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#BestofFSCBlog : #ResumeWriting – Words to Watch in Professional #Resumes .

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In years of resume writing for folks in the commercial world, military transitioning to civilian, or for government services applicants there are certain words and phrases that are unnecessary or redundant.

Labels.  Commercial resumes do not need labels for information in the point of contact section at the top of the resume.  Everyone knows that 757-###-#### is a phone number. Everyone knows that FirstNameLastName@nameofISP.com is an email address, so why label them? Labels can potentially gum up the parsing engine in the Automatic Tracking System (ATS) when the system moves the data to a SQL database.

Jr., Sr., III, formal degree or certification initials (after name).  Unless your son or father are looking for a job in the exact same industry at the same time, don’t bother adding the Jr. or Sr. after your name on the resume.  You can add those initials to the official legal paperwork once you are offered employment.  All the certification designations and formal degrees listed after the resume owner’s name may muck up the ATS’s parsing process.  The exceptions to this general rule would be Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Juris Doctorate (J.D.), or Professional Engineers (P.E.), which are headhunted specifically for their degrees or certifications.

Stakeholder.  This cliché buzzword literally means everyone that touches a business or entity – employees, managers, stockholders, clients, and vendors.  No one has a task or responsibility that affects every single one of these with equal value.  Instead of noting tasks affecting ‘stakeholders,’ mention the results for those directly affected, e.g., direct supervisors or employees within a specific department.

Initiative. If one was tasked with an ‘initiative’ – this is a subjective word, meaning you had intentions to do something – but did you do it?  Instead, write that you directed, managed, supervised, or developed a project, and the “results were …”

On a weekly basis; on a daily basis.  This phrase can be reduced to one word – weekly or daily.  Resumes should not be focused on daily task minutiae – concentrate on the more important weekly or monthly task descriptions with direct relevance to the company’s strategic business goals and objectives.

Selected to serve.  Requested by. Military use these phrases to highlight a person uniquely chosen above others. But, they are passive wording.  Instead, use an active verb to showcase what was done ‘after being chosen’ for a specific task or responsibility, e.g., directed a (project) for (supervisor’s job titles) resulting in (name the goals reached of the task assigned).

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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In regards to.  This is a wordy, space filler phrase.  Don’t use ‘regarding’ as a replacement word, either.  Alternatively, describe what was done specifically.  For example: “Prepare memos for (ABC) in regards to …” can be replaced with:  “Create reports for (ABC information) submitted to (XZY) for monthly subcommittee meetings.”

Executed.  Avoid dangling modifiers.  Once client had used the word to describe what she had done to support women via a project she managed. But, the words used after ‘executed’ indicated she had ‘killed them’ within the sentence meaning and structure. Ensure the words following the descriptor ‘executed’ are carefully constructed to indicate working relationships to a project or task.

Typing – XX wpm. I see resumes noting the job seeker’s speed for typing (XX wpm) or an ability to use 10-key calculators.  This applicant skill is fine for clerical, receptionist, or data-entry jobs. For those with aspirations for supervisory or management jobs, these basic skills are assumed. The job seeker should be able to type fast enough to compile memos, letters, and write policies or reports at a productive speed. Avoid minor details and save the white space for more important and relevant information about skills and experience.  It is better to describe unique technical and computer skills for a competitive advantage.

Be careful about over-wording your resume or demonstrating a lack of conciseness.  The tighter the resume, the richer the wording, and the more impressive your experience and skill sets will read.

FSC Career Blog Contributor: Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D., owner of D. Boyer Consulting – provides resume writing, editing, publishing, and print-on-demand consulting. Reach her at: Dawn.Boyer@me.com or visit her website at www.dboyerconsulting.com.

Bio: Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D., has been an entrepreneur and business owner 20+ years, with a successful business in her own consulting firm (CEO) in Virginia Beach and Richmond, VA.  Her background experience is 24+ years in the Human Resources field, of which 12+ years are within the Federal & Defense Contracting industry. She is the author of 750+ books on the topics of business, human resources research, career search practice, women and gender study, genealogy and family lineages, quotes for motivation and self-improvement, and Adult Coloring Books.  Her books can be found on Amazon.com under Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D.

 

 

FSC Career Blog | June 30, 2019

Your #Career : 8 Ways Getting a Job Has Changed In The Last Decade …The Job Market is Perpetually Evolving, which Means if you’ve Been Happily Employed for the Past Decade, it’s Safe to Say that Things are Different Now.

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The job market is perpetually evolving, which means if you’ve been happily employed for the past decade, it’s safe to say that things are different now. The way people look for jobs, the interview process and what employees look for are all slightly different now, although your time-tested job hunting and interviewing skills will still serve you well. To help you navigate these changes, Glassdoor is hosting a free livestream on Wednesday, April 25th from 6-7 PM PT.

Read on to get a sneak peek at some of the major ways searching for a job has changed in the past ten years, plus how you can work these shifts to your advantage.

1. It’s Easier to Find Exactly What You’re Looking for

Sure, online job postings were around ten years ago, but job sites have evolved in some major ways. In addition to having a greater volume of postings available online, you can now filter your search — not just for basics like job title and location, but also for salary ranges, date of posting and company size — using tools like Glassdoor’s job search feature. These filters allow you to avoid wasting time sifting through job descriptions that aren’t relevant to you, so you can make the most of your job hunting time.

How to Find a Job You’ll Want to Stay at for Good

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. Transparency Is a Priority

2017 was a prime year for whistleblowing at major corporations. While this might not seem relevant to job hunting, the spirit of transparency absolutely crosses over into this arena. According to Glassdoor’s “What’s Ahead for Jobs? Five Disruptions to Watch in 2018” report, it’s likely that more companies will begin to implement transparent hiring practices in order to allow potential hires to feel more clued in during the hiring process. Johnson & Johnson is one of the first companies to make this kind of system a reality, using a new hiring platform that allows candidates to track their application from start to finish, suggests next steps and provides helpful information about the company and role.

Of course, this also means that transparency is expected from candidates, who should be prepared to talk about their reasons for seeking a new job and the challenges they’ve encountered in past roles. And while embellishing your resume was never exactly encouraged, it’s an especially poor moment to try that tactic given today’s climate.

3. Being Well-Informed Is Crucial

Another major trend noted in the disruptions report is that recruiters are especially looking for candidates who have researched the company and are well-informed about the role and the industry they’re applying to work in. One Glassdoor survey found that employers prioritized informed candidates above all others, and that being a high-quality candidate essentially means being an informed one. How does this translate? Use your application and resume to show how much you know about your industry and the job roles you’re applying for, and you’re more likely to see heightened interest in your applications.

4. You Can Job Search (& Apply) Right on Your Phone

Yes, it’s really that easy. That means you can work on your job hunt while you’re standing in line at the grocery store or during your train commute. Five minutes here and there really add up, so this can work to your advantage if you’re searching for a job but have limited free time.

If you have your profile complete on Glassdoor, for example, you can utilize the Easy Apply feature, which allows you to submit an application without leaving the site or even uploading additional documents — a feature that isn’t available on all job sites. And research suggests that mobile job searching will be even hotter in the years to come. One 2015 Pew Research survey found that 28 percent of Americans have used their mobile phone for job searching.

5 Apps That’ll Transform Your Career

5. Your Skills Matter More Than Your Current Job Title

When updating your resume, it’s important to include not just the names of where you’ve worked and what your job titles have been, but also keywords that highlight your actual skills. Not only does this help recruiters pinpoint what you can actually do, but it also increases the chances of your resume making it to an actual human’s eyes when you apply for a job online. Many large companies utilize resume-scanning software that searches for keywords pertinent to each role, only passing the most relevant resumes along to HR for further review.

Plus, if there are skills you use in your job now that you enjoy using, you can use those as keywords for your job searches. This way, you might be able to find jobs with titles you hadn’t imagined for yourself, but in reality are a great fit for what you’re interested in doing next.

6. Hiring Is Hot — & Not Just for Tech

You might think that the only way to find a new job these days is to become a computer whiz. It’s true that Glassdoor’s 2018 disruptions report found that healthcare and tech jobs are steadily increasing. If you work in either of those industries, you’ll have plenty to choose from in terms of potential roles. These trends probably aren’t too surprising, but what’s especially promising for job hunters in 2018 is that more traditional job roles (think: construction laborers, restaurant waiters and truck drivers) are also in higher demand. While a decade ago it looked like computers, the internet and AI would make traditional job roles redundant, they’re actually on the rise. The takeaway? Don’t let a lack of technical skills discourage you from looking for something new.

7. Feedback Has Become a Major Focus

You may have already experienced that annual performance reviews are becoming less popular, with many companies choosing to do away with them entirely. Now, many businesses are opting to encourage feedback on a more frequent basis through regular check-ins and structured learning opportunities. Once you make it to the interview stage, showing you’re comfortable with receiving feedback, learning new skills and making changes to the way you work based on your organization’s current needs can set you apart from the rest of the candidate pool.

8. You Might Not Have to Leave Your Current Company to Try Something New

Another rising trend, according to Glassdoor’s disruption report, is “role experimentation” programs. While only a few companies have formal programs that allow current employees to try out a completely new job role and eventually transition over to that role full-time (provided it’s a good fit), it’s expected that more will become keen on the idea.

Research shows that one of the key reasons people leave their jobs is that their role no longer fits their skills or interests, and businesses are wising up to the fact that in order to keep their most talented employees — who naturally want to grow and change in their roles — they’ll have to be a little more flexible. If your company doesn’t have a formal program for career changers, check in with your HR department about what company policy on the matter is. You might be surprised by how open they are to role-switching.

 

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Your #Career : The Emotionally Intelligent Way To Cold-Email People (If You Must)…People Don’t Love being Contacted Out of the Blue. So you Need an Opening Line that Puts your Recipient Front and Center. Here are Five Ways to Craft One.

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I get about 10 cold emails a day. Most are from PR firms who know I’m a Fast Company contributor and want me to write about their clients. If the first line fails to draw me in, I hit delete; if I like the sound of it, I’ll read on. Same goes for cold phone calls from organizations pitching financial advice or seeking money for a charity: That opening statement is everything.

How do you create an opening–whether for an email or a phone call–that makes the person at the other end want to hear more? The answer is simple: flip your focus from yourself (or whatever it is you’re offering or asking for) to the person you’re reaching out to.

The fact is that nobody particularly likes to field cold emails or cold calls. But with a more emotionally intelligent opening, you can at least get them to listen. Here’s how.

Related: Do These 5 Emotionally Intelligent Things Within 5 Minutes Of Meeting Someone

NEVER DIVE RIGHT IN

It’s understandable that you want to get to the point–and explain why you’re writing or calling. But an opening line focused on your own agenda is likely a turnoff to the other person.

“The past six months has changed the way we talk about and understand gender equality in the workplace,” one recent PR pitch began. Okay, I thought, but why are you sharing this with me?Another publicity email opened with, “As we all know, millennials have grown up surrounded by technology, iPhones practically glued to their hands.” If “we all know” it already, what’s new here? Plus, I’m not a millennial, so why are you contacting me? (My editor, who is a millennial, isn’t too keenon millennial trend pieces, by the way.)

Some writers open with surprising facts about their subject, hoping the reader will care. One recent email began: “$46 billion a year is spent on leadership training, but a recent Gallup survey showed that 82% of employees find their leaders ‘uninspiring.’” Another began with a whopping 58-word sentence about the app the writer wanted me to profile (not something I do), but I’d had enough of that topic by the time I’d reached the end of the line.

The point here isn’t to complain about the bad practices of the PR industry. It’s that introductions to people you don’t know should never launch right into something abstract, newsy, or conceptual. Think about it: If you were at a networking event, would you begin a conversation with a content-rich disquisition on your area of expertise? Not if you wanted to engage your listener! The same wisdom applies to cold emails and phone calls.

Related: Mentorship And The Art Of The Cold Email

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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BEGIN WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

Instead, open with a focus on your reader or listener. Make it personal, so they’ll feel you’re really are talking to them–rather than delivering a generic pitch. These are five emotionally intelligent ways to do that in your very first line:

1. Mention a mutual interest. You might begin your email, “Good morning, Frank. I’m writing to you because I know you’re interested in the way leaders communicate, and that’s a focus that my client’s company shares.”

2. Refer to a shared contact. Our working lives are built on relationships, so if there’s a network connection you share, point that out to the stranger you’re reaching out to–you’ll seem a little less unfamiliar. Suppose you’re the head of a consulting business, and you are calling a potential CEO client. You might begin: “Good morning, Barbara. I’m calling because Ashanti Masterton told me you have an ambitious speaking agenda, and she thought you’d be interested in how my firm might support you.” These mutual ties will often get your foot in the door.

Related: Six Ways To Write Emails That Don’t Make People Silently Resent You

3. Show you know something about them. My antennae would go up if I got a letter that began: “I know your work as a columnist for Fast Company, and I’m fascinated by your writing on emotional intelligence in the workplace.” Likewise, if you’re extending a speaking invitation, you might begin, “I heard your recent talk on team building, and I can’t think of a better message for my team. Would you join us for our annual retreat, and share that same message?”

4. Convey respect or appreciation for what they’ve accomplished. Suppose you’ve decided you want to be mentored by a senior coworker who doesn’t know you. Your first step might be to send an email that opens with, “I’ve admired you from a distance for your ability to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ in our industry, and I’d love to grab coffee to hear a little more about your career experiences.”

5. Say what’s in it for them. Maybe you’re job searching and want to talk with the head of HR about opportunities. Cold pitching about job opportunities is always a crapshoot (it may work better for informational interviews), but you stand the best chance with an opening like, “I know your firm hires some of the best talent around, and I wonder if you’d be interested in the strong communications experience I’d bring.” I tried this approach early in my career when I cold-called the HR chief for a large telecom company; it landed me a job.

The way you open will determine how things conclude. So always start by referring directly to your listener or reader–their needs, interests, and priorities. Yes, that may mean getting to your point a moment or two later, but it’s the only way you’ll be granted the opportunity to do so in the first place.

FastCompany.com | March 18, 2018 | BY JUDITH HUMPHREY 4 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : Michelin finds Newest #Recruits in High School… Company Launches First-of-its-Kind #ApprenticeProgram

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Five young men signed on the dotted line last Friday, marking the start of their careers with Michelin.

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Michelin North America Chairman and President Scott Clark, center, signs Jacob Tucker’s papers for an apprenticeship program. Johnathan Harper, 16, left, is home-schooled and started his apprenticeship a month ago.

They ranged in age from 15 to 17, and they are the first class of high-school apprentices to work at a Michelin plant in North America. Michelin North America Chairman and President Scott Clark, on the job since Jan. 1, welcomed the teenagers personally during a ceremony at the Enoree Career Center just north of Greenville.

“This apprenticeship program is the first of its kind,” Clark said. “This is the first one, so the goal is to do this in other facilities like this all around the state where we have manufacturing plants. We could double, triple it.”

Mauldin High 10th-grader Iquavious Lewis, 15, said he’s known since the fall that he would be in the first class of Michelin’s Youth Apprentice program. He and fellow mechatronics students at Golden Strip Career Center had to take an aptitude test to qualify. Lewis has made all A’s in mechatronics.

Lewis said he’s not scared: “I’m excited!”

Clark and Wilton Crawford, Michelin’s plant manager at the US1 plant in Greenville, stressed the company’s need to reseed the aging workforce — and the difficulty of doing that during a period of full employment. All five high schoolers will be working at Crawford’s plant.

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The unemployment rate in South Carolina dipped below 4 percent at the close of 2017. Workforce participation rates have continued to decline, meanwhile, because of an aging shift in the state’s demographics, experts say.

“We have to be very creative and very aggressive,” Clark said.

In addition to its new apprenticeship program for high-schoolers and its longstanding Tech Scholars program, which currently trains, and bankrolls the education of, about 60 college-level apprentices, Michelin has started recruiting adult workers from other industries, such as hospitality. Clark also described a pilot program in Columbia for ex-offenders.

“We are working with a company that is beginning to retrain people who have had some issues with the law, let’s say, but are reformed,” Clark said, “and we are giving them an opportunity to explore careers as well.”

Michelin has about 9,000 employees across South Carolina — the vast majority of whom are direct hires for the French tire maker. Clark said his company is the largest manufacturing employer in the state. (BMW’s 10,000-plus workforce includes many contract workers, especially in its warehousing operations.) The high-school apprentice program takes teens who are midway through their junior year and has them continue to work at the plant through the end of their senior year. Ideally, Clark said, students will go on to enroll in a mechatronics or related program at an area technical college, where they can take advantage of the free tuition and expenses offered through Michelin’s Tech Scholars program.

He said he foresees doubling the Tech Scholars program in coming years.

“These students, if they get through this apprenticeship program with Michelin, and then can go to a two-year technical school, they can come out of school making $54,000, $55,000 a year,” Clark said.

The high school program is carried out under a provision that allows workers under the age of 18 to enter a plant so long as they are simultaneously enrolled in an academic program linked to the work.

Lynn Tuten, the work-based learning coordinator for Golden Strip Career Center, said she will be in touch with the boys regularly to make sure they are getting everything they need and are showing up to work on time, among other things. All five teens are enrolled in a mechatronics course at Golden Strip.

“This is real-world stuff,” Tuten said. “They can see if it’s something they really want to do.”

Four of the five teens are Mauldin High School students, and the fifth — Johnathan Harper — is home-schooled. Two of the young men started working at Michelin part time about a month ago — earning $10 an hour for nine hours a week — and the others will start this summer, working full-time hours until school starts again in August.

“We build and repair parts in the factory; we get them working and back on the line,” Harper said.

His mother, Terri Harper, has homeschooled her son all his life and said he might very well enroll at Greenville Tech and eventually get a four-year engineering degree.

“I think it’s great that Michelin is working with the career center to give these kids a jumping off point. They work so hard,” Harper said, adding that she liked the idea of her son landing on his feet career-wise.

“The salary does matter because somebody has to take care of his mama someday.”

US1’s Crawford said that during his time as a site leader in the United King dom, he met many workers who had been with Michelin for more than 40 years — starting out as 16-year-old apprentices who worked their way up through manufacturing. These included two plant managers and a man who is now the head of the technical team for North America.

“He’s 64, and he’s got 48 years with the company,” Crawford said, pointing to the high school students seated next to him, “and he stood right where you are many years ago. It’s phenomenal to see that.”

Michelin North America is an $11 billion company with plants across the U.S. and in Canada and Mexico. Some of the biggest ones are in the Upstate: US1 at Donaldson, which makes car tires, opened in 1975, and Anderson County has plants making rubber and earthmoving-equipment tires.

Author: Anna B. Mitchell | Greenville News USA TODAY NETWORK – SOUTH CAROLINA | March 13, 2018

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#Leadership : #WorkPlace Evolution- Your #TeamMembers Need To Disagree More. Here’s How To Help Them…You Do Want Everyone to Get on Board with Whatever Decision they Ultimately Reach Together. You just Don’t Want that to Happen Right Away.

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The most effective teams have regular, intense debates. The ability to disagree without causing offense is a crucial precondition for good communication and problem-solving. Yet whenever we ask the managers we speak with what they’d prefer–a team that’s almost always harmonious or one that has conflicts and arguments–the vast majority vote for the latter.

Not only is harmony overrated, but it undermines innovative thinking, particularly the kind that diverse work cultures are supposed to generate. Rather than encourage your team members to come to agreements quickly, effective managers do the reverse: They help their teams disagree–productively.

GROUND RULES FOR HEALTHY DEBATE

Teammates want the opportunity to challenge each other. As long as discussions are respectful and everyone gets a chance to contribute equally, most people thrive on this kind of debate, finding it not only intellectually stimulating but also helpful for unearthing the best solutions.

What’s more, teams typically feel more bonded and more effective when they have challenging discussions regularly, trading a wide range of ideas and perspectives. That’s even true when those debates get a little heated. After all, this is the whole point of diversity and inclusion–it’s about bringing in people whose points of view differ in order to spark new ideas and ways of looking at things. But facilitating these conversations takes some ground rules, like these:

  • Treat each other with respect, and challenge the position, not the person.
  • Listen to one another carefully before responding, and ask for clarification if needed. Gather facts; don’t jump to conclusions.
  • Come to the debate ready to present facts and data, not suppositions.
  • Do not compete to “win.” Debates are a chance to find and test the best ideas and to learn, not to score points.
  • After the team makes a decision collaboratively, everyone needs to respect and support it, even if they have their own reservations.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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SIX QUESTIONS FOR FACILITATING SMART DEBATES

Mark Beck is the CEO of JELD-WEN, a global window and door manufacturer with 20,000 employees. He believes it’s leaders’ jobs to step in and protect people when things get heated–which they sometimes still do, even after laying down solid guidelines.

In some cases, Beck says, he might take the side of a person whose view is under assault, even if he personally doesn’t necessarily agree with it. This isn’t gamesmanship, it’s to show that the person is offering up a reasonable way of thinking that should be respected. “The attacker usually steps back a little and softens their tone when a leader does that,” he told us.

And, Beck adds, managers must take the lead in getting everyone to participate by posing the right questions. Here are six great questions we’ve heard effective team leaders like Beck throw out in debates:

  1. That’s a good thought. Could you walk us through the process you went through to reach that conclusion?
  2. What rules should we be breaking here?
  3. What’s our biggest risk in this, and what’s our fallback position?’
  4. What if we did nothing at all–what would happen then?
  5. Are we missing or forgetting anything?
  6. Aside from earning us a profit, how would this decision change lives and make the world a better place?

Beck said that smart questions can encourage active debate when a team has plateaued or is stuck in a safe zone. At times of such inertia, he’ll tell his direct reports, “The only way you can get your topic on the management-team agenda is to frame it out as a question, and collectively we have to come up with an answer.”

CHANGING THE QUESTION

These six questions aren’t the end-all-be-all, though. Sometimes you need to reframe a question you’ve already asked and revisit it from a new angle.

The Best Team Wins: The New Science Of High Performance by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

When Beck arrived at JELD-WEN, the company’s focus was on getting ready to issue an initial public offering (IPO). He changed the question to, “How do we get ready to become a Fortune 500 company?” JELD-WEN did wind up issuing a very successful IPO in 2017, “but,” says Beck, “that’s been because we were focused on building a Fortune 500 company,” he said. “If we had just focused on the IPO and seen that as the finish line, I don’t think our story would have resonated with investors in the same way.”

And ironically enough, because his teams stick to respectful ground rules while they disagree, Beck estimates that they’re able to come to a consensus about 99% of the time. “If it’s done right, there’s usually no need for a leader to have to make a decision–it’s become obvious to everyone.”

And from there, Beck says, his job is actually pretty easy: “I might just say, ‘Let me summarize what I think we are all saying’.”

This article is adapted from The Best Team Wins: The New Science of High Performance by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. Copyright © 2018 by Gostick & Elton, IP, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

 

FastCompany.com | March 5, 2018 | BY ADRIAN GOSTICK AND CHESTER ELTON 4 MINUTE READ