Event planning - 11 tips to help you plan for success By Sam Thiara

So you want to organize an event. You have a reason, enthusiasm and a team…right?! That should be a recipe for what a great event should have, correct?! Actually, that is only the starting point. The very beginning of a starting point. If this were a race, you are just tying your shoes at this point and have not even walked to the starters block. How can you ensure that your event is going to be successful? There are a number of steps and things that need to be taken into consideration. I have been fortunate to have put on hundreds of events and the skills have emerged over time. At one time, I had to put together 20 events in 32 days…from scratch and a short timeline. It all worked out and one can collapse afterwards. Here are 11 practical tips to share:
1) Good intentions – It is great that you have the interest and intention to do an event. This is the most important part because you need to sell your event to others and if you are wanting to do it because you have a cause or reason, then others will follow you. Know what the end goal is in terms of what you would like to accomplish and then fill in the spaces as you go along. Your passion for the event has to be a constant through out and there will be times it is challenged but keep your eye on the end goal.
2) You need a plan – Start a simple document at the outset with key points and ideas and then add to them as you move forward. Be sure to have a ‘to do’ list as well so you know who is responsible for what. The plan will change over time so be sure to be open to that and create it in such a way that it is easy to shift, pivot and change. The plan needs to be included throughout the life of your event. Include things like: venue; catering; ticketing; volunteers and aspects like that.
3) What is your theme – As you build the foundation of your event, what is the reason people would come to the event? How are you different than the hundreds of events out there? You need to create something that is appealing and different to attract the audience. It is challenging to create something for everyone but who is your audience? If they are youth, they are likely not going to pay a huge amount. If your event is for professionals, they are giving up valuable time to attend so what are you offering them?
4) Build a team – You can not do this on your own. There needs to be a team of people around you to help along the way. The challenge is to find the right people. Often times friends will say that it is a great idea and I want to be a part of it but what happens is people have great intentions but their interest dissipates and you are left doing majority of their work. You may have an amazing vision but it might be secondary to those around you. You, or a couple of you, are in charge; however, duties need to be allocated and assigned. You need movers and shakers. The type of people who you do not have to manage. These are the people who will know their tasks and deliver. Find them and keep them. For those with great intention but delivery issues, keep them but put them at the implementation phase where they can take on roles and duties that need to be done as you near your big day.
5) Set a budget (a) – You need a budget. It is so important to see what the venue, catering and costs are and balance it against revenue from sponsorship and ticket sales. Keep your budget on the conservative side so that it is more realistic. You would be amazed at how unexpected costs can rise very quickly. There are base costs and then there are the secondary costs such as using a projector, AV equipment etc. What ever the capacity of your venue and your idea of tickets sales, understand that you are looking for maximum capacity…but what if ticket sales are not where they should be?
6) Set a budget (b) – Drop dead date – So you are gearing up for the event and costs are rising and tickets sales are not there. Confirm with the venue and caterers what is your drop dead date. A drop dead date is the point where you can pull the plug on the event and there is no cost to you from the venue or the caterer. What is important is you know what that is and do not pass it if you have to cancel the event. Don’t be afraid to cancel it because the opposite situation is that you run a deficit and all of a sudden you are forking money out of your own pocket. There is no shame in having to cancel and event. If people ask, just say that you are postponing it only and it is not cancelled.
7) Find the venue – Considerable thought needs to be taken into place when it comes to deciding where to hold your event. Is it near transit, is there ample parking, what are the hidden costs, am I allowed to bring in my own catering and so on. These are just some of the questions to keep in mind. Hotels are very expensive. It creates an element of elegance for your event; however, be prepared for a very high cost and if you then have to raise your ticket prices, how will that impact the number of attendees? Community centres, libraries and other venues are available but they need to be researched. There are always some very interesting and cool places to do an event so search them out.
8) Sponsorship – To supplement ticket sales, you may decide to seek out organizations and people as sponsors to your event. The benefit is that it adds to the revenue side but sponsorship is a challenge because so many companies are out there being asked about donating to their cause or to support an event. By building strong community relationships, you might be fortunate enough to get the buy in. You can not create a beautiful sponsorship package and send it out and hope for the money to come in. Unfortunately, it is more challenging than that. By creating those important relationships, they will look at your package in more detail. Another approach is to create smaller requests that are affordable for the smaller business that are looking for exposure. You have to sell any sponsor on why your event is worth attending. What are you offering your sponsors in return for their generous contribution? All of this needs to be incorporated into a sponsorship package.
9) Additional sources of revenue – I mentioned ticket sales and that is probably the most likely source of revenue for your event. Be sure that ticket sales are reasonable for what you are providing as an event. You do not want to have a high price to try and raise funds because you just might push yourself out of having a good sized crowd attend. Also remember that people are always last minute to register. Many times they will say that they are attending but forget to register so keep on them. There are also ticketing sites that are in place to make your life much easier. Eventbrite and Picatic are two systems and they make your life so much easier. What is great about these ticketing sites is that they will organize and create lists for you and you can see how much revenue you have accumulated. They will charge a small service fee for the use of their product so be sure to incorporate that into your ticket sales. Be sure to also realize that if you use a credit card system, there is also a service charge and you can choose to either incorporate it into your ticket price or not. To supplement ticket sales, there are a number of crowd sourcing avenues such as Indigogo and Kickstarter to name a couple. What is imperative is that you have to push these out because it needs to make it to main stream. Family and friends will support you but that might not be enough so reach out using social media and try to get buy in from influential people.
10) Document everything! – Note the exclamation mark. You have to ask yourself if this event is a one off or something you will do again. Documentation will help you record everything so that if you decide to do another event, you will use less time and resources. Even if you decide to do a different type of event, the basic information will help you out. There are a few systems in place to help you organize your thoughts.
11) Have fun and enjoy - Be sure not to forget that it is something you want to do. Have fun. Yes there are tremendous responsibilities and work ahead but most importantly is that you must keep it fun and engaging. The day of the event is the most intense but keep that spirit active and don’t make it a task. At the end of it all you will be able to sit back and appreciate what you have created.

Please share other tips known to you in the comment section.
KINGSMITH.

Signs You’re Burning Out (And How To Stop It) By Travis Bradberry

Even the best jobs can lead to burnout. The harder you work and the more motivated you are to succeed, the easier it is to get in over your head.
The prevalence of burnout is increasing as technology further blurs the line between work and home. New research from the American Psychological Association and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago reported the following:

• 48% of Americans experienced increased stress over the past 5 years
• 31% of employed adults have difficulty managing their work and family responsibilities
• 53% say work leaves them "overtired and overwhelmed."

A Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) poll found that “burnout from my current job” was one of the top reasons that people quit.
Burnout can get the better of you, even when you have great passion for your work. Arianna Huffington experienced this first hand when she almost lost an eye from burnout. She was so tired at work that she passed out, hitting her face on her desk. She broke her cheek bone and had to get four stitches on her eye.

“I wish I could go back and tell myself that not only is there no trade-off between living a well-rounded life and high performance, performance is actually improved when our lives include time for renewal, wisdom, wonder and giving. That would have saved me a lot of unnecessary stress, burnout and exhaustion.” –Arianna Huffington

Burnout often results from a misalignment of input and output; you get burnt out when you feel like you’re putting more into your work than you’re getting out of it. Sometimes this happens when a job isn’t rewarding, but more often than not it’s because you aren’t taking care of yourself.
Before you can treat and even prevent burnout, you need to recognize the warning signs so that you’ll know when it’s time to take action. Here they are, in no particular order.
Health problems. Burnout has a massive, negative impact upon your physical and mental health. Whether you’re experiencing back pain, depression, heart disease, obesity, or you’re just getting sick a lot, you need to consider the role your work is playing in this. You’ll know when burnout is affecting your health, and you’ll just have to decide whether your approach to work is worth the consequences.
Cognitive difficulties. Research shows that stress hammers the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for executive function. Executive function impacts your memory, decision-making abilities, emotional control, and focus. When you notice that you’re making silly mistakes, forgetting important things, having outbursts of emotion, or making poor decisions, you’re likely burning out.
Difficulty with work and personal relationships. Stress bleeds over into everything you do, particularly how you interact with people. Even when you feel that you’re keeping your stress under control at work, it can rear its ugly head at home. Often it’s your relationships that suffer. Stress makes many people more likely to snap at others, lose their cool, and get involved in silly, unnecessary conflicts. Others are more inclined to withdraw and avoid people they care about.
Taking your work home with you. You know that sickening feeling when you’re lying in bed thinking about all the work that you didn’t get done and hoping that you didn’t miss something important? When you can’t stop thinking about work when you’re at home, it’s a strong sign that you're burning out.
Fatigue. Burnout often leads to exhaustion because of the toll stress takes on your mind and body. The hallmarks of burnout fatigue are waking up with no energy after a good night’s sleep, drinking large amounts of caffeine to get you through the day, or having trouble staying awake at work.
Negativity. Burnout can turn you very negative, even when you’re usually a positive person. If you find yourself focusing on the down side of situations, judging others and feeling cynical, it’s clear that negativity has taken hold and it’s time for you to do something about it.
Decreased satisfaction. Burnout almost always leads to a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Projects and people that used to get you excited no longer do so. This dip in satisfaction makes work very difficult, because no matter what you’re putting into your job, you don’t feel like you’re getting much out of it.
Losing your motivation. We begin jobs in a honeymoon phase, seeing everything through rose-colored glasses. When you’re in this phase, motivation comes naturally. In a burnout state, you struggle to find the motivation to get the job done. You may complete tasks, and even complete them well, but the motivation that used to drive you is gone. Instead of doing work for the sake of the work itself, your motivation stems from fear—of missing deadlines, letting people down, or getting fired.
Performance issues. People who burn out are often high achievers, so when their performance begins to slip, others don’t always notice. It’s crucial to monitor your slippage. How were you performing a month ago? Six months ago? A year ago? If you see a dip in your performance, it’s time to determine if burnout is behind it.
Poor self-care. Life is a constant struggle against the things that feel good momentarily but aren’t good for you. When you experience burnout, your self-control wanes and you find yourself succumbing to temptations more easily. This is largely due to the way that stress compromises your decision-making and self-control and also partially due to lower levels of confidence and motivation.

Fighting Burnout

If you recognize many of these symptoms in yourself, don’t worry. Fighting burnout is a simple matter of self-care. You need good ways to separate yourself from your work so that you can recharge and find balance. The following will help you to accomplish this.
Disconnect. Disconnecting is the most important burnout strategy on this list, because if you can’t find time to remove yourself electronically from your work, then you’ve never really left work. Making yourself available to your work 24/7 exposes you to a constant barrage of stressors that prevent you from refocusing and recharging. If taking the entire evening or weekend off from handling work e-mails and calls isn’t realistic, try designating specific times to check in on emails and respond to voicemails. For example, on weekday evenings, you may check emails after dinner, and on the weekend you may check your messages on Saturday afternoon while your kids are playing sports. Scheduling such short blocks of time alleviates stress without sacrificing your availability.
Pay attention to your body signals. It’s easy to think that a headache is the result of dehydration, that a stomachache is the result of something you ate, and that an aching neck is from sleeping on it wrong, but that’s not always the case. Oftentimes, aches and pains are an accumulation of stress and anxiety. Burnout manifests in your body, so learn to pay attention to your body’s signals so that you can nip burnout in the bud. Your body is always talking, but you have to listen.
Schedule relaxation. It’s just as important to plan out your relaxation time as it is to plan out when you work. Even scheduling something as simple as “read for 30 minutes” benefits you greatly. Scheduling relaxing activities makes certain they happen as well as gives you something to look forward to.
Stay away from sleeping pills. When I say sleeping pills, I mean anything you take that sedates you so that you can sleep. Whether it's alcohol, Nyquil, Benadryl, Valium, Ambien, or what have you, these substances greatly disrupt your brain's natural sleep process. Have you ever noticed that sedatives can give you some really strange dreams? As you sleep and your brain removes harmful toxins, it cycles through an elaborate series of stages, at times shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams). Sedation interferes with these cycles, altering the brain's natural process. Anything that interferes with the brain's natural sleep process has dire consequences for the quality of your sleep, and you need adequate, quality sleep to avoid burnout.
Get organized. Much of the stress we experience on a daily basis doesn’t stem from having too much work; it stems from being too disorganized to handle the work effectively. When you take the time to get organized, the load feels much more manageable.
Take regular breaks during the workday. Physiologically, we work best in spurts of an hour to an hour and a half, followed by 15-minute breaks. If you wait until you feel tired to take a break, it’s too late—you’ve already missed the window of peak productivity and fatigued yourself unnecessarily in the process. Keeping to a schedule ensures that you work when you’re the most productive and that you rest during times that would otherwise be unproductive.
Lean on your support system. It’s tempting to withdraw from other people when you’re feeling stressed, but they can be powerful allies in the war against burnout. Sympathetic family and friends are capable of helping you. Spending time with people who care about you helps you to remove yourself from the stresses of work and reminds you to live a little and have fun.

Bringing It All Together

If these strategies don't work for you, then the problem might be your job. The wrong job can cause burnout in and of itself. In that case you'll have to decide what's more important: your work or your health.
How do you beat burnout? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.
KINGSMITH.

Why Creative People Are Rarely Seen as Leaders By Susan Cain

We are in love with the word Eureka, and for a good reason. Creativity is magic: it’s the ability to create something out of nothing, to make connections that others don’t see.
Everyone wants to work for, or invest in, the world’s most creative companies. Especially today. CEOs rank creativity as the most important leadership skill for successful organizations of the future, according to a survey last year by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Innovation is everyone’s favorite buzzword.
Yet, a study conducted by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that people who show true creativity—those whose ideas are not only useful but also original—are rarely seen as leaders. In the study, researchers asked employees at a multinational company in India to rate their colleagues’ creativity and leadership potential. They asked US college kids to do the same with their classmates. In both cases, the most creative people were not perceived as leaders.
Jennifer Mueller, assistant professor of management at Wharton and lead author of the study, speculates that out-of-the-box thinkers tend not to do the things that traditional leaders do: set goals, maintain the status quo, exude certainty. “I walk into a meeting and someone voices a creative idea,” she told CNN, “and someone else rolls their eyes and says, ‘that’s the creative over there.’ Yet if you were to say, ‘Do you want a creative leader?’ They would say, ‘Of course!’”
I suspect that another reason for the creativity gap in the leadership ranks is that many creative thinkers are introverts. Studies suggest that innovation often requires solitude and that the majority of spectacularly creative people across a range of fields are introverts, or at least comfortable with spending large chunks of time alone.
People who like to spend time alone are decidedly at odds with today’s team-based organizational culture. According to management research, introverts are much less likely than extroverts to be groomed for leadership positions even though another Wharton study led by Professor Adam Grant found that introverted leaders outperform extroverted ones when managing proactive employees—precisely because they give them the freedom to dream up and implement new ideas.
In Drive, his fascinating book on motivation, Daniel Pink tells the story of one such CEO: William McKnight, 3M’s president and chairman during the 1930s and 1940s, “a fellow who was as unassuming in his manner as he was visionary in his thinking. McKnight believed in a simple, and at the time, subversive, credo: ‘Hire good people, and leave them alone.’”
McKnight put this into practice by allowing 3M’s technical staff to spend up to 15 percent of their time on projects of their choosing. And it paid off—one scientist dreamed up Post-it notes during his free time. What’s more, writes Pink, “most of the inventions that the company relies on even today emerged from those periods of…experimental doodling” (emphasis mine).
If we’re really serious about a future of innovation—if this isn’t just a feel-good buzzword—then we need to come up with, ahem, creative solutions to the mismatch between our perceptions of a leader and those of a creative person.
One idea is to consciously expand our notions of what a leader looks like.
Another is to think hard about what leaders really do. Today’s leaders need to perform traditional tasks such as making speeches, rallying troops, and setting goals. But they also need to feel in their bones what innovation means.
If the same person can’t do all these things at once—and let’s face it: how many people are both social and solitary, goal-oriented and wildly original?—we should be thinking more about leadership-sharing, where two people divide leadership tasks according to their natural strengths and talents. One example of this model is introverted “product visionary” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and the extroverted “people person” COO Sheryl Sandberg.
If you know of any other examples, or if you have other ideas about how to address the creativity gap, I’d love to hear about them.
KINGSMITH

When Playing It Safe is the Riskiest Career Move By Liz Ryan

For years we were told "Get a safe job!"
That meant "Get a job with a big company where you can stay for years -- maybe even until retirement." There are no 'safe' jobs anymore. Big companies lay off thousands of people at the drop of a hat.
Small companies get bought and split up. There is no job security anywhere in the world of employment. No company can offer you job security, and even if someone gave you an employment contract, the entity that gave you the contract could itself disappear tomorrow. Your only income security is in yourself and your own marketability.
Sadly though, most people are not in touch with their marketability. They are terrified of being out of a job, but that is like being terrified of going out of your neighborhood. You're going to have to step out and get new jobs between now and your retirement, unless your retirement date is already set and it's only a few months away.
We all have to get good at job-hunting. Getting a job is much harder than doing the job, as every job-hunter knows. The best thing we can do is to get good at the hardest part of the process, so that we don't have to worry about it!
You're going to have to market yourself to employers and/or clients at some point, so you're going to have to know what valuable things you bring them. I'm not talking about your six or twenty-six years of experience or your 'skill sets.' No one really cares about those things unless your skills are very rare.
You're going to have to market yourself another way. These days, you need to know the answer to the question "What problem do I solve for my employers or clients?"
If you don't know the answer to that question, I wouldn't waste any time before starting to find that answer!
You can do a lot of things, but the key question is "Among all the things I know how to do, which one(s) solve real problems that employers or clients experience - problems that cost them money?"
We call these problems Business Pain. Knowing what kind of Business Pain you solve is the key to knowing your value in the wild and woolly new-millennium talent market.
Maybe you solve the Business Pain that organizations run into when they can't generate sales leads fast enough.
If you know that you can solve 'Shortage of Sales Leads Pain,' then you can brand yourself that way. In that case, you won't say "I'm a full-service Marketer with marketing communications and product marketing experience!"
Zillions of people can say that. Not all of them can truthfully say "I help companies generate more sales leads than they can handle." You only have to have solved that type of Business Pain once in order to claim it!
Maybe you solve customer-service pain or "we can't hire good people" pain. You have to know what kind of Business Pain you solve for your employers. That's more important than your degrees or certifications, your years of experience or the kinds of software you've used.
Once you know what kind of Business Pain you solve, you can seek out employers and clients who are likely to have that kind of pain.
When you have a handle on the Business Pain you solve, you gain power in the employer-employee or client-vendor relationship.
Until then, you will be just another needy job-seeker, and that is an awful place to be. When you know your power, you won't be paranoid about getting laid off. You won't keep your personality under wraps at work just to keep your manager happy. Who could pay you enough to get you to deny who you really are?
Too many workplaces run on fear. Everybody in those places is afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing.
When you can solve expensive Business Pain that costs your clients or employers money, you call the shots. You don't have to skulk around all day at work, walking on eggshells, trying to stay on the right side of people you don't respect.
Some people believe a lot of nonsense about the working world. They believe that it's riskier to leave a bad job and try something new than to stay at a job they hate.
They think there is security in their current job for no reason apart from the fact that they've already got the job. That's no security! You could be let go tomorrow.
I feel terrible for people who say "I guess I'll keep this job as long as the company wants me." That's worse than passivity. It's abdicating your choice over your career path. That's the riskiest choice you can make!
Your security is in your ability to bob and weave in the talent marketplace and to keep growing your muscles all the time. The more people who know what you're good at, the more marketable you are - so why stay at a job where there are no more people to meet, and where you can't learn anything more than you already know?
The worst course of action today is to try and "play it safe" when it comes to your career. The only safety available is the knowledge that if your current gig disappears or doesn't suit you anymore, you can find another one fast.
That security doesn't come from hunkering down at your current job and hoping against hope that you keep the job for a long time. How could you plan your future that way, or even get a good night's sleep?
The longer you keep the job -- unless you are constantly learning and becoming more marketable -- the more your resume will degrade and your muscles will atrophy.
You will have traded transitory 'job security ' for a degradation of the very things that give you long-term security. Could that trade-off ever be worth it?
When you're faced with the career question "Should I stay here, or move on?" the right answer is nearly always "move on."
What could an extra year or two at your current assignment give you that you couldn't get more of somewhere else?
Yes, change is jarring, but it's the ability to deal with fast changes that makes people nimble and that lets them bob on the water no matter what circumstances life hands them.
Increasingly in this new-millennium workplace, there are two kinds of working people: those who are rafting through the rapids, soaking wet, breathing hard and growing muscles, and others who are trying as hard as they can to find calm water to drift in.
There is no calm water, and any quiet patch of river you find will soon give way to rocks and eddies that will pull you under if your muscles haven't been exercised lately.
Can you step into the new talent market, start paddling and enjoy the ride?
KINGSMITH.

One Trick Others in Your Office Don’t Know By Marshall Goldsmith

Most of us spend a great deal of time measuring. We keep close tabs on sales, profits, rate of growth, and return on investment. In many ways, part of being an effective leader is setting up systems to measure everything that matters. It's the only way we can know for sure how we're doing.
Given our addiction to measurement - and its value - you would think that we would be more attuned to measuring "soft-side" values. For instance, how often we're rude or polite to people, how often we ask for input rather than shut people out, how often we bite our tongue rather than spit out inflammatory remarks. Even though soft values are hard to quantify, they are as vital as any financial number. I can guarantee you that most of the people in your office don’t measure the “soft side”. And, if they did, they might change from “jerks” to wonderful and fun people!
For example, about 20 years ago, I decided that I wanted to be a more attentive father. So I asked my daughter, Kelly, "What can I do?"
"Daddy," she said, "you travel a lot, but what really bothers me is how you act when you are home. You talk on the telephone, watch sports on TV, and don't spend much time with me."
I was stunned; however, I recovered quickly by reverting to a simple response that I teach all of my clients. I said, "Thank you. Daddy will do better."
I started keeping track of how many days I spent at least four hours interacting with my family without distractions. I'm proud to say that I got better. The first year, I logged 92 days. The second year, 110 days. The third, 131 days. The fourth, 135 days.
I was so proud of these results - and with my documentation - that I went to my kids, both teenagers by this time, and said, "Look kids, 135 days. How about 150 days this year?"
My son, Bryan, suggested paring down to 50 days. The message: "Dad, you have overachieved."
It was an eye-opener. I was so focused on improving my at-home performance that I forgot that my kids had changed. An objective that made sense when they were 9 and 12 years old didn't make sense for them as teenagers.
Soft-side accounting has other benefits. If you track a number, it will remind other people that you are trying. It's one thing to tell your employees or customers that you'll spend more time with them. It's a different ballgame if you attach a real number to that goal, and people are aware of it. They become more sensitive to the fact that you're trying to change. They also get the message that you care. This can never be a bad thing.
Everything is measurable, from days spent communicating with employees to hours invested in mentoring colleagues, and once you see the beauty of measuring soft-side values, other variables kick in!
KINGSMITH.

Working 9 to 5 is 'no way' to make a living! By Steve Blakeman

In the immortal words of Dolly Parton "working 9 to 5 what a way to make a living... it's all taking and no giving". Well that is unless you work for Netflix who have dispensed with the traditional 9 to 5 working practice and introduced fully flexible working hours and vacations. A sensational initiative or simply a 'House of Cards' ? See what I did there? ;) Oh please yourself then...

The battle for the best millennial talent is constantly raging and employers are progressively cognisant of the desire from prospective employees to offer creative compensation packages, more absorbing work environments and flexible working hours. The guys at Netflix are pretty much the pioneers of this practice. When they started in 2004 they soon realised that their traditional 9 to 5 working policy wasn't, err, working for them.

So they took an incredibly brave step and introduced what they call their 'freedom and responsibility culture'. Simply stated, they scrapped their policy of fixed working hours / holiday allocations and replaced it with a, erm, no-policy. In other words, staff could take time off whenever they wished and for as long as they wanted. There was no need to ask for any approval and time sheets were eliminated. The employees themselves were the only ones to decide if they fancied a few hours off each day, take a week off on a whim or even a month if the urge compelled them. No rules. Netflix based their no-policy strategy upon one solitary factor. Trust. Now there's a concept, trusting the people you have employed...

Basically they decided to trust their own people to determine when they would take a break. As long as the individual felt entirely reassured that their absence would not be detrimental to their colleagues, clients, the company or their careers they were entitled to take off as much time as they jolly well pleased.
Totally preposterous right?
Wrong. The scheme has been a resounding success. In an article by Huffington Post they have cited it as one of the pivotal reasons for the stratospheric success of Netflix and quoted senior analyst Sam Stern from Forrester Research on the matter:

“if you trust and empower people and give them a chance to rise to the higher expectations, the vast majority of people are able to do it"

Netflix is always eager to extol the virtues of their stratagem but are equally keen to add that it only works because it hires “fully formed adults”. The company then simply treats them as such by offering almost unlimited freedom to "take risks and innovate" without being constrained by complex layers of process.

But surely this maverick approach is just a one-off? Well, actually, no it isn't. Inspired by the innovative proposition, Sir Richard Branson introduced a very similar scheme for Virgin staff in 2012. According to Branson the less rigid attitude towards working hours has been enabled by increasingly sophisticated technology which effectively means people can work pretty much anytime and anywhere:

"the Netflix initiative had been driven by a growing groundswell of employees asking about how their new technology-controlled time on the job (working at all kinds of hours at home and/or everywhere they receive a business text or email) could be reconciled with the company’s old-fashioned time-off policy"

According to Branson, the key to its success is a simple matter of quality versus quantity:

"the focus should be on how much people get done rather than how much time they spend on it"

So that's it then. Every company should introduce flexible working for their employees and trust them not to abuse the privilege. Case closed, article over.
Well, in the spirit of balance, maybe it's not as clear cut as it first appears... There have been a few cases where a more 'enlightened' management approach to flexibility hasn't always paid off... In 2013 Marissa Mayer, CEO at Yahoo! made the startling decision to rescind their 'work from home' policy on the basis that it's "not what's right for Yahoo right now". The message that was being telegraphed by Mayer? Come in to the office where we can see what you are doing. Oh and you better look busy.

And, whilst the (supposedly) altruistic approach offered by Netflix provides some astounding incentives don't be fooled into believing it's just a haven for slackers. The Netflix culture is one that is driven solely by success. They don't demand their proverbial 'pound of flesh' in terms of time spent working but they absolutely insist upon results. In fairness to Netflix they make it abundantly clear what is required of their employees in their much vaunted Culture Deck:

“Sustained B-level performance, despite 'A for effort', generates a generous severance package, with respect.”

Zero ambiguity there then. Hard working losers can leave.
So what do you think? Is the 9 to 5 really a thing of the past? Is the prospect of fully flexible working hours something that would appeal to you in your chosen industry? Is it just a cynical way of making you work harder but without the invisible barrier of time constraints? Or as Dolly herself might say "It's all right, but it's all wrong".
#agencypublisher
THANKS FOR READING - PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, TWEET, RETWEET, PIN, QUOTE, EMAIL ETC.
KINGSMITH.

Who asks the World's toughest interview question? (and how would YOU answer it?) By Steve Blakeman

The toughest question asked at an interview is posed by Facebook according to a recent Business Insider article. Why? Because Mark Zuckerberg will...

"only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person"

Miranda Kalinowski (Facebook's Global Head of Recruiting) and Lori Goler (Vice President of People Operations) concocted the killer question for prospective candidates to help them secure talent who are a 'perfect fit' for their organisation. Asking interviewees mundane questions about their previous work experience (yawn), getting them to (often falsely) wax lyrical about their 'best qualities' and probing them on (that old chestnut) their 'biggest failings' do not exist in the Facebook recruiting guide. I think it's fair to say their method is a tad more unconventional...

They initially soften up candidates with a few punchy inquiries such as:

"how do you manage work if you lose track of the time?"

Well I'm always losing track of time but I still manage to do my work. Am I missing the point here?
Anyway, then they quiz candidates across a range of 5 key topics including:

1. Comfort zones: Basically, forget them. Goler got her job at Facebook by cold-calling Sheryl Sandberg (who, in case you didn't know, is Facebook's COO). Goler's opening gambit? "I want to help Facebook achieve its mission. Whatever that means for Facebook is what I'm happy to do." Ballsy right? Or desperate? Depends on your perspective I suppose. Just one query - how did she get Sandberg's number to cold call her?
2. Codification: you don't have to be a code master but a passing knowledge of Javascript wouldn't do you any harm it seems (that's me out then)
3. Being Bolder: in Facebook parlance they are seeking someone who utilises the tools of their trade in smart and previously unimaginable ways ('smart' I can't do but I could have a decent shot at 'unimaginable')
4. Self Management: don't expect to be told what to do at Facebook. Minimal supervision and flexible hours are the order of the day. As long as you yield results of course (take a look at my previous article 'Working 9to5 is No Way to Make a Living' for more on that very topic)
   
5. Daring to be Different: thinking outside of the proverbial box naturally but also ‘diversity’ is currently a hot topic in the tech world
   

And finally (thanks for being so patient, dear reader, but if I had told you earlier then wouldn't have read this far would you?) we get to that elusive million dollar question. Well not actually a million bucks per se, but an average salary of around $170,000 per annum at Facebook according to various sources. So without further ado, the World's toughest interview question is (silent drum roll):

"On your very best day at work... the day you come home and think you have the best job in the world... what did you do that day?"

There you go then, that's the big one. So are you over or under whelmed? It matters not a jot, that's the question and that's all there is to it.
As for the correct answer? Well come on, Facebook are not going to divulge that are they? Although they do kindly offer a clue. If your response coincides with Facebook's mission 'to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected' (whatever that means) then you have a more than decent chance of progressing to the next round.

So, I have given this an awful lot of thought (roughly about a minute) and I reckon that I have come up with a most awesome reply. Now I will concede that time to think (even for just a minute) is a luxury that potential employees don't receive in the white heat intensity of an interview with Facebook. Still, if they are giving away their HR secrets then I'm going to capitalise on the opportunity. And so here it is, my absolutely definitive and (I personally believe) almost perfect answer to their most vexing interview question:

"I totally screwed up... but I didn't get found out"

Totally nailed it. Now Lori, what is Sheryl Sandberg's phone number?
Hang on though. Not convinced by my answer? To be honest, me neither. So how would you answer it?

THANKS FOR READING - PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE, FOLLOW, LIKE, COMMENT, TWEET, PIN, QUOTE, EMAIL ETC.
KINGSMITH.