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Takin' Care of Business


Professional skills are becoming increasingly important in today's work world. In this blog, Benchmark Learning shares thoughts on how developing your professional skills can increase your workplace success. Whether you’re in human resources, a leadership role or simply looking to improve your own professional skills, “Takin’ Care of Business” will give you useful tips, advice and resources in areas such as:

  • Management (of people, time and projects)
  • Leadership
  • Communication
  • Employee Development
  • Team Building
  • Presentation Skills

 

  • What You Want to Do Is Who You Are

    5/21/2012 1:27:00 PM

    On modern social networks, the question of the moment is What are you doing? (or perhaps more provocatively, What's on your mind?). To me, a more interesting question is What do you want to do? The desire to do anything beyond eat, find warmth, sleep and mate is what makes us human. Your goals and aspirations, the steps you're taking to achieve them, plus everything you've done to get you where you are right ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    Productivity planning

  • Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed

    5/17/2012 7:06:00 AM


    Albert Einstein’s was estimated at 160, Madonna’s is 140, and John F. Kennedy’s was only 119, but as it turns out, your IQ score pales in comparison with your EQ, MQ and BQ scores when it comes to predicting your success and professional achievement.

    IQ tests are used as an indicator of logical reasoning ability and technical intelligence. A high IQ is often a prerequisite for rising to the top ranks of business today. It is necessary, but it is ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    relationships skills self improvement

  • Good Managers Lead Through a Team

    5/14/2012 12:48:00 PM

    We consider the ability to manage a team so important that, in a recent book, we made it one of the 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader. Manage Your Team — the first imperative — is about creating a real team and managing through it. For the record, the other two imperatives are Manage Yourself — which is about building relationships based on trust, not authority — and Manage Your Network, which ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    leadership team building management team

  • Learning Is Never Finished

    5/10/2012 8:50:00 AM

    Lately, I’ve been focusing on how important it is for all of us to move forward along a path of consistent growth if we want ourselves and our organizations to continue to thrive. This is a critical need, personally and professionally, for employees at all levels.

    No matter how long we live, none of us is ever finished learning. One of the greatest ways to ensure your own continual growth and learning is to open ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    learning

  • Become Process Driven

    5/7/2012 5:26:00 PM

    (Note: Though the article is about reaching sales goals, it applies very well in other types of goals in general.)

    Are you hitting your numbers? How many follow-up calls did you make today? How much good volume did you book this month? How many leads did you run this week?

    These questions are relentlessly driven into our heads and for good reason. Like many sales professionals, there’s often pressure to reach quota or a certain ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    goal setting process improvement

  • What Makes an Exceptional Leader?

    5/3/2012 8:26:00 AM

    (The following is an excerpt adapted from the book, Leading at The Edge, Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition, Second Edition, by Dennis N.T. Perkins, Ph.D.)

    On December 14, 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team made history as the first expedition to reach the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, on January 17, 1912, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, with five exhausted men. None survived the ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    leadership

  • Compete on Know-Why, Not Know-How

    4/30/2012 10:07:00 AM

    Do you know why you make the products or offer the services you do? Too often I find that companies don't have a clear enough sense of why they do what they do. They get stuck making incremental improvements that are rooted in existing competencies, markets and business models.

    This is especially problematic when companies decide to innovate. If you don't have a clear understanding of why you are pursuing an innovation, you risk being ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    innovation business strategy

  • 11 Ways to Upgrade Your LinkedIn Account- Part 2

    4/26/2012 9:59:00 AM

    So you have your profile, now what? Use LinkedIn’s Features for your benefit:

    7. Contacts

    Look at those 2nd level connections to get introduced to other individuals who you find to be intriguing through your network . Set up to have a conversation, informational interview or information sharing session. It's a great way to seek out others' intelligence in a specific area and an excellent way to learn because people typically like to talk about themselves ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    linkedIn professional development

  • 11 Ways to Upgrade Your LinkedIn Account- Part 1

    4/23/2012 12:17:00 PM

    You probably have a LinkedIn account. It offers amazing functionality and reach in the business world. And though your profile probably looks pretty good, maybe that 60% finished profile indicator is bothering you. Or you're trying to figure out if you should include that summer job 4 years ago as a pet groomer.

    Or maybe you've got all that covered; so how would you like to know more about the features that Linkedin has to ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    professional skills linkedIn

  • 9 Things Successful People Do Differently

    4/19/2012 11:05:00 AM

    Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or not.

    The intuitive answer - that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others - is really just one small piece of the puzzle. ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    goal setting planning

  • Don’t Be a Minimalist: Regain Focus With Technology

    4/16/2012 3:05:00 PM

    We all hear the “minimalist” zealots screaming at us from on high, “Sell your stuff, get rid of everything that isn’t important, use paper for everything, and be as minimal as possible.”

    All this so we can regain focus on an important project as well as the things we have to do.

    Sounds like a great idea, that is, as long as you work for yourself and work to sell the idea of being minimal. ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

  • How to Think Big in Business

    4/12/2012 2:54:00 PM

    Experience is the enemy of thinking big. So is fear, caution, politics and perfection. The problem is these issues make up the very rungs of nearly every corporate ladder. That could make thinking big seem impossible. The good news is that it is not.

    So, what exactly constitutes thinking big, how does one do it, and what typically gets in the way? Read on to find out.

    What Big Thinkers Do

    Big thinkers systematically create ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    Productivity innovation

  • The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time

    4/9/2012 12:07:00 PM

    Why is it that between 25% and 50% of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work?

    It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.

    What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It's ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    Productivity performance time management

  • Put Your Ear to the Ground: Engaging More Directly

    4/5/2012 10:18:00 AM

    Get your ear to the ground.

    This approach has been called different things but commonly is summarized as getting close as possible to the interface of the product and producer or consumer. Famous practitioners include Bill Hewlett and David Packard of HP who popularized “management by walking around.” The same approach can be used in your personal and professional life to help you gain fresh perspective on old problems, sniff out issues before they become ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    problem solving appreciation business strategy

  • Keeping Your Options Open Could Be Hurting Your Career

    4/2/2012 9:09:00 AM

     

    Are you the seven-foot superhero, the conniving villain, the strong-willed woman, or the family-man cop? You'd better be one of them, or risk being cut from the cast. After studying Hollywood actors for three years, MIT Professor Ezra Zuckerman found that actors who typecast themselves early in their careers tend to earn more money, have longer lifespans, and enjoy more fame compared to generalist actors. Moreover, young actors who specialize are able to land ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    career planning

  • Know When to Back Out of a Project

    3/29/2012 3:53:00 PM

     

    We've all been there: that sickening moment halfway through a major project when you realize you can't finish it on your own. Whether it's a DIY project, a work assignment, or something similar, knowing when to back out isn't easy. However, you can ask yourself a few simple questions to help you decide when it's time to quit.

    If you get a pleasure in doing things yourself or you're just a bit hard-nosed when ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    time management

  • Stop Procrastinating...Now

    3/26/2012 11:23:00 AM

    It seems that no one is immune to the tendency to procrastinate. When someone asked Ernest Hemingway how to write a novel, his response was, "First you defrost the refrigerator." But putting off tasks takes a big hit on our productivity, and psyche. Procrastination is not inevitable. Figuring out why you postpone work and then taking concrete steps to prevent it will help you get more done and feel good about yourself.

    What the Experts ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    procrastination

  • 10 Questions That Will Improve Results in Any Area

    3/22/2012 10:07:00 AM

    The only foolish question is the one that was never asked!

    When you begin any project, are trying to make a change in your life, or are faced with a difficult undertaking, the best way to improve your result is to ask the important questions first. If you are working as part of a team, some questions may need to be asked of others. When working towards an individual goal, you will be the one ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    Productivity efficiency

  • Timeline for Facebook - the Complete Checklist for Community Managers

    3/18/2012 1:07:00 PM

    Unless you spent last week in a coma, you know that Facebook Timeline for Brands is finally here. Already live on a number of leading brands, everyone else has until March 30 to redesign and publish content on their pages. Although you can go live today, we'd suggest you read about the impending changes before you press that publish button. You've seen what timeline does to your personal profiles; creating milestones in your Facebook history: ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

    Social Media facebook

  • How to Quickly Read a Terms of Service

    3/15/2012 10:20:00 AM

    You're inundated with new contracts, Terms of Service, privacy policies, and disclaimers for every new service you use, but reading them all is next to impossible for a normal human being. To help solve this problem, we've looked at the language of most Terms of Service agreements to come up with the main words and sections everyone should pay attention to.

    A recent paper from Carnegie Mellon suggests it would take the average Internet user ...

    Full story

    Benchmark Learning

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*The thoughts and opinions in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Benchmark Learning.

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