The holidays don't have to be stressful. Still, they often bring financial worries and family-related anxieties. Best-selling author and mind/body expert Loretta LaRoche offers the following tips to help stressed-out consumers deal with holiday anxiety.

• Plan Ahead-The first order of business, advises LaRoche, is to decide when, where and with whom you are going to celebrate the holidays. "Making your holiday plans well ahead of time sets others' expectations and ensures that there are no misunderstandings among family members," says LaRoche. "Put your efforts into celebrating rather than making matters worse. It will lift your spirits rather than drain your energy." In addition to easing last-minute stress, booking travel in advance allows you to lock in preferred travel dates and reduced rates for airfare and lodging.

• Consider Accommodations-Family-related tensions may contribute to holiday stress, especially when there is too much family in too little space. You may want to consider staying in a temporary furnished apartment rather than a hotel. Furnished apartments contain "homey" comforts such as separate bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms and fully equipped kitchens. They're often available at comparable or lower prices than individual hotel rooms. Also, many of these apartments offer reduced rates with reduced minimum-stay requirements throughout fall and winter. Oakwood Worldwide has the largest network of fully furnished apartments in the United States.

• Build a Better Budget- Make a list of gifts and the people you're buying for and budget wisely. "You may want to explore the gift of shared experiences. Take a significant other, family member or friend to a movie and dinner, museum or play. It builds on memories, the gift that keeps on giving." Try to anticipate unexpected holiday expenses that have a pesky tendency to "pop up." For example, will your office likely plan a gift exchange? Will your friends go out for a nice holiday meal?

• Take Your Time-To avoid burnout, budget your time wisely. Schedule your holiday shopping excursions around work and other responsibilities and avoid waiting until the last minute, says LaRoche. If needed, take a day off from work to do your shopping. "Include having fun. Holidays are not supposed to be stress rehearsals."

• Don't Be Afraid to Say No-"If your social calendar is already crowded with get-togethers, don't feel guilty saying 'no,'" says LaRoche. "The holidays are supposed to be a time of fun and togetherness. If you're too stressed out to relax at a social get-together, then stay home-this will help you re-energize to enjoy the next holiday event."

• Take Care Of Yourself- Many people tend to overindulge on food and alcohol during the holidays and often skip their normal exercise routine. "Make a concerted effort to avoid fattening hors d'oeuvres and caloric cocktails at parties," says LaRoche. "You can taste everything, just don't eat the whole thing. You will not be reported by the 'food police.' If you prioritize, your workout routine doesn't have to fall by the wayside."

• Enlist Help-"Ask children to help you in the kitchen, or put them on gift-wrapping duty," LaRoche suggests. "Also, if you stay in a fully furnished apartment, you can share hosting responsibilities with family and friends you're visiting. Because these kitchens are stocked with cookware, china and silverware, you can offer to organize a meal at your apartment to take a little pressure off your local host."

• Get Real-You don't have to live up to the movie-perfect vision of the holiday season, says LaRoche. "The house does not have to be spotless, and you don't have to prepare the perfect feast," she says. "No one will erect a monument to you because of how perfect you were, but they will remember how much joy you brought them." She suggests buying premade holiday cookies and side dishes to relieve stress. "Expect that there will be ups and downs-just like there are at other times of the year," says LaRoche.

Staying at a temporary furnished apartment while you're away for the holidays could help relieve stress.

Visit to find an Oakwood property near your holiday destination.

Several useful tools for holiday season budgeting and gift shopping can be found at

Everyone is on stage when it's gift-giving time. Will the giver's attempt to make someone's life happier win acclaim after the show is over or will it bomb out? There is a way, however, to suit someone's sweet-tooth and entertainment tastes perfectly that will lead you to become a star in someone's eyes. What's the secret?

Blockbuster Movie Gift Baskets is the answer and here's why. These gifts have within them the exact ingredients needed to boost anybody's enthusiasm. Imagine opening up a movie themed package that is full of treats such as popcorn, candy bars, cookies, peanuts and more. With this type of present, though, the sweets are just the teaser. What gives the full impact in your gift giving performance?

Blockbuster gift cards are the main attraction within Blockbuster Movie Gift Baskets! They are the gift recipient's ticket to whatever entertains them whether it's adventure, comedy, kid-stuff, romance or anything else. This brings the gift to a whole new level in which someone's appetite for tasty snacks and for entertainment will be satisfied in one fell swoop.

Two occasions come to mind that would be perfect for the giving of this type of gift. The first is for the happy occasions of birthdays. Know anyone who doesn't enjoy sitting back for a couple hours in a satisfying fantasy world? That's what movies are all about! You would be giving someone all of the ingredients of what they want with snacks included as well.

The other occasion best suited for giving Blockbuster Movie Gift Baskets is when someone's health is on the fritz. What's the best thing to do when a person is under the weather? You've got to give them a boost and a change of thought. Wouldn't a good movie custom chosen by them be a medicine to raise their spirits to a more healthy level? Of course it would! The snacks included would elevate their mood as well.

Will you symbolically win an Oscar in your gift giving performance? How can you not? Take the advice of aGiftBasketP and consider Blockbuster Movie Gift Baskets for birthdays, get-wells, and any other situation that needs your star presence.

Brian is the owner of Gift Basket Paradise and offers his gift giving advice for birthdays and get-well situations. He invites you to visit his Blockbuster Movie Gift Baskets webpage at http://www.agiftbasketparadise.com/movie_gift_baskets.html for some very entertaining ideas to consider.

In 1962 a young cartoonist, Stan Lee, came up with an idea for a new comic superhero. During an era in which most of our superheroes were muscle-bound adults, young Peter Parker struck an unlikely figure.

An adolescent -- a pimply, gangly short-sighted teen you would expect to be the last kid picked for sports -- Peter Parker was no typical hero. However, his shortcomings struck a chord with a comic-book audience living through those same difficult times; victims of bullies who dreamed of waking up one morning with the power to stop them, to make a difference, to be someone -- anyone -- other than the nerdy kid they saw in the mirror.

Despite being rejected by Marvel Comics, Stan Lee persisted in selling the idea of Spiderman and was picked up by the struggling title "Amazing Fantasy" -- and the rest is history. Within a few years "The Amazing Spiderman" was a mainstream comic book.

Flash forward forty years to the release of Spiderman the movie. Following the success in 2000 of another superhero adaptation, the first X-Men movie, expectations were high for Spidey's first big screen outing. Not one to disappoint, Spiderman became the first movie in history to take $100million in its opening weekend, and the only movie ever to deny a Star Wars film the top spot at the box office.

The second instalment of the Spiderman series did just as well, taking $88million in its opening weekend and setting a record for highest takings on an opening day at over $40million. If enormous profits and critical acclaim weren't enough, Spiderman 2 went on to win the Academy Award for Visual Effects.

So, considering that the Spiderman series has so far taken almost $800million at the US box office -- and much more overseas and in the rental market -- next year's Spiderman 3 has some mighty big boots to fill.

From the look of it director Sam Raimi has every intention of living up to the standards he set for first two movies, and then some. With a budget estimated at $250million, Spiderman 3 will be the most expensive movie ever made, beating the previous record of King Kong's $207million by an enormous margin.

Spiderman 3 will see the return of Harry Osborn (James Franco), still set on avenging his father's death. Following on from the final scenes of Spiderman 2, Osborn will command the technology developed by his father the Green Goblin in his mission to kill Spiderman.

Osborn won't be alone in his quest. Rumor has it that a second villain played by Topher Grace (Mona Lisa Smile, Traffic) will be getting a piece of the action. Based on a villain from the comic book series, Grace will play Venom, a symbiotic life form consisting of an alien lifeform and journalist Eddie Brock.

While principal filming for the third instalment was completed in August 2006, it will take months to complete the complex CGI necessary for the movie. In fact, some key scenes were shot as early as November of 2005 to allow Sony Pictures Imageworks the time to prepare the visual effects.

It seems, then, that with the enormous budget, new villains and mind-blowing visual effects, Spiderman 3 will be aiming to not only live up to success of the first two instalments, but blow them away entirely.

For articles on the subject of Hollywood - from the early days of cinema to the bleeding edge of CGI imagery and every point in between - James Shenton writes at www.EliteMovieD There you can find articles, entertainment and movie downloads.

If you own a small business, postcards are an excellent way of establishing and maintaining relationships with your customers and suppliers. You can send them on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas, New Year or Easter. It is a good opportunity to prove your customers that they are important for you and, at the same time, remind them of the services you are offering.

Your business partners will appreciate a postcard as a sign of consideration. Even your employees will be happy to receive a postcard on holidays. Such a gesture will not cost you very much, but your employees will be thankful and they will feel motivated to do their best. Nevertheless, the most important thing that postcards do is to promote your company's image, products and services. Overall, postcards can be an important part of your marketing campaign.

In order to customize your postcards and brochures, you can use free templates. Postcard, brochure or other kinds of promotion material should contain your company's logo and references to the services that your company is providing. You can create your own custom postcard or ask a graphic designer to do it at BlockbusterP Full color postcards have a greater influence upon customers, so be sure to select them.

You should pay attention to other aspects that affect the quality of the postcard, such as the material used, the thickness of the postcard, the quality of the ink used on printing. You should choose a reliable printing services provider that will correctly identify your needs and satisfy them in the shortest time and with maximum of efficiency. Reliable printers also provide additional services such as free brochure templates, two-sided print option and others.

If you are looking for cheap high quality printing and low prices, BlockbusterP has what you need. When it comes to postcards printing, our offer is practically unbeatable. BlockbusterP has postcards that are 50% thicker than the traditional ones. BlockbusterP also offers free services such as UV gloss coating, which makes the colors richer and more powerful. Moreover, you have a two-sided print option; full color printing; full bleed printing, which means that there will be no white borders on the print area.

BlockbusterP also prints brochures, flyers and other marketing materials. You will find a multitude of free templates from which you can choose. Professionalism and care for our customers' needs have always been our core values. That is why today BlockbusterP offers the fastest, cheapest and most reliable printing services.

In order to get the customers' attention, you must have an aggressive and efficient marketing campaign. The promotion materials that you use are an important part of the campaign, so you must pay great attention to them. They must send a clear message to the customers and be original enough to stand out, in a world too often saturated with publicity. BlockbusterP offers you the cheapest printing services – BlockbusterP guarantees you low pricing. To ensure client satisfaction, we offer no charge additional services, such as free uv gloss, full color print, full bleed print, free templates and much more.

BlockbusterP prints all kinds of marketing materials: brochures, flyers, posters, and postcards. In order to customize your materials you can use the available brochure printing. Take advantage of these services to create the best promotion campaign for your products and /or services.

A resume has one purpose-to market your skills, achievements, academic history and future potential to a prospective employer. A powerful and effective resume should provide key information quickly, differentiate you from all other candidates and be attractively packaged. To produce a resume with punch, follow these six steps for success:

1. Focus on your goal and audience.

You must have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. The more closely your resume content matches the stated job qualifications, the more likely you will be asked to interview.

2. Format for maximum impact.

Your resume must be aesthetically appealing to a hiring manager. Templates should be easy to navigate, and you should always use conservative fonts. Avoid using bold text or italics. They are difficult to read and project a lack of professionalism. Avoid block after block of uninterrupted text and use "white space" wisely.

3. Summarize your qualifications.

Open your resume with a well-written qualifications summary and/or skill set that showcases your expertise as it pertains to your job search. Provide specific examples of what you can do, quantify accomplishments, indicate past performance results and list promotions to positions of increased responsibility.

4. Quantify your accomplishments.

The candidate who contributed the most in past positions gets the job. Specific accomplishments are what separate you from other equally qualified candidates, with one caveat: Your accomplishments must be quantified-that means they need to include measurements such as dollar figures, percentages and time periods.

5. Highlight your professional experience.

In the professional experience section, list employers, job titles, and dates of employment in reverse-chronological order. It is best to use a bulleted format to break up large blocks of text and delete unnecessary articles and adjectives. Begin each sentence with an action verb to quicken the pace of your resume and make the text more enjoyable to read.

6. Present your education and training.

If you are an entry-level candidate, your academic credentials should be presented first with appropriate details (e.g., GPA, awards/scholarships). As a professional with five or more years of experience, your education should be listed last on your resume without the academic details.

For more great tips and sample resumes, visit

Darlene Zambruski is the Managing Editor of ResumeE

Every so often a movie will come along that is destined for greatness -- be it through powerful imagery, an engaging plot or a stellar cast. Occasionally, though, just occasionally, comes a movie whose success is based not on cast or plot (whose plot, in fact, is purely incidental to its popularity) but on simple viral marketing. Snakes on a Plane is such a movie.

For those of you who have yet to come across this particular title, Snakes on a Plane is an R-rated action/horror vehicle starring Samuel L Jackson. The plot, as we have come to expect from action movies, is basic and untaxing. Jackson's FBI agent is escorting a witness on a flight from Hawaii to California to testify in a high-profile court case. Meanwhile, an assassin smuggles a crate filled with over 500 snakes onto the flight. Terror ensues. Simple.

Now, in the greatest traditions of Hollywood a movie such as Snakes on a Plane should probably have vanished with little comment somewhere in the middle of the usual pile of mindless late summer action flicks. Perhaps it would have done well in the rental market, but it had little hope of becoming a blockbuster in theaters.

However, this particular movie has one special quality -- a quality that saw it elevated from obscurity and gave it a vast fan following as much as a year before its release. This movie, you see, had a title that simply demanded comment - a working title so ridiculous that it begged parody and satire.

And that's just what it was - a working title. Studios usually give their productions a basic descriptive title before the marketers come up with something better. ET: The Extraterrestrial, for example, was titled variously A Boy's Life, ET and Me and Night Skies before assuming the name we know and love. The working title of Snakes on a Plane was, in fact, changed to the more generic Pacific Air Flight 121 before Jackson and droves of Internet fans insisted the original title be restored.

And therein lies the magic. With nothing more than a working title and a vague plot summary this movie became an Internet phenomenon -- generating a slew of fan blogs, videos, songs, parodies and praise before even a single frame of the movie has been seen. In the viral marketing style of The Blair Witch Project, the success of this low budget horror project is based more on myth than fact: the Internet (and, more specifically, the blogosphere) built hype, anticipation and excitement with greater success than any expensive marketing could possibly achieve.

Understandably, New Line Cinema took this surprising good fortune and ran with it, acceding to the demands of an eager public. They even went so far as to reshoot several scenes to raise the movie rating from a PG-13 to an R - including the addition of a line of dialog fans demanded following the release of a fake audio trailer: "I want these motherf***ing snakes off the motherf***ing plane!" They essentially remade the movie to cater to the enormous, anonymous audience who made it famous.

With all the hype surrounding Snakes on a Plane New Line is onto a clear winner. Since the movie has become, sight unseen, a massive cult hit it doesn't matter in the slightest whether the movie is actually any good. In fact, it would probably take more at the box office if it were resoundingly, jaw-droppingly awful. The viral aspects of the Internet spreading news of its dreadfulness would only serve to drive more fans to the ticket booths, all ready and more than willing to take part in this full-length in-joke.

And that's the point, you see. That's the reason Snakes on a Plane has become so well loved -- we don't expect it to be serious. We don't expect it to be enlightening, intelligent or valuable. We just expect to see snakes. On a plane.

At the end of the day, what else is there to say?

As an industry analyst and keen fan of movie marketing, James Shenton can often be found pondering the dominance of clever marketing over genuine acting talent in turning average films into box office gold. For more articles and info on how to download DVD movies, wander over to www.EliteMovieD

Several years ago movies were available on the internet via peer-to-peer file sharing sites. Of course, issues of piracy and the risk of exposure to viruses prevented the average consumer from considering movie downloads a viable option however. More legitimate movie downloads came along a bit later in the form of Movielink and CinemaNow, but the selection was limited, download technology was a bit slow, and the equipment in the homes of most consumers made watching the films undesirable. For these reasons, movie downloads for the most part remained the domain of early adopters rather than the mainstream public.

Online movie rental services such as Netflix and Blockbuster have been more prominent forces in the home entertainment industry due to their much larger selection of movies. The primary drawback for such movie rental services was the delay between choosing the movie and receiving it in the mail a day or two later for viewing. However, the distinction between movie downloads, with their immediate gratification and convenience, and the world of online movie rentals, with their vast libraries of movie and television show titles, became blurred in 2007; benefiting the movie watching public.

Due to upgrades in how online movie rental services deliver their product, movie downloads appear to be going mainstream. In January 2007, online movie rental pioneer, Netflix announced they would begin offering customers the option of streaming movies to their PC although the availability of titles would be phased in over time. Within six months, Netflix announced that 5 million movies had been viewed using this download feature. The number of movies available to customers for downloading continued to increase and only six weeks later the number of movies viewed online had doubled to 10 million. Clearly, the popularity of downloading was catching hold within the average household.

In August 2007, Blockbuster the other major name in video rental, both online and off, announced that they had purchased Movielink. A joint venture between five major Hollywood movie studios, Movielink offered titles for rental or purchase and had provided early adopters movies for download to PC and portable devices. With the recent acquisition of Movielink, it is anticipated that movie downloads are soon to be an option with Blockbuster as well.

Certainly the events of 2007 appear to be headed toward a future of movie downloads becoming the preferred method of obtaining movies. If the escalating growth in the popularity of movie downloads evident at Netflix continues it would appear that local video stores will continue to lose market share. Similarly it would seem that mail delivery of rentals will begin to abate as well as downloading goes mainstream.

Christine Peppler has written extensively about home entertainment services such as movie downloads and online movie rental. Visit her website for more details.

My wife works for the local BlockBuster video in town and they are supposed to get people to sign up for an online account but the problem is that a lot of people are afraid to sign up for these things because of fear of having to put their credit card info on the form. With the world coming online credit card fraud is on the increase. How are we able to take advantage of the savings from these online offers without having to give up our personal credit card information?

Whenever I sign up for anything that says it is going to deduct from a credit card I get one of those prepaid credit cards and only put enough on the card to take care of any online obligations. This way I don't have to worry about additional charges or somebody hacking into this companies computers and getting all my information. You would think that stores like Blockbuster Video would sell prepaid credit cards in their stores so that they could offer this option to customers thus increasing the number of online accounts they are taking every day.

Prepaid credit cards is a great way to eliminate the fear of online purchases.. Even when purchasing from a site like ebay you can make use of these prepaid credit cards. I have very rarely found a site that won't accept the use of a prepaid card. The only card I have ever had refused was one of those prepaid American Express gift cards. My GreenDot card has never been turned down and they don't charge a transaction fee like a lot of cards do.

Another option would be to set up a small savings account at your local bank and get a Visa debit card. The only thing I don't like about these debit cards is it is very hard to ever dispute a transaction on them. A regular credit card will give you usually about 30 days to dispute a transaction whereas Discover card says they will give you 90 days and a friend of mine who has an American Express card says they will allow him to dispute a transaction for a year.

Now I did have a Discover card at one time and I used it to by some software. The software was defective so I disputed the transaction but all Discover Card cared about was thatI I had received the software. They stated that they did not care that the software did not work that if that were the case I should dispute it directly with the merchant.

Jeffrey has over 2 decades experience in the business world. When he writes he blends his unique wit and humour into every article which if you rread his blog you can see all of his many works.

To accomplish 20 times more with the same time, resources, and expense, you need to learn and continually use all eight steps of the 2,000 percent solution process in the correct order.

The steps are listed here:

1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.

2. Decide what to measure.

3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.

4. Implement far beyond the future best practice.

5. Identify the ideal best practice.

6. Pursue the ideal best practice.

7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.

8. Repeat the first seven steps.

Recruit and Coach a Winning Team

People are the critical resource for any organization. Without the right people, it's hard to exceed the future best practice and approach the ideal best practice (the best anyone will ever do). Keep in mind that few people, no matter how talented, function well in a changing environment. Still fewer can work well on a team instituting changes. One Doubting Thomas can discourage a whole team. Someone who uses too much influence can stifle others. You're looking to create a rare and delicate balance in your dream team of change makers.

Change? Over My Dead Body!

It might seem that the best way to implement any change is to work with those who know the job best - those who actually work with the process every day. But if big changes are needed, this approach isn't always a good idea. Use only the old crew and you are likely to run into a very serious foot-dragging stall. Even the best workers lose their objectivity over time. Experimental evidence shows that people new to a job have a much easier time with understanding the need for and enjoying the pursuit of changes. They can be taught whatever history they need to know without being stalled by it. The current crew can play devil's advocate - to keep the new team honest, as it were. But don't hold their experience against the current staff. Provide them with a new challenge in a different part of your organization where they are unfamiliar with the operations.

You need very capable relative strangers to take on a change project, but they don't have to be people from outside the organization. Look for as wide a range of perspective, skills, and knowledge as you can.

Build a Dream Team

You must find people who are energized or excited by a change. Your ideal team members must see change as a challenge that will help them grow personally. Select team members who will feel that being chosen to work on approaching the ideal best practice is the most wonderful thing that ever happened to them.

Beyond enthusiasm, what do you need? Open-mindedness.

Is There a Leader in the House?

Naturally, choosing the right team leader makes a big difference in your results. Look for a leader who shares the enthusiasm of each team member and knows how to harness that enthusiasm. In addition, you want someone who places the interests of the team and the organization ahead of any desire to exercise power as top dog.

Avoid borrowing a leader from another organization (whether they be consultants or outsourced service providers). Such outsiders will have a harder time reflecting the values of those they lead. If you cannot find an appropriate leader in your organization, be sure to hire someone who will help create the excitement necessary to bring off major changes and who matches your company's values as closely as possible.

Four leadership qualities determine success:

1. Shared values with the organization

2. Understanding the problems thoroughly before beginning the mission

3. Ability to persuade others that the project will succeed

4. Skills relevant to the task.

If your top candidate is in good shape except for skills, consider how you could use some training to fill in those gaps. It's easier to fill in for ignorance than for a lack of values.

Don't Ask Permission, Ask Forgiveness Later (If Necessary)

Sometimes the need for change is so daunting that the organization's leaders won't be able to cope. When that circumstance occurs, consider saving the organization by using what we call "stealth" change. Rather than beginning by selling the people at the top and making great promises and proclamations, keep it all hush-hush. Recruit a few highly admired people who have the talent to lead the change by creating models of the new ways on the quiet. After setting the standard, loan talented teams who can install the better ways to a few more highly admired people who are in trouble with making their budgets. Ask your bailed-out leaders to visit the rest of the organization to explain the successful change and to welcome visitors who want to learn more. Within six months, such stealthy projects can often run circles around formally authorized teams with tons of resources.

Launch Your Team into Escape Orbit

Before finalizing your choice of team members and leader, let those you are considering know that there's risk involved. Team members will be betting their careers by taking on this assignment. Team members and leaders who perform well will likely be asked to solve another problem or pursue a different opportunity - that's their career reward. If they don't execute the changes, they won't have jobs to go back to … but you will help them locate a new position in another organization.

As you can imagine, knowing that you cannot retreat to your old job is unsettling, even demoralizing, information. People who have routinely exceeded the future best practices to approach the ideal best practice report that this up-or-out approach is necessary. Team members who like a challenge will thrive in this environment. But it's not for everyone. You are creating personal burning platforms that will make team members realize that the project's success is essential. Take on only those who are willing to accept the personal danger from this risk.

What about financial rewards? Incentives for a special project should in no way mirror the organization's existing financial incentives. Success should result in much larger than normal bonuses for team members at their given levels. Pick incentive levels that will excite exceptional and appropriate excellence. Many organizations choose incentives that are too high. Larger financial incentives quickly fail to add greater excitement. Instead, financial incentives that are too large encourage people to play it safe to be sure to get a minimum reward of the overwhelming largesse.

STALLBUSTERS

You need to change some of the ways you manage your organization now, locate your change leaders, prepare leaders for the change tasks, and encourage change leaders to be effective and enthusiastic.

What to Stop Doing

You have some ineffective methods. Those have to stop. You also need to stop doing things that take up time you need for the change projects. Consider your answers to the following questions:

• What are the habits that will push your organization in the wrong direction as you pursue the desired changes?

• How can you encourage people to abandon those habits?

• What incentives do you provide now for those habits that need to be removed?

• What messages need to stop being sent?

Find the Best Change Leaders

The following questions will help you identify change leaders:

• Who has the best track record in your organization for leading the types of changes you desire?

• Who else could be an effective contributor to the change process through new ideas, communicating the change, or organizing the change effort?

• Who are the people in your organization who are most excited about the potential to make these changes?

• How well do the candidates' values match the organization's values?

Prepare the Change Leaders

Use these questions to enhance the effectiveness of your change leaders:

• What information do the change leaders lack that can be readily provided?

• How can that information be shared quickly and accurately?

• What skills or training will they need to be effective?

• How can this training be timed to help them when it will be most relevant to the tasks at hand?

• What resources will they need?

• How can those resources be provided in a timely way?

Activate the Change Leaders

It's not enough to have the talent and desire. You also need to be properly focused. Each of us responds differently to rewards and recognition. For each of your team members and leaders consider the answers to this question:

• What combination of fulfilling desires for recognition, reward, and feedback is right for each person to help him or her reach the highest level of performance?

In answering this question, remember that creativity researchers have found that rewards for being creative often backfire, while rewards for accomplishing a predefined implementation task usually work well. The best way to begin is by talking with each person about what motivates her or him for the tasks that need doing.