Saying Thanks Isn't An Operational Overhead. It’s Critical For Business Success.

Good Morning Folks,

As the holiday season rolls into town, one word comes to mind: Gratitude.

ERIC HOFFER once said: "The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

We are thankful for our families, friends, clients and associates. We value our relationships with each of you.

To be part of a company where the employees LOVE what they do and the leaders CARE as much as they do, is such a blessing…we are VERY LUCKY to be a part of the FSO Family!

FSO is only a successful company because of each and every one of you. When I wake up every single day I am so inspired and so excited about what we do for YOU and our clients. I also think each and every day how I can help YOU achieve all of your personal and professional goals. 

We all have the power to make a difference today. We all have the power to touch someone today and change someone’s life. I try to do this every day. Show some love, give some hugs and tell someone how much you care for them.

• Try today to be a mentor, a teacher or just a friend.
• Take an interest in someone’s life.
• Ask them how they are doing, how is the family, how are the kids. 

You may sometimes need to pry it out of them but do it! Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

• FSO is the Fastest growing outsourcer in the Industry
• FSO is the displacing its competitors every day
• FSO is the best place to work in the industry
• FSO is providing thousands a chance to reach their goals
• FSO is the most sought out company in the industry to work

An employee recognition program is an important pillar that supports a motivated workforce; more importantly, the reward system and job design system must function together to ensure perceived equity. A simple "thank you" can serve as a catalyst and ripple to motivate productivity for a entire organization. 
  
Saying thank isn't an operational overhead. In an environment of increasing organizational change such as part time or remote workers, and teams working cross borders - organizational alignment is going to be even more critical for business success.

Thank you hope for taking the vision and mission and bringing it to life. Last night's holiday event was a wonderful experience and delivering what we can do as a family, team, and a common goal. Folks its our time. It’s our market to own. Its ours to MOVE FORWARD. POWER OF POSITIVE ENERGY and FOCUS.

Thank you for your continued confidence and support. We sincerely wish you and your families a festive and joyous Thanksgiving Holiday.

Here's to a wonderful and well-deserved break!

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
~~ CICERO
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TED Tuesday: How Blood Pressure Works

Good Morning Folks,

If you lined up all the blood vessels in your body, they’d be 60 thousand miles long. And every day, they carry the equivalent of over two thousand gallons of blood to the body’s tissues. What effect does this pressure have on the walls of the blood vessels?

In this informative TED Lesson, Wilfred Manzano gives the facts on blood pressure while answering almost 7,000 questions on the subject.

It goes without saying that lowering stress improves blood pressure. That in mind, I hope that you find comfort and peace in some quiet time-out with your friends and families later this week.

Enjoy!


Cheers,

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form.TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE. 

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the second consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

See a brief video portrait of who we are and what can can do for you, HERE

Inspire ME Friday ==> Letting Go of Keeping Up

"Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses, enough to help cushion the blow of a job loss, medical emergency or some other unexpected event, according to the survey of 1,000 adults."

Good Morning Folks,

Imagine a nightmarish vacation where you had to pay for every single activity in cold hard cash - every margarita, every slice of pie, every towel for the pool. Forking over cash hurts so much that economists have given it a name: the pain of paying.

When asked to list all of the things that they deem essential for a happy retirement, the cost of people's wish lists (a luxury car, vacations, and so on) far exceeds their projected income from their retirement savings.

Why the shortfall? The problem with saving, of course, is that - if we're being honest - saving seems no fun at all. It requires us to put off the fun we could have spending that money today for potential fun we could have with that money once we retire. And why put off until tomorrow the fun you could have today?

Roughly three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with little to no emergency savings, according to a survey released by Bankrate.com.

Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses, enough to help cushion the blow of a job loss, medical emergency or some other unexpected event, according to the survey of 1,000 adults.

Meanwhile, 50% of those surveyed have less than a three-month cushion and 27% had no savings at all.

Although it might not be your problem it is the problem of the folks who work for you and it weighs on their work.

So how can you help them keep up?

In today's inspiring share, Carnegie Mellon University's Assistant Professor of Cognition, Mina Cikara suggests, maybe we should reexamine the need and value of "keeping up." Maybe....

==> Letting go of keeping up by Mina Cikara

Everyone's heard of the phrase, "Keeping up with the Joneses," which refers to the phenomenon of using one's neighbors as a standard of comparison for the consumption of material goods. (For example: it's hard not to notice when your neighbor buys a luxury sports car, and it's even harder to keep yourself from wondering whether it might be time for you to upgrade as well...even if it means reducing contributions to your retirement fund to pay for it.)

Our neighbors, however, are no longer our only salient standard of comparison. Reality television shows, lifestyle magazines, and gossip websites inundate us with stories about which celebrity bought what and how much he or she paid for it. The problem is this: not only is conspicuous consumption ubiquitous, it may negatively affect our financial behavior and how we feel about ourselves more generally.

The tendency to compare oneself to other people is fundamental and often occurs whether or not we intend it. Think about it: when you meet someone new, you may not be able to say with certainty how tall the person is, but you effortlessly register whether he or she is taller than you are.* In many cases, social comparison is useful. In the absence of objective standards of success, social comparison with others helps us to evaluate and improve ourselves. But sometimes, social comparison reveals that we're inferior on some dimension (e.g., wealth, intelligence, attractiveness), which may make us feel envious.

There's nothing wrong with envy per se-it's a natural human emotion that manifests in cultures around the world; however, envy has significant negative side effects: not only on people's satisfaction with what they have, but also on their saving and spending behavior. For example, people will pay to reduce the earnings of others in order to avoid feeling inferior.

They also prefer to quit bargaining and walk away empty-handed rather than accept an unfair deal.

Even capuchin monkeys reject rewards if they see other monkeys receive relatively greater rewards. What's more, the negative effects of envy do not stop at self-defeating financial behaviors. Constantly worrying about what higher-ups have or do not have negatively impacts our mental health and maxes out our biological stress response, which can damage our cardiovascular and immune systems over the long-term.

As the population grows older, it is increasingly important for people to start saving for retirement early on, but it may feel like an uphill battle. In addition to all the other environmental and psychological factors that make it difficult to save, we are bombarded by depictions of sky-high standards of consumption. Being aware of the hazards of social comparison and envy may help inoculate younger generations against the effects of these depictions. Until celebrities start flashing their retirement savings portfolios, I'm doing my best to let go of keeping up.

Though we tend to compare ourselves to similar others (e.g., we compare our salaries to a co-worker's, not Warren Buffett's), we often turn our attention to people, to whom we aspire to be similar. This tendency coupled with the assertion "Stars: they're just like us!" may lead people to compare themselves to more distant standards.

Our thanks to Prudential who is spending big bucks hiring academia's brightest thinkers to fill their social media needs on BringYourChallenges.com, one of which we so much benefited from together, this morning.

Enjoy football and the crisp weekend.

Make a difference folks!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS THE STRONGEST ARGUMENT"
~~Socrates (Greek Philosopher)

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Shout Out Wednesday: Kudos To The Best Outsourcing Team On The Planet

"You were the first ones in office and last to leave, and you did it all with a smile. It is always such a pleasure to work with such a hard working & well organized team."

Good Morning Folks,

As FSO continues its expansion nationally, we remain focused on the people and constantly raising the bar to (re)IMAGINE™ the way to go to business - ensuring we deliver the very best experience to our clients and employees. 

We believe people make or break the success of an organization. FSO hires for character, desire and attitude and then takes better care of that individual than one could ever imagine. We take care of our people and in turn, they take care of you.

Our clients love what we are doing for them. When they take time to write like this after months of being let down by their former suppliers, it is testament to what I've been saying all along: At FSO, our difference is people. They bring a passion for hospitality and service that just can't be faked or duplicated.  

Hear it direct from our client's mouths:

Compliments to Mandi Richardson from an AMLAW 200 Partner in Washington, DC

"As you know, Friday was rather intense for the Planned Communities and Condominium Group. The ROFR mailing deadline was upon us, and the binders that included the supporting documents regarding the ROFR had to go out as well. Four sets of binders needed to be completed in a timely manner, then couriered to Montgomery County’s DHCA, Rockville, MD and HOC, Kensington, MD before 5:00 p.m. 

Our goal was to complete the production of eight (8) extremely large binders by 3:00 p.m. Each binder contained 14 sections. Please note that the binders ranged from 3 to 6 inches in thickness, so you have an idea of how much paper (approximately 2,300 sheets) was being handled. Mandi was my binder point person in DCOS. She was fabulous. Mandi worked quickly and efficiently replacing numbered slip sheets with corresponding numbered tabs, hole-punching the original documents, and asking questions if something was not clear (the questions were minimal). She completed the largest binder with minimal supervision then completed inserting the materials in the remaining binders. Truly, it would have been a greater challenge to complete this task had Mandi not stepped up. Mandi’s willingness and cheerful disposition helped to complete production in record time. I made the call to Washington Express to pick up the binders at 2:05 p.m., 55 minutes prior to the scheduled 3:00 PM pick-up time. Then it was on to the non-traditional binders being sent to Prince George’s County DHCD. Although these were to be sent via overnight delivery and certified mail, return receipt (which meant we had some room to breathe), production went smoothly and efficiently (again). 

Mandi is a pleasure to work with, and her pleasant demeanor makes it easy to seek her out. Whenever I step into office services, there is never any hesitation from Mandi to ask if she can be of assistance. She completes tasks in a timely manner, especially when given full instructions. Mandi never hesitates to ask questions, instead of making assumptions about a job. 

I just needed to let you know how invaluable Mandi was to me and the team on Friday, making her truly a part of "our" team."

Kudos to Zack H serving another AMLAW 200 Firm in New York City
"Zack H. stopped by this morning to say that you helped him out late yesterday with a project. Zack wanted to let me know that you did a great job for him!

Thank you also for assisting me with the kitchen pump. Yes, Kaci; we do it all here in NY, even plumbing!!"


To Rebecca A At The Hartford Branch Of The Above Referenced AMLAW 200 Firm
"I wanted to make sure I told you what a HUGE help Becca was yesterday.  I had a large load of work, which included copying a large stack of exhibits, transcripts and in addition - printing, separating and stapling and stuffing presentation folders with handouts and color copies of PowerPoints for a presentation Pam is doing at a client’s today.  It was late in the day and most secretarial staff was gone as well as support services staff. Becca overheard Pam and I discussing workload and urgency and immediately jumped in. We were able to separate the load and work in both copy stations. She was fast and efficient. She then quickly and smoothly began sorting, stapling and assembling the presentation materials. Her work was error free and extremely time efficient.  She is a great addition to our support services team! Thank you!!"

Hats Off To Meire M, Onsite For Us At A Boston Non-Profit Youth Organization

"Thank you so much for your help coordinating our graduation yesterday! You made my job so much easier and really helped the event run smoothly! I hope you didn’t have to stay too late with clean up. Many thanks!

For Catherine K On Point For Us At One Of The Nation's Biggest Wireless Providers 
"A hug  and THANK YOU to Catherine for all your help in getting  shirts and hats out for the site! We really do appreciate your diligence to always go beyond your call of duty! Thank you for all you do!


Kudos To Angel I and Marc J At The New York City Headquarters Of The Nation's Largest Advertising Agency

 "Our clients wanted to shoot us a note to tell us that they think Angel is great!  He is always professional, pleasant and most important, on point! He makes the check in process for our guests smooth, fast and he always does it with a smile on his face. We appreciate your hard work!" 

"In the last month Marc has added Conference Room and Pantry Services to his daily routine and hasn’t skipped a beat on any of his other duties. His hard work in the mailroom is apparent as soon as you walk in. He is a great member of the NY Media team. His hard work and dedication is a great example for everyone at FSO and I’d like him to know that! Thank you for providing the WOW to our clients day in and ay out!

It's clear from these kudos that everyone on the team knows their position and role and they work in harmony to execute greatness. That is what FSO is all about – a perfect harmony of perfection and greatness.    

Great people like those featured above today want to be part of FSO as clients and employees because we are passionate and we CARE about what it means to be there for them.

Thanks fort taking the time to write to me about these gifted employees. I am always eager to hear more about how we are doing.

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

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"Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom" 
~~ General George Patton

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TED Tuesday: How To Take The Best Courses From The Top Ivy League Schools— For FREE!

With Coursera, Daphne Koller and co-founder Andrew Ng are bringing courses from top colleges online, free, for anyone who wants to take them.

Good Morning Folks,

Daphne Koller is enticing top universities including Stanford, Yale, and Princeton to put their most intriguing courses online for free — not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. With Coursera (cofounded by Andrew Ng), each keystroke, quiz, peer-to-peer discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed.

Says Daphne, "Like many of you, I'm one of the lucky people. I was born to a family where education was pervasive. I'm a third-generation PhD, a daughter of two academics. In my childhood, I played around in my father's university lab. So it was taken for granted that I attend some of the best universities, which in turn opened the door to a world of opportunity. Unfortunately, most of the people in the world are not so lucky.

A 3rd generation Ph.D who is passionate about education, Stanford professor Daphne Koller is excited to be making the college experience available to anyone through her startup, Coursera. With classes from 85 top colleges, Coursera is an innovative model for online learning. While top schools have been putting lectures online for years, Coursera's platform supports the other vital aspect of the classroom: tests and assignments that reinforce learning.

At the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, computer scientist Daphne Koller studies how to model large, complicated decisions with lots of uncertainty. (Her research group is called DAGS, which stands for Daphne's Approximate Group of Students.) In 2004, she won a MacArthur Fellowship for her work, which involves, among other things, using Bayesian networks and other techniques to explore biomedical and genetic data sets.

Filmed June 2012 at TEDGlobal 2012, with over three million online views since, I proudly present: Daphne Koller: What we're learning from online education...


As Daphne notes, "And finally, this would enable a wave of innovation, because amazing talent can be found anywhere. Maybe the next Albert Einstein or the next Steve Jobs is living somewhere in a remote village in Africa. AAnd if we could offer that person an education, they would be able to come up with the next big idea and make the world a better place for all of us.

Thanks for listening and have a GREAT Day,

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Inspire ME Friday ==> 8 Ways To Keep Your Boss Happy

"Regardless of what it says on your job description, your real job is to make your boss successful. There are no exceptions to this rule. None. And,by the way: Your boss's real job is to make you more successful. The reversal of these priorities is the source of almost all organizational problems."

Good Morning Folks,

Welcome to Friday the 13th!

From Geoffrey James (The Sales Guy), here are the rules for keeping your boss happy:

1. Be true to your word.

Your boss wants to trust you. Really.  Therefore, whenever you accept an assignment, follow through religiously, even fanatically. Do what you say you're going to do. Never over commit, and avoid hedging your bets with vague statements like "I'll try" and "maybe." Instead, make your word carry real weight.

2. No surprises, ever.

The secret fear of every boss is that employees are screwing up but are not saying anything about it.  So even if you're afraid some bad news might upset your boss, make sure he's informed. Note: If your boss consistently "shoots the messenger," you can ignore this rule-because his behavior shows he doesn't really want to be in the know.

3. Be prepared on the details.

Your boss wants to believe you're competent and on top of things.  That's why she sometimes picks an aspect of your job and begins randomly asking penetrating questions. Therefore, whenever you're meeting with the boss, have the details ready so you can answer these queries with grace and aplomb.

4. Take your job seriously.

Bosses appreciate individuals who truly care about what they do and willing to take the time to achieve a deep understanding of their craft. Bosses need people who have unique expertise. You don't have to be a pro at everything, but you should definitely have a specific area of knowledge that your boss values.

5. Have your boss's back.

When you see your boss about to make a foolish decision, it's your responsibility to attempt to convince him to make a different one. Make your best case, and express yourself clearly. However, once the decision is actually made, do your best to make it work-regardless of whether you think it was the right one.

6. Provide solutions, not complaints.

Complainers are the bane of your boss's existence. Nothing is more irritating or more boring than listening to somebody kvetch about things that they're not willing to change.  So never bring up a problem unless you've got a solution to propose-or are willing to take the advice the boss gives you.

7. Communicate in plain language.

Bosses are busy people and have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through piles of biz-blab, jargon and weasel words. When dealing with your boss, speak and write in short sentences, use the fewest words possible to make a point, and make that point clear and easily understandable.

8. Know your real job.

Regardless of what it says on your job description, your real job is to make your boss successful. There are no exceptions to this rule. None.

And,by the way: Your boss's real job is to make you more successful. The reversal of these priorities is the source of almost all organizational problems.

Have a GREAT day and enjoy this beautiful fall weekend!

Be great and (re)IMAGINE!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself." 

~~ Soren Kierkegaard

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Shout Out Wednesday: And The Praise Keeps Coming For Our Talented Rock Stars

"I wanted to be sure I thanked each of you for your assistance with setting up for the 3D holiday display  yesterday. It really means a lot that you were all so willing to get things done fast and efficiently."

Good Morning Folks,

It seems like only yesterday I was getting calls about how the service in the legacy outsourcing companies that I had built, had fallen short, which began picking up the back of a napkin as a blank canvas to doodle my ideas on how I could come out of retirement and do it right.

Since then not only have we become the fastest growing company in all of outsourcing, but so far in 2015, as companies everywhere and even our competitors are cutting back and being spun off, we've hired over 200 employees, added major accounts inn dozens of cities to our ever expanding national roster of clients.... and best of all we promoted several of our Future Leaders to support our budding infrastructure!! FSO is truly embarking on something remarkable.

It's said that great leadership seems easy when things are good and everybody's happy. When times grow tough, however, a leader's true colors are revealed.

And what a challenging time for those true colors to shine with the severe weather all around us. But as you'll see from the comments below, when clients needed a true strategic partner they could count on, they counted on us. And we delivered.

Here are some of the AWESOME things our clients said about our motivated, team oriented, passionate people in the month of November… Keep up the EXCELLENT work!

To our team at a major NYC-based Motor Car Company

"Please view below for the End of Day report for 10-29-2015.

Issues:
No issues on our behalf.
Staffing:
·           Fully Staffed
Deliverables:
·           133 USPS daily mail have been sorted and delivered
·           197 USPS were stamped and sent via Wall St Mail
·           45 UPS incoming deliveries were completed
·           8 UPS outgoing deliveries were processed and shipped
·           0 FedEx incoming packages
Postage:
·           Start of Day – 2,321.755
·           Funds Added – None
·           End of Day – 2,180.260
·           Postage used – 140.525
·           Funds Available - $5,000"


Monica Middlebrooks, IMG
"Thanks for all of your help with Hillary Mandel’s meetings today. It’s hard to plan things from another location but helpful to have you working on our team. We really appreciate it!"

To our Mary at NYC HQ of Major Retailer..
I just wanted to pass along some feedback from a resident regarding Mary Mellado. He wanted to compliment her on a job well done a few weeks back. Apparently, there was quite a ruckus after an event at VB3, and several intoxicated people were blocking the entrance to our parking garage, causing a disturbance at the back entrance to the building. The resident said that, while he was attempting to get into the garage, he witnessed Mary dispersing the crowd and taking control. He said she did a wonderful job of managing a very difficult situation. The resident said he often sees her in the evening, and she is a pleasure. It is always nice to get some positive feedback! Thanks to Mary for a job well done."

To Angila, Cherise, Alejandro, and Michael at AMLAW 200 Firm in Newark, NJ

"I just want to thank you for the wonderful job done by the FSO staff on the very large reproduction job with lots of exhibits. No explanation was needed."

To Stephen and Jimmy, Boston Records Team – At The Boston HQ of the Above Referenced AMLAW 200 Firm
"I just wanted to say that I have seen a HUGE improvement to Boston records! I want to particularly single out Stephen and Jimmy!! They are unbelievable! When you ask for labels, you get them right away! I also asked for stacks of files, and I feel that the lists are shorter than ever. The requests are done quickly and efficiently."

Whether a salesperson, an experience associate, a records manager, an informationalist, or messenger, what makes our folks so special is their ability to think beyond their daily tasks and think like our clients. 

"What would the client want? What do they need? How could i be more proactive in their eyes? How could i really impress them?"

Do you know? Have you asked? Or are you assuming?  A true partner who never stops looking out for you, who takes that extra second to ask and then ACTS! 

Never lose the passion, the smile and what makes you special but put yourself in our clients shoes and get to know what they might be thinking! 

All of you are out in the field and have the power to make an incredible impact and a difference in the wealth and success of others.

I look forward to hearing stories from our clients how our team has made an impact by being a leader.

IT IS YOU that makes FSO who we are. Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"Happiness is an inside job."

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