of what a bully looks for in their targets is basic -

Remember:
Bullies need not target their “victims” because they are weak.

#You may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bullies are predatory and opportunistic.

#Being good at your job.

#Being popular with people.

#The bully fears exposure of their inadequacy and incompetence, your presence, popularity and competence unknowingly and unwittingly fuel that fear.

#Being the expert and the person to whom people come to for advice, getting more attention than the bully.

#Having a well-defined set of values which you will not compromise.

#Having a sense of integrity.

#Having at least one vulnerability that can be exploited.

#Being too old or expensive.

#Showing independence of thought or deed.

#Jealousy and envy are strong motivators of bullying.
# Unwarranted or invalid criticism while ignoring achievement

# Undermine in front of others, raise false concerns, or express doubts over a persons performance or standard of work, however unsubstantiated this may be

# Overrule, ignore and isolate a person from what’s happening.

# Regularly choose the target by offensive remarks and language or give the silent treatment.

#Single out and unfairly treat a person differently to other members of staff.

# Degrade, threaten, or humiliate.

# Subject someone to unwarranted or unjustified verbal or written warnings. This falls under  The Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution)

# Set goals and deadlines which are unachievable or which are changed without notice or reason.

# Deny information necessary for undertaking work whilst others often receive more than they need.

# Refuse support if they are a manager.

# Overload a person with work or have all their work taken away and replaced with inappropriate jobs.

# Increase someone’s responsibility but remove his/her authority.

# Have work plagiarised, – the bully then presenting the target’s work as their own.

# Find requests for leave unacceptable and place unnecessary conditions, sometimes overturning previous approval.

# Send unpleasant or threatening calls or harass with intimidating memos, notes or emails

# Invite you to informal meetings which turn out to be disciplinary hearings

# Encourage you to feel guilty and to believe you are always the one at fault

Regain Control

# You are not to blame

# You must not feel it is acceptable

# You have a right to get it stopped

# You have a right to complain

# You have a right to confidentiality

# You have a right to dignity and respect

With the above in mind here is some ways to help regain control of your situation:

# Recognise what is happening to you, accept that you are being bullied and it is the bully who has the problem, which they are projecting onto you, and that it can be delt with.

One of the first ways to help stop bullying at the start can be if yourself or a colleague approaches the bully and states:

“I wish to make it clear that your (state type) of behaviour is unacceptable. I (persons name if colleage doe’s this for you) find it distressing and want it stopped now please”.

Then turn round and leave the room, do not discuss it or make any comments to the person, just inform them if they try to run after you or your colleague that

“the matter is closed”

# Do not accept criticisms and allegations about you or your performance, containing little or no grain of truth, these are not about you or your performance.

Test the criticisms If they are genuine then, they will be constructive, the person making them will be willing to assist you in the most positive way to improve whatever is the problem.

If they are not helpful or constructive then do not be fooled into believing that the criticisms or allegations have any validity – they do not.  The purpose of  bullying criticism is control, it has nothing to do with performance enhancement.  This is a projection of the bully’s own weaknesses, shortcomings, failings and incompetence.

# You may be encouraged to feel shame, embarrassment, guilt and fear. This is a normal reaction but misplaced and inappropriate. Again this is a form of control.

# You may feel that you are not able to handle bullying by yourself.  Get help.  There is no shame or failure in this, the bully is devious, deceptive, manipulative and cheating.

Approach your manager, HR or company owner as a start point.

#Keep a journal/diary of everything – Legally one incident can be enough for a tribunal but the number, regularity and pattern of incidents can help with proving the bullying.

# Keep your diary in a safe place, not at work where others may see it.  Keep it at home, keep photocopies of important documents in a separate location.  Bullies are known to rifle through target’s desks and it has been known for the diary to be stolen and used as evidence of misconduct.

# Keep copies of all emails, memos and letters.  Get and keep everything you can in writing otherwise the bully can deny at a later date.

# Carry a notepad and pen with you and record everything that the bully says and does together with anyone else connected with the bullying.

# Record everything in writing including criticisms or allegations.  Write and ask the bully to substantiate their criticisms or allegations in writing.  When the bully does not reply or fails to supply substantive and quantifiable evidence, write again pointing out you have asked for justification and the bully has chosen not to reply or failed to justify the claim.  On the third occasion, point out, in writing, that making allegations and refusing to substantiate them in writing or failing to provide substantive and quantifiable evidence is a form of harassment.

# Denial is common and everywhere.  The person who asserts their right not to be bullied is often blowing the whistle on another’s incompetence. This will not be popular and you can expect the bully to deny everything.

You may find the bully’s superiors also deny and disbelieve everything and in some cases expect personnel/human resources (if available) to disbelieve and deny the bullying, although they are usually impartial and deal only in facts.

# A bully likes to play people off against each other, so try to reunite yourself with your employer against the bully.  Point out professionally that the serial bully is encouraging the employer and employee to engage in adversarial interaction and destructive conflict in which there can be no winners, only losers.  If a bully does not succeed in watching others destroy each other, he will move on which leaves the employer to incur all the vicarious liability for their behaviour.

# Serial bullies are very good at deceiving and manipulating.  Do not underestimate any bully.  When dealing with your employer, focus exclusively on legal and financial matters.  Provide them with information which confirms the employers’ legal requirements.

# Build yourself a support network, however, expect your colleagues to melt away and not be involved.

You may be advised to stand up for yourself (although the person stating this will have no idea how you can do this) and this could make the situation worse.

# See your Doctor.  Bullying can cause prolonged negative stress, which results in psychiatric injury.  Psychiatric injury has nothing to do with mental illness.  If stress is diagnosed make sure it the cause is recorded ie., stress caused in the workplace. If depression is diagnosed, make sure it is recorded as reactive depression.

Remember that stress is not the employee’s inability to cope with excessive workload but a consequence of the employer’s failure to provide a safe system of work as required by the UK Health and Safety Act 1974 or the Harassment Act 1997

# If you are forced into sickness absence, ill health or stress breakdown through bullying, record it in the accident book, this ensures the bullying is officially logged.  Inform the employer in writing that a person’s bullying behaviour has resulted in injury to health causing you (and others) to be ill.  If you are subsequently victimised for doing this, you may be able to claim victimisation under the UK Employment Rights Act 1996 or the UK Harassment Act 1997

# If you feel strong enough reassure your partner/family that your symptoms are psychiatric injury and things will get better.

# If the bullying has caused you to be off sick with stress, anxiety, depression, and your employer is trying to coerce you back to work.

Write a letter to your employer stating that your absence ‘is due to symptoms of psychiatric injury resulting in stress caused by the inappropriate behaviours of others and unduly stressful working conditions and that you look forward to returning to work at the earliest opportunity. To facilitate your return ask that the employer assures you, in writing, that they will fulfil their obligation of duty of care under the UK Health and Safety Act 1974

to provide you with both a safe place of work and a safe system of work.

Some employers carry out post absence interviews this should be done with the intention of helping the employee by making sure that if they are fit to return to work and the company is meeting it’s obligations as a company.

As one example of coercion a small company owner informed the employee that as the CO had not seen the wound that the employee was making it up. This was despite the fact that mangers had been present when the wound had happpened and the employee had been to a Dr and the hospital for iv treatment and to see a plastic surgeon.

Despite sick notes and with more abuse the matter is now in the hands of lawyers.

# Take the matter up with your manager or company owner  in a small business although bullies can be the company owner you would approach. In these circumstances you would be best to leave the business and decide if it is worth taking to a tribunal or restarting your life.

# If your employer has one (they should do) obtain a copy of your companies bullying and harassment policy.  You might wish to do this discreetly (ie. through a third party) if you are not ready to challenge the bully.

# Obtain as much written information about yourself from your workplace as you can lay your hands on. Make sure it is copies, originals should not be used. And do not remove originals or copies without permission.

# Follow the grievance procedure, but be aware that such procedures can be biased in favour of the manager.  A company with no set procedure should follow the ACAS Grievance Procedure. If a company doe’s not follow their own grievence procedure then they are not looked on favourably by a tribunal.

# If the bully is making unwarranted criticisms in public or on your record, you may feel it is appropriate to ask your solicitor to write to the bully pointing out that he or she is subject to the laws of slander, libel and defamation of character.

# If your employer refuses to get involved or backs the bully in his/her attempt to get rid of you, you might consider

The ACAS Dispute Resolution service (free) If that does not work get your solicitor to write to someone in authority outlining the way your manager has treated you, stating that your rights in law will be vigorously defended against the unacceptable behaviour of one of their employees, whose actions will be monitored as a consequence of his or her declared intentions.  This turns the spotlight on the bully rather than on the target.

# Consider leaving – regard it as a positive decision in the face of overwhelming odds which are not of your choosing, not of your making and over which you have no control.  In this type of situation, walking away can be the best thing because you remain in control.  Choose to move on and find an employer who does value you and your skills.  Do not allow your health to be destroyed.  What is more important, your job, your health, your career, life or family?

# If you are forced to leave, make it clear to your employer in writing that this is due to bullying.  You should not be asked to sign anything by your employer however if you are, get professional advice before signing.

# A reference is a legal requirement and cannot be withheld if requested and  strict rules govern the contents. Most employers require a reference from your previous employer and the bully never misses an opportunity to sabotage your career.

#If all else fails, consider taking your employer to an Employment Tribunal.

# Don’t forget legal advice is advised. Contact one of the national trade union bodies, your trade body legal department or a lawyer that deals with employment law.

For those in other countries please check up your own country or states laws.

Avoiding Trouble

Prevention is always better than cure and the moment an issue becomes formal it can feel like everyone has lost.
Far better to ceate the atmosphere where bullying is not tolerated in the first place.

This means that the management has to be aware of what is  and isnt acceptable behaviour and to ensure that everyone is trained and aware of the information.

Good management is the best way to avoid or deal with bullying issues in the workplace. Trust should be built up and maintained from the start. A good HR department is invaluable as well unfortunatly in small companies where the bully is the company owner this is not possible.

Resist the temptation to put your existing anti-harassment policy on your PC screen and use your word processor to find all occurrences of the word “harassment” and add after it the words “and bullying”. It doesn’t work.

A wider approach is likely to be more effective, especially in the long-term. Instead of having one policy on harassment, I suggest having an overall policy called, say, Dignity at Work, which contains an introduction stating the reasons for having this policy etc, then separate chapters on harassment, discrimination, assault and violence, bullying, treatment of minorities, etc in line with your chosen ethos and emphasis.

You can orient it towards equal opportunities, or diversity, or legalities, or cost, or benefits to employees and business, or whatever you choose. This way, you can update individual sections without having to re-issue the whole policy every time. The phrase “Dignity at Work” derives from European law, whereby harassment and discrimination are examples of unacceptable behaviour which “affect the dignity of men and women at work”. The way the Act applies to the UK and what Acts under UK law it draws are available here.
The NI Equality Commission has an interesting set of publications that may be of assistance

Make sure you understand the different types of bullies. The way in which you deal with each will vary. For example, mediation is useful with unwitting bullying and organisational bullying, but it’s wholly inappropriate for dealing with a serial bully. Some bullies like mediation because it gives them the opportunity of appearing to be conciliatory whilst simultaneously evading accountability and carrying on with their bullying. Although there may be a pause, within two weeks, the bullying will have resumed.

Ensure you know how to identify, expose and deal with the serial bully, who is often an unrecognised sociopath. It is estimated one person in thirty is a serial bully. Find out how the serial bully gets away with their unacceptable behaviour repeatedly. Start by learning to recognise the serial bully from his/her behaviour profile.

Know how to investigate a case of bullying. it’s a specialised job and an investigation is more than just asking questions and taking statements. The serial bully is adept at creating conflict between those who would otherwise pool negative information about them whilst indulging their gratification of seeing others (employer and employee) destroy each other. The serial bully is also adept at distorting people’s perceptions of them. In the event of the serial bully being identified and held to account, the bully may leave, resulting in the employer defending litigation (for the bully’s behaviour) which may last years.

If you have a serial bully on the staff, then the bullying you see will be only the tip of an iceberg of wrongdoing by that person.

Resist the temptation to take an existing unresolved case and make this person a guinea pig early on before the ink on the policy is dry. If the policy doesn’t work, the person may feel further victimised and more litigious

All employers should put into place an anti-bullying strategy by ensuring that contracts of employment state that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated and confirm that any bullying behaviour will result in disciplinary action.

There should be a grievance procedure that provides a clear way for the employee to complain and voice their problems.  This may not put off the calculating bully but it may deter those who believe that management will not take it seriously.

All complaints received must be investigated promptly and objectively.  Employees do not usually make serious accusations unless they feel seriously upset or aggrieved.
This investigation must be objective and independent.

Some problems can be rectified quickly and informally, sometimes people are not aware that their behaviour has caused any upset or offence and by discussing this an agreement can be reached that this behaviour will cease.  The victim may do this himself or herself or they may require support from an employer, an employee representative, or a counsellor.

An employer may decide that it is a disciplinary issue, which needs to be dealt with formally at the appropriate level and in line with the disciplinary procedure.

Representation is a grey area in the UK, with many employers claiming that the person who is the alleged target of bullying is not entitled to representation.
Denial of representation is a common tactic by which bullies reveal themselves.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives employees the legal right to be accompanied during grievance procedures and disciplinary hearings, but only by a union rep or fellow worker; the former often are too involved with management to be impartial, and the latter are too frightened to come forward and are often threatened by the bully anyway.

A reasonable employer will go beyond what the law requires and allow the target to be accompanied by a person of their own choosing. In fact employer should allow and encourage both parties to have a representative of their choice and without limitation present in all meetings related to the formal procedure

If this is permitted then the advice would be to get a professional in as opposed to a friend who will be biased or may behave inappropriately.
The company can also train other employees in the role of mediator so the target feels that they have a greater range of help to choose from within the organisation.

Author: http://www.lifeafteradultbullying.com/620/index.html

Promoting a business is an ongoing challenge for small businesses. Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, these proven marketing strategies will help your business find new customers without spending a fortune.

1.    Plan your attack. Define who your best prospects are, and then determine the best way to reach them. Be as specific as possible. Is the decision maker the CTO of the company, the director of human resources, or a 37-year-old working mom? Will you find them on Twitter or Facebook? What about in-person networking at local business meetings? Will they be searching for your type of product on Google or Bing? Write your answers down, and refer to them before you start any new marketing tactic.

2.    ·  If you don’t have a website, get one set up. If you can’t afford to have someone custom-design your website, put your site up using one of the companies like SiteSell.com or HomeStead.com that provide templates and tools that make it easy to create a basic website.

3.    ·  Set up a free listing for your business in search engine local directories. You can do this at Google.com/local/; Bing.com/local/; and listings.local.yahoo.com/ Be sure to include your website link and business description.

4.    ·  Set your business profile or page up on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Be sure your business profile includes a good description, keywords and a link to your website. Look for groups or conversations that talk about your type of products or services and participate in the conversations, but don’t spam them with constant promos for what you sell.

5.    ·  If you’re just starting out and don’t have a business card and business stationery, have them made up — immediately. Your business card, letterhead and envelope tell prospective customers you are a professional who takes your business seriously. Be sure to list your website address on your business card and, letterhead and any handouts you create.

6.    ·  Get your business cards into the hand of anyone who can help you in your search for new clients. Call your friends and relatives and tell them you have started a business. Visit them and leave a small stack of business cards to hand out to their friends.

7.    ·  Talk to all the vendors from whom you buy products or services. Give them your business card, and ask if they can use your products or service, or if they know anyone who can. If they have bulletin boards where business cards are displayed (printers often do, and so do some supermarkets, hairdressers, etc.), ask if yours can be added to the board.

8.    ·  Attend meetings of professional groups, and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, or civic associations. Have business cards in a pocket where they are easily reachable. Don’t forget to ask what the people you speak with do, and to really listen to them. They’ll be flattered by your interest, and better remember you because of it.

9.    ·  Pay for membership in those groups that attract your target customers. If the group has a website and publishes a list members on the site, make sure your name and website link get added. Once it is added double check to be sure your contact information is correct and your website link isn’t broken.

10.    ·  Become actively involved in 2 or 3 of these groups. That will give you more opportunity to meet possible prospects. But remember: opportunists are quickly spotted for what they are, and get little business. While you won’t want to become involved in many organizations that require a lot of your time in, you can –and should– make real contributions to all of them by offering useful ideas and helping with projects when possible.

11.    ·  Look for something unusual about what you do, and publicize it. Send out press releases to local newspapers, radio stations, cable TV stations, magazines whose audiences are likely to be interested in buying what you sell. Be sure to post the press releases on one or more online press release services, too, being sure to include links to your website. To increase your chance of having the material published, send along a photo (but not to radio stations) with your press release. Editors of printed publications are often in need of “art” (drawings or photos) to fill space and break up the gray look of a page of text.

12.    ·  Write an article that demonstrates your expertise in your field. Send it to noncompeting newspapers, magazines, and websites in your field that accept submissions from experts. Be sure your name, business name, phone number, and a reference to your product or service is included at the end of the article. If the editor can use the article you get your name in print, and possibly get your contact information printed for free, too.

13.    ·  Publicize your publicity. Whenever you do get publicity, get permission from the publisher to reprint the article containing the publicity. Make photocopies and mail the copies out with sales letters or any other literature you use to market your product or service. The publicity clips lend credibility to the claims you make for your products or services.

14.    ·  Ask for work or leads. Contact nonprofit organizations, schools and colleges, and even other businesses that have customers who may need your services.

15.    ·  Network with others who are doing the same type of work you are. Let them know you are available to handle their work overloads. (But don’t try to steal their customers. Word will get out, and will ruin your business reputation.)

16.    ·  Offer to be a speaker. Industry conferences, volunteer organizations, libraries, and local business groups often need speakers for meetings. You’ll benefit from the name recognition, contacts and publicity.

17.    ·  If your product or service is appropriate, give demonstrations of it to whatever groups or individuals might be interested. Or, teach others how to use some tool you use in your work.

18.    ·  Put videos of your product or service on YouTube and other video-sharing and slide-sharing sites.

19.    ·  Find out what federal, state, and local government programs are in existence to help you get started in business. Most offer free counseling, and some can put you in touch with government agencies and large corporations that buy from small and woman-owned businesses.

20.    ·  If you are a woman-owned or minority-owned business look into getting certified by private, state or federal organizations. Many purchasing agents have quotas or guide for the amount of goods and services they need to buy from minority- and woman-owned businesses.

21.    ·  Send out sales letters to everyone you think might be able to use what you sell. Be sure to describe your business in terms of how it can help the prospect. Learn to drop a business card in every letter you send out. Follow up periodically with postcard mailings.

22.    ·  If you use a car or truck in your business have your business name and contact information professionally painted on the side of the vehicle. That way your means of transportation becomes a vehicle for advertising your business. If you don’t want the business name painted on the vehicle, consider using magnetic signs.

23.    ·  Get on the telephone and make “cold calls.” These are calls to people who you would like to do business with. Briefly describe what you do and ask for an appointment to talk to them about ways you can help them meet a need or solve a problem.

24.    ·  Get samples of your product or your work into as many hands as possible.

25.    ·  Offer a free, no obligation consultation to people you think could use your services. During such consultations offer some practical suggestions or ideas–and before you leave ask for an “order” to implement the ideas.

26.    ·  Learn to ask for referrals. Ask existing customers, prospects and casual acquaintances. When you get them, follow up on the leads.

27.    ·  Use other people to sell your product or service. Instead of (or in addition to) selling your products yourself, look for affiliates, resellers or people who will generate leads for you in return for a commission on sales. Be sure your pricing structure allows for the fees or commissions you will have to pay on any sales that are made.

28.    ·  Get together with businesses who serve the same market, but sell different products and services. Make arrangements to pass leads back and forth, or share mailings.

29.    ·  Have sales letters, flyers and other pertinent information printed and ready to go. Ask prospects who seem reluctant to buy from you: “Would you like me to send information?” Follow up promptly with a note and a letter that says, “Here is the information you asked me to send.

30.    ·  Run a contest. Make the prize something desirable and related to your business — it could be a free gift basket of your products, for instance, or free services.

31.    ·  Test buying Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising on the search engines. If you are not yet advertising on search engines search for offers that give you $50 or $75 in free advertising to start. Read the directions for the service you plan to use, and very carefully watch what you spend on a daily or more frequent basis until you are comfortable using PPC ads and see you are getting a return on your investment.

Author: Janet Attard

Begin with your values. What do you believe in and stand for? What is most important to you in life? What would you pay for, fight for, suffer for and die for? What do you really care about? Someone once wrote, “Until you know exactly what you would do if you only had one hour left to live, you are not prepared to live.”

What is your vision for yourself and your future? What is your vision for your family and your finances? What is your vision for your career and your company? Even if you are starting your business on a kitchen table, you must have a vision of becoming a world leader in your field, or you will probably never be successful.

What is your mission for your business? What is it that you want to accomplish for your customers? What is it that you want to do to improve the lives and work of the people you intend to serve with your products and services? You need a clear vision and an inspiring mission to motivate yourself and others to do the hard work necessary to achieve business success.

What is your purpose for your life and your business? Why do you get up in the morning? What is your reason for being? And here’s a great question: What do you really want to do with your life?

Finally, what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish in your financial life? What are your family goals? What are your health goals? What difference do you want to make in the lives of others? And here is the best question: What would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?

The greater clarity you have regarding each of these issues–values, vision, mission, purpose and goals–the greater the probability that you will accomplish something wonderful with your life.

2. Competence: To be truly successful and happy, you must be very good at what you do. You must resolve to join the top 10 percent in your field. You must make excellent performance of the business task your primary goal and then dedicate all your energies to doing quality work and offering quality products and services.

To be successful in business, you must find a field that satisfies three requirements. First, it must be something for which you have a passion-something you really believe in and love to do. Second, it must be an area where you have the potential to be the best, to be better than 90 percent of the people in that field. Third, it must involve a product or service that can be profitable and enable you to achieve all your financial goals.

According to the Harvard Business School, the most valuable asset a company can develop is its reputation. Your reputation is defined as “how you are known to your customers.” And the most important reputation you can have revolves around the quality of the products and services you offer and the quality of the people who deliver those services and interact with those customers.

3. Constraints: Between you and your goal, whatever it is, there will always be a constraint or limiting factor. Your ability to identify the most important factor that determines the speed at which you achieve your business goals is essential to your success.

The 80/20 rule applies to constraints in your business. Fully 80 percent of the reasons that you are not achieving your goals as quickly as you want will be within yourself. Only 20 percent will be contained in external circumstances or people.
What are your constraints? What holds you back? What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals? And what one thing could you do immedi-ately to begin alleviating your main constraint? This is often the key to rapid progress.

4. Creativity: The essence of successful business is innovation. This is the ability to find faster, better, cheaper, easier ways to produce and deliver your products and services.

Fortunately, almost everyone is a “potential genius.” You have more intelligence and ability than you could ever use. Your job is to unleash this creativity and focus it, like a laser beam, on removing obstacles, solving problems and achieving your goals.
The essence of creativity is contained in your ability to solve the inevitable problems and difficulties of business life. Colin Powell said, “Leadership is the ability to solve problems.” Success is the ability to solve problems. And remember: A goal unachieved is merely a problem unsolved.

The way of the successful entrepreneur is to focus on the solution rather than the problem. Focus on what is to be done rather than what has happened or who is to blame. Concentrate all your attention on finding a solution to any obstacle that is holding you back from the sales and profitability you desire. And the more you think about solutions, the more solutions you will think of. You will actually feel yourself getting smarter by focusing all your energies on what you can do to continually improve your situation.

5. Concentration: Your ability to concentrate single-mindedly on the most important thing and stay at it until it is complete is an essential prerequisite for success. No success is possible without the ability to practice sustained concentration on a single goal or task, in a single direction.

The simplest way to learn to concentrate is to make a list for each day before you begin. Then prioritize the list by putting the numbers 1 through 10 next to each item. Once you have determined your most important task, immediately begin to work on that task. Discipline yourself to continue working until that top task is 100 percent complete. When you make a habit of doing this–starting and completing your most important tasks each day–you will double or triple your productivity and put yourself solidly on the way to wealth.

6. Courage: Winston Churchill once wrote, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.” It takes tremendous courage to take the entrepreneurial risks necessary to become wealthy. In study after study, experts have concluded it is the courage to take the “first step” that makes all the difference. This is the courage to launch in the direction of your goals, with no guarantee of success. Most people lack this.

Once you have begun your entrepreneurial journey, you also need the courage to persist. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “All great successes are the triumph of persistence.”

The word entrepreneur means “one who undertakes the risks of a new ven-ture in pursuit of profit.” Fully 90 percent of the population will never have sufficient courage to launch a new venture, to start a new business, to boldly go where no one has gone before. You need, first of all, the courage to begin, to move out of your comfort zone in the direction of your goals and dreams, even though you know you will experience many problems, difficulties and temporary failures along the way.

Second, you need the courage to endure, to hang in there, to persist in the face of all adversity until you finally win. When you develop these twin qualities–the ability to step out in faith and then to persist resolutely in the face of all difficulties–your success is guaranteed.

7. Continuous Action: Perhaps the most outwardly identifiable quality of a successful person is that he or she is in continuous motion. The entrepreneur is always trying new things and, if they don’t work, trying something else. It turns out that most entrepreneurs achieve their success in an area completely different from what they had initially expected. But because they continually reacted and responded constructively to change, trying new methods, abandoning activities that didn’t work, picking themselves up after every defeat and trying once more, they eventually won out.

Top people, especially entrepreneurs, seem to have these three qualities. First, they learn more things. Second, they try more things. Third, they persist longer than anyone else. The good news is that, because of the law of probabilities, if you learn more things, try more things and persist longer, you dramatically increase the probability that you will succeed greatly. If you launch toward your goal and resolve in advance to never give up, your success is virtually guaranteed.

The Ultimate Reward 

The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place.

To have more, you must first be more. For you to set out on the way to wealth and become a self-made entrepreneurial millionaire, you will have to develop many qualities at a higher level than you ever have before. You will have to become an exceptional person. You will have to become more than you ever imagined possible for you.

To realize your full potential and achieve all your financial goals in your own business, you must develop the virtues of integrity, courage and persistence to a much higher level than you have up to now. You will have to practice the qualities of clarity, competence, creativity, concentration and continuous action until they are as natural to you as breathing. You will have to accept complete responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you, and especially for the way you think in every area.

When you develop these qualities and become a completely different person, you will eventually achieve all your goals in life, including financial success. The best part of becoming an extraordinary person is that, if something happens and you lose it all, it won’t really matter. Because you have become a different person, you will be able to make it all back again and more, far faster than the first time.

Welcome to The Way to Wealth. You are about to embark on a grand adventure that may last for the rest of your working lifetime. But if you have the courage to begin and the persistence to endure, nothing can hold you back from achieving all your goals and dreams. If you decide that, no matter what, you will never give up, you will eventually become unstoppable.

Action Plan

Take these steps to get going on your business goals.
1.    Decide exactly what you want in life in each area, and write it down. Make your goals clear, specific and measurable.
2.    Specify the most important skill you could develop to move you into the top 10 percent of people in your field. Then do something immediately to begin developing that skill.
3.    Identify the major constraint or limiting factor inside yourself or in your world that is setting the speed at which you achieve your most important goal, and begin working on removing that constraint today.
4.    Determine your single biggest problem or obstacle in your business or personal life. Then focus all your time and attention on the possible solutions.
5.    Make a list of what you would want to be, do and have if you had no limitations and you were absolutely guaranteed success.
6.    Accept complete responsibility for your life. From this day forward, refuse to make excuses or blame anyone for anything. Instead, take action to make your goals a reality.
7.    Reaffirm and visualize your goals of financial success, excellent health and personal happiness as a reality. Remember, the person you see is the person you will be.

Author: http://www.freshthinkingbusiness.com/free-articles.html

Although hiring employees may sound simple, you’ll quickly learn that no one will care for your company as much as you nor will they work as hard as you. Every once in a while you may find some rock star talent to help you out, but those won’t be the majority of the people that build up your team.

So how do you get people to work really hard? Well, you have to push them to their limits, yet keep them motivated or else they’ll get burned out and quit. Here are 7 tactics I use to push employees to their limits while still keeping them motivated and happy.

Tactic #1: Encourage and discourage at the same time

Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have a tendency to point out how employees can be working more efficiently, what else they can do for the company, and how they need to be creating more aggressive revenue goals.

Over the years I’ve quickly learned that critiquing people 4 days a week does help them work harder, but at the same time it can cause them to quit. So every Friday, I make sure I compliment them on how well of a job they are doing and how I am happy to be working with them. I also do the same thing over the weekend through text messages and emails, which makes them ecstatic and ready to work hard on Monday.

The reason I choose to compliment on Friday is because it’s usually a deadline day in which everyone is trying to hit all of their weekly goals. So by saying how well of a job they did, it shows that you appreciate them as well as gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Tactic #2: Dangle a carrot

The best way I’m able to motivate employees to work hard while keeping them happy is to dangle a carrot in front of them. For each employee you’re going to have to figure out what carrot appeals to him or her most. If you can’t figure out what appeals to them, you may want to start with dangling money as most people are looking to move up in their career.

For example, I know my assistant wants to make more money, so every month she can push me to close 2 enterprise deals, she gets a decent size bonus. This works well because it not only pushes her to figure out which companies I can sell large contracts to, but it also makes her think about my company’s financial well being.

I have another employee who loves luxury watches. I’ve offered to buy him a fancy watch if he is able to get my company an extra 100 qualified leads each day as that will drastically improve the company’s bottom line.

Whatever carrot you decide to dangle, make sure your employee is emotionally attached to it. Playing off of logic is great, but dangling carrots that play off of emotions are more effective.

Tactic #3: Feed them well

Everyone has to eat! So why not feed them? Google and Facebook are just a few of the companies that feed their employees for free and it seems to work well. This way they don’t have to leave work to get food and they’ll be more productive.

If you are starting out you may not be able to provide the level of food services that Google and Facebook provide, but this doesn’t mean you can’t treat your employees to a nice meal once a month. Or you can tie meals to specific company objectives, such as buying lunch on Fridays for employees after you know they have achieved their weekly goals.

When feeding your employees, you don’t have to pick the fanciest restaurants. Just pick a unique place that has a fun vibe. I have found that those type of places are much more appreciated than the stuffy restaurants that you have to dress up to eat at.

Tactic #4: Spontaneity

One of the easiest ways to make your employees more productive is to change up the environment they are working in. You can do things like rearranging office furniture, but I prefer changing up the environment by being spontaneous.

For example, I have a weekly brainstorming session with 2 marketers whom I work with and we typically brainstorm in my condo. Last week we decided to brainstorm while taking a walk on the harbor, as the weather was nice. The beautiful thing about this is that my guys were able to come up with some awesome marketing ideas and they didn’t feel like they were working. Instead they felt like they were just taking a break from work and relaxing by the water.

The trick with being spontaneous is to do things that your employees wouldn’t expect. Like the example above, it can be very simple, and it doesn’t have to cost you a dime.

Tactic #5: Give them a voice

Just because someone works for you, doesn’t mean they are your “bitch”. They are there to help you grow your business, and do what’s best for it… they aren’t there to be your slave. Everyone has feelings and people want to be heard. So when you are in meetings or making decisions about your company, ask your employees what they think.

You don’t always have to take their input, but you’re better off asking them what they think as they could come up with a good solution or a point that you may have never thought of. Plus this will also help them think outside of the box so one day they can just make certain decisions for you so you can focus on the bigger picture.

Tactic #6: Your goals should be to help them accomplish their goals

Before any employee starts working for me, I always ask them their 5 most important personal goals. These goals can’t be tied to work and have to be purely personal. Once they list them out to me, I let them know which ones I can help them accomplish.

In most cases I can typically solve 4 out of 5 goals any new employee lists out to me. So as they continue to work for me over the course of each year, I slowly help them mark off each of their goals.

At the end of the year I go over their personal goals and if they were happy with their accomplishments. At the same time I go over their new goals for the next 12 months and I help them accomplish them as well.

The reason you want to help employees out in their personal life is because it will affect their work life. It doesn’t matter that they should keep both worlds separate, people just have a tendency to mix their work life and personal life together.

Tactic #7: Don’t stop pushing

Employees have a tendency of correlating bonuses, raises, and promotions to how well they do in their job and how much they are learning.
So before my employees have the chance to ask me for a raise or a promotion, I let them know what I expect from them as well as what additional things they need to do to receive a promotion.

By doing this I’m pushing my employees to work harder and I keep on pushing them until they start snapping back at me. Now although they may hate me for this, when they look back at what they accomplished and learned, they tend to be happy with their progress.

Conclusion

Using the tactics I mentioned above is a great first step in keeping your employees happy while pushing them to their limits, but it isn’t enough. Over the last 10 years as an entrepreneur I learned one important thing… it’s the small things that really make a big difference.

Get to know your employees, bond with them, and find out what makes them happy in life. If you care for them just like you care for your wife, husband, child, or sibling, you’ll quickly realize that not only will they work really hard for you, but they’ll be happy to do so.

Author: Neil Patel

Today our identity is separate from our company. We manage ourselves with the care that used to be reserved for special product lines. We realize if we don’t care for our career no one else will. And we cannot depend on a corporation to keep up to speed on ideas. We have to stay on top of new ideas for ourselves.

So, here are four ideas that you should consider using to guide yourself:

Pick a pace that’s right for you.
Today waiting the typical three to five business days for a package to arrive seems like an unbearable amount of time to some people, and news travels in real time — text-messages sent from parties to bloggers at home, ready to post.

Alexander Kjerulf self-published his book, Happy Hour is 9 to 5, because he thought the typical publishing cycle was too long. “I’m an impatient sort of guy,” he says. The book sells well on his blog, and he feels certain he did the right thing, for him.

Fast all the time isn’t right for everyone all the time. Adrian Savage, author of the book, Slow Leadership, writes daily on his blog urging people to accept that often workplace success comes from downshifting into a slow gear for a while.

Sloppy networking leads to sloppy results.
The founders of the professional networking site LinkedIn tell people in no uncertain terms that building a network has to be about people you know well. Yet every day thousands of LinkedIn users invite near-strangers into their network.

Newsflash: People you don’t know cannot vouch for you. People you have not connected with in an authentic way will not be move to help you when you need it. It doesn’t matter how full your LinkedIn account is, or how heavy your Rolodex is, if you haven’t really connected with these people, it’s not a network.

The opposite is true as well. If you build a strong network, its effects will ripple. Josh Boltuch, Elliott Breece and Elias Roman spent their last semester at Brown University launching Amie Street, a new model for selling music online. They had no marketing budget to get the word out, but they did have their network.

“We sent a few hundred emails to friends and family.” The crux of the marketing pitch? “We told everyone that a requirement for being our friend is to sign up for our site.” A few weeks later, without saying anything to the founders, someone told Mike Arrington about Amie Street.

Arrington has one of the strongest networks in startup America. Getting your startup on his blog TechCrunch is like getting your book on Oprah. And there was Amie Street, right there on Mike’s blog one day.

The next day, Amie Street had thousands of registered users.
What can we learn from this? That solid networks make solid results.
The Amie Street founders had a network that cared deeply for them – their friends and family. Mike Arrington’s network is truly dedicated to helping him find the best new startups. Amie Street is a success today because it started with a truly meaningful network.

Get away from jerks or become one.
If you want to enjoy your work, surround yourself with people who are enjoyable. Most people can tell an obnoxious person right away. But even in light of one of those horrible interviews, candidates often tell themselves they can work with jerks and not be affected.

“If you think you are going to change them, it won’t happen. It’s easy to resist at the beginning, but if you work with an asshole you’re going to become one” too, says Bob Sutton, professor at Stanford University, and author of the book, The No Asshole Rule.

Rude interactions have five times the impact on your mood that positive interactions do. Sometimes you can encourage rude co-workers and bosses to be more positive. But not if you’re dealing with the worst cases.

How can you recognize those types you need to get away from? Sutton says they are addicted to subtle putdowns, interruptions and they use sarcasm as a way to make a (supposed) joke.

Respect your unconscious decision-making skills.
When you try to make a well-formed, thought-out decision, you will probably do a bad job unless the information in front of you is very limited, according to Ap Dijksterhuis, professor of psychology at Radboud University Nimengen in the Netherlands.

He found that in situations with a lot of variables, like which soccer team will win the World Cup, people consider too much irrelevant information–which city the game is in, for example–at the expense of more important information–such as the track records of the teams.

The good news is that our unconscious minds are very good at processing lots of information. We have known for a while that trusting our gut is a good idea. But Diksterhuis’s research (subscription required) shows that sleeping on a problem gives your unconscious time to sift through information and actually makes our gut decision better.

Sourced At: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/02/18/4-new-ideas-for-becoming-more-effective-at-work/

The “balance” in work-life balance does not mean an even divide between work and home. It’s about managing all the responsibilities you have in both these areas of your life without feeling burnt out or resentful. Try these strategies to avoid feeling exhausted and improve your health and productivity.

Choose and chuck

Something easy to start with. We all have loads of reports, articles and documents we’d like to read when we get the chance. Well, that’s usually never these days, so unless they are essential to your job and must be read immediately, file ‘em or chuck ‘em. Whatever you do, don’t put them in a pile that sits on your desk creating a visual stressor. Removing that paper tower makes your desk seem lighter and brighter and makes you feel a bit less overloaded. Besides, it’s fun to fling stuff into the recycle bin.

Know your peak time

You may not be able to influence what time the manager chooses to run their team meetings but it is likely you know whether you’re a morning or evening person. Maybe mid-mornings are your most productive time; maybe your real energy kicks in during the late afternoon or perhaps you’re a night person who can operate effectively until the wee hours. Think about when you are at your most productive, especially with challenging tasks that require high-level planning, problem solving or developing new ideas. Where practicable, plan your work around these times. Do the most important and challenging tasks in your peak time and leave the more mundane tasks for when you’re slower and less energised.

Schedule some slack-off time

No, not for snoozing or goofing off but the space that needs to be carved out and owned in between appointments that allows you some travel or lag time. You can’t work effectively if your diary is full of back-to-back commitments that don’t allow you a few minutes for travelling from A to B (even between floors), dropping off folders, returning an important call or even visiting the loo. Make a mini-appointment with yourself before a meeting to allow time to read through any documents that will form the basis of the meeting’s agenda. 
This should prevent delays if everyone present has read the paperwork and familiarised themselves with the topic. It will also keep the meeting on track and on time.

Say no more often

Learning to say no can be difficult at first. You don’t want to be viewed as unco-operative or the “bad guy” but you also don’t want to be the pushover who is overworked and underappreciated. Saying no can reduce your stress levels because it gives you time for more important things. Also, others become aware of what you already have on your plate and you have control over how much extra work you can accept.

Always say no firmly and politely. Despite being sympathetic to their request you can say, “I just can’t fit it into my schedule.” However if your boss is the one asking, you can say, “I’ll show you my schedule and we can decide what other task needs to be dropped instead.”

Your no can be softened by providing alternatives such as “I know Jack was working on a similar document and he might be able to help you” or “You could try phoning Maria”, which will show them you’re still trying to help.

Break it down

Don’t confuse this with “breakdown”. Before feeling too overwhelmed by the size of a project you’ve been given, take a deep breath, sit down and spend some time planning. Breaking the work into smaller, more achievable chunks allows you to book time in your diary to work on specific tasks, set milestones that show real progress and - perhaps most importantly - allow you to discuss the details of the work, including timelines, resources and priorities with your boss.

Adjust your attitude

At the first groggy stage of opening your eyes after the alarm has beeped, nothing horrible or stressful has happened yet. Even so, do you find yourself cursing if you drop the soap or spill some coffee? Similar to road rage, our attitudes towards minor incidents can blow way out of proportion because we choose to let them.

Developing a more positive attitude has been shown to help improve health, lessen stress and even achieve more “lucky” opportunities. It will take some practice, though. Just before an expletive bursts out, try asking yourself: “Am I going to choose to be a complaining victim from the second I wake up, or am I going to choose to see the bright side?”

The other thing to ask each time you assume the worst-case scenario is, “What would happen if this actually worked?”. Ask “Is it really the end of the world if they’ve run out of chocolate powder for my cappuccino or if I can’t finish this document until tomorrow?”

Author: Kath Lockett

The situation is ugly. But, it’s real. What’s a Cubicle Warrior to do?

Outlast the boss
If your manager changes every twelve months — or three — the easiest option to do is simply wait out. Keep doing excellent work and wait until the next reorganization. At least you keep the rest of what you like about your job — your coworkers, the company and the work — while waiting for the idiocy to go someplace else.

Vent in a safe place
Never vent about your boss at work with your coworkers. You don’t necessarily know the relationships your boss has with other people or where the connections are that will lead back to your poor taste. There is simply no percentage in venting about a boss you hate and having the boss find out about it.

Vent, instead, to your spouse or partner. Vent to your closest friends. And that doesn’t mean venting on Facebook; my saying is that “what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet.” You don’t use social media as an opportunity to screw up your career.

Instead, venting means you vent face-to-face or over the phone. Express your frustration, but determine how you will approach your boss in your interactions to keep your frustration in check.

Limit your interactions with your boss — and focus on your performance
I call this “transactional” relationships. A transactional relationship is where you work with someone on specific transactions that need doing, moving all personal feelings aside, and when the transaction is done you go on with your life. This, of course, is easier said than done. But worth getting to since it will lower your stress levels about working with someone you hate.

As well, the interaction with your boss needs focusing on your work and how best deliver what is needed to your manager. Focusing on how best to deliver your work to your manager usually translates into a manager shifting into a “helping” role and gets rid of a lot of bad behavior. You do this even though you don’t need the help. It is just trying to figure out a best way to work with this person.

Make a decision about how long the job will last
These three actions are all temporary. They assume that at some point down the road the circumstances and reporting structures will change. But the decision you need to make now is how long you can stand to work for a jerk before the jerk ruins your reputation in the company and your work quality falls.

You need to lay out the conditions where other actions are warranted — like looking for a different job. But you need to decide that line in the sand now because it is easy to simply put up with the situation and, suddenly, a year has gone by and nothing has changed. Decide where the line in the sand is so that when you get to it, you can evaluate what needs doing next.

What have you done that was effective in dealing with a boss you hate?

Author: Scot Herrick