Midweek Reading: Organizational Structure, Competition, and Roadmaps

As human beings, we are naturally competitive. Perhaps a bit too competitive. Matthew Hutson reviews a series of studies demonstrating the power of competition, and how many people allow relative standing to influence their happiness more than their absolute standing.

What’s your roadmap? To be successful, you have to know where you are going, and come up with strategies to get there. Brian de Haaff outlines the important elements for your business’s roadmap, as well as the primary benefits.

Zappos is the latest company to abandon the notion of organizational hierarchy, except that it is going farther than anyone. The company has done away with all managers, job titles, and hierarchy, and is working to implement “holacracy,” a radical organizational structure that puts employees in control of everything.

There is a growing trend of entrepreneurial people who, instead of starting their own businesses, are buying existing small businesses and taking them over to grow them. With many Baby Boomers looking to cash out, and somewhat easier access to capital than in the past few years, it’s a middle path between a corporate career and a startup.

According to Facebook, 45 million small businesses actively maintain their pages on the site, and the network is now adding features to make business pages an effective mobile presence for local searches.

Looking to increase your productivity and motivation? A new study suggests that the best way is to take frequent, short breaks throughout the day, and especially in the midmorning. Breaks around 10-11 am resulted in employees reporting increased energy, motivation, and concentration.

People love free. The “content upgrade” model is a wildly popular model for businesses to generate leads, by offering free content in exchange for something useful for them: your email address. Vinay Patankar writes about the results businesses have gotten from this strategy.

Everybody says you need to know your niche and define your value proposition, but do you know how to do it? Jeff Boss writes for Entrepreneur with the 4 big questions you need to answer to identify your precise niche.

What is the strongest part of the American economy? According to a survey of Harvard Business School alums, it’s entrepreneurship, which was picked as both the strongest element today as well as the one that is improving most.