Conventional wisdom says the line between business and work is grayer than ever. For a growing number of potential employees, personal fulfillment is becoming as important as the paycheck.

There is great reward for companies who take advantage of this trend and engage employees on a career and a personal level.

"Engagement is meeting personal needs so that you can meet the practical needs of the business," an HR consultant recently told us.

Employees don’t have to have a stake in the company to take ownership for the business’ success. Engagement that fosters personal fulfillment will make this happen.

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Hollywood mogul Peter Guber knows what it means to tell a great story. He has produced numerous hits, including Rain Main, Gorillas in the Mist, Midnight Express, and Les Miserables.

Guber’s secret sauce to effective personal and business communications is story telling, not speech making. To be memorable, the story must create an experience for the audience and not just deliver information.

Guber created the following four storytelling truths from his years of experience:

1. Truth to Self –- show your emotion, authenticity, and love of the story
2. Truth to the Audience -– use “state of the heart” technology rather than state of the art technology; you’re in the emotional transportation business; the audience has to “own” your story
3. Truth to the Moment –- be willing to throw away the speech and the PowerPoint if you’re not connecting
4. Truth to Mission -– offer a call to action for a worthy mission

Guber’s other nugget of advice: The last few minutes of a story is the most important. It must be emotionally rewarding and surprising to get people to "own" and then "buy."

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Next time you are in a meeting, try limiting your notes to key dates, names of new people you have to remember, and commitments you make. Two things will likely happen. You will record the key pieces of information you need after the meeting, and you will be more involved in the discussion and dynamics of the meeting instead of focused on recording the content.

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Research by management consultants Marakon Associates reveals that most companies rarely realize the potential of their strategic planning. In fact, Marakon’s research shows that companies usually achieve only about 60 percent of their strategies’ potential value because of poor planning and execution.

The top five factors contributing to performance loss include:

• Inadequate or unavailable resources
• Poorly communicated strategy
• Actions required to execute the strategy not clearly defined
• Unclear accountabilities for execution
• Organizational silos or culture blocking execution

The good news is that companies can close the strategy-to-performance gap using the seven steps that Marakon recommends.

• Keep it simple, make it concrete. Use clear language describing what your company will and won't do.
• Debate assumptions, not forecasts. Create cross-functional teams to ensure the assumptions reflect real economics of your company's markets and its actual performance relative to competitors.
• Use a rigorous analytic framework. Ensure that the dialogue between the headquarters and business units is conducted within an established, rigorous framework.
• Discuss resource deployments early. Create more realistic forecasts and more executable plans by discussing up front the level and timing of critical deployments.
• Clearly identify priorities. Prioritize tactics so that employees have a clear sense of where to direct their efforts.
• Continuously monitor performance. Track against your plan, using continuous feedback to reset assumptions and reallocate resources.
• Reward and develop execution capabilities. Motivate and develop staff.

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http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker

Election season is the fertile soil for rhetoric on issues. The Washington Post has created its Fact Checker to examine the most contentious issues in depth. The newspaper launched Fact Checker with an examination of the controversial MoveOn.org ad about General David Petraeus. After examining the issue in depth, the Fact Checker issues a Pinocchio scale. The Fact Checker has also examined Mitt Romney’s political beliefs and organizations making edits on Wikipedia.

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The Starfish and The Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom

How did tiny Napster take on the global music industry? Why is free, community-based Wikipedia crushing Encyclopedia Britannica? Why is Al-Qaeda flourishing and even growing stronger?

Brafman and Beckstrom use an analogy from the animal kingdom to explore the phenomenal and unstoppable new power of starfish organizations. Starfish can grow a new arm or even a new body when one arm is cut off, while a spider is dead when its head is cut off. Starfish can achieve this feat because, unlike spiders, they are decentralized –- every major organ is replicated across each arm.

Our traditional "spider" organizations have clear structure and strategy. Starfish organizations, on the other hand, are based on completely different principles. They tend to organize around a shared ideology, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. They arise rapidly, have ideas or platforms that can be easily duplicated, and take full advantage of the Internet.

Get more information about the book and the growing power of starfish organizations at www.starfishandspider.com.

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