For many people, the word "no" is an impossible one to use.

We want to make other people happy, so it can be difficult to say no to family and friends. It's also hard to say no to a career opportunity or to a co-worker that wants your help.

But sometimes in life, it's necessary to put your foot down.

Learning to be a little bit selfish can be a good thing, and it can help boost you in ways you never thought possible.

See how these 5 benefits to learning how to say no can improve your productivity and quality of life.

It’s probably fair to say the basic premise and fundamental focus of HR automation is process improvement. After all, if it doesn’t make your day-to-day HR life easier, why have an HRMS in the first place? And it seems many would agree. According to the Sierra-Cedar 2017-2018 HR Systems Survey, 67% of organizations have “business process improvement” as a priority for their HR technology investment (with “HR systems strategy” a distant second place at 40%).

In a time of extreme weather and extreme news coverage about both mother nature and man-made disasters, it can help to ease the fears of employees to plan for the worst. Many companies and HR departments have started to build communication plans directly into the Employee Handbook so employees have a strategy to refer to in the unlikely event of a crisis.

And while what we care most about during a crisis are very human issues — emotions, safety, family — in the midst of chaos, it’s technology that’s going to be the first and best way to stay connected. Here are a few tools and strategies you might consider having in place to communicate with your team in the face of the unexpected.

This blog, Beware of These Three Leadership Traps, was originally posted by Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership, on April 13, 2017.

SNAP!!

When the trap closes, it’s too late to do anything. In the physical world, we set traps for other things like mice and pantry moths. Leadership traps are more insidious because you set them for yourself and when they spring, it’s too late. Here are three of the most dangerous leadership traps.

This blog, Leadership: Create a Great Working Environment for Your Team, was originally posted by Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership, on March 28, 2017.

If you’re responsible for the performance of a group, then you’re a boss. And, your challenge is to create a great working environment for your team. Fortunately, we know what a great working environment looks like.

This blog, 3 Secrets of Better Performance Conversations, was originally posted by Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership, on February 23, 2017.

We can laugh about it today. My new neighbor had just moved in across the street and, because he was new, he parked in just the perfect spot to block me from getting out of my own driveway. When I headed across the street, I was sure we were going to have a pretty good dust-up. I was ready. Imagine a fierce look and a clenched jaw.

This blog, Emotional Intelligence Depends on More than Physician Behavior, was originally written by Paul Keckley and Marina Karp on May 17, 2016.

Emotional intelligence is not a new idea. In corporate America, it’s widely recognized as an essential quality for effective leadership. In health care, the application of EQ, as it’s known, has been limited to face-to-face interactions between caregivers and patients, but it’s much more.

This blog, The Secret of Great Leadership, was originally posted by Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership, on February 9, 2017.

This blog, How To Avoid Becoming an Awful Boss, was originally posted by Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership, on February 2, 2017.

Most of the nicknames we had for my worst boss ever are not suitable for a workplace-friendly blog. Most of the time, we referred to him by the initials “SA,” which stood for “Sir Awful.” Sometimes the people who worked for him would substitute another A-word for “awful.”

This blog, 3 Ways Excellent Leaders Keep Getting Better, was originally posted by Wally Bock, Three Start Leadership, on January  5, 2017.

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi used to say that you should chase perfection even though you know you’ll never catch it because if you chase perfection you will catch excellence. He left something out.