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Another Techniques you can use:

Technique 3 - Expand Your Span of Relevance

? Technology transfer from one field to another, usually with some degree of alteration and adaptation, is one way in which you can make a creative contribution.
? You may be familiar with a body of knowledge or technical capability unknown to others in your field because you have worked in more than one industry. Or it may come about as a result of your travels to other countries.
? People with a narrow span of relevance are thinking within the boundaries of their own industry. Jump over the wall! Develop a wide span of relevance, for there are connections between every other industry in the world and yours – only if you could see them.
? It depend on your ‘power to connect the seemingly unconnected’, or at least the things that hitherto have not been brought together in a new and interesting relation.

It is the function of creative people to perceive the relations between thoughts, or things or forms of expression that may seem utterly different, and to combine them into some new forms – the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.
Quotation by William Plomer

Technique 4 - Practise Serendipity

? Serendipity means finding valuable and agreeable ideas or things – or people – when you are not consciously seeking them.
? You are more likely to be serendipitous if you have a wide span of attention and a broad range of interests.
? Being over-organized, planning your life down to the last minute like a control freak, is inimical to creativity. For chaos often breeds ideas. As A A Milne said: ‘One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.’
? Developing your capacity for creative thinking will bring you rewards, but they may not be the ones you expect now.
? A creative thinker needs to be adventurous and open-minded like a resourceful explorer.
? Sometimes in life you never quite know what you are looking for until you find it.

Reflect this Leadership Thoughts from successful people

Gene A. Abbott, CEO
Abbott and Associates, Inc.
A good leader makes sure he is surrounded by the right people.

2: Daniel P. Amos, CEO
AFLAC
Treat your employees well.

3: William Bonner, President
Agora
Focus on the work itself.

4: Niranjan Ajwani, CEO
Ajwani Group of Companies
For me a great leader is an enabler and a facilitator.

5: David T. Mclaughlin, Chairman
American Red Cross
Focus on the two or three issues that will effect the future of the enterprise.

6: A.J. Wasserstein, CEO
ArchivesOne, Inc.
Never let any relationship, internal or external, go stale or unmanaged.

7: Chip Perry, President and CEO
AutoTrader.com
Challenge the status quo.

8: Roy Vallee, CEO
Avnet, Inc.
Work hard to ensure your employees are successful in their careers and they, in turn, will work hard to ensure your company’s success.

9: Daniel Biederman, President
Bryant Park Restoration Corp./34th Street Partnership
Reexamine absolutely every piece of conventional wisdom that comes across your path.

10: William H. Goodwin, Jr., CEO
CCA Industries
Make good, simple, honest, and ethical decisions.

11: James M. Anderson, President
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Be nimble in pursuing opportunity.

12: Matt Rubel, CEO
Cole Haan
Ask for their best thinking and then really listen.

13: Joseph Deitch, CEO
Commonwealth Financial Network
The primary role of the leader is to do just that—to lead.

14: Sanjay Kumar, Chairman and CEO
Computer Associates International, Inc.
A leader must be able to make change happen.

15: Archie W. Dunham, Chairman
ConocoPhillips
Focus. You cannot go everywhere and do everything if you expect to perform well.

16: William G. Crutchfield, Jr., CEO
Crutchfield Corp.
The fundamental role of a successful leader is to achieve alignment.

17: S. Michael Joseph, CEO
DACOR Distinctive Appliances
Orient your company to a higher purpose.

Here are some techniques you can use to develop your critical thinking skills.

Technique 1 - Use of Analogy
?    Thinking by analogy, or analogizing, plays important part in imaginative thinking and creative thinking.
?    Nature suggests models and principles for the solutions of problems.
?    There are other models or analogies to be found in existing products and organizations. Why reinvent the principle of the wheel when it has already been discovered? Some simple research may save you the bother of thinking it out for yourself.
Technique 2 - Make the Strange Familiar and the Familiar Strange
?    The process of understanding anything or anyone unfamiliar, foreign, unnatural, unaccountable – what is not already known, heard or seen – is best begun by relating it by analogy to what we know already. But it should not end there.
?    The reverse process of making the familiar strange is equally important for creative thinking. We do not think about what we know. Artists can help us to become aware of the new within the old.
?    ‘No man really knows about other human beings,’ wrote John Steinbeck, ‘the best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.’
?    ‘Last night I thought over a thousand plans, but this morning I went my old way’, says the Chinese proverb. Settled habits of thought, over-addiction to the familiar, will smother the dreams and ideas of the night.
?    This morning you made a cup of tea or coffee and had your breakfast – the same as yesterday. But was it? You will never even brush your teeth in precisely the same way as yesterday. Every minute is unique.

Predicting future market returns from Insider Trading activities.

Many people benefit from Insider Trading Information and get successful with their investment.
Aggregate insider trading is a reliable predictor of the future market returns.
1. Aggregate insider trading predicts aggregate stock returns. The overall stock market increases more if the past aggregate insider trading is positive than it does if the past aggregate insider-trading signal is negative. However, stock prices do not decline following insider sell signals. They simply rise less than those following positive aggregate insider-trading signals.
2. The strength of the aggregate insider-trading signals increases with the aggregation period. Hence aggregating insider-trading signals over the past 12-month period gives more reliable signals than aggregating insider-trading signals over the past month or the past 3 months.
3. Combining firm-specific insider-trading signals with the aggregate signals leads to better forecasting of future stock returns.
4. Aggregate insider trading predicts changes in future economic growth up to two years ahead. Other studies have also shown that stock returns are also a leading indicator of future real activity up to one year ahead. Consequently it should not be surprising that aggregate insider trading forecasts furture stock returns up to one year ahead.
5. It is also possible to time industry returns using industrywide insider trading. For example: U.S. auto stocks are better predicted by using the aggregate industrywide insider trading instead of the firm-specific insider trading in each firm.

You should ask the following questions to determine effective strategy for growth:
?    Where are the most profitable sections of the business?
?    What are the short, medium and long term prospects for those other potentially profitable parts?
?    How bad is the business? For example, does it dependent on too few products, customers, suppliers, personnel or distribution channels?
?    How clearly focused is the business? Is it overwhelmed with too many products, markets and initiatives, or is it running on empty with too few opportunities on which to capitalise?
?    What is likely to be the best method of expansion, and is it affordable in terms of money, other resources and time?
?    What are the advantages and disadvantages of expansion, and what must be done to achieve the benefits and avoid the pitfalls?
?    What do people in the organisation see as the best options? What are their views of potential opportunities, threats and difficulties?
?    Is there the commitment to act decisively and consistently? Once set, the course needs to be rigorously followed. One of the greatest obstacles to growth is inertia.
?    How the changes will affect people? If employees feel threatened, disregarded or insecure, then no matter how good the decision and implementation it is likely to fail as people will not be sufficiently committed to it.
?    What are the key success criteria and performance measures? How will these be monitored and enforced?

Here’s a list of strategies for effective retention:

1.    Make a good start.

This begins with hiring people who are suitable for their jobs and making sure that they understand what they are getting into. A good start also begins with a new-employee orientation that makes people feel welcomed and part of the company.

2.    Create a great environment—with bosses whom people respect.

Managers often assume that company policies and corporate culture determine the working environment. They do, up to an extent. But policies can be circumvented. In any case, the atmosphere in a department or unit is more important to individual employees than the culture of the corporation as a whole.
Bad bosses are not conducive to a great environment. How many of your unit’s managers or supervisors are repellent to their reports? How many have temper tantrums, berate their subordinates in public, blame others for their own failures, or never have the sense to say “Thanks, you’re doing a good job”? If your managers or supervisors are repellent, count on every employee with marketable skills to leave.
In the end, it’s better to replace bad managers and supervisors than to replace an endless stream of good employees.

3.    Share information freely.

Freely dispensing information—about the business, about financial performance, about strategies and plans—tells employees that you trust them, that they are important partners, and that you respect their ability to understand and contribute to the business as a whole.

4.    Give people as much autonomy as they can handle.

Many people enjoy working with a minimum of supervision. So give your employees as much autonomy as they can handle. Doing so will make them happy and make your job as manager easier.

5.    Challenge people to stretch and give extra.

Most people—particularly the ones you want most to retain—enjoy a challenge and the feeling that you’ve entrusted them with bigger responsibilities than they had a right to expect. So put the people you want most to retain into jobs that will make them stretch—and give them the support they need to succeed.

6.    Be flexible.

Flexible work arrangements are highly successful in retaining employees. To be sure, not every manager has the authority to create whole new work arrangements. But nearly everybody can allow some on-the-spot flexibility, letting employees rearrange work to care for a sick child, for example, or to keep a doctor’s appointment. Today’s employees value that kind of flexibility.

7.    Design jobs to encourage retention.

Nothing is more soul-deadening for an intelligent employee than a job that is too repetitive, too isolated, insufficiently challenging, or downright unpleasant. So if you see unacceptably high turnover in a critical job category, take a good look at what you’re asking people in that job to do every day. You may be able to cure the turnover problem through job redesign: adding variety to a repetitive job, engaging isolated employees in occasional team projects, upping the challenge, etc. If a job involves one or more repugnant tasks, consider eliminating or outsourcing those tasks.

8.    Identify potential defectors early.

Great work environments and great jobs are a matter of opinion; what challenges one person may terrify another.You won’t know how well you’re doing on either score unless you ask.

9.    Be a retention-oriented manager.

Never forget that part of your responsibility as a manager is to ensure proper staffing in your unit. Retaining good and excellent performers is part of that job. So look at how you manage people and how you schedule workflow. Are you the kind of boss who manages in ways that encourage the best people to stay, or are you unknowingly driving them away?

How to invest on Term Life Insurance - Part2

HOW DO I SELECT THE BEST OF TERM INSURANCE?

In contrast with permanent cash value types of insurance, the term insurance policy, with the lowest premium among all identical term insurance policies, is generally the least expensive policy. This would seem to indicate that term insurance can be purchased as a commodity with the lowest price being the indicator of the “best” policy among insurers of acceptable quality and financial strength.

Factors to Consider When Comparing Term Policies

All of the policy provisions must be checked to see if the policies provide identical benefits. In most cases, the policies available from different companies will not be identical. Therefore, the slight differences in the policy provisions will need to be weighed against the differences in the premiums.

Here are some factors to consider:

1.     In the case of renewable term policies, check the schedule of future renewal premiums. A policy with the lowest initial premiums may have higher renewal premiums than other policies.

2.     Check the age to which coverage may be continued without evidence of insurability. A policy with a lower premium may discontinue the automatic renewal right before other higher premium policies.

3.     Check the grace period provision to see if the policy remains in effect for 31 days after the expiration of the term of the policy. A policy that does not provide the grace period may leave the client uninsured if he or she happens to be late with a renewal premium.

4.     Check the age to which a convertible policy may be converted to ordinary whole life at attained age without evidence of insurability. It may be worth some additional premium dollars to guarantee this conversion right for additional years.

5.     Check whether the incontestability and suicide clauses of the conversion policy will be modified to provide that the two-year qualifying periods will run from the issue date of the term policy if the term policy is converted to whole life.

6.     Check whether the conversion clause permits the client to convert the policy to an ordinary whole life policy with the waiver of premium rider without evidence of insurability. If it does, check whether there are any limitations due to preexisting conditions.

The right to include the waiver of premium rider in the converted policy can be an important feature, particularly if the conversion to a policy with a waiver of premium rider can be made even if the insured is already disabled. Also, in those policies that permit conversion to a policy with a waiver of premium rider, check to see if there is a minimum age to convert (such as age 55) if the insured individual is already disabled. In general, it is worth it to pay higher premiums to acquire a policy with more liberal rules regarding conversion to an ordinary whole life policy with the waiver of premium rider.

The First Part of my writing will cover basic questions that everyone have. What is it? What are their advantages and disadvantages?

WHAT IS IT?

The two principal characteristics of term insurance are: (1) the insured must die for any payments to be made; and (2) by definition, the contract expires at the end of the term. Stated more specifically, a term life insurance policy promises to pay a death benefit to a beneficiary only if the insured dies during a specified term.

The contract makes no promise to pay anything if the insured lives beyond the specified term. Generally, no cash values are payable under a term life insurance contract. If the insured survives the specified term, the contract expires and provides no payment of any kind to the policyowner.

ADVANTAGES

1.     Term insurance allows a person to acquire the greatest death benefit for the lowest premium outlay when the policy is first issued. However, this does not mean that term insurance is necessarily the least expensive form of insurance over the full duration of needed coverage. Since term premiums increase at each renewal, at the later ages the premium cost will far exceed the level premium that would have been charged for an ordinary whole life policy issued at the same age as the original term policy.

2.     Term insurance is the best alternative for temporary life insurance needs. Usually term insurance is the best alternative if protection is needed for less than 10 years. Conversely, some form of cash value life insurance will generally be the best alternative if protection must continue for 15 or more years. If the duration of the needed protection is between 10 and 15 years, the best alternative depends upon the facts and circumstances of the case. As a general rule of thumb, term insurance will tend to be better than cash value insurance at issue ages below age 45, and worse at older issue ages if the length of the need for protection is between 10 and 15 years.

3.     Younger persons may acquire substantial face amounts of coverage at relatively low immediate cost, perhaps more than their immediate needs, and thereby guarantee that they will have the necessary level of coverage when their needs and family obligations later increase, even if they are then uninsurable.

4.     The conversion feature of renewable and convertible term allows policyholders to enjoy higher death protection than they could otherwise afford and later allows them to “lock-in” their premiums and build cash values when their ability to pay premiums increases.

5.     Various types of term insurance—level, decreasing, and increasing—can be combined as riders with other types of permanent insurance to create a package that meets a person’s special death protection, savings, and affordability needs.

6.     Life insurance proceeds are not part of the probate estate, unless the estate is named as the beneficiary of the policy. Therefore, the proceeds can be paid to the beneficiary without any delay caused by administration of the estate.

7.     There is no public record of the death benefit amount or to whom the death benefit is payable (if paid to someone other than the deceased’s estate).

8.     The death benefit proceeds are generally not subject to federal income taxes.

9.     The death benefit proceeds are often exempt from state inheritance taxes.

10.  Life insurance policies can be used as collateral or security for personal loans. Although lenders generally prefer permanent types of policies because of the cash values, a term policy is often sufficient if the borrower is a good credit risk and the loan is very likely to be repaid unless he or she dies.

DISADVANTAGES

1.     Term insurance has no tax-free, automatic savings feature as permanent coverage does.

2.     The premiums increase until payment becomes prohibitive at later ages. This is one of the main reasons for the purchase of whole life insurance since coverage is useless if it cannot be held until the date it is needed most.

3.     Term insurance generally has no loan values and no living benefits.

4.     Term insurance only provides coverage for the term of the contract, not for the insured’s entire life. In other words the term coverage may expire before the need does. A person may become uninsurable at a later age when the need for insurance still exists.

5.     Life insurance of any kind is generally not available to persons in extremely poor health. However, persons in moderately poor health can often obtain insurance at “substandard” rates (a reference to the insured person’s health, not to the quality or strength of the insurance company), which means higher premiums. It is easier to find ordinary whole life policies than term policies for persons who fall into the substandard rating category.