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I n any endeavor you take on, your success comes down to attitude, your attitude. Choice of attitude is your ultimate freedom according to Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor.  Even in the degradation and abject misery of a concentration camp, Frankl was able to exercise his freedom to determine his own attitude and survive World War Two then go on to become one of the most influential professionals in his field. This simple life truth applies in business as in life.  If you are to succeed in a business of your own, you must develop the attitude of the successful entrepreneur as well as the basic skills of business success. Think about this: Henry Ford failed in business three times before finding success with the Model T.   For 25 years Mary Kay Ash worked at Stanley Home Products only to resign as the company repeatedly promoted those she trained over her.  She started writing a book on her experiences only to realize that she had the m...

This study brings up an interesting point, especially when combined with a reading of current research that documents that women generally make better small business owners and managers than do men ~ in that women operated businesses tend to be more profitable and live longer. Dance is stereotyped as a female activity, and some of the newest management training programs work at teaching those skills that women typically are stronger at.  Empathy, fostering teamwork, gathering a wide range of input before making decisions, and now dance.  Something anyone thinking of starting a business should consider. C ould managers gain a new kind of understanding about their interaction with colleagues and employees by ‘dancing’?  That's the question arising from new research. Management is usually considered a stiff and rational business, decisions made based on fiscal studies, profit margins and market forces. However, researchers have studied whether creative movement ('dance') mig...

R esearchers have analyzed 50 years’ worth of hit songs to identify key themes that marketing professionals can use to craft advertisements that will resonate with audiences.    The researchers used computer programs to run textual analysis of the lyrics for all of the selected songs and analyzed the results to identify key themes. The researchers identified 12 key themes, and related terms, that came up most often in the hit songs.  These themes are loss, desire, aspiration, breakup, pain, inspiration, nostalgia, rebellion, jaded, desperation, escapism and confusion. Suggested reading click on image "People are exposed to a barrage of advertisements and they often respond by tuning out those advertisements. We wanted to see what we could learn from hit songs to help advertisers break through all that clutter," says Dr. David Henard, a professor of marketing at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research. "We also wanted to see if there were specific them...

According to a new study by researchers at Cornell University, the key to long-term survival for many businesses is having a woman in charge .  (Emphasis mine.) This it is not exactly Earth-shattering news.  Not only is having a woman run a business known to increase its chances of success, it's also been shown that having women on the board of directors of a major corporation increases the company's success and profitability.  This also applies to having women in management positions within a larger company.  Research published within the last year demonstrates that those divisions of a company tend to be more successful and more profitable.   This is not political correctness.  These conclusions are based on scientific fact.  And as many have said, scientific fact is true whether you believe it or not. Yet, despite their demonstrated superiority as managers,  women are paid less than men for yielding more profit and longer success to a company. ...

The question for many employers large and small is whether making social changes or physical changes lead to better productivity or lower absenteeism.  Or would a combination of changes have the best outcome?  According to this research, an employer is better served by either making social changes or physical changes - but not the two together. Here's the report: C hanges targeting the social or physical workplace environment have some positive effects on work-related outcomes —- but at least so far, evidence doesn't support a combination of the two approaches, a new report concludes.  Social changes such as  group motivational interviews led to improved work task performance, while the  physical change such as establishing specific areas for quiet work, meetings, and recreation was associated with employees being more fully concentrated and immersed in work tasks. Researchers evaluated the effects of changes to the social and physical w...