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Demystifying the Workplace “Unicorn”: The 5-Hour Workday

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The five-hour workday isn’t just this mystical “unicorn” you’ve heard about around the water cooler. It’s real, and it can work for your team.

Why is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. the magic time? It’s been used for so long that it’s become immortalized in song. While the traditional 40-hour workweek remains the norm, you’ve changed the way you work.

What used to take all day — making phone calls, waiting for the mail, driving for hours to buy supplies — can now be done with much greater efficiency.

Being an entrepreneur requires you to be efficient and productive. But filling the traditional eight-hour day by churning out more work just means you’ll burn out or run your health into the ground. It’s almost impossible to produce high-quality work for eight hours straight.

I think you can do a better job in five hours.

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About the Author

Stephan AarstolStephan Aarstol is the author of The Five-Hour Workday: Live Differently, Unlock Productivity, and Find Happiness. He is CEO and founder of Tower, a holistic beach-lifestyle company, which includes Tower Paddle Boards, Tower Magazine, SunglassesByTower.com, and a direct-to-consumer surf- and beach-lifestyle company at TowerMade.com .For more information, please visit www.fivehourworkday.com and www.towerpaddleboards.com and connect with Stephan on Twitter, @stephan.aarstol.

Communication and Leadership Tactics to Take Your Career to New Heights

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As a career Wall Streeter and mountaineer, I learned over the years that mountains are not climbed alone; neither are careers. Each depends on the generosity you’re willing to extend to your colleagues, known as the Law of Reciprocity. It’s a universal understanding to explain that in order to create success, extend help to others along the way. They in turn will assist and inspire you to reach your career summits.

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About the Author

Chuck GarciaChuck Garcia is the author of A Climb to the Top: Communication & Leadership Tactics to Take Your Career to New Heights. He is the founder of Climb Leadership Consulting and a Professor of Organizational Leadership at Mercy College.

Are There Gaps on Your Team?

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A leader has three primary roles: set the direction — the vision for the team; attract and retain the best talent you can find; and build and protect the corporate culture.

Robert Walter
Founder and Former CEO, Cardinal Health

Leo Van Wart is a professional golfer who helped propel Notah Begay III to the ranks of the Professional Golfers Association of America. Leo was hired to run a golf complex just outside of Las Vegas, and shortly after he arrived he hopped in a golf cart and drove the expanse of his new course. Many fairways and greens were in disrepair, and the desert had all but reclaimed his new driving range. When he stopped by the grill and sampled its marquee item – a flavorless cheeseburger – he had a complete picture of why the course was bleeding money. The biggest gap he found in the operation was ownership. No one on the small team took pride of ownership in the work – there was no sense of cohesion or unity. To them the course was just a job. Does that sound familiar?

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About the Author

JV VenableColonel JV Venable [USAF, Ret], author of Breaking the Trust Barrier: How Leaders Close the Gaps for High Performance, is a Fighter Weapons School graduate who went on to lead the USAF Thunderbirds and combat group of 1,100 American airmen in the Persian Gulf. For more information, please visit http://jvvenable.com/ and connect with JV on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 16 – In-Progress Assessment Briefings

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StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice ArticleBusiness performance assessments lose their value if the recommended performance improvement actions are not fully implemented. Consequently, it is not only important for executive leadership accept the recommendations; the mangers responsible for providing the time, capital, and labor to implement the actions must also buy-in. Because these managers tend to be those whose area was cited as needing improvement, their buy-in can be difficult to earn.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Every Leader Needs a Great Vision – 3 Types of Visions

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For some of us, it may be a dubious hobby, a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle offers a great analogy for a vision. Specifically, the picture on the puzzle box is your vision. It is extremely difficult to complete a jigsaw puzzle without having that picture to reference, and the same is true for realizing your vision.

Before you begin organizing and assembling the small puzzle pieces that are inside the box, the picture on top very clearly reflects the final result. It shows you what you are trying to build. That is your vision – the outcome you’re striving to create.

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About the Authors

Peter B. Stark and Mary C. KellyExecutive leadership development and corporate training coaches, Peter B. Stark and Mary C. Kelly (Commander, US Navy Ret.) are co-authors of the new book, Why Leaders Fail and the 7 Prescriptions for Success. Peter is the President of Peter Barron Stark Companies. Mary is the President of Productive Leaders.