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Why You Can't Find A Job You Love. Do you ever wake up in the morning and ask yourself: “Am I in the right job?” “At the right company?” “On the right career path?” “Doing what I am supposed to be doing with my life?” If so, you are not alone. After almost a decade of research, Tempe, Ariz, based “purpose” firm Ignite reports that more than 95% of workers in the U.S. are in the wrong roles. In another study by the company, 1,916 randomly selected employees between the ages of 23 and 28 were asked if they were interested in changing jobs, and 1,571 said yes. A recent Gallup study concluded that 71% of American workers are not engaged at their jobs. [More from Forbes: 10 Things You Should Never Ask About In A Job Interview] Considering that the average American works 8.8 hours every day, not many people are jumping out of bed these days. So why can’t people find jobs they love?

Hard Work "Work hard, my boy, and you will be successful" was my grandfather's childhood advice to me. Bad Marriages Mere Passion Money Dr. Dr. Why your HR department needs a major reboot. By Gary Hamel (TheMIX) -- Most of us have no trouble coming up with examples of companies that failed to mobilize around a major new opportunity (Intel (INTC) and chips for mobile devices), or procrastinated when confronted with a wrenching discontinuity (Kodak and digital photography), or struggled to let go of a beloved but dying strategy (General Motors (GM) and its bloated brand portfolio). In most of the cases of strategic inertia I've come across, HR wasn't the primary culprit, but neither was it a powerful force for change. We've launched a hackathon with our friends at CIPD because we believe HR can play a hugely positive role in helping companies to become adaptable at their core.

I've always loved this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "There are always two parties -- the party of the past and the party of the future, the establishment and the movement. " Which of these two statements most accurately describes the HR function in this organization? 1. 2. Driving Change Without Rocking the Boat. An M.B.A. Isn’t a Ticket to the Top - At Work.

Why You Shouldn’t Go To Law School | It's Up to You. 10 business courses we wish they offered in college. By Martin Zwilling FORTUNE -- I'm sure that every one of us who has been out in the business world for a few years can look back with perfect hindsight and name a few college courses we should have taken. What's more disconcerting to me is that I can name a few that weren't even offered, and more than a few students who graduate ill-prepared for the real world! I won't even try to cover here the ones you didn't find for your personal life, like managing personal finances and credit. But on the business side, here is my list of useful courses that we wish existed, but as far as I know, still aren't generally available: Basic Office Politics. The real problem for many of these, I suspect, is finding qualified instructors to teach. Amazingly, it seems that people in business are more highly educated these days, but less prepared than ever before.

Marty Zwilling is CEO & Founder of Startup Professionals Inc. Three Myths about What Customers Want - Karen Freeman, Patrick Spenner and Anna Bird. By Karen Freeman, Patrick Spenner and Anna Bird | 9:10 AM May 23, 2012 This post is the last in a three-part series. Most marketers think that the best way to hold onto customers is through “engagement” — interacting as much as possible with them and building relationships. It turns out that that’s rarely true. In a study involving more than 7000 consumers, we found that companies often have dangerously wrong ideas about how best to engage with customers. Myth #1: Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand. Actually, they don’t. How should you market differently? First, understand which of your consumers are in the 23% and which are in the 77%. Myth #2: Interactions build relationships. No, they don’t. Of the consumers in our study who said they have a brand relationship, 64% cited shared values as the primary reason.

CEB has done extensive work on shared values, showcasing how brands like Mini, Pedigree and Southwest use them to engage with customers. Wrong. Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent. 9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money. The ability to motivate employees is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can possess.

Two years ago, I realized I didn’t have this skill. So I hired a CEO who did. Josh had 12 years in the corporate world, which included running a major department at Comcast. I knew he was seasoned, but I was still skeptical at first. I was wrong. With his help and the help of the great team leaders he put in place, Josh not only rebuilt the culture, but also created a passionate, hard-working team that is as committed to growing and improving the company as I am. Here are nine things I learned from him: Be generous with praise. 7 Things Your Resume Just Doesn't Need. Three Types of People to Fire Immediately. “I wanted a happy culture. So I fired all the unhappy people.” —A very successful CEO (who asked not to be named) We (your authors) teach our children to work hard and never, ever give up.

We teach them to be grateful, to be full of wonder, to expect good things to happen, and to search for literal and figurative treasure on every beach, in every room, and in every person. But some day, when the treasure hunt is over, we’ll also teach them to fire people. Show of hands: How many of you out there in Innovationland have gotten the “what took you so long?” We imagine a whole bunch of hands. These people—and we’re going to talk about three specific types in a minute—passive-aggressively block innovation from happening and will suck the energy out of any organization. When confronted with any of the following three people—and you have found it impossible to change their ways, say goodbye. 1. Victims are people who see problems as occasions for persecution rather than challenges to overcome. 2. The best tidbits from the Steve Jobs bio. "Steve Jobs," an eagerly awaited biography of the late Apple-co-founder, went on sale Monday.

"Steve Jobs," the first authorized biography of the late Apple co-founder, went on sale MondayWalter Isaacson's book contains a wealth of fresh details about Jobs' life and careerJobs chose Apple logo over another -- a whole apple that looked too much like a cherryIt was Jobs' idea to get rid of the screen on the iPod Shuffle (CNN) -- "Steve Jobs,' the biography of the late tech visionary that went on sale Monday, has already produced plenty of headlines: How Jobs met his birth father without knowing who he was, how he swore bitter revenge on Google for developing its competing Android system, and how he waited too long after his cancer diagnosis to get surgery that might have saved him. But the 656-page book by hand-picked biographer Walter Isaacson also contains a wealth of smaller, but no less telling, details about the brilliant but difficult Apple co-founder.

Childhood and early years. 5 ways to manage your autocratic boss - Ask Annie. By Anne Fisher, contributor FORTUNE -- Dear Annie: I am a senior software specialist with decades of experience. Yet the manager I'm working for still doesn't trust me and won't grant me any decision-making flexibility. In fact, he treats me like one of the enlisted men who worked for him in his previous career in the military. I've consistently kept my skills up to date through multiple technology evolutions, and my knowledge of my field is far superior to his. Nevertheless, he limits my "bandwidth" to what he understands, which is nowhere near my potential. As a team, we've paid the price for his ignoring my technical advice. Dear Seething: Yikes. Anybody reporting to a difficult person (which includes most of us, at one time or another), has three basic choices, says Gonzague Dufour: "Limit the pain, target the gain, or leave.

" Dufour, a longtime HR chief at Philip Morris (PM), Kraft (KFT), and other large companies, now runs executive recruiting and development at Bacardi. 1. 2. 3. 4. Is there a 'bamboo ceiling' at U.S. companies? - Ask Annie. By Anne Fisher, contributor FORTUNE -- Dear Annie: I just got passed over for yet another promotion, the third one in five years, even though I've been working flat-out and all my performance evaluations have been great. This is upsetting, but perhaps not surprising, considering that I am Asian American (third-generation Chinese) and there is no one of Asian extraction in any high position at this company.

I hate to "play the race card," but given the circumstances, I can't help wondering if there is some subtle race discrimination at work here. What are your thoughts? — Invisible Man Dear I.M.: You aren't the only one wondering. The gap clearly isn't due to a lack of education: 16% of all Ivy League college grads identify as Asian or Asian American (over three times the group's representation in the population overall), and more than one-third (35%) of students at top schools like M.I.T. and Stanford identify as Asian or Asian American.

So what gives? You don't have to go it alone.