Hiring The Right Person Quotes

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If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.
Lysander Spooner
This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, "It's too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings." And then someone else on board says something like, "But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d'oeuvres." At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who'd been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can't get to him soon enough, or they don't even try, and the yacht's speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.
Tommy Orange (There There)
Hiring is hard. Letting go is harder. It’s far easier to hire the right person from the start than to hire the wrong person, realize they’re a bad fit for your company, and then figure out how to let them go. When you know what you want in a new hire, the hard part gets easier. And when you know how to protect your IP, you don’t have to learn the hard lesson.
JiNan George (The IP Miracle: How to Transform Ideas into Assets that Multiply Your Business)
I came here to kill you,” I reply. His right eyebrow quirks upward. He’s surprised I admitted it so readily. “Why?” he says. “I was hired to do it. That’s my job—it’s nothing personal.” “It’s a little personal to me,” Petrov says.
Sophie Lark (Ivan (Underworld, #1))
This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.
Tommy Orange (There There)
As I developed as a CEO, I found two key techniques to be useful in minimizing politics. 1. Hire people with the right kind of ambition. The cases that I described above might involve people who are ambitious but not necessarily inherently political. All cases are not like this. The surest way to turn your company into the political equivalent of the U.S. Senate is to hire people with the wrong kind of ambition. As defined by Andy Grove, the right kind of ambition is ambition for the company’s success with the executive’s own success only coming as a by-product of the company’s victory. The wrong kind of ambition is ambition for the executive’s personal success regardless of the company’s outcome. 2. Build strict processes for potentially political issues and do not deviate. Certain activities attract political behavior. These activities include:   Performance evaluation and compensation   Organizational design and territory   Promotions Let’s examine each case and how you might build and execute a process that insulates the company from bad behavior and politically motivated outcomes.
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
Some management bloviators will advise you simply to hire the right people and then leave them alone. Dick Costolo, Twitter’s CEO from 2010–2015, explained succinctly how crazy this advice is. “That’s like saying, to have a good marriage, marry the right person and then avoid spending any time with them. Ridiculous, right?” he exclaimed. “Imagine if I went home and told my wife, ‘I don’t want to micromanage you, so I’m not going to spend any time with you or the kids this year.
Kim Malone Scott (Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity)
It is not right for one person to steal. It is not right for two people to steal. It is still not right for 51% of a voting population to vote for a representative who will hire a tax collector to steal for them. One of the great government lies is that theft can be moral when performed by enough people and called taxation.
Adam Kokesh (Freedom!)
It's so easy to bang on about what we're so against, but few live in the boldness of what they're for. Imagine all of the wild and free energies you could put towards your work if you didn't spend so much on trying to figure out why others don't see what you see. Imagine all of the possibilities that your energy could generate if you didn't try to get every single person on your page. You could be in the YES of your work, and the YES of everything you teach and share. You can live in the YES of a big, global awakening with as many people as possible who want to share your light. But you cannot live like that if you are wronging those who are not living on your latitude right now.
Peta Kelly (Earth is Hiring: The New way to live, lead, earn and give for millennials and anyone who gives a sh*t)
Dysfunctional Belief: You should focus on your need to find a job. Reframe: You should focus on the hiring manager’s need to find the right person.
Bill Burnett (Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life)
The insistence is on merit, insinuating that any current majority white leadership in any industry has got there through hard work and no outside help, as if whiteness isn’t its own leg-up, as if it doesn’t imply a familiarity that warms an interviewer to a candidate. When each of the sectors I mentioned earlier have such dire racial representation, you’d have to be fooling yourself if you really think that the homogeneous glut of middle-aged white men currently clogging the upper echelons of most professions got there purely through talent alone. We don’t live in a meritocracy, and to pretend that simple hard work will elevate all to success is an exercise in wilful ignorance. Opposing positive discrimination based on apprehensions about getting the best person for the job means inadvertently revealing what you think talent looks like, and the kind of person in which you think talent resides. Because if the current system worked correctly, and if hiring practices were successfully recruiting and promoting the right people for the right jobs in all circumstances, I seriously doubt that so many leadership positions would be occupied by white middle-aged men.
Reni Eddo-Lodge (Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race)
Box CEO Aaron Levie has a similar criterion for hiring. He simply asks if the person is someone he’d want to work with every day. “One of the ways we think about this is,” he says, “could this person have been one of the founding members of the team?” If the answer is yes, he knows he’s found someone who will fit right in.2
Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
This is the thing: if you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that's how you know you're on board the ship that serves hors d'oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who've never even heard of the words hors d'oeuvres of fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, "It's too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings." And then someone else on board says something like, "But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d'oeuvres." At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who'd been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life and the people on the small inflatable rafts can't get to him soon enough, or they don't even try, and the yacht's speed and weight cause and undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefather. And the boat sails on unfettered.
Tommy Orange (There There)
Delegate judiciously: This is another incredibly important lesson for leading. A finance billionaire once told me that to scale a business you have to know how to delegate: “A great employee will do something 80 percent the same way you would do it. The last 20 percent is their personal take on the deliverable. There’s a 50 percent chance that your way would be the right way and a 50 percent chance that their way is better. They’re not going to do it 100 percent the same way you would, but you have to hope that you hire people who will do things better than you would, who will try things that are smartly conceived. You have to get comfortable with people doing things 80 percent the way you would have done them in order to scale a business.” The ability to delegate smartly is critical.
Ivanka Trump (Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success)
This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself.
Tommy Orange (There There)
At a high level, we look for people who think independently, argue open-mindedly and assertively, and above all else value the intense pursuit of truth and excellence, and through it, the rapid improvement of themselves and the organization. Because we treat work as more than just what we do to make a living, we look at every potential hire not just as an employee but as someone we’d want share our lives with. We insist that the people we work with are considerate and have a high sense of personal accountability to do the difficult, right things. We look for people with generous natures and high standards of fairness.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
States. It was not easy for Chinese to get into the country. In 1882 Congress had passed a law suspending the entry of Chinese laborers and “all persons of the Chinese race” except officials, teachers, students, tourists, and merchants, at the same time formally prohibiting the naturalization of Chinese. The 1882 Act was the culmination of decades of anti-Chinese propaganda and discrimination. In 1852 California Governor John Bigler described Chinese immigrants as “contract coolies, avaricious, ignorant of moral obligations, incapable of being assimilated and dangerous to the welfare of the state.” In 1854 the California Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a white man for killing a Chinese miner by invoking Section 14 of the California Criminal Act, which specified that “no Black or mulatto person, or Indian shall be allowed to give evidence in favor of, or against a white man.” In support of the decision Chief Justice Hugh Murray declared that “to let Chinese testify in a court of law would admit them to all the equal rights of citizenship. And then we might see them at the polls, in the jury box, upon the bench, and in our legislative halls.” In 1879 the California State constitution prohibited corporations and municipal works from hiring Chinese and authorized cities to remove Chinese from their boundaries.1 My father never told us how he got around the restrictions of the Exclusion Act, and we knew better than to probe because it was generally understood that the distinction between being here legally and illegally was a shadowy one.
Grace Lee Boggs (Living for Change: An Autobiography)
Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.
Tommy Orange (There There)
...because a man on the scent of the White House is rarely rational. He is more like a beast in heat: a bull elk in the rut, crashing blindly through the timber in a fever for something to fuck. Anything! A cow, a calf, a mare--any flesh and blood beast with a hole in it.The bull elk is a very crafty animal for about fifty weeks of the year; his senses are so sharp that only an artful stalker can get within a thousand yards of him...butwhen the rut comes on, in the autumn, any geek with the sense to blow an elk-whistle can lure a bull elk right up to his car in ten minutes if he can drive within hearing range. The dumb bastards lose all control of themselves when the rut comes on. Their eyes glaze over, their ears pack up with hot wax, and their loins get heavy with blood. Anything that sounds like a cow elk in heat will fuse the central nervous systems of every bull on the mountain. They will race through the timbers like huge cannonballs, trampling small trees and scraping off bloody chunks of their own hair on the unyielding bark of the big ones. They behave like sharks in a feeding frenzy, attacking each other with all the demented violence of human drug dealers gone mad on their own wares. A career politician finally smelling the White House is not Much different from a bull elk in the rut. He will stop at nothing, trashing anything that gets in his way; and anything he can't handle personally, he will hire out--or, failing that, make a deal. It is a difficult syndrome for most people to understand, because so few of us ever come close to the kind of Ultimate Power and Achievement that the White House represents to a career politician.
Hunter S. Thompson
1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough. 3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist. 4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out. The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them: All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation
Walter Isaacson (Elon Musk)
3. ‘Standing armies (miles perpetuus) will gradually be abolished altogether.’ For they constantly threaten other states with war by the very fact that they are always prepared for it. They spur on the states to outdo one another in arming unlimited numbers of soldiers, and since the resultant costs eventually make peace more oppressive than a short war, the armies are themselves the cause of wars of aggression which set out to end burdensome military expenditure. Furthermore, the hiring of men to kill or to be killed seems to mean using them as mere machines and instruments in the hands of someone else (the state), which cannot easily be reconciled with the rights of man in one’s own person. It is quite a different matter if the citizens undertake voluntary military training from time to time in order to secure themselves and their fatherland against attacks from outside. But it would be just the same if wealth rather than soldiers were accumulated, for it would be seen by other states as a military threat; it might compel them to mount preventive attacks, for of the three powers within a state—the power of the army, the power of alliance and the power of money—the third is probably the most reliable instrument of war. It would lead more often to wars if it were not so difficult to discover the amount of wealth which another state possesses.
Immanuel Kant (Political Writings (Texts in the History of Political Thought))
And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued. “There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else he’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about — a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain? Pain?” Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife pounced upon the word victoriously. “Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers. And who created the dangers?” Yossarian demanded. He laughed caustically. “Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of his celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He? People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads. They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupified with morphine, don’t they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It’s obvious He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
I said, “there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. For example, if my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that any man should be allowed to speak for himself. Now, in this case, I, who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages: first, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as one that would lessen the practice of the law. And therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is, to gain over my adversary’s lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuating that he hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary: and this, if it be skilfully done, will certainly bespeak the favour of the bench. Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.
Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels)
Universities are fueled in large measure by what's called overhead of the grant...so if you get a million dollar grant, half or more will go to your university, right? So that's what builds the buildings and fuels the place. So the university has an incentive to get as many people to file grant applications as they can, and they have an incentive to hire people whose grant applications will be large rather than small. So this, for example, is one of the reasons that science has taken up arms against theory –that is to say, proper scientific theoreticians like me – and it has instead hired people who run big expensive experiments: Because big expensive experiments have big grants, and those big grants bring in money. But if you were a university and what you wanted was to have people writing big expensive grants who were capable of getting them, then what you would want to do is...you would want to free those people from teaching, and you would want to get people who weren't so expensive to do the work of the university...and the way you do that is: you bring them on as graduate students; and you pay them an appalling wage; you claim that they are not actually workers, that they are students; and they do most of the teaching, and they do a lot of the work of the university, for incredibly low amounts of money; they live under poor conditions; and increasingly they have to come from abroad where they are in some sense getting a deal that still makes sense. But this means that we overproduce PhDs. We give people degrees instead of money to do the work of the university, in order that people who are capable of getting the grants spend almost full time doing that job. And it's a racket. The person who knows the most about this is actually Eric, my brother. So...what he unearthed was actually that there was an explicit conspiracy to game the visa system in order to keep this system running...that effectively a fake shortage of science students was created to allow the universities to basically flood the market, to drive the wages down.
Bret Weinstein
We’d just taken Pixar public, and I was happy being CEO there. I never knew of anyone who served as CEO of two public companies, even temporarily, and I wasn’t even sure it was legal. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was enjoying spending more time with my family. I was torn. I knew Apple was a mess, so I wondered: Do I want to give up this nice lifestyle that I have? What are all the Pixar shareholders going to think? I talked to people I respected. I finally called Andy Grove at about eight one Saturday morning—too early. I gave him the pros and the cons, and in the middle he stopped me and said, “Steve, I don’t give a shit about Apple.” I was stunned. It was then I realized that I do give a shit about Apple—I started it and it is a good thing to have in the world. That was when I decided to go back on a temporary basis to help them hire a CEO. The claim that he was enjoying spending more time with his family was not convincing. He was never destined to win a Father of the Year trophy, even when he had spare time on his hands. He was getting better at paying heed to his children, especially Reed, but his primary focus was on his work. He was frequently aloof from his two younger daughters, estranged again from Lisa, and often prickly as a husband. So what was the real reason for his hesitancy in taking over at Apple? For all of his willfulness and insatiable desire to control things, Jobs was indecisive and reticent when he felt unsure about something. He craved perfection, and he was not always good at figuring out how to settle for something less. He did not like to wrestle with complexity or make accommodations. This was true in products, design, and furnishings for the house. It was also true when it came to personal commitments. If he knew for sure a course of action was right, he was unstoppable. But if he had doubts, he sometimes withdrew, preferring not to think about things that did not perfectly suit him. As happened when Amelio had asked him what role he wanted to play, Jobs would go silent and ignore situations that made him uncomfortable.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone different. People want to say things like “sore losers” and “move on already,” “quit playing the blame game.” But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.
Tommy Orange (There There)
Even though the Internet provided a tool for virtual and distant collaborations, another lesson of digital-age innovation is that, now as in the past, physical proximity is beneficial. There is something special, as evidenced at Bell Labs, about meetings in the flesh, which cannot be replicated digitally. The founders of Intel created a sprawling, team-oriented open workspace where employees from Noyce on down all rubbed against one another. It was a model that became common in Silicon Valley. Predictions that digital tools would allow workers to telecommute were never fully realized. One of Marissa Mayer’s first acts as CEO of Yahoo! was to discourage the practice of working from home, rightly pointing out that “people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together.” When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple’s new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard. Throughout history the best leadership has come from teams that combined people with complementary styles. That was the case with the founding of the United States. The leaders included an icon of rectitude, George Washington; brilliant thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; men of vision and passion, including Samuel and John Adams; and a sage conciliator, Benjamin Franklin. Likewise, the founders of the ARPANET included visionaries such as Licklider, crisp decision-making engineers such as Larry Roberts, politically adroit people handlers such as Bob Taylor, and collaborative oarsmen such as Steve Crocker and Vint Cerf. Another key to fielding a great team is pairing visionaries, who can generate ideas, with operating managers, who can execute them. Visions without execution are hallucinations.31 Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were both visionaries, which is why it was important that their first hire at Intel was Andy Grove, who knew how to impose crisp management procedures, force people to focus, and get things done. Visionaries who lack such teams around them often go down in history as merely footnotes.
Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.
Tommy Orange (There There)
five commandments: 1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough. 3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist. 4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out. The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them: All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.
Walter Isaacson (Elon Musk)
Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough. 3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist. 4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out. The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them: All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics.
Walter Isaacson (Elon Musk)
Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough. 3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist. 4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out. The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them: All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.
Walter Isaacson (Elon Musk)
The sight of the duke taking liberties had made something boil up inside Jackson that he couldn't suppress. He'd uncharacteristically acted on impulse, and already regretted it. Because the duke now pulled back with the languid motion of all such men of high rank to fix him with a contemptuous stare. "I don't believe we've met, sir." Jackson fought to rein in the wild emotions careening through him. Lady Celia was glaring at him, and the duke was clearly irritated. But now that Jackson had stuck his nose in this, he would see it out. "I'm Jackson Pinter of the Bow Street Office. This lady's brother has hired me to...to..." If he said he'd been hired to investigate suitors, Lady Celia would probably murder him on the spot. "Mr. Pinter is investigating our parents' deaths," she explained in a silky voice that didn't fool Jackson. She was furious. "And apparently he thinks that such a position allows him the right to interfere in more personal matters." When Jackson met her hot gaze, he couldn't resist baiting her. "Your brother also hired me to protect you from fortune hunters. I'm doing my job." Outrage filled the duke's face. "Do you know who I am?" An imminently eligible suitor for her ladyship, damn your eyes. "A man kissing a young, innocent lady without the knowledge or permission of her family." Lady Celia looked fit to be tied. "Mr. Pinter, this is His Grace, the Duke of Lyons. He is no fortune hunter. And this is none of your concern. I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself." Jackson stared her down. "As I said the other day, madam, there isn't enough money in all the world for that." The duke cast him a considering glance. "So what do you plan to do about what you saw, sir?" Jackson tore his gaze from Lady Celia. "That depends upon you, Your Grace, if you both return to the ballroom right now, I don't plan to do anything." Was the relief or chagrin he saw on the duke's face? It was hard to tell in this bad light. "As long as you behave yourself with propriety around Lady Celia in the future," Jackson went on, "I see no reason for any of this to pass beyond this room." "That's good of you." The duke offered Lady Celia his arm. "Shall we, my lady?" "You go on," she said coolly. "I need to speak to Mr. Pinter alone." Glancing from her to Jackson, the duke nodded. "I'll expect a dance from you later, my dear," he said with a smile that rubbed Jackson raw. "Of course." Her gaze locked with Jackson's. "I'd be delighted.
Sabrina Jeffries (A Lady Never Surrenders (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #5))
I became a broken record on the algorithm,” Musk says. “But I think it’s helpful to say it to an annoying degree.” It had five commandments: 1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough. 3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist. 4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out. The algorithm was sometimes accompanied by a few corollaries, among them: All technical managers must have hands-on experience. For example, managers of software teams must spend at least 20% of their time coding. Solar roof managers must spend time on the roofs doing installations. Otherwise, they are like a cavalry leader who can’t ride a horse or a general who can’t use a sword. Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. It’s OK to be wrong. Just don’t be confident and wrong. Never ask your troops to do something you’re not willing to do. Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. Do a skip level, where you meet with the level right below your managers. When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.
Walter Isaacson (Elon Musk)
told my people that I wanted only the best, whatever it took, wherever they came from, whatever it cost. We assembled thirty people, the brightest cybersecurity minds we have. A few are on loan, pursuant to strict confidentiality agreements, from the private sector—software companies, telecommunications giants, cybersecurity firms, military contractors. Two are former hackers themselves, one of them currently serving a thirteen-year sentence in a federal penitentiary. Most are from various agencies of the federal government—Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, NSA. Half our team is devoted to threat mitigation—how to limit the damage to our systems and infrastructure after the virus hits. But right now, I’m concerned with the other half, the threat-response team that Devin and Casey are running. They’re devoted to stopping the virus, something they’ve been unable to do for the last two weeks. “Good morning, Mr. President,” says Devin Wittmer. He comes from NSA. After graduating from Berkeley, he started designing cyberdefense software for clients like Apple before the NSA recruited him away. He has developed federal cybersecurity assessment tools to help industries and governments understand their preparedness against cyberattacks. When the major health-care systems in France were hit with a ransomware virus three years ago, we lent them Devin, who was able to locate and disable it. Nobody in America, I’ve been assured, is better at finding holes in cyberdefense systems or at plugging them. “Mr. President,” says Casey Alvarez. Casey is the daughter of Mexican immigrants who settled in Arizona to start a family and built up a fleet of grocery stores in the Southwest along the way. Casey showed no interest in the business, taking quickly to computers and wanting to join law enforcement. When she was a grad student at Penn, she got turned down for a position at the Department of Justice. So Casey got on her computer and managed to do what state and federal authorities had been unable to do for years—she hacked into an underground child-pornography website and disclosed the identities of all the website’s patrons, basically gift-wrapping a federal prosecution for Justice and shutting down an operation that was believed to be the largest purveyor of kiddie porn in the country. DOJ hired her on the spot, and she stayed there until she went to work for the CIA. She’s been most recently deployed in the Middle East with US Central Command, where she intercepts, decodes, and disrupts cybercommunications among terrorist groups. I’ve been assured that these two are, by far, the best we have. And they are about to meet the person who, so far, has been better. There is a hint of reverence in their expressions as I introduce them to Augie. The Sons of Jihad is the all-star team of cyberterrorists, mythical figures in that world. But I sense some competitive fire, too, which will be a good thing.
Bill Clinton (The President Is Missing)
In the meantime, I tried my best to acclimate to my new life in the middle of nowhere. I had to get used to the fact that I lived twenty miles from the nearest grocery store. That I couldn’t just run next door when I ran out of eggs. That there was no such thing as sushi. Not that it would matter, anyway. No cowboy on the ranch would touch it. That’s bait, they’d say, laughing at any city person who would convince themselves that such a food was tasty. And the trash truck: there wasn’t one. In this strange new land, there was no infrastructure for dealing with trash. There were cows in my yard, and they pooped everywhere--on the porch, in the yard, even on my car if they happened to be walking near it when they dropped a load. There wasn’t a yard crew to clean it up. I wanted to hire people, but there were no people. The reality of my situation grew more crystal clear every day. One morning, after I choked down a bowl of cereal, I looked outside the window and saw a mountain lion siting on the hood of my car, licking his paws--likely, I imagined, after tearing a neighboring rancher’s wife from limb to limb and eating her for breakfast. I darted to the phone and called Marlboro Man, telling him there was a mountain lion sitting on my car. My heart beat inside my chest. I had no idea mountain lions were indigenous to the area. “It’s probably just a bobcat,” Marlboro Man reassured me. I didn’t believe him. “No way--it’s huge,” I cried. “It’s seriously got to be a mountain lion!” “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Cows mooed in the background. I hung up the phone, incredulous at Marlboro Man’s lack of concern, and banged on the window with the palm of my hand, hoping to scare the wild cat away. But it only looked up and stared at me through the window, imagining me on a plate with a side of pureed trout. My courtship with Marlboro Man, filled with fizzy romance, hadn’t prepared me for any of this; not the mice I heard scratching in the wall next to my bed, not the flat tires I got from driving my car up and down the jagged gravel roads. Before I got married, I didn’t know how to use a jack or a crowbar…and I didn’t want to have to learn now. I didn’t want to know that the smell in the laundry room was a dead rodent. I’d never smelled a dead rodent in my life: why, when I was supposed to be a young, euphoric newlywed, was I being forced to smell one now? During the day, I was cranky. At night, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept through the night once since we returned from our honeymoon. Besides the nausea, whose second evil wave typically hit right at bedtime, I was downright spooked. As I lay next to Marlboro Man, who slept like a baby every night, I thought of monsters and serial killers: Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. In the utter silence of the country, every tiny sound was amplified; I was certain if I let myself go to sleep, the murderer outside our window would get me.
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
Most exciting, the growth mindset can be taught to managers. Heslin and his colleagues conducted a brief workshop based on well-established psychological principles. (By the way, with a few changes, it could just as easily be used to promote a growth mindset in teachers or coaches.) The workshop starts off with a video and a scientific article about how the brain changes with learning. As with our “Brainology” workshop (described in chapter 8), it’s always compelling for people to understand how dynamic the brain is and how it changes with learning. The article goes on to talk about how change is possible throughout life and how people can develop their abilities at most tasks with coaching and practice. Although managers, of course, want to find the right person for a job, the exactly right person doesn’t always come along. However, training and experience can often draw out and develop the qualities required for successful performance. The workshop then takes managers through a series of exercises in which a) they consider why it’s important to understand that people can develop their abilities, b) they think of areas in which they once had low ability but now perform well, c) they write to a struggling protégé about how his or her abilities can be developed, and d) they recall times they have seen people learn to do things they never thought these people could do. In each case, they reflect upon why and how change takes place. After the workshop, there was a rapid change in how readily the participating managers detected improvement in employee performance, in how willing they were to coach a poor performer, and in the quantity and quality of their coaching suggestions. What’s more, these changes persisted over the six-week period in which they were followed up. What does this mean? First, it means that our best bet is not simply to hire the most talented managers we can find and turn them loose, but to look for managers who also embody a growth mindset: a zest for teaching and learning, an openness to giving and receiving feedback, and an ability to confront and surmount obstacles. It also means we need to train leaders, managers, and employees to believe in growth, in addition to training them in the specifics of effective communication and mentoring. Indeed, a growth mindset workshop might be a good first step in any major training program. Finally, it means creating a growth-mindset environment in which people can thrive. This involves: • Presenting skills as learnable • Conveying that the organization values learning and perseverance, not just ready-made genius or talent • Giving feedback in a way that promotes learning and future success • Presenting managers as resources for learning Without a belief in human development, many corporate training programs become exercises of limited value. With a belief in development, such programs give meaning to the term “human resources” and become a means of tapping enormous potential.
Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
Learn About The High Rise Apartment Benefits Deciding places to reside typically be a concern and it is truly advisable to search into high rise apartment benefits prior to making a decision. Although surviving in a normal condominium in the city most likely be lurking in small space, it ought sure the benefits of some people. Keep in mind that bigger houses can be found in contain higher overhead expenses. Short-time period stay should involve minimal bills to purchase furniture and decorations for your home. If you happen to lived in a bigger home in the outskirts of city, you will have to buy a lot of thing to refill your place. After you have to move, dropping all of your possessions often are tedious and tiresome. Staying in 1 rental will require you in order to get fundamental furnishings only. Another benefit of staying in a city constructing is the convenience of commuting to work. Sometimes, your office could be downtown where additionally, you will discover many tall residential condominiums. You can walk to operate or take a short bus ride within your office. Going to see the suburbs would require that enable you to personal method to commute specifically for your office every day. The city lifestyle additionally has given to you more luxury and comfort. Good eating locations and pubs must be close by. You'll search for a good shops and goods within the city. It will be convenient to are now living in a high-rise apartment intrinsic of town that provides you easy access to good shops to operate your errands. In the suburbs, you'll likely have to have a automobile as a way to easy chores. If you could have to go to operate with at hours away, you would spend a lot for gasoline. Your car may also wear down quickly the santorini condo price since you'll be driving it usually permanently distances. Making a home in a high-rise residence can remove these extra burdens such as gas costs and time travel. You can spend extra quality time with your partner or youngsters by dwelling near your place of work. Suburban households are inclined to hire babysitters to observe their youngsters though they work miles away. Vacationing as a condominium ear your office will let you being more involved with of affairs since you is certainly not spending couple of days commuting each day. It is right to are now living in urban cities if you're single or live as a general couple. You'll be able to take advantage of high rise apartment benefits if you find yourself in a functional location close to your workplace. Staying in a very very condominium can supply you with higher security.
Mike Kelly
Yes, which is why the number one rule in hiring a minority is that there has to be a person on the team who represents the demographic you’re going after.
Bryan Loritts (Right Color, Wrong Culture: The Type of Leader Your Organization Needs to Become Multiethnic (Leadership Fable))
When you hire a person, you don’t just hire their competencies, you also hire the sum total of who they are—competence, character, and culture. You don’t want to stop with can they do the job, but you want to ask, can they be what this job needs? That moves us into the culture territory.
Bryan Loritts (Right Color, Wrong Culture: The Type of Leader Your Organization Needs to Become Multiethnic (Leadership Fable))
The first change is to hire more slowly. Only 10 percent of your applicants (at best!) will be top performers, so you go through far more applicants and interviews. I say at best, because in fact the top performers in most industries aren’t actually looking for work, precisely because they are top performers who are enjoying their success right where they are. So your odds of hiring a great person based on inbound applications are low. But it’s worth the wait because, as Alan Eustace, our SVP of Knowledge, often says, “A top-notch engineer is worth three hundred times or more than an average engineer. … I’d rather lose an entire incoming class of engineering graduates than one exceptional technologist.
Laszlo Bock (Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead)
Central Excise 2.3 Central Excise Duty is levied by the Central Government under the Central Excise Act, 1944. The levy is on all goods manufactured and produced in India, which are specified in the schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act subject to certain exemptions. The effective rate may vary from product to product though most goods are subject to excise duty at 10% (without education cess). As manufacturer, credit is allowed on excise duty and countervailing duty paid on inputs and capital goods and the service tax paid on input service. The credit is allowed as a setoff against the excise duty payable on the output. Cross credit utilisation between credit of service tax and excise duty has been enabled w.e.f.10.9.2004. Service tax 2.4 Service tax is levied by the Central Government under Chapter V and Chapter VA of Finance Act, 1994. Service tax is levied on specified services, referred to as taxable services, when rendered by a service provider. Service tax is presently taxed at 10% (without education cess).Ordinarily, service tax is payable by the service provider, except in specified cases. As service provider, credit is allowed on excise duty and countervailing duty paid on inputs and capital goods and the service tax paid on input service. The credit is allowed as a set-off against the service tax payable on taxable services. VAT & CST 2.5 Value Added Tax (VAT) is levied by the State Governments on transfer of property in goods from one person to another, when such transfer is for cash, deferred payment or other valuable consideration. VAT is also payable on certain transactions that are deemed to be sale such as transfer of right to use goods, hire purchase and sale by instalments, works contract and sale of food and drink as a part of rendering of any service. 2.6 Local VAT is payable when goods are sold within the State and Central Sales Tax (CST) is payable when sale occasions the movement of goods 4
Anonymous
In the end it’s the tax-deferred 1031 exchange that gets massive use by Millionaire Real Estate Investors. This program in the IRS tax code allows you to sell and buy properties without having to declare capital gains or pay those taxes. It’s a very straightforward procedure, but it takes some planning. First, you need to hire a 1031 Qualified Intermediary before you close on the sale of one of your properties. That person will act as your guide and escrow agent as you move through the sale of one property and the purchase of the next. After the sale of your “relinquished property” you have 45 days to identify the “replacement property” and a total of 180 days to close on that second property. You want to be looking for the replacement property before or during the marketing of the property you are selling. If you find a good opportunity, you can enter into a contract with a right to assign clause if your first property does not sell or with a 1031 clause in the purchase agreement if it does. Many people have the mistaken notion that you are exchanging your property with someone else: You take theirs, and they take yours. In some cases that can be done, but it is neither the purpose nor the requirement of a 1031 exchange. A 1031 exchange is designed for you to “exchange” one property in your portfolio (sell it) and replace it with another one that you wish to buy. It allows you to keep purchasing larger, more expensive properties without having to pay capital gains taxes on the ones you sell. This is a wonderful way to keep your money working for you.
Gary Keller (The Millionaire Real Estate Investor)
If an opportunity can accelerate your personal growth, great compensation increases will follow. For the right person, companies are willing to adjust their compensation ranges.
Lou Adler (The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired: (Performance-based Hiring Series))
Your Guide To Hiring The Best Driveway Contractor Great driveway pavers do not just appear, you have to do extensive research to find the right one. You will need to put in certain effort on your part and apply a certain amount of spadework in order to determine exactly what your aim is. You won't know if the driveway repair service provider fits your needs or what you have in mind if you're unsure about your demands. Make a checklist of qualities as quickly as you could and refer to our list of tips to help you along. When you start receiving bids, do not make the mistake of assuming that a low bid is indicative of poor work. Do some research about how much materials should cost and compare them against the low bid. You will also need to take labor costs into consideration. If the amount of the bid allows for an acceptable profit, you can consider drawing up an agreement. Always interview and take quotes from at least three contracting businesses. With an array of estimates at your disposal, carefully examine the cost breakdowns for materials and labor to guarantee that you're receiving the very best person for the project. If you're willing and in the position to invest more money in hiring a high quality driveway paving contractor, the chances are good that you will probably be very satisfied. Should you have any questions, make sure to address them before signing the legal agreement and ensure that all detailed information about the costs of the job are included. Take your time when searching for a honest driveway paving contractor. Look for the advice of your family and friend when looking for a recommendation. Find opportunities for networking in order to meet and become familiar with contractors. You will increase your odds of locating a great driveway repair contractor by conducting as many interviews as you could. You can always rely on a trustworthy driveway paving contractor to present you with a written assessment prior to him beginning the work on your project. Should you be in immediate need of the information, it should be a possibility for your driveway repair service provider to provide you with a quote over the phone. Also check their expertise and skill level as well as what other clients are saying about them in order to find out if they finish work on time and at the agreed upon fee. Don't sign a legal contract if you have any questions about anything in it; ensure your driveway repair service provider addresses every issue you have prior to you finalize your agreement.
Kensington Construction Services LLC
Bud handed them to Pike, and tapped the top picture. “This man was one of the original home invaders. You shot him in Malibu. He’s the only one of the five you shot who was also one of the home invaders.” “What’s his name?” “I don’t know. But this man—” Bud shuffled the pictures to point out a man with prominent cheekbones and a scarred lip. “—he’s the freak who beat the housekeeper. You recognize either of these other guys from Malibu or Eagle Rock?” “Who are they?” “Don’t know. We haven’t been able to identify any of the five people you put in the morgue. The Live Scan kicked back zero. No IDs were found on the bodies, and they weren’t in the system. You can keep these pictures, you want.” Pike stared at the pictures, thinking it didn’t make sense that none of the five had been identified. The type of man you could hire to do murder almost always had a criminal record. The Live Scan system digitized fingerprints, then instantly compared them with computerized records stored by the California Department of Justice and the NCIC files, and those files were exhaustive. If a person had ever been arrested anywhere in the country or served in the military, their fingerprints were in the file. Pike said, “That doesn’t sound right.” “No, it does not, but all five of these guys were clean.” “No IDs or wallets?” “Not one damn thing of a personal nature. You arrested a lot of people, Joe. You remember many shitbirds smart enough to clean up before they did crime?” Pike shook his head. “Me neither. So here we are.” Bud slammed his trunk, then stared at the girl.
Robert Crais (The Watchman (Elvis Cole, #11; Joe Pike, #1))
Where to?” Max asked as she climbed in. “I assume that you had some destination in mind when you cooked up that nonsense about needing your bags.” “I want to join Dom.” She stared him down, daring him to gainsay her. She’d take a hackney if she had to. “He’s probably still at Manton’s Investigations, so let’s start there.” Though a smile tugged at the duke’s lips, he merely gave the order to the coachman. As soon as they set off, however, he said, “You do realize that Dom is going to throttle me for helping you.” “I don’t see why,” she said lightly. “You are head of the Duke’s Men, aren’t you? Surely you can go wherever you please and involve yourself as much as you like.” As Lisette burst into laughter, Max shook his head. “My brother-in-law doesn’t exactly like having his agency called ‘the Duke’s Men.’ I’d keep that appellation under your hat, if I were you.” “Oh, that sounds so much like Dom,” Jane muttered, “not to appreciate a fellow who showed faith in him and was willing to use him to find his own cousin, not to mention invest in his business concern.” Lisette laughed even harder now, which only made Max wince. “What?” Jane asked. “What is it?” A flush spread over Max’s face. “Let’s just say that my part in…er…’the Duke’s Men’ has been greatly exaggerated by the papers. Rather tangential, really.” “In other words,” Lisette teased, “he pretty much did nothing. He didn’t even come up with the name, and he certainly didn’t hire Dom to find Victor. Tristan stumbled across Victor himself, and then…” Lisette spun out the story of how she had met Max and how Dom had become involved. How Max had made a grand gesture for the press to protect Tristan from George. “Oh, Lord,” Jane breathed. “That’s why you were all at George’s house that day.” The day she’d first seen Dom after nearly eleven years apart. “Exactly. I mean, Max does what he can to recommend the agency, and certainly Dom benefits from the excellent press he received as a result of Tristan’s finding Victor. But beyond that, Max has nothing to do with it. He has tried to invest in it, but Dom gets all hot under the collar every time he suggests it.” “What a shock,” Jane said sarcastically. She thought of Dom the Almighty, having his hard work and keen investigative sense attributed to some duke who’d simply taken up with his sister, and began to laugh. Then Lisette joined her, and eventually, Max. They laughed until tears rolled down Jane’s cheeks and Lisette was holding her sides. “Poor Dom,” Jane gasped, when she’d finally gained control of herself. “No matter how carefully he plans, someone always comes along to muck things up. We must all be quite a trial to him.” “Oh, indeed, we are,” Lisette said, sobering. “But honestly, he takes himself far too seriously, so it’s good for him.” She smiled at Jane. “You’re good for him. He needs a woman who stands firm when he tries to dictate how the world must be, a woman who will teach him that it’s all right if plans go awry. He needs to learn that he can pick up the pieces and still be happy, as long as he does it with the right person.” “I only hope he agrees with you,” Jane said. “I really do.” Because if she could be that woman for Dom--if he could let her be that woman for him--then they might have a chance, after all.
Sabrina Jeffries (If the Viscount Falls (The Duke's Men, #4))
Who was the first person to walk on the moon?” Ellie sighed. “Seriously? If you are going to try to stump me, you need to come at me with something better than a fifth-grade question.” “So, you don’t know?” “Neil Armstrong.” “Correct … and you’re right, that was too easy. You must be good at Trivial Pursuit.” “They hired me as a consultant for their Book Lovers Edition.” Cedric blinked. She smiled. “You don’t believe me? Try me.” Cedric sat up and rubbed his hands together. “When was the civil war?” “Which one?” “Very good.” Cedric laughed. “American.” “1861 to 1865.” “The Spanish?” “1936 to 1939. Look, I appreciate the effort, but I can answer these questions with ninety-nine percent of my brain cells tied behind my back.
Rich Amooi (Five Minutes Late)
Prosperous non-white nations such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea would be very desirable destinations for Third-World immigrants, and if those countries opened their borders, they would quickly be filled with foreigners. They keep their borders closed because they know they cannot have the same Japan or Taiwan with different people. Israel, likewise, is determined to remain a Jewish state because Israelis know they cannot have the same Israel with different people. In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved tough measures to deport illegal immigrants, calling them a “threat to the character of the country.” Linguistically, culturally, and racially, Japan is homogeneous. This means Japanese never even think about a host of problems that torment Americans. Since Japan has only one race, no one worries about racism. There was no civil rights movement, no integration struggle, and no court-ordered busing. There is no bilingual education, and no affirmative action. There is no tyranny of “political correctness,” and no one is clamoring for a “multi-cultural curriculum.” When a company needs to hire someone, it doesn’t give a thought to “ethnic balance;” it just hires the best person. No Japanese are sent to reeducation seminars because of “insensitivity.” Japan has no Civil Rights Commission or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It has no Equal Housing Act or Voting Rights Act. No one worries about drawing up voting districts to make sure minorities are elected. There are no noisy ethnic groups trying to influence foreign policy. Japanese do not know what a “hate crime” would be. And they know that an American-style immigration policy would change everything. They want Japan to remain Japanese. This is a universal view among non-whites. Those countries that send the largest numbers of emigrants to the United States—Mexico, India, China—permit essentially no immigration at all. For them, their nations are exclusive homelands for their own people. Most people refuse to share their homelands. Robert Pape, a leading expert on suicide bombing, explains that its motive is almost always nationalism, not religious fanaticism. Whether in Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Chechnya, Kashmir, the West Bank, Iraq, or Afghanistan, its main objective is to drive out occupying aliens. It is only Western nations—and only within the last few decades—that have ever voluntarily accepted large-scale immigration that could reduce the inhabitants to a racial minority. What the United States and other European-derived nations are doing is without historical precedent.
Jared Taylor (White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century)
There is a great amount of misinformation about affirmative action, as evidenced in the idea of special rights. For example, people commonly believe that if a person of color applies for a position, he or she must be hired over a white person; that black people are given preferential treatment in hiring; and that a specific number of people of color must be hired to fill a quota. All these beliefs are patently untrue. Affirmative action is a tool to ensure that qualified minority applicants are given the same employment opportunities as white people. It is a flexible program—there are no quotas or requirements as commonly understood.
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
Finally, be clear in your own mind about your expectations for this person upon joining your company. What will this person do in the first thirty days? What do you expect their motivation to be for joining? Do you want them to build a large organization right away or hire only one or two people over the next year?
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
The surest way to turn your company into the political equivalent of the U.S. Senate is to hire people with the wrong kind of ambition. As defined by Andy Grove, the right kind of ambition is ambition for the company’s success with the executive’s own success only coming as a by-product of the company’s victory. The wrong kind of ambition is ambition for the executive’s personal success regardless of the company’s outcome.
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
As a manager, you have the potential to create a fire—passion—in others, but to do this, first, we have to create a spark. Think of the Fourth of July. People gather to watch the sky light up with beautiful fireworks. It’s fun watching a child gaze into the dark sky to see it light up with a spectrum of colors. And how much fun are sparklers, right? From sparklers to rockets, fireworks have one thing in common—they start with a spark. They are ignited! This spark allows each firework to leave the ground and explode, and thereby create joy for all those watching. Sometimes fireworks are beautiful, but if not done correctly they can just fizzle out. Consider yourself a pyro-technician of people. A pyro-technician is the person responsible for the safe storage, handling, and functioning of fireworks and some explosives. As managers, you are in charge of the safe storage, handling, and functioning of the people you supervise. The fireworks you see will be displayed in your employee’s attitudes. When an employee is fizzling out, we call this burnout and it can happen to any employee, even yourself. You need to be able to recognize it.
Denise Wilkerson (HIRE with FIRE: The Relationship-Driven Interview and Hiring Method)
People want to say things like “sore losers” and “move on already,” “quit playing the blame game.” But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.
Tommy Orange (There There)
The Times celebration of Brown as confirming constitutional color blindness was widely shared in America. In the debates over the Kennedy-Johnson civil rights bill in 1963 and 1964, the bipartisan congressional leadership appealed to the classical liberal model of color-blind justice, leaning over backwards to deny charges by southern opponents that the law could lead to quotas or other forms of preference for minorities. Indeed, the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act shows what John David Skrentny, author of The Ironies of Affirmative Action, called “an almost obsessive concern” for maintaining fidelity to a color-blind concept of equal individual rights. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the majority (Democratic) whip behind the bill, explained simply: “Race, religion and national origin are not to be used as the basis for hiring and firing.” Title VII required employers to treat citizens differing in race, sex, national origin, or religion equally, as abstract citizens differing only in merit. Section 703(j) of the Civil Rights Act states: “Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any employer… to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which my exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin employed by an employer.” The syntax was classic legalese, but the meaning was unambiguous. The Senate’s floor managers for Title VII, Joseph S. Clark (D-Pa.) and Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.), told their colleagues, “The concept of discrimination… is clear and simple and has no hidden meanings. …To discriminate means to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor, which is based on any five of the forbidden criteria: race, color, religion, sex, or nation origin.” They continued: There is no requirement in Title VII that an employer maintain a balance in his work force. On the contrary, any deliberate attempt to maintain a racial balance, whatever such a balance may be, would involve a violation of Title VII because maintaining such a balance would require an employer to hire or refuse to hire on the basis of race. It must be emphasized that discrimination is prohibited to any individual. Humphrey, trying to lay to rest what he called the “bugaboo” of racial quotas raised by filibustering southerners in his own party and by some conservative Republicans as well, reaffirmed the bill’s color-blind legislative intent: “That bugaboo has been brought up a dozen times; but it is nonexistent. In fact the very opposite is true. Title VII prohibits discrimination. In effect, it sways that race, religion, and national origin are not to be used as the basis for hiring and firing.” Humphrey even famously pledged on the Senate floor that if any wording could be found in Title VII “which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, … I will start eating the pages [of the bill] one after another.
Hugh Davis Graham
There is a great amount of misinformation about affirmative action, as evidenced in the idea of special rights. For example, people commonly believe that if a person of color applies for a position, he or she must be hired over a white person; that black people are given preferential treatment in hiring; and that a specific number of people of color must be hired to fill a quota. All these beliefs are patently untrue. Affirmative action is a
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
Failure can feel like the ultimate death sentence, but it’s actually a step forward. When we fail, life is pushing us in a different direction so we can experience something new. One adventure has ended and another is about to begin, because it must. Think of your activities in life as scientific experiments. Scientists expect the vast majority of their tests to fail, but they still view each test as a step forward, regardless of the outcome. This is because each failed test rules out that particular approach, narrowing the remaining scope of potential solutions. You might be thinking, “What if all of my experiments fail until the day I die?” Great question. That might happen, depending on how you define failure and success. Here’s the magical solution to that problem: The results of your experiments are of little consequence. Only the experiments themselves matter. The old platitude is true: It’s about the journey, not the destination. Doing experiments will account for 99% of your time on this earth. That’s the journey. The result of your experiments is the other 1%. If you enjoy 99% of your life (the time spent in experimentation), who cares about the results? This is how to remove the problem of failure. Failure is just a temporary result. Its effect is as big or as small as you allow it to be. Elon Musk is becoming a household name. He cofounded Paypal. He now runs two companies simultaneously. The first, Tesla Motors, builds electric cars. The second, SpaceX, builds rocket ships. Many people think of Elon Musk as a real-world Iron Man—a superhero. He’s a living legend. He works extremely hard, and he’s brilliant. Did you know that Elon Musk never worked at Netscape? This is interesting because he actually wanted to work there very badly. He applied to Netscape while he was in grad school at Stanford, but never received a response. He even went to Netscape’s lobby with resume in hand, hoping to talk to someone about getting a job. No one in the lobby ever spoke to Elon that day. After getting nervous and feeling ashamed of himself, he walked out. That’s right. Elon Musk failed to get hired at Netscape. The recruiting managers didn’t see a need for him, and he was too ashamed to keep badgering them. So what happened next? Well, we know what happened from there. Musk went on to become one of the most successful and respected visionaries of our time.[30] Take a deep breath and realize that there are no life-ending failures, only experiments and results. It’s also important to realize that you are not the failure—the experiment is the failure. It is impossible for a person to be a failure. A person’s life is just a collection of experiments. We’re meant to enjoy them and grow from them. If you learn to love the process of experimentation, the prospect of failure isn’t so scary anymore.
Jesse Tevelow (The Connection Algorithm: Take Risks, Defy the Status Quo, and Live Your Passions)
Listen, I have to tell you something.” Her drowsy eyes opened. “I don’t want to push you into anything, take your time about me, but you have to know—I feel pretty strongly about monogamy.” Her eyes widened. “You can’t think I’d be with another man! I wasn’t even going to be with you! But there is one thing you have to do for me,” she said. “Anything that makes you happy,” he promised. “I want this to be only between us.” “Sure. Of course. It’s personal. I agree.” “I don’t want anyone around here to know it’s like this between us. I just work for you, that’s all.” He frowned. “We don’t have to share our personal lives with anyone, but we don’t have to hide the fact that we care about each other.” “Yeah, we do, Noah. No one can know about this. About us.” “Ellie, why? Are you embarrassed to find yourself attracted to a man who’s a minister?” She laughed a little bit. “No. But no one would ever believe you seduced me. And you did, Noah. You did and I loved it. Not only are you the sexiest minister alive, you might be the sexiest man alive. But people will think I trapped you. They’ll think I ruined your purity and dirtied you up. And I don’t need that right now.” “Come on, you’re wrong…” “I’m right,” she said. “No matter how much I try to do the right thing, no matter how determined I am to do the right thing, everything that happens ends up being my fault. And when people around here find out you like me…they’re going to think I cast an evil spell on you and made you break your vows.” “Honey, I didn’t take a vow of chastity. I didn’t promise not to love a woman. I never said I wouldn’t have a perfectly normal sex drive. I’m not fifteen, Ellie, I’m thirty-five and I’ve missed passion. Passion and intimacy, two things that are really healthy for a normal man. Don’t argue with a man with seven years of theological training.” “People don’t get that about you like I do. They think of you as different. As a minister. Please, Noah. Let’s just act like I work for you, and that we’re casual friends.” “We can do that, if that’s what you need. Or we could change the way things have been for you. We could be honest without being indiscreet. We could hold hands, you could let me put my arm around your shoulders, smile at you like you’re special. Treat you like the woman of my choice while I enjoy being the man of yours.” “You don’t get it, do you, Noah?” she asked, shaking her head. “Don’t you see how fragile this is? How much hangs in the balance for both of us? At some point—maybe sooner, maybe later—the people here are going to figure me out. They’ll know I come from a dirt-poor background, that the men who gave me my children didn’t marry me, that I was a stripper when you hired me. What if they hate me? What if they treat my kids like trash because of me?” “I won’t let anyone—” “Don’t you see it’s your future in this town, too? What if they ask themselves what kind of minister you could be if you’d choose a woman like me? Oh, Noah,” she said, running her fingers through his thick, dark hair. “We’d get along okay in a bigger town where no one knows us all that well, where I’m not hooked up with the local preacher. But here—you and me? It could ruin us all.” “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not going to be that way.” She smiled at him. “You’re just a fool,” she said. “It usually is that way.” He
Robyn Carr (Forbidden Falls)
One of Paul Manafort’s best decisions was hiring Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio to determine how to beat Hillary Clinton. In the end, it was the pugnacious and bulldog-like Fabrizio, who insisted that the Trump campaign had to expand the map into Wisconsin and Michigan, while doubling down on Pennsylvania. The campaign shifted digital paid advertising resources to the states but it was Trump’s personal barnstorming in all three states that made all the difference. Fabrizio insisted Trump could win only through this route. He was right. Trump
Roger Stone (The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution)
Investing (and deciding where to work): Value flows from choosing the right sector, team, and product, in that order. Sector: Embrace risk. Be contrarian, and look for disruptive, not incremental, improvements. Team: At our firm, and at our portfolio companies, it is all about the talent. “A” leaders hire A+ talent; “B” leaders hire C talent. Judge people by the team they build. If you are the smartest person in the room, and remain so for more than a few months, start to worry. Product: The tried-and-true way to judge a product’s value is by the customer’s second purchase. Many products are over-engineered, some are too incremental to displace legacy products, and others solve too narrow a problem. The best solutions offer value through simplicity and target the highest priority needs of buyers. In
Chris LoPresti (INSIGHTS: Reflections From 101 of Yale's Most Successful Entrepreneurs)
Furi narrowed his eyes again and stepped into Syn’s space. “Are you gay, Detective?” There it was. The million-dollar question. Was he gay? He’d never asked himself that. He’d only slept with women before, but had never felt anything more for them than an easy friends-with-benefits involvement. Rhodes was the only person that he’d ever felt a connection with. A man. Syn felt his mouth move, but no sound was coming out. Fuck. Furi looked at him skeptically. “Uh huh. Just like I thought. Who are you working for? Him. He send you? Did he hire you to find me? Are you a private detective?” That accusation cut through Syn's speechlessness. “Whoa. I work for the city of Atlanta. What are you talking about? Who is him? Is someone after you?” Syn didn’t realize he’d grabbed Furi’s shoulders, forcing him to look into his eyes until Furi threw his arms up and dislodged Syn’s grip. “Take your goddamn hands off of me! I’m sick of people thinking they can put their fucking hands on me! Stay the fuck away from me, Detective.” Furi shoved past him and reached for the door. Syn jumped in front of it before Furi could get it open. He yelled right back at Furi, “My name is Syn! I’m not here as a Detective! I don’t know who him is, nor do I work for him.” Syn put up air quotes for the word him. “I just wanted to talk to you!” “About what?” Furi yelled. They were in each other’s faces, chest bumping each other. “I don’t fucking know! About you. About me. About the damn Falcons' game last week. About the weather. About why there’s so many goddamn reality TV shows. About what-the-hell-ever! That’s what people do when they want to get to know someone!” Syn stepped back and gripped his hair blowing out a long frustrated breath. He felt so ridiculous, was so annoyed that he was seconds away from just walking away. “Fuck! I didn’t think dating was this damn hard.
A.E. Via
It's better to be treated as a paper airplane than a fighter jet. When you are disrupting, the best possible start-up scenario is to be dismissed, even ignored, just as Blockbuster ignored Netflix—right up until Blockbuster was "netflixed."17 Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is a good example of an organization that took on fly-under-the-radar market risk.18 A decade ago, SNHU was a two-thousand-student college with declining enrollment. Instead of trying to increase enrollment by competing for Ivy League-caliber professors at the high end or with government-funded community colleges at the low end, the university chose to play where no one else was playing—online. There was no guarantee that students would be interested in online degree programs. But because SNHU took on market risk, playing where no one else was playing, and there were many students looking for the flexibility provided by online courses, it is now considered the Amazon of education, with thirty-four thousand students enrolled. SNHU is in the process of jumping to yet another growth curve to decrease the cost of a college degree by measuring competencies rather than credits. One student demonstrated all 120 competencies in one hundred days. His associate's degree cost a grand total of $1,250. A good example of taking on market risk in personal, career terms is Amy Jo Martin, founder of Digital Royalty. In 2008, of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on advertising and publicity by the NBA, very little was allocated to social media. Martin saw an unmet need, and leveraged her expertise to persuade the Phoenix Suns to hire her as director of digital media, a first-of-its-kind position within the NBA. Martin's clients have included Shaquille O'Neal, and she has more than a million Twitter followers. Her gig sounds fantastically fun, but at the outset people wondered if it was even a job.
Whitney Johnson (Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work)
First, at the top levels of your organization, you absolutely must have the discipline not to hire until you find the right people. The single most harmful step you can take in a journey from good to great is to put the wrong people in key positions. Second, widen your definition of “right people” to focus more on the character attributes of the person and less on specialized knowledge. People can learn skills and acquire knowledge, but
James C. Collins (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't)
If that sounds cultish, I’m unapologetic. When organizations talk about creating an innovative business culture, a lot of people focus on the external symbols. The ping-pong and foosball tables in the office, the team-building Thursday beers after work, the company ski weekends, and the anything-goes dress code. At TMHQ we have all those things. But they are marginal to what we are really about. A culture is built up over months and years of good practice, questioning, and improvement. Of doing things the right way and having anyone who comes into the group or participates in an event recognize what that means. Culture is all the things that happen in an organization when the boss isn’t looking. Tony Hsieh describes, in his book Delivering Happiness, how he built his online shoe business Zappos by concentrating on service and integrity above all else. “Your personal core values define who you are,” he argued, “and a company’s core values ultimately define the company’s character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.” I think that’s true, and doubly so when you are “delivering happiness” as an experience that asks people to take on and display some of the virtues of that culture themselves. In this sense, we believed, in our initial phase of recruiting, that a candidate’s previous career path and qualifications were less important than his or her willingness to embrace our credo. Though we had no experience in event management, the plan was never to go out and hire people from the event industry. We had obstacles where participants jump through flames and we feared the first thing an outside event person might instinctively do was pull out a fire extinguisher.
Will Dean (It Takes a Tribe: Building the Tough Mudder Movement)
Although my sister, Liz, is socially engaging and very confident with people, she tends to more of an introvert. She generates energy from the inside, from center to circumference, and would rather have one-on-one conversations to connect quietly and deeply. I, on the other hand, am energized by walking into a room filled with three hundred strangers; I like to meet as many people as possible and walk out with new friends. After all that excitement, however, I am content to go home and curl up with a good book in complete silence. Is one of us right and the other one wrong? No. We are just different.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
It is not unusual for people to believe that their way is the best way—that they are right and everyone else is out-of-sync or mistaken. The divine irony is that since we are better at being ourselves, how can we expect others to be less like themselves to fulfill our expectations? We cannot change who we are wired to be and neither can others.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
Conversational Chameleon We know that chameleons are lizards who are famous for their ability to change their colors and fit in as their environments require. This ability enables them to change themselves for safety, survival, and healthy well-being. Their colors adjust to reflect their mood, their surroundings, and serve as camouflage when necessary. Fossils prove they have been on this planet for over eighty million years, so they must be doing something right. Their innate ability for adaptability deserves appreciation, respect, and further consideration. It obviously works!
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
Being “out of sync” happens all the time . . . • Have you ever begun a discussion when the timing was not right and your message was subsequently rejected? • Have you ever said the right thing at the wrong time and ended up looking stupid or inappropriate? • Or perhaps rather than having a positive or a negative effect, your message fell on deaf ears and had no effect at all? • Has your poor timing ever resulted in social awkwardness, humiliating rejection, or alienation? • Has anyone ever attempted a serious discussion with you in the middle of your day when you were overwhelmed by phone calls, emails, and appointments?
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
Finding the right time is like discovering a social portal which opens a gate for others to receive your message and "get you." You only get one chance to make a first impression and if the gate begins to close, you may never get another opportunity to walk through it. Watch for the openings and synchronize your movements with your intended recipient.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
All in Good Time. The ancient Buddhist saying shares, “When the student is ready, the master will appear.” When the timing is right, lessons are learned and miracles can happen. However, when the timing is “out of sync,” even the best of intentions can be met with resistance.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
The Rhythm of Relationships It’s not a mystery that there are certain people with whom we "click" and others with whom we don’t. In the movie, Forrest Gump, Forrest proclaimed that he and Jenny got along like "peas and carrots." I once heard Tony Robbins say that if you are with the right person, a relationship does not take a lot of work. When relationships are in rhythm, everything is made easier.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
Hire people with the right kind of ambition. The cases that I described above might involve people who are ambitious but not necessarily inherently political. All cases are not like this. The surest way to turn your company into the political equivalent of the U.S. Senate is to hire people with the wrong kind of ambition. As defined by Andy Grove, the right kind of ambition is ambition for the company’s success with the executive’s own success only coming as a by-product of the company’s victory. The wrong kind of ambition is ambition for the executive’s personal success regardless of the company’s outcome.
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
This was an elaborate ruse to get S K Srivastava, off the investigation of NDTV for its tax evasion. After some time, P Chidambaram, much against his wishes, became the Home Minister and got Delhi Police under him. Srivastava says that Chidambaram promptly got false and mischievous criminal cases lodged against him, to get him removed from service. Not only that, Chidambaram got him arrested on the premises of the Court [Patiala House Court, Delhi, Jan 8, 2010]. A few illustrative but not exhaustive instances of such monumental persecution of a member of the Indian Revenue Service S K Srivastava are being listed below: Srivastava had found that his junior Income Tax official Shumana Sen IRS was conniving with NDTV in fudging their accounts[10]. In this, she was also supported by her batch mate and partner-in-crime, Ashima Neb, claims Srivastava. Shumana Sen was Assessing Officer of NDTV’s Income Tax circle and her husband Abhisar Sharma was a news presenter of NDTV being a serious violation of Govt. rules and law governing the conduct of employees of Govt. [MHA OM No.F.3/12/(S)/64-Ests.(B), dated 12.10.1965) and Rule 4 of the CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1965] and despite there being mandatory requirement of serving IRS officers to declare pecuniary interest like employment of spouse, etc., by a Company or Firm to the Govt. and failure of which is to be visited with severest punishment including dismissal from service; Shumana Sen never declared to Govt. that her husband was a staffer of the company which she was assessing to all the Direct Taxes, a serious breach which invites dismissal from service without any benefits. The vicious and criminal vilification of an IRS officer for nothing but doing his duty and protecting the public revenue and public interest which were being prejudiced by NDTV, Minister P Chidambaram and hired mercenaries Shumana Sen and Ashima Neb is something that would send shivers down the spine of any right thinking person. Srivastava was forced to face the allegations and court cases as Minister P Chidambaram was desperate to protect NDTV and hush up its crime, criminality and criminal acts – acts that caused defrauding of public revenue of India running into thousands of crores of rupees.
Sree Iyer (NDTV Frauds V2.0 - The Real Culprit: A completely revamped version that shows the extent to which NDTV and a Cabal will stoop to hide a saga of Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Stock Manipulation.)
Why oh why do we name our businesses after Jesus? Just the “community” coffee shops alone make me squirm—Higher Grounds Coffee Shop, Holy Grounds, Jehovah Java, He-Brew … These may seem catchy and you might think that goofy slogans will cause a spiritually hungry person to pull over and kneel before the altar of Jesus juice, but it isn’t helpful. To be honest, Jesus probably thinks your coffee sucks and is on His way right now to Starbucks, where normal people go. Seriously! If I wanted my coffee shop to draw and influence unbelievers, I’d probably name it something like Hugh’s Coffee Joint so that normal people who need a job might come work for me instead of assuming we hire only our own.
Hugh Halter (Brimstone: The Art and Act of Holy Nonjudgment)
One of the interesting things we found, when trying to predict how well somebody we’ve hired is going to perform when we evaluate them a year or two later, is one of the best indicators of success within the company was getting the worst possible score on one of your interviews. We rank people from one to four, and if you got a one on one of your interviews, that was a really good indicator of success. Seibel: But you had to do well enough on something else that you actually got hired? Norvig: Right, so that’s the thing. Ninety-nine percent of the people who got a one in one of their interviews we didn’t hire. But the rest of them, in order for us to hire them somebody else had to be so passionate that they pounded on the table and said, “I have to hire this person because I see something in him that’s so great, and this guy who thought he was no good is wrong, and I’ve got to stand up for him and put my reputation on the line.
Peter Norvig
Hire the right people. “We will continue to focus on hiring and retaining versatile and talented employees,” he wrote in an early shareholder letter. Compensation, especially early on, was heavily weighted to stock options rather than cash. “We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner.” There are three criteria he instructs managers to consider when they are hiring: Will you admire this person? Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group he or she is entering? Along what dimension might this person be a superstar? It’s never been easy to work at Amazon. When Bezos interviews people, he warns them, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.” Bezos makes no apologies. “We are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about,” he says. “Such things aren’t meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com.” These lessons remind me of the way Steve Jobs operated. Sometimes such a style can be crushing, and to some people it may feel tough or even cruel. But it also can lead to the creation of grand, new innovations and companies that change the way we live. Bezos has done all of this. But he still has many chapters to write in his story. He has always been public spirited, but I suspect in the coming years he will do more with philanthropy. Just as Bill Gates’s parents led him into such endeavors, Jackie and Mike Bezos have been models for Bezos as he focuses on missions such as providing great early-childhood education to all kids. I am also confident that he has at least one more major leap to make. I suspect that he will be—and is, indeed, eager to be—one of the first private citizens to blast himself into space. As he told his high school graduating class back in 1982, “Space, the final frontier, meet me there!
Jeff Bezos (Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos)
First, you need to hire a 1031 Qualified Intermediary before you close on the sale of one of your properties. That person will act as your guide and escrow agent as you move through the sale of one property and the purchase of the next. After the sale of your “relinquished property” you have 45 days to identify the “replacement property” and a total of 180 days to close on that second property. You want to be looking for the replacement property before or during the marketing of the property you are selling. If you find a good opportunity, you can enter into a contract with a right to assign clause if your first property does not sell or with a 1031 clause in the purchase agreement if it does.
Gary Keller (The Millionaire Real Estate Investor)
Good one! Either hire the right person for the job and use their services or hire anyone and train them to do your bidding and that may not necessarily be the right one or the smart one. Bureaucratic-automated work culture festers poor leadership that exhibits the lack of routed efforts towards identifying the right person for the right job through the myriad nuances and subtleties of employee profiles/candidature, resulting in a manifest crack in organizational competence and dislodges itself from organizational goals.
Henrietta Newton Martin, Author - Strategic Human Resource Management -A Primer
Either hire the right person for the job and use their services or hire anyone and train them to do your bidding and that may not necessarily be the right move or the smart move. Bureaucratic-automated work culture festers poor leadership that exhibits the lack of routed efforts towards identifying the right person for the right job through the myriad nuances and subtleties of employee profiles/candidature, resulting in a manifest crack in organizational competence and dislodges itself from organizational goals.
Henrietta Newton Martin- Author Strategic Human Resource Management - A Primer
We didn't assemble a mafia by sorting through resumes and simply hiring the most talented people. I had seen the mixed results of that approach firsthand when I worked at a New York law firm. The lawyers I worked with ran a valuable business, and they were impressive individuals one by one. But the relationships between them were oddly thin. They spent all day together, but few of them seemed to have much say to each other outside the office. Why work with a group of people who don't even like each other? Many seem to think it's a sacrifice necessary for making money. But taking a merely professional view of the workplace, in which free agents check in and out on a transactional basis, is worse than cold: it's not even rational. Since time is your most valuable asset, it's odd to spend it working with people who don't envision any long-term future together. If you can't count durable relationships among the fruits of your time at work, you haven't invested your time well- even in purely financial terms... The kind of recruit who would be most engaged as an employee will also wonder: "Are these the kind of people I want to work with?" You should be able to explain why your company is a unique match for him personally. And if you can't do that, he's probably not the right match. p119-121.
Peter Thiel
If you work to understand what job you are being hired to do, both professionally and in your personal life, the payoff will be enormous. In fact, it is here that this theory yields the most insight, simply because one of the most important jobs you’ll ever be hired to do is to be a spouse. Getting this right, I believe, is critical to sustaining a happy marriage.
Clayton M. Christensen (How Will You Measure Your Life?)
Again, most hiring managers are desperate to get the process started, and without this review process, they tend to get fuzzy and/or out-of-date job descriptions. It is very hard to recover from this mistake. The hiring process will inevitably run into trouble—even fail—if the JD does not clearly articulate the job responsibilities and required skills. The people doing the phone screens and in-person interviews need to be clear on the JD so they can ask the right questions to collect the information required to make their decision.
Colin Bryar (Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon)
The wound that was made when white people came and took all that they took has never healed. An unattended wound gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind of history. All these stories that we haven't been telling all this time, that we haven't been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal. Not that we're broken. And don't make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived is not a badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient? When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone differently. People want to say things like "sore losers" and "move on already, quit playing the blame game." But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they're winning when they say "Get over it." This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.
Tommy Orange (There There)
Onward Christian Lawyers KELLY SHACKELFORD, LIBERTY LEGAL INSTITUTE, PLANO, TEXAS Kelly Shackelford founded Liberty Legal Institute in 1997 to fight for the protection of religious freedoms and First Amendment rights for individuals, groups, and churches. Shackelford clerked for a federal judge after law school. "When their freedoms are taken away, the average person isn't 0. J. Simpson and can't just go out and hire the dream team. My heart has always been to make sure that those people have the best representation possible so that the government can't erode all of our freedoms by picking on the people who don't have the money to fight. "Religion is the new pornography. If somebody says something religious, the average government official feels like he or she has to run from the room, screaming with their hair on fire. Religion is treated like pornography would be treated if you brought it into the school. I mean, there's a fear. There's a shame, almost, directed toward it. "The ACLU is mainly operating on remote control. They've injected this chilling atmosphere that's antireligious in the schools and they don't even have to do anything in most instances to effectuate a religious cleansing in the schools. They've managed to scare and intimidate and the lore in school districts is religion is bad, religion will get you in trouble. ''I'd say a decent percentage of the time, the person who engages in the violation of our clients' rights is somebody who later will tell us, Tm a religious person.' They just didn't know any better, and what they're doing is reacting. They go to the kneejerk, shut-it-down action. 'Oh, it's religion? We must shut it down .' That is the general approach. "These are young kids. They're in third grade or fourth grade or fifth grade. And the lesson they learn is there are words you can't say. You can't say these curse words, and then you can't say your religion. You can't talk about your religion. And it's a very powerful message. "We had a case where the kids could could draw a tracing of their foot, then put a message on the drawing of their foot, and then put it up on the board in class. And all these kids had all these very innocuous messages, 'Jenny loves Johnny' and 'Peace' and such. A girl very innocently wrote 'Jesus Loves Me.' And the teacher ripped it down, and said to her, 'Don't you ever do this again.' The girl went home crying and wondering what she'd done wrong. "The father was just infuriated. We called the school. And that time, the school had already realized they were in big trouble. And so they went back to this little girl and they told her, unbeknownst to any of us, 'Go ahead and do another - go ahead and do another one and put it up.' She redrew her foot. And instead of writing 'Jesus Loves Me' in the innocent and pure way she did before, she put a little tiny cross up in the very top corner that you could just barely see. ''And I thought, 'There's the picture of what happens inside to these little kids.' She's learned the lesson. Don't be open about your faith. Don't be honest about your faith. Hide it. You can still be whoever you are as long as you'll hide it. They taught her selfoppression and self-censorship through this hysterical reaction to her. They robbed her of that innocence and of that purity of being open about her faith. "That's the sort of thing I decided to fight.
John Gibson (The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought)
I also think about what to say in the exit interview. I know not everyone gets invited to do one in person, that a lot of employees just get a form to fill out. But I’m in the ninety-eighth fucking percentile. I’ve worked across five different organizations and had a hand in hiring many hundreds of people. Plus I’m a woman in leadership, that population Amazon keeps saying it’s trying to grow. Of course I’ll get a real exit interview, right?
Kristi Coulter (Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career)
Here’s my contribution...” This statement works in multiple contexts, including those where bragging is not highly regarded and when pointing out your contributions to a team project. If someone claims your work, you might also use statements such as “I appreciate [name] adding to my thinking” or “I’m glad we’re on the same page. My original thinking is that...” “People tell me that...” This softens a brag, as you’ve put it in the third person. “I’m proud to have supported my client by...” This is a softer version of “I did this...” “It’s a privilege to have...” Other variations of this include “I was excited when...,” “I was honored by...,” and “I appreciate...” Banish the statements “It was really a team effort” and “It wasn’t a big deal” from your vocabulary. It’s also stronger to talk about accomplishments rather than effort. I asked Whitney Johnson, who is recognized as one of the world’s foremost executive coaches, what she recommends her clients say when they’re having trouble bragging. One suggestion of particular note is: I know it might feel odd for me to talk to you about what I do well because society has taught us to not like women who do. But now I’m going to, so that you will know that I can do the work you are thinking of hiring me to do.
Lisa Bragg (Bragging Rights: How to Talk About Your Work Using Purposeful Self-Promotion)
if you hire a high-performing chef and give her free range to cook what she wants, but you haven’t shared that your family hates salt and that any salad dressing with sugar will be rejected by all, it’s likely your household of fusspots won’t like the meal delivered to their plates. In this case, it’s not your chef’s fault. It’s yours. You hired the right person, but you didn’t provide enough context. You gave your cook freedom, but you and your chef were not aligned.
Reed Hastings (No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention)
What’s Slipping Under Your Radar? Word Count: 1096 Summary: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. Keywords: Dr. Karen Otazo, Global Executive Coaching, Leadership Article Body: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. At work, one of Ben’s greatest strengths is keeping his focus no matter what. As a strategic visionary, he keeps his eyes on the ongoing strategy, the high-profile projects and the high-level commitments of his group. Even on weekends Ben spends time on email, reading and writing so he can attend the many meetings in his busy work schedule. Since he is so good at multi-processing in his work environment, he assumed he could do that at home too. But when we talked, Ben was surprised to realize that he is missing a crucial skill: keeping people on his radar. Ben is great at holding tasks and strategies in the forefront of his mind, but he has trouble thinking of people and their priorities in the same way. To succeed at home, Ben needs to keep track of his family members’ needs in the same way he tracks key business commitments. He also needs to consider what’s on their radar screens. In my field of executive coaching, I keep every client on my radar screen by holding them in my thinking on a daily and weekly basis. That way, I can ask the right questions and remind them of what matters in their work lives. No matter what your field is, though, keeping people on your radar is essential. Consider Roger, who led a team of gung-ho sales people. His guys and gals loved working with him because his gut instincts were superb. He could look at most situations and immediately know how to make them work. His gut was great, almost a sixth sense. But when Sidney, one of his team of sales managers, wanted to move quickly to hire a new salesperson, Roger was busy. He was managing a new sales campaign and wrangling with marketing and headquarters bigwigs on how to position the company’s consumer products. Those projects were the only things on his radar screen. He didn’t realize that Sidney was counting on hiring someone fast. Roger reviewed the paperwork for the new hire. It was apparent to Roger that the prospective recruit didn’t have the right background for the role. He was too green in his experience with the senior people he’d be exposed to in the job. Roger saw that there would be political hassles down the road which would stymie someone without enough political savvy or experience with other parts of the organization. He wanted an insider or a seasoned outside hire with great political skills. To get the issue off his radar screen quickly, Roger told Human Resources to give the potential recruit a rejection letter. In his haste, he didn’t consult with Sidney first. It seemed obvious from the resume that this was the wrong person. Roger rushed off to deal with the top tasks on his radar screen. In the process, Sidney was hurt and became angry. Roger was taken by surprise since he thought he had done the right thing, but he could have seen this coming.
What’s Slipping Under Your Radar?
- Today we hire a Paki, this was it, she made her bets, a huge Pakistani guy will beat her, rob her and rape her, tonight, Tommy!! Fu…ing bitch she is going to die now!! – Ready made (premeditated) or instant: plans. (Solicitation of murder for hire.) Organized crimes. Mafia. Gang. Mob. “Coincidence.” (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) International. Juicy ideas and plans. Murder. Revealed. Slipped out. Family. Business. Drugs. Past. Nazi. Emotional. Reaction. True. Rare. Impression. Eyes. Blazing. Evil. No Mask. - No way Martina, calm down Lil Kim! That's out of question. Are you out of your mind? - Nononono, f..k you too why do you defending her?! - What, Martina!?!? What are you talking about?! And stop moving, stay still!! Hold your hand up! - We hire a paki! - No we don’t! Stop moving your arm!! Let me stop the bleeding! Martina I am not defending her, she just got me lynched for no reason with a lie, I am pretty mad at her, trust me, I’m in pain. - So we hire a paki! - No we don’t!! - So I hire a paki! I don’t need your money! F..k her! I hire two pakistani guys!! She gets it now, Tommy! - Nooo! - What no? F..k you too, Tommy!!! I hire a paki or two! - What?! No, you don’t do shit! Stop!! Stop calling me Tommy! Who the f..k told you to call me the way my mother called me when I was a kid and you weren’t born yet? - Pakis will rape her and rob her and beat her up!! - Jesus Christ, you are crazy!! Get back to Earth! Right now! Martina!! Maybe Sabrina is a f…g nasty criminal, a bad person but she deserves a lawyer she can stick up in her butt, she is going to rot in jail this time finally or she can pay us, a lot! - No no no this was it, it was enough of her, no more court house, f…g joke!!! – There was lethal rage in her eyes. I felt like if I convince her to not hire a Pakistani or two to kill Sabrina then she will kill me on the spot instead just to calm her rage. It was so absurd. - Don’t you move your f…g hand! I am not telling you again to calm the f..k down and stop moving around. And listen to me. I am not telling you again to forget about hiring Pakistanis, you idiot!! Are you this f…g stupid? She will be held accountable for her crimes, Martina, soon, on court. Finally. - No court, this was it, she is done!! - No Martina, we can’t do that, we are not criminals, Martina to hire to kill!! “Were you this f…g stupid before” we got together?! Forget the Paki hitmans!! - I know a lot of Pakistanis don’t you worry about that. – She almost had cut open her veins above her wrist and she began to realize it but she was still raging. - Jesus Christ. What the f..k are you talking about? Get back to reality young lady before I smack you once really to save your f…g life from yourself! - You are defending her! - No! F..k her! You are just f….g stupid Martina!! You listen to me before I smack you instead of three of your weak parents and your big brother. The cops catch the Pakistani in this tiny town so quickly you won’t have time to blink, you go down with him. Think. Use your f…g head finally. Do you really want to revenge something? Think then. Before you get yourself killed or jailed you idiot and me as well. Time for you to listen to me finally in Europe, young lady after an entire f…g year of trouble!!
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
That's when the world opened up. Everything in my life changed when I decided to change me. I didn't need to find the right person. I needed to become the right person.
Regina Brett (God Is Always Hiring: 50 Lessons for Finding Fulfilling Work)
If it were a decision today to start something you are already in (to enter a business, to hire a person, to institute a policy, to launch a project, etc.), would you? If not, then why do you persist?
Peter F. Drucker (The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials))
If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.
Tommy Orange (There There)
Elon Musk personally interviewed the first three thousand employees at SpaceX because he wanted to make sure the company was hiring the right people.4
Tyler Cowen (Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World)
Musk made hiring a priority. He personally met with every single person the company hired through the first three thousand employees. It required late nights and weekends, but he felt it important to get the right people for his company.
Eric Berger (Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX)
The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led—yes. But not tightly managed. We’ve all experienced or observed the following scenario. We have a wrong person on the bus and we know it. Yet we wait, we delay, we try alternatives, we give a third and fourth chance, we hope that the situation will improve, we invest time in trying to properly manage the person, we build little systems to compensate for his shortcomings, and so forth. But the situation doesn’t improve. When we go home, we find our energy diverted by thinking (or talking to our spouses) about that person. Worse, all the time and energy we spend on that one person siphons energy away from developing and working with all the right people. We continue to stumble along until the person leaves on his own (to our great sense of relief) or we finally act (also to our great sense of relief). Meanwhile, our best people wonder, “What took you so long?
James C. Collins (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't)
Well … I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—until it sinks in and becomes part of who you are. You must address the limiting beliefs, past events, and habitual emotions first. The rest of the stuff will fall into place. I’ve seen it happen again and again. I’ve experienced it firsthand and can testify to the results. Today, I spend my days doing what I love, with the people I love, and making a massive difference in the world. It’s not because I found some get-rich-quick scheme; it’s not because I inherited a lot of money or because I was hired by the right person. It’s because I cleared the limiting beliefs that were holding me back. From there, everything else fell into place. It can for you, too! But you’ve got to do the work … you’ve got to be meticulous in digging deep and finding what beliefs you hold, identifying the events that still have an emotional charge, and changing the emotions that keep you running the same patterns again and again.
Nick Ortner (The Tapping Solution: A Revolutionaly System for Stress-Free Living)
What appears to be happening is that organizations have decided to eliminate the Director of IT title and simply adopt the Chief Information Officer title so they can say they have one.  But they have not made all the required changes in authority or compensation or their recruiting methods to ensure that the person they hire is really qualified to serve in these strategic positions.  In many organizations, the Director of Networks or other similar level positions have been retitled as a Chief Information Security Officer. Some organizations have split up the roles of security and privacy and actually have a Chief Information Security Officer and a Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) creating serious confusion and conflict within the organization. They typically hire lawyers in the CPO positions and a technology person in the CISO positions. Instead of combining the salaries and hiring the right person, they have purposefully depressed the salaries of both positions and will have trouble recruiting for both positions.
Mansur Hasib (Cybersecurity Leadership: Powering the Modern Organization)
An accurate budget must be built on a base of thorough research. You must do research on your community to find out what it will cost to get a church off the ground. You need to solidly answer questions such as:, What will the cost of living in this community be?, What will my salary be? How about salaries for additional staff?, How much will it cost to rent space for the church to meet in?, How much will it cost to operate a business in this city (office rent, phones, computer equipment, copy equipment, and so on)? Talk with other pastors in the community. Find out what their start-up costs were and what they are currently spending to maintain and operate the church. Other pastors can be a valuable resource for you on many levels. The worst mistake you can make is to start the budget process by viewing economic realities through a rose-colored lens. If you speculate too much or cut corners in this area, you’ll end up paying dearly down the road. Remember, God never intended for you to go it alone. There are people and resources out there to help you prepare. Ask others for help. God receives no glory when you are scraping the bottom to do His work. So don’t think too small. Church planting is an all or nothing venture. You can’t just partially commit. You have to fully commit, and often that means with your wallet. Don’t underestimate the importance of having a base of prayer partners. You need prayers as desperately as you need money. You need prayers as desperately as you need money. An unhealthy launch may occur when a new church begins as the result of a church split, when a planter is disobedient in following God, or when there is a lack of funding or solid strategy. Finding the right teammates to help you on this journey is serious business. The people you bring on to your staff will either propel you down the road toward fulfilling the vision for your church or serve as speed bumps along the way. You should never be afraid to ask potential staff members to join you—even if it means a salary cut, a drastic position change or a significant new challenge for them. When you ask someone to join your staff, you are not asking that person to make a sacrifice. (If you have that mentality, you need to work to change it.) Instead, you are offering that person the opportunity of a lifetime. There are three things that every new church must have before it can be a real church: (1) a lead pastor, (2) a start date, and (3) a worship leader. Hire a person at the part-time level before bringing him or her on full time. When hiring a new staff person, make sure he or she possesses the three C's: Character, Chemistry & Competency Hiring staff precedes growth, not vice versa. Hire slow, fire fast. Never hire staff when you can find a volunteer. Launch as publicly as possible, with as many people as possible. There are two things you are looking for in a start date: (1) a date on which you have the potential to reach as many people as possible, and (2) a date that precedes a period of time in which people, in general, are unlikely to be traveling out of town. You need steppingstones to get you from where you are to your launch date. Monthly services are real services that you begin holding three to six months prior to your launch date. They are the absolute best strategic precursor to your launch. Monthly services give you the invaluable opportunity to test-drive your systems, your staff and, to an extent, even your service style. At the same time, you are doing real ministry with the people in attendance. These services should mirror as closely as possible what your service will look like on the launch date. Let your target demographic group be the strongest deciding factor in settling on a location: Hotel ballrooms, Movie theaters, Comedy clubs, Public-school auditoriums, Performing-arts theaters, Available church meeting spaces, College auditoriums, Corporate conference space.
Nelson Searcy (Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch)
It is a regrettable fact that whenever a person works for hire the employer begins to see all the hired hand’s efforts as an extension of themselves. Whether rightly justified or not, owners, managers, and bosses only perceive their subservient employees as a separate identity whenever they make a mistake. When all is well and successes roll in, it is a natural as rain for superiors to accept the credit for their underlining’s efforts. Over an extended period, even the most sensitive of overseers can take a dutiful servant for granted. Likewise, a loyal servant can slowly subsume their psychological individuality by constantly addressing their master’s wants and needs.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
Hello? Baby?” I said anxiously. “Um, I don’t think I’m who you think I am,” said a voice on the other end. “This is Gwendolyn LeRoux—you know, the witch you hired? You wanted me to find the identity of the person who bought the cursed trap that was planted on your land.” “Oh, Gwendolyn, right.” I could feel myself deflating. “Look, now really isn’t the best time, so—” “Now, I know Taylor said you’ve already pretty much figured it out,” she went on. “But there’s something beneath the obvious—something big I think you should know about.” “Wait a minute—back up,” I said. “When did Taylor say that? When did you talk to her?” “Last night.” She suddenly sounded guarded. “Look, I’m sorry it didn’t work out between the two of you. I hope you know the role I played was strictly professional—I have no interest in taking sides.” “What role did you play?” I growled, tightening my grip on the phone case until it creaked in my hand. “What did you do to her, Gwendolyn? What did you fucking do?” “I only did what she asked me to do,” she said levelly. “Like I said, it’s not personal and it’s not what I’m calling you about. I need to tell you something about the person who put the trap on your land.” “I’ll be right there,” I snapped.
Evangeline Anderson (Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness, #2; Scarlet Heat, #0))
..."When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone different. People want to say things like “sore losers” and “move on already,” “quit playing the blame game.” But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered."...
Tommy Orange (author)