The holiday season is officially here. Not only is this the season for family and giving, but it also means festive decorations, social gatherings, office parties, tasty sweets, family meals, shopping, and more.

How can you make this a safe and healthy holiday season for your family and your organization? Consider the following resources to get you ready for the holidays!

'Cause I gotta have faith
I gotta faith
Because I gotta to have faith faith
I gotta to have faith, faith, faith
-George Michael

As we come to the end of the year, we have much to be thankful for at Gibson: an amazing team, great clients, and we get to do it all in some truly wonderful communities. I feel very blessed and grateful to be a part of our employee-owned organization.

I also feel a renewed sense of hope and anticipation for all that lies ahead in the coming year. Yet, with this optimism and excitement comes some typical (for me) angst as planning sessions kick off, initiatives are prioritized, and rocks are set. Can we measure up to past success? What threats might our clients face in their businesses? Will the saber rattling in Washington seriously destabilize our economy?

Don’t let the new year get off to a bad start! Keep safety in mind to ensure you, your family, and your friends have an accident-free New Year’s Eve celebration!

As we all know - there are many awesome benefits with today's technology (the list is long, right). On the other hand, there are also unfortunate downsides with today's technology (the list is pretty long there, as well). 

In other words, today's mixed bag of pros & cons, yin & yang, salt & sweet smorgasbord of technological breakthroughs, has us drinking from a glass simultaneously half full, and half empty. (Deep, huh!?)

One of the most evident examples of this technological “split personality syndrome” - is digital music. Moreover, the ability to download any song. At any time. Anywhere. As fantastically terrific as this is … especially when we want that one super-duper song that's gonna get us movin', groovin', or chillin' … it also has its downsides in that most songs, are part of an album; an album with other songs.

In other words, they're a team. A unit. A family (faults, and all).  

The holiday shopping season is about to begin! Whether you’re someone who gets up bright and early to grab Black Friday deals or online shopping and Cyber Monday are more your style – the next several weeks bring lots of great deals and discounts…but also an increased risk of identity theft and credit card fraud.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Tim Hiller, Senior Manager, Talent Management at Stryker. We hope you enjoy Tim’s wisdom and perspective.

Leadership has been defined many different ways by many different people, but I would define it in a simple word.

Stewardship.

Leadership is ultimately stewardship. It is taking the best care possible of the people, resources, and responsibilities under our influence. It doesn’t matter if our level of responsibility is little or large…all that matters is how well we care for what we’ve been given.

So what qualities do we need to succeed as leaders who are great stewards? I believe the best steward leaders are caring, clear, and coaches.

Astronomically winter doesn’t begin until mid-December, but for most of the country the telltale signs of winter start much sooner – and may have already begun.

We all have our favorite Thanksgiving traditions. It could be eating turkey and pumpkin pie, spending quality time with family, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, cheering on your favorite football team, preparing for Black Friday shopping, or perhaps you’re someone who loves to start the day by running in a local turkey trot race. This week is a time to gather with friends & family, and to give thanks for our blessings.

About seven years ago we were putting the finishing touches on a new vision for Gibson. Like everyone else, we were emerging from the fog of the Great Recession. Even before the economic downturn we had misfired on a major multi-year plan. To say we were a little gun-shy about verbalizing some new grandiose plan would be an understatement.

Yet aiming for something that seemed out of reach to most of us was exactly what we needed. It pushed us to be better, to be more. We had a financial target in mind that would have us more than doubling in size over the next decade. From a math standpoint, while not a given, it was certainly achievable. We needed to average about 7 to 8% net growth per year. But after years of economic fear, this goal caused much angst among our management team. We wondered if we could really afford to fail again in the eyes of our employees. To our fragile team, to double in size seemed unthinkable.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Nick Smarrelli, CEO of GadellNet. We hope you enjoy Nick’s wisdom and perspective.

When I joined the team at GadellNet, one of the first things I noticed was what it felt like to work at GadellNet. We were small then, less than five people, and it truly felt like family. The culture was naturally customer-centric, helpful, transparent, and flexible. What I saw was a company about to explode, and I didn’t want to lose the awesome culture that was already in place.

We spent 9 exhausting months of trial-and-error to identify our core values. What made us different? How can we use this to weed out those that don’t fit our culture? Was it clear enough to help make hiring/firing decisions? Was it inspiring? How did it play into our commitment to the community, our employees and our clients? Was it memorable? We didn’t want to have core values that were trite, rather, something that served as the foundation for every decision made as a company.