Description: Latest in series of articles exploring the adaptation of Buddhist philosophy to actuarial practice. This installment examines the challenges for actuaries in dealing with external opinions of actuarial work, and how to best manage these forces so that the work remains aligned with professional standards.

Description: Taking a look at Julia Child's signature TV show The French Chef, and how aspects of her show gives us tips on how to train others.

Description: A compilation of reader responses is presented to a real life situation posed involving a management, leadership, or other business decision. This issue’s case study involved a dilemma involving an ASA who decided to stop taking exams, and communication difficulties with the Chief Actuary.

Description: A real life situation is posed involving a management, leadership, or other business decision, and readers are invited to submit their responses to "What Would You Do?" This issue’s case study involved a communication and mentoring issue.

Description: This article is an overview of the SOA Leadership & Development Section Council's current projects, recent accomplishments and some immediate focal points of the Leadership & Development Section Council's efforts.

Description: Continuing our series related to the exposition of distribution terms that may be unclear or misunderstood, our focus in this article is on critical service and support components for sales and distribution, accompanied by a summary of the regulatory oversight of insurance sellers and distributors and a few common terms related to that oversight

Description: It is well established that empowerment of staff is a critical leadership trait. But what are the metrics to recognize that you have achieved it? What steps enable this achievement? Which psychological attributes explain its efficacy?This article proposes to answer these questions through a multi-disciplinary examination of empowerment in the context of three leadership domains.

Description: The article describes principles for optimal sub-tasking of a project goal. Two experiments each one comparing different approaches are presented. A summary of principles for optimal goal setting presents seven key points: i)levels of outcome goals should be recognizable and lack ambiguity; ii) each subtask should be atomic, i.e. not be capable of being broken up into further subtasks, iii) the subtasks should be uniform, lacking ambiguity, so that any new trainee could master it without the need for further guidance; iv) each subtask should be attainable in a reasonable amount of time; v) mentor feedback should be provided during the initial stages of learning or training; vi) upon mastery of each subtask trainees should be encouraged to maximize their overall score; vii) after mastery of individual subtasks, while attempting to maximize scores, trainees should be provided with a mixture of easy, intermediate, and difficult tasks.

Description: This is an article about baby boomers and marketing communication. From News Direct, May 2006, Number 53.

Description: This article is based on a presentation made by the author at the Annual Meeting of the Actuarial Society of New York in September 2004. The example of the position inventory and complementary skills acquired is from the author's own professional experience. From The Actuary Magazine, April/May 2005