Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, offices all over the country get quieter as people go on vacation. But in addition to planned vacation, plenty of workers see the sunshine as a reason to call in sick to work. As many as 39% of full-time employees admit they feigned illness to take a paid day off to enjoy the weather, while 72% of respondents to an SHRM survey noted higher rates of unplanned absences on Mondays, Fridays, before public holidays, or before sporting or national events. (Fast Company)

When you get a raise, especially after a long spell of puny or no hikes in pay, it’s a time to celebrate. So it's easy to tell that voice telling you not to waste money on a morning cold brew to shut up for a minute. You’ve earned that treat. And you have. But you may be standing on the precipice, or already be in the grips of, a dangerous and pernicious trend: lifestyle creep. (Bloomberg)

Do you need a "workover?" You'll know a "workover" is right for you if: You want to spruce up your reputation with clients and co-workers. You want to improve the value you provide. You're looking for a new job, a new position, or a new company. You'll know you need a makeover if you love the idea of reinventing yourself or elevating yourself to a whole new level. Showing up differently. Stronger. More compelling. You.... only better. (Inc.)

Professional service firms seeking to help companies navigate the demands of globalization face a tough challenge because advisers with the specialized expertise needed to address sophisticated issues are most often distributed throughout the firm and around the globe. This makes collaboration difficult. (Harvard Business Review)

When I was younger, I was exposed to college, I knew about the importance of higher education, and on long drives from Texas to Virginia, my mom would take my brothers and I to visit Historically Black colleges and Universities in Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. When I was in high school, college tours never appealed to me because my mom was doing that on her own, I thought, when I was in elementary school. The expectation was always there for my brothers and I for post-secondary attainment. (LinkedIn)

Doing your best work requires focus and energy. But it’s hard to stay focused for an 8-hour stretch. So how can you find the necessary energy to get your work done? How do you choose those precious moments when you think you’ll be feeling your best to do the most challenging work? And what’s the best way to ride out any lulls? (Harvard Business Review)

Becoming and staying productive isn't about hard-to-follow programs or logging your every move in an app. It's about self-care. Here are daily to-dos to get you started. (Fast Company)

On Sept. 6, 1946, U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes gave a speech in Stuttgart, Germany. A movement was afoot to penalize the Germans for their role in World War II by deindustrializing the country. Byrnes opposed anything resembling economic spite and promised the country a fair chance to rebuild. "Germany is a part of Europe," Byrnes said, "and recovery in Europe will be slow indeed if Germany with her great resources of iron and coal is turned into a poorhouse." It became known as the Speech of Hope. (Bloomberg)

Puerto Rico is a small island with some big financial problems. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla recently told The New York Times that there was no way the island, which has been struggling with about $72 billion of debt, would be able to pay, and instead would try to work out new deals and deferred payments with some of its creditors. This, of course, has lead to fears that the commonwealth will default on its loans.(The Atlantic)

U.S business schools want to snap up fresh talent from a market that has been off-limits – until now. For years, U.S. b-schools have taken academic trips to Cuba so students could study its emerging economy, thanks to a provision in the U.S. trade embargo that allowed for licensed educational travel. But those schools have been reluctant to try recruiting full-time students from the island nation because of the restrictions in both countries. (The Wall Street Journal)

When Christoph H. Loch was named dean of the University of Cambridge Judge Business School in 2011, the school’s 12-month-long MBA program was ranked 26th best in the world by The Financial Times. In his inaugural blog post as dean, Loch wrote about "the lessons of the latest FT MBA rankings" at the suggestion of Judge’s alumni advisory council. For someone who had been the former dean of INSEAD’s PhD program, he demonstrated an uncanny knowledge of the inner workings of the FT’s methodology. (Poets & Quants)

Get First Access to Sessions and Housing: Register Now for The National Black MBA Association® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition 

Celebrating 45 years of Black professional development and executive leadership, The National Black MBA Association® (NBMBAA®), the nation's premier organization for Black business professionals, today announced early bird registration is open for  the upcoming NBMBAA® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL where more than 9,000 attendees are anticipated to convene for networking, leadership development, and career opportunities.

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Ever since the term "pivot" was unofficially coined back in 2009, it has become a fixture in the way we think about strategy for Silicon Valley’s leading companies and more broadly, about "failure" within the technology sector. The term has even appeared on an episode of HBO’s "Silicon Valley." Coming up with the right business model, the right product or even the right industry from Day 1 may not be as important as popularly assumed – just witness the number of famous tech companies that have had less then auspicious beginnings before they made a pivot. (The Washington Post)

From open concept spaces to game rooms and coffee lounges, our workplaces are filled with distractions. But nothing is distracting us more than our smartphones. A 2014 study by Ricoh Americas Corp. found more than three quarters of employees are distracted by mobile phones, with 67% sending personal texts and 61% taking at least one personal call per week. (Fast Company)

Just five minutes and a genius business idea can help you to win big. Gone are the days of conventional business plan competitions. For this activity, three NBMBAA members will have five minutes each to sell their business idea to a mixed panel of venture capitalists, academic instructors and successful entrepreneurs – using only a digital board and pen. The winner will receive $10,000. The time is now to bring your best business idea to the table. Just submit your a 60-second pitch video to register. Visit our Innovation Whiteboard Challenge page to see samples and get all the details. Deadline is July 21, so don't miss your chance to participate!

Not a dude with a tech company? Me neither. "Why don't you just get Rihanna to wear one of your dresses?" I heard this suggestion more times than you'd ever imagine in Silicon Valley meetings. Yeah, it was incredibly frustrating, although it's good to know that guys in tech really have a thing for Rihanna. (Inc.)

As long as you don’t look too far into it, Thursday’s June jobs report looks like good news: The economy added 223,000 jobs, close to expectations, and the unemployment rate fell again, to 5.3 percent. So far, so good—still a slower recovery than anyone might like, but a recovery nonetheless. The more concerning signs are hidden beneath the surface. (The Atlantic)

Some have said that the drop in the labor force participation rate is largely about demographics and nothing to worry about. Aging baby boomers are retiring. Middle-aged women, who came roaring into the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s, are now opting out. More kids are staying in school. (Thanks Mr. T!) Indeed, a group of economists basically predicted the current drop in the labor force participation rate all the way back in 2006, well before the recession hit. (Fortune)

Consumers who feel better about their finances and job prospects spend more, and that's a huge driver of the U.S. economy. The latest consumer sentiment numbers, which blew past the estimates in a Bloomberg survey, are a good sign. But a rise in confidence also leads employees who are antsy in their jobs to move on—and cash out of their company's 401(k) while they're at it. (Bloomberg)

I applaud you for wanting to help your colleagues in their 20s and early 30s, but let's not be too quick to assume they're clueless about retirement. The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll did find that young workers are more concerned with immediate needs like paying off student debt and building an emergency fund than retirement. But a new T. Rowe Price study also reports that saving for retirement is important to Millennials and that they're actually doing a pretty good job of balancing current obligations with preparing for retirement. (CNN/Money)

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"Leadership" has historically referred to "industrial leadership" – the managerial styles and structures that served industrial firms well for a century. But the leadership of digital businesses in the post-industrial age is fundamentally different and is defined by five paradoxes. Understanding them can help digital leaders identify and develop the capabilities they will need to transform the firm from a traditional to fully digital enterprise. (Harvard Business Review)

Early in his career, Sir Nicholas Winton was a stockbroker; in later years, he worked for international relief organizations and other charities. But for 50 years, nobody knew his greatest achievement and contribution to humanity. We often celebrate entrepreneurs for being dynamic business leaders. That's a good thing, but entrepreneurship itself doesn't necessarily have anything to do with making money. A professor at Harvard Business School put it best: it's about the "pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled." (Inc.)

Back in the 1970s, figuring out the price of a plane ticket was pretty easy: No matter what airline you took, the price was the same. The government set prices that were dictated mostly by the length of the trip, and airlines competed for business based on other factors, such as service or amenities. But that all changed in 1978, when Congress deregulated the airline industry. (The Washington Post)