When work starts feeling too comfortable, fire yourself

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Patrick Pichette, 53, former chief financial officer at Google Inc., stepped down about a year ago to travel the world. He previously served as executive vice-president at Bell Canada Inc. and as principal and partner of McKinsey & Co.’s Montreal office.

When we made our decision to travel the world, it was when our three kids were all into university and were independent. That is the perfect window. The minute we got married, my wife basically told me, we’re having kids now and we’re having kids all packed up because we’re not spending a decade changing diapers. And she was right. We’re going to be young and our kids are going to be our friends. I owe this to my wife, 100 per cent. It was a brilliant idea.

Being your own person and standing for what you believe is a critical aspect of a good professional life. When I joined BCE, there was a gentleman who was retiring the next week. And he came into my office and said, “I have one piece of advice for you: You have to be your own person.” At McKinsey, it was such a collegial environment, but in big organizations, you have to be able to say, “You can fire me, but I’m not changing my mind, I actually believe this. And I think the data will support my hypothesis when push comes to shove.” Even at Google. Google is an argumentative place. There’s friction everywhere because that’s how they get the sparks to invent stuff.

I was this young partner at McKinsey and one day realized that I am actually a builder, not a consultant. I was in my 30s and loved consulting, but it frustrated me to no end because I just wanted to do it. I just wanted to build great things and operate great things. When BCE and Bell came to knock at my door and said hey, we want an operator, I jumped on the opportunity.

I love to change things a lot and I see opportunities everywhere. Tomorrow should be five times better than today. So when Google said, “Hey, do you want to come and have a coffee?” I thought, okay – innovation? That’s the way to go! It was very easy.

When work starts feeling too comfortable, fire yourself; go get another job. For the vast majority of people, it is important to get out of the comfort zone. When you work for the same company for 37 years, it is very rare that it will keep you on your toes and give you the challenges you need to keep growing. I’ve had five careers – which sounds very millennial, but I think the millennials are right.

I’ve interviewed so many unbelievably smart people – 10 times smarter than me – and I didn’t hire them. I didn’t hire them not because they couldn’t do the job, but because I knew that this person would have lowered the sum of my team, and so it’s too bad. Sometimes, you just find really great people and then they just happen to fit really well with the rest of the team. But if the team doesn’t want them, I don’t hire them. You need the whole team.

I don’t care about hierarchy and power. I just care about the right answer. I give everybody who works with me the obligation to dissent if they feel that we are doing something wrong or there is a mousetrap. If you just do your job and you’re a yes person, you’re not good enough. You have to actually have your own opinions and perspectives, and be able to defend them.

I am a mild introvert. But I have learned to be a very successful extrovert because if you want impact, you have to work with people. But when my job is done, I go climb mountains with a few friends. That’s why travelling with my wife is a delight. My wife is an introvert, and we can be two days together and not say a word in bliss.

My wife and I were on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro for my 50th birthday. So we’re on top of the world, overlooking the Serengeti and all of Africa’s plains. The first thing that popped into our minds while we were having this cup of tea before coming back down was, “Why are we going back to work now? Why not explore?” What a great time to take a break and reinvent yourself. You have 25 years of fun ahead of you.

I encourage everyone to take a gap year after they finish their undergrad [degree]. The vast majority of young people I meet would benefit so much from a year off. You should just go waste a year in exploring the beauty of the world and trying the craziest experiences you can. Build yourself an international community of friends and then you come back so much smarter – and you’re twice as marketable. I think at 50, same thing – you should take a pause after 25-30 years of solid work. It’s basically a sabbatical I’m on.

Right now, I am a nomad. What my wife, Tamar, and I are asking ourselves is, where should we live next? Where can we have the most fun? Where can we have the most impact? I am considering coming back to Canada; I just have to think through my next chapter. Right now, that’s why I’m travelling – to empty my mind, to think about the next 25 years.

As told to Karl Moore, an associate professor in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal.

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Good one, so informative
Getting out of comfort zone is really important may be its the key for real success https://cdn2.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_smile.gif

Deal Subedar Deal Subedar
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Russi Modi was holding a weekly darbar with tata steel staff at a football ground in jamshedpur.

A worker took up an issue. Quality of toilets for workers is terribly bad. Quality of officers toliet is very good.

Russi asked his top exective how much time he needs to set it right. He said three months. Russi said I would rather do it in a day. Send me a carpenter tomorrow.

Next day toilet sign board on workers toilet was changed to officers and officers to workers. There were instructions to change it back every fortnight.

Quality of both toilets became same…

The Workers toilet was repaired on warfooting.

Leadership to the Core.

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kya baat hai barood bhai. mashallah. https://cdn1.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_smile.gif

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@marketdimer wrote:

kya baat hai barood bhai. mashallah. https://cdn1.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_smile.gif


Kya aapke office mai bhi koi Russi Modi hai ?

PM check karo bhai https://cdn2.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_smile.gif

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@asoka wrote:

@marketdimer wrote:

kya baat hai barood bhai. mashallah. https://cdn1.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_smile.gif


Kya aapke office mai bhi koi Russi Modi hai ?

PM check karo bhai https://cdn2.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_smile.gif


checked. replied. https://cdn2.desidime.com/assets/textile-editor/icon_wink.gif

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4 Reasons Why Working Globally Is worth the Jet Lag
Teams with people from different backgrounds perform better than homogenous ones.

http://www.inc.com/shane-atchison/4-reasons-why...

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3 Tips for Negotiating That “Perfect” Compensation Package

As professionals, we should be prepared to negotiate a compensation package that accurately reflects their value. However, many candidates avoid negotiations because they are uncomfortable or unaware of their market value.

If you’re a senior level executive (or even a senior level hiring manager), here’s a method for making sure you never have an offer rejected: Start with a Letter of Intent prior to a formal offer or employment contract. For most executive level searches, we often use the LOI approach early on to outline the basic tenets of what a potential offer would look like. It allows for an early calibration so we don’t get to the finish line and discover that our candidate has wildly divergent expectations on, say, a relocation package to include her 4 classic cars and 35-foot sailboat, or that he is going to need 4 months off to be a contestant on The Bachelor.

As executive recruiters, we see this happen time and time again: not discussing compensation and benefits can lead to remorse or regret after accepting a new position. Don’t be discouraged by the awkward conversation upfront, but set yourself up for long-term success and satisfaction with these 3 tips for negotiating the perfect compensation package for you:

1. Knowledge is Power

· Research salary ranges with comparable companies for your job description. Good sources include http://www.glassdo...om; http://sala...om; http://www.paysca...om and https://www.salaryexpe...om.

· Ask your headhunter for a salary report. For our clients and candidates, we have a subscription to https://www.salaryexpe...om and provide a Salary Assessment for each job we work on. Our assessments are specific to the SIC code, city, job title, company revenue and years tenure and percentiles of various salary ranges:

· Ask the Hiring Manager or Human Resources for the salary range of your new position then use your research to determine if your salary offer is competitive and then negotiate your salary based on comparable figures

· Negotiate for benefits after the compensation portions of the job offer are provided. Don’t forget to ask about vacation and sick time (usually lumped together as PTO – Personal Time Off) and other benefits like life insurance, health insurance, tuition reimbursement and other perks that competitive companies are offering.

2. Timing is Everything

· Make a list of what you want before the meeting.

· Immediately after the job offer is extended ask about the benefits offered. Generally, there is a benefits package from the healthcare or PEO provider, which you’ll want to review.

· Point out what you expect and the justification, then simply listen. Many Hiring Managers will be able to make concessions acceptable to your needs. They have most likely gone through an extensive search, and they have an incentive to close the deal with you.

3. Get Creative, and avoid Waging War with a Counter-Offer

· Pick your battles carefully and establish where the company may have room to negotiate.

· If the Hiring Manager is unable to negotiate on salary and basic benefits, then start your career journey by asking for more vacation time, relocation assistance, signing bonus, and/or a performance bonus. And although these inclusions are typical of standard compensation packages which may be offered to everyone, add value to your individualized compensation by maximizing each offer to match your personal worth, ensuring you receive the utmost to realize your long-term career satisfaction.

· Consider having your recruiter negotiate for you. I nearly always insist on this for a few reasons:

False modesty aside, I’m incredibly talented at negotiating and closing both sides in a win-win situation – and most experienced retained recruiters are as well. In fact, it’s at the 5-yard line when many offers are fumbled and where I believe that we provide the most value.

It’s often uncomfortable and awkward negotiating with the person you’ll be reporting to. If things get contentious (and they often do) it could sour the first 90 days of the relationship with one or the other feeling like they were strong-armed a bit.
The more senior the executive, the more apt I am to insist on being the go-between. Not only are the “devil in the details” but if your recruiter has done their job well, the details will have been communicated well before a formal offer arrives and the process is more professional and less stressful for all parties.

Paula Rutledge, Florida

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It was amazing to see the community awareness to adopt potholes on the road in front of their houses. The community repairs the potholes of the road at their own cost with more strength with very low cost. What a concept " Apna Ghar, Apni Road". Kudos to Mr. Vivek Sehgal of Shimla for his movement. It’s a inspiration to everybody who always blame government on potholes and suffers. A pothole could be repaired at the cost Rs. 200-300 with strength for 5 years. So why to suffer and put the lives on stake…you have solution now .. www.terratechc...om

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Elizabeth Greenwood
Author of PLAYING DEAD

So you think you can fake your own death?

Faking your death—both as a concept and as an act people attempt with surprising frequency — first occurred to me over dinner with a friend at a cheap Vietnamese restaurant. I had just enrolled in a graduate program, and had taken out a brand new batch of student loans to heap upon a hefty debt from college.

As I bitched about the financial mess I’d gotten myself into, and how I feared I might never get out of it, I fantasized about finding a sun-bleached country with a rickety government and no extradition policy and just slipping through the cracks, disappearing without a trace.

“Or you could fake your own death,” my friend offered. 

That conversation sent me on a years-long quest tracking down people who have faked their own deaths and interviewing experts in the art of disappearance. Along the way I picked up a few Dos and Don’ts. Whatever your motive and wherever you plant your umbrella, here are some considerations for planning your untimely demise.

Don’t subscribe to conventional wisdom: The biggest challenge of faking your death is that teensy problem of your body. So fake a drowning, right? Wrong. “Death” by water immediately raises red flags. Investigator Steve Rambam, who consults for insurance companies says, “Ninety-nine percent of faked deaths are water accidents. In most drownings, the body is recovered. So why was this body not recovered?” According to Rambam, hiking is the way to go. “People disappear hiking all the time, legitimately. That’s a great way to disappear.”  

Don’t get too creative: Wannabe death fraudsters concoct ingenious ways to create the illusion of a corpse to fool—or befuddle— law enforcement. Mortuary worker Jean Crump collaborated with a few friends to defraud several insurance companies out of $1.2 million. They held a funeral for one Jim Davis, who never existed. They buried an empty casket. When insurance fraud investigators started nosing around, she realized she’d have to act fast. Exhuming the coffin, Crump and company filled it with a cow carcass and a mannequin, then had the casket cremated. Investigators quickly unraveled the clever ruse.

Don’t Google yourself: Bad enough he tried it by water, but the temptation was too much for Patrick McDermott, Australian singer Olivia Newton-John’s longtime boyfriend, who faked his death on a fishing trip in 2005 shortly after the couple had broken up. Having recently filed for bankruptcy, he chartered a boat and allegedly fell overboard at night. A group of private investigators hired byDateline NBC located McDermott when they noticed a centralized cluster of IP addresses originating near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, all clicking onto a site dedicated to tracing his whereabouts.

Do change your light bulbs: Bennie Wint had been presumed dead since staging a drowning in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1989. He’d been involved in a narcotics ring and believed the cops were after him. After swimming a mile down the shore with $6,500 stuffed in his swim trunks, he hitched a ride with a trucker and spent the next twenty years selling NASCAR merchandise out of his home, under the name William James Sweet. During his tenure as Sweet, he shacked up with a common law wife and had a son, but never filed for an ID under his new alias. So when he was pulled over in North Carolina in 2009 for not having a $1.50 light bulb over the license plate of his car, he couldn’t produce a driver’s license and was booked in jail as John Doe before ultimately coming clean.

Don’t assume a fake identity: There’s no law on the books called “faking your own death.” If you don’t file a police report or death certificate, making it look like you are deceased violates no law except perhaps that of good taste. Promoting the idea that you have met an untimely end when in fact you are lazing beachside, paying for your daiquiris with a suitcase full of cash, is perfectly legal.

“In those narrow confines, it wouldn’t create any legal issue,” says Judge Daniel Procaccini, a Rhode Island Superior Court judge who dealt with the legendary disappearance case of Adam Emery.  If you even try to rent a bike or apply for a library card with another identity, then you are committing fraud. But to make believe that you are dead poses no crime. “It’s surprising more people don’t do it,” the judge says.

Do keep near enough the truth: John Darwin, whose name is synonymous with “pseudocide” in the UK, staged a kayaking accident in 2002 to shirk heavy debt he’d acquired in shady real estate deals. With the help of his wife, he returned to live in an adjacent guesthouse next door to his own home while his two adult sons grieved. He managed to get a real UK passport in the name of John Jones, a person who was born the same year as him but died in infancy. He traveled to a dozen countries when he was “dead” before turning himself in at a London police station in 2008. Darwin told me the secret to his success: “Keep near enough the truth,” he says. “Use your first name. That’s a must. A disguise is vital. I grew a beard, I wore glasses. I never used to wear a hat, so I put on a hat. I wore a different sort of coat then I normally wear. Then I had a walking stick, a stoop, and a limp. If you can think logically, anything is easy.”

Do ask yourself: Can you bear to hold your own death certificate in your hands?: I tried my own hand at pseudocide in the Philippines, where I got my own death certificate and police report detailing my fatal car accident. Most successful death fraud is carried out with high quality authentic documents. I wanted to see how far I could get. I spent the day cracking up over jokes and Cokes with two delightful local fixers as we waited for a forger to construct my demise. But actually handling a piece of paper declaring me dead and a police report detailing my fatal car accident proved to be a more somber affair.

Elizabeth Greenwood is the author of PLAYING DEAD: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud.

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A court has ruled that time spent traveling to and from work is “work”

Sweaty trips on overstuffed trains and buses, rush-hour traffic jams… for many workers, the commute can be the most stressful part of a working day.
Indeed, a European court has ruled that that time spent traveling to and from work should count as actual work, with companies paying employees for their time accordingly. The judgment applies to workers without a fixed office, such as many electricians, care workers, and sale reps, and will affect millions of public and private sector employees across the European Union.
The European Court of Justice said its ruling was made to uphold the health and safety of workers, which is protected by the EU’s working time directive. This legislation mandates that no employee should be forced to work more than 48 hours per week.
The ruling stems from a legal case in Spain involving Tyco, a company that installs security systems. Tyco shut down its regional offices in 2011, and so employees had to travel from home to work appointments.
“The fact that the workers begin and finish the journeys at their homes stems directly from the decision of their employer to abolish the regional offices and not from the desire of the workers themselves,” said the court (pdf).
“Requiring them to bear the burden of their employer’s choice would be contrary to the objective of protecting the safety and health of workers pursued by the directive, which includes the necessity of guaranteeing workers a minimum rest period.”

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