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Google chairman Eric Schmidt attracted headlines recently for visiting North Korea, but he had been shy to talk about it. Today he finally opened up about the trip in a carefully worded Google+ pos...

“Being able to be truly happy at work is one of the keys to being happy in life,” says Heidi Golledge, CEO and cofounder of CareerBliss, an online career database. And what company couldn’t use a little more joy among its ranks?

I have been writing a great deal over the past few years about the toxic psychological impact of media and technology on children, adolescents and young adults, particularly as it regards turning them into faux celebrities—the equivalent of lead...

An assessment tool that measures employee performance against potential, and helps managers groom future leaders through development.

This set of inspirational thoughts for the new year will galvanize you into action.

by Ron Ashkenas | 10:00 AM December 28, 2012
I recently heard a stunning statistic: For the next 19 years, 10,000 people per day will turn 65 years old, and (presumably) retire shortly thereafter. While this graying of the Boomer generation certainly has implications for health care and social policy (and for me personally, as one of those eventual retirees), it may have even more significance for the nature of the workforce and the job of the manager.

First, there will be a shortage of workers for key jobs. This may sound hard to believe at a time when U.S. unemployment hovers around 8% and parts of Europe have 25% of their people out of work. Yet as millions of boomers leave the workforce, there are far fewer younger people to replace them. In the trucking industry alone, for example, it's estimated that there will be a shortage of over 100,000 drivers in just a few years. Moreover, the replacements will have far less experience and know-how, and will need considerable training to get up-to-speed. This will lead to significant gaps in areas such as engineering, petrol-chemicals, utilities, defense manufacturing, education, healthcare, and air traffic control.

Perhaps equally significant for managers is that the new workers — no matter how many of them there are — will operate differently than their predecessors. According to Dan Schawbel who has studied Millennials extensively, they differ from Boomers in a number of ways: They want immediate feedback and attention, and prefer the instant gratification of texting to the slow response of email; they prefer casual attire so they can "be themselves" at work; they want more flexibility with scheduling and work location; they value the nature and importance of the work over the pay and benefits; and they want to be involved in strategy and not just told what to do. Some recent studies also suggest that growing up with so much media and technology is creating a generation of people with shorter attention spans and less willingness to dig deeply into subjects.

Given these implications, managers (whether you're a Boomer or a Millennial) should take steps now to deal with the new workforce. Here are a few thoughts about what you can do:

Conduct a demographic risk-analysis of your team or organization. Not long ago I worked with a software firm that supported hundreds of legacy applications for the telecommunications industry. When they created a long-range plan to roll-up the applications, they realized that many of the experts — the only ones who knew the code — were going to retire before the planned integration dates. The management team revised the entire plan so that they wouldn't get caught without the needed expertise.

Accelerate training and transition planning. Most companies have some sort of yearly process for assessing talent and creating succession plans - but don't follow through on these plans with a sense of urgency. If you realize however that much of the knowledge and skill in your organization will be walking out the door — and not returning — in just a few years, it might change the way you think about it. For example, I recently made a presentation about best practices for acquisition integration to a company that was struggling with the aftermath of some recent deals. What's regrettable is that many of the best practices I discussed had already been developed in this company — and then lost as people retired.

Create an environment in which the new guard will thrive. Finally, build on the experience of high-tech and start-up firms and begin creating a different work environment in traditional organizations — with more flexibility, transparency, engagement, and fun. As my colleague Robert Schaffer wrote in HBR, we need to make the job a game so that Millennials will be attracted to join and stay, and commit the same energy to work that they expend on other activities. In the coming competition for talent, this might become one of the keys to creating a winning organization.

The current generation of Boomers, of which I am a charter member, has held sway over the work place for much of the past twenty years. But like an inevitable wave, the new workforce is on its way, and may already be here. And for our organizations to continue to thrive, all of us need to get ready.

FountainBlue’s monthly top-ten rules of leadership are designed to guide our client entrepreneurial tech companies and the community in general on leadership best practices for themselves, and for their teams and organizations. The questions and stories raised and the advice given has been mentioned before to individual members, and compiled and gathered to benefit the larger community. This month’s top-ten-leadership rules is about how to expand your brand beyond tactical results to strategic leader who delivers results.

It happens time and time again in the valley, ambitious, hard-working, result-delivering technologists rise up the corporate ladder, delivering stellar measurable results. We are rewarding for being smart, hard-working, and executing efficiently. But there comes a point in our career, where the powers to be tell us in no uncertain terms that we are great at the doing, but not strategic enough to further rise within the organization. If you’ve heard that, and would like to correct their perception, here are some thoughts on how to change your image in their eyes,

Know yourself and why you’d like to be thought of as more strategic.

1. Know your strengths and weaknesses, and how to best lead with your strengths.

2. Know why you’d like to be thought of as more strategic, and also what’s missing if you’re not more strategic. Imagine and act as if you already where you’d like to be.

Think of your past work in a different light, first in terms of what it did for your team and company, and then in terms of measurable results.

3. Map your career path following an overarching technology or business trend, and your results within that larger picture.

4. Update your profile to reflect this mindset and communicate from this larger perspective.

Evaluate opportunities that overlap your passion, your skills, and the market opportunity.

5. Map your next position, role, organization based on what’s logically next on your career and personal path, and explain how your past experiences and successes position you well for what’s next.

6. Be thorough in considering what’s next for you, even if it means that you leave your team, company, industry, geography.

If you really do choose the strategic path, be willing to give up some old and proven practices.

7. Follow the 80-20 rule, and force yourself to not be quite as thorough at some things.

8. Embrace the unknowns and trust your instincts and your gut more, for many times, you don’t have the time or resources to know much for certain.

Build strategic networks of relationships.

9. Strategic people know that it’s not about being right, it’s about how things are done, and how you make people feel.

10. Build relationships at all levels by speaking the language of others, and nurturing the success of all, for everyone has a piece of the puzzle.

The next time you have a review or feedback that you are not as strategic as you can be, read above and prepare for a measured rebuttal about how you are much more strategic than he or she thinks you are.

Later in this article, I'm going to tell you something you probably don't know about Drew Houston, the founder and CEOE of Dropbox.I'm a big fan of Drew. I have known him for many years (well before

Want to test your leadership mettle? See how well you do when leading those not inclined to follow. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people may be comforting, it might even seem like a good idea, but it’s not the stuff of great leadership.

3 ways to improve decision-making skills by relying less on intuition and more on analysis by learning to contradict yourself, think ahead.

People who connect well connect on four levels. These four levels move from the visible to the invisible realm, from the surface to the core, from the small moment to the cosmic one. We all play on all of these...

We live in a more overwhelming world than ever. Businesses are more complex, work is more demanding, and our data is constantly tracked. Too often, we just accept that as a given.

According to author Matthew May, we don't have to. In his recent book, The Laws Of Subtraction, May and a series of business executives, creatives, and thought leaders focus on what's an increasingly essential skill for success, the ability to simplify and remove complexity, rather than just adding more. We've taken May's 6 laws, and some of the best examples and contributions that illustrate how you can subtract to become more successful.