Strategy has shrunk. For many firms and even for some prominent strategy consultants, the concept is now nothing more than "just-in-time decision making" or "a few critical initiatives" or other variations on "adaptability." Driving this view is a set of assumptions: that making and integrating strategic choices "assumes a relatively stable and predictable world," and that the speed of information flows and change in our high velocity world makes a search for sustainable advantage an ephemeral exercise that’s not worth it. (Harvard Business Review)

If you haven't read The One Thing by Jay Papasan and Gary W. Keller, I encourage you to put it on the top of your reading list. After reading the book I incorporated the lessons I learned into my startup and saw amazing results. I had the chance to ask co-author Jay Papasan some of the follow-up questions I had after reading his book. Here are some the key insights I took away from our interview. (Inc.)

How much money do you make? If this question immediately makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone. Recently, I tried an experiment. I just started asking people how much they make or how much they’re worth. The results were pretty consistent. They’d look at me in shock and stammer a bit. (The New York Times)

What do you do when your business idea you were sure would flourish has flopped? Or when that fantastic new job turns out to be a dud? Most of us take great comfort in planning our lives. We set goals and are proud when we achieve them. While it would be great if life always turned out the way we wanted, the reality is, most of us will experience disappointment at some point in our lives and may even end up with what life coach Christine Hassler calls an "expectation hangover." (Fast Company)

After teaching high-school physics for eight years, Eric Adler decided to make a change. He enjoyed teaching but had always wanted to build something. So he got an M.B.A. and became a management consultant for Dean & Co., a consultancy in Vienna, Va. He lasted a year at the job. (The New York Times)

Employees are more hopeful that they will find a new job than they have been in years. But they’re tipping off their employers without even realizing it. Secret phone calls, late night emails, hidden plans. Many might think you’re having an affair, and in many ways, you are. (Fortune)

The same technology enabling us to connect with people and get work done faster than ever before is also making for never-ending work days. Years ago, professionals had the luxury of confining their day’s work to an eight-hour chunk of time. After 5 p.m., they could focus on personal activities – it was time to go home to dinner or out to a movie, uninterrupted. Today, work’s demands are becoming more similar to parenting, in that they never truly "turn off." If you only work eight set hours, you’ll fall behind, look like a slacker, or both. (Money)

When I was a kid and things didn’t go my way, I would complain, "That’s not fair." My dad would look at me and say, "Life isn’t fair." And we would move on. And, of course, life is not fair. Bad things happen to good people. Projects begun with the best of intentions and developed with people’s full effort can still fail. And, in some organizations, people are not always rewarded equally for the same level of work. Why does this matter? (Fast Company)

The stunning lack of diversity in the tech industry is no secret; Silicon Valley’s major players have been trying to keep it under wraps for years, going as far as filing lawsuits to prevent the release of their EEO-1 data. This year, the truths finally started to trickle out. Yahoo!, Google, Twitter and Apple all released their EEO-1 reports, information filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that discloses the demographics of each company’s workforce. Twitter went public (with nothing but white men on their board of directors). (DiversityInc)

Businesses and consumers across the 18 countries that share the euro became slightly more upbeat about their prospects during October, a fresh sign that the currency area's economy is unlikely to slide back into contraction. The pickup in confidence follows surveys of purchasing managers released last week that recorded a slight acceleration in the growth of activity, while figures also released Thursday showed a surprising fall in the number of Germans without work. (MarketWatch)

The U.K. is facing its most uncertain political future for decades – some argue centuries. With just over six months until the general election on May 7, predicting who will hold the balance of power is becoming increasingly difficult – and worrying – for investors. The election will affect more than just U.K. voters, it'll also decide whether the country stays part of the the European Union (EU). (CNBC)

Americans have flocked to colleges in unprecedented numbers in the last half-decade, fueled by a conviction that postsecondary education is the surest route to steady employment and higher salaries. Yet those who begin, but don’t complete, a degree are learning the hard way that the payoff is in finishing – or that they might have been better off not attending college at all. (The Wall Street Journal)

Former Boston Celtics player Antoine Walker was just 19 years old in 1996, when he was drafted by the NBA. Flashy endorsements and multimillion-dollar contracts followed. He’d "never have to worry about money again in his life," then Celtics coach Rick Pitino said when Walker inked a $71 million deal with the team a few years later. (Businessweek)

Being the dean of a mid-market business school is no easy job. And John Delaney, dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business, thinks it is only going to get tougher in the years ahead for many business schools. Last month, Delaney announced that he would be stepping down from the deanship after an eight-year run in the job. He’ll keep his position until the university finds his successor – probably next spring or summer – and then rejoin the faculty. (Poets & Quants)

Give and ye shall receive. That could be the unofficial mantra of a new Boston-based charity that not only empowers women to take on the role of philanthropists but also equips them with the skills and connections they need to serve on the boards of the organizations they’re helping to fund. (Boston Globe)

They’re convenient. They let us work anywhere and anytime. But they also play on our anxieties and insecurities and leave us much more bound to work than we used to be. My research shows that people use their smartphones so much outside of business hours – reading and responding to streams of messages from the office – that many end up putting in 13 hours or more a day. But they’re not doing that extra work because they want to. They’re doing it because they feel compelled to, and because the smartphone makes it so easy. (The Wall Street Journal)

The introduction of Apple Pay last Monday was widely described as the dawn of a new era for smartphone payments. But within a week, two major pharmacy chains, Rite Aid and CVS, rejected Apple’s version of the future: Both disabled Apple Pay (as well as other tap-to-pay mobile payments systems Google Wallet and Softcard). As expected, customers took to Twitter to complain, and they almost universally sided with the smartphone company over the drugstores. (Businessweek)

Being a serial entrepreneur is like most things--it's easier in some ways, yet more difficult in others. When I start a new company and successfully get it funded, I sometimes get eye rolls from first-time entrepreneurs. What they are communicating is "of course you did--you have done it before." While that's true, I have done it before, and it is a little easier the second and third time, there are aspects that actually get harder every time. Following are things to expect and anticipate in the first few years as a CEO for a startup. (Inc.)

Many people suffer from being rational dreamers. They want to achieve a big dream but hold themselves back by being risk averse. They don't want to disrupt the status quo and play things safe. To coax themselves out of their comfort zones, people learn to set goals. I consider the process of goal setting to be like arranging checkpoints along the way to a desired end. (Entrepreneur)

If the business best-seller lists tells us anything, it’s that entrepreneurs always seem to be in the market for advice. I’ll admit that I’ve read my fair share of these books, mostly because building a company feels a little less scary when you have a framework or system to follow. (The New York Times)

The U.S. posted a better-than-expected jump in growth for the third quarter, the latest indication that the world’s largest economy is performing well even as the global economy faces headwinds. Real gross domestic product, or the output of goods and services produced by U.S. labor and property, jumped at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.5% in the third quarter. (Fortune)

Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, 63 percent of homes are "within reach" for a middle-class family, according to Trulia. But among the 20 richest U.S. metros, just 47 percent of homes are affordable, including a national low of 14 percent in San Francisco. The firm defined "within reach" as a for-sale home with a total monthly payment (including mortgage and taxes) less than 31 percent of the metro's median household income. (The Atlantic)

Two years after Superstorm Sandy, State Farm agent Jen Dunn is busy explaining new insurance math to her customers in upstate New York. Instead of the dollar-amount deductibles they have been used to for years, she is now writing their policies based on percentages. For many, it means turning the typical $500 deductible into 1% of the insured value – for a $250,000 house, that means a gasp-producing $2,500. (Money)

Clearly, retirement isn't going be the biggest issue on your radar screen. As a recent college grad, I'm sure you've got a lot of other things on your mind: getting your career off to a good start, impressing your boss and, if you're anything like the person I was in my 20s, maybe having some fun with friends. (CNN/Money)

Companies want employees with the best credentials, which is why professionals in all fields use continuing education to improve their expertise – and their salaries. For senior managers, an MBA has traditionally been a credential that gives them an edge in the jobs market. (Business Because)

When no one was looking, Tony Robbins went from infomercial pitchman to C-suite coach. Now captains of industry and finance pay him seven-figures for his wisdom. Here’s what we can learn for free. (Fortune)

I'm happy to be at an age where I am not intimidated by a lot of things that don’t have sharp fangs or a firing mechanism. Nevertheless, Starbucks intimidates me, which I note here today because Starbucks, without much patronage from people like me, is the restaurant brand that most often turns up on business travelers’ expense accounts. (The New York Times)

The compensation of American executives – CEOs and their "C-suite" colleagues – has long been a matter of controversy, especially recently, as the wages of average workers have stagnated and economic inequality has moved to the center of the national debate. Just about every spring, the season of corporate proxy votes, we see the rankings of the highest-paid CEOs, topped by men like David Cote of Honeywell, who in 2013 took home $16 million in salary and bonus, and another $9 million in stock options. (The Atlantic)

Barack Obama is unloved by business. And as the mid-term elections approach and voters ponder whether to hand the Senate to his Republican opponents, that could make a difference. Business owners give Mr Obama lower than average approval ratings. Corporate lobbyists discuss his reform of health care with contempt. A Wall Street boss accuses the government of extorting fines from banks in order to win votes. A technology chief says he is Mr Obama’s last fan in Silicon Valley. On October 8th Randall Stephenson, the head of AT&T, grumbled about a wave of damaging regulations. His audience, many of them bosses, approved. (The Economist)

Today, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies released the results of its Black Turnout & the 2014 Midterms. Professors Andra Gillespie and Tyson King-Meadows created the report, which studied the in-depth impact of black voters in the United States Senate and governors’ races. The report focused in on 13 competitive states and took the samples from these states. Arkansas, Kansas, and Kentucky had the lowest voting rates among black voters during the 2010 midterms. (Black Enterprise)

At the inaugural meeting of a change transformation effort under way at a hospital in San Jose, California, nurse Michelle delaCalle faced a room full of people who were discouraged by the organization’s earlier attempts at change. She stood and shared a story of her own about how making people wait for hours in the emergency department seemed like a violation of her caregiving role. Her story seemed to move people. "I could feel my own intensity," she said, and when she was done speaking, she could tell that people finally understood the need to change. (Harvard Business Review)

Recently, we’ve seen examples of women leaders facing tremendous challenges and developing even greater leadership skills as a result – think GM CEO Mary Barra, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, IMF head Christine Lagarde, etc. These women lead companies, countries, and global financial markets through unprecedented historical events. While impressively composed and decisive on the outside, I imagine there were many points at which they felt outside their comfort zone – beyond their learning zone; and on terror’s edge, leading into unchartered territories. (Fortune)