With the new year coming soon, the resolved and motivated (a class certainly well-represented by business owners) are going to be tackling some big resolutions for 2010. If you are looking for ways to improve the efficiency and productivity of your employees, it may be wise not only to look forward, but backward as well.

Let's take a look back at an experiment that took place back in the 1920's. Elton Mayo, a Harvard Business school professor, decided to conduct an experiment at Chicago's Western Electric Hawthorne Works factory. Here, female employees were assembling telephone relays, a mechanism made of forty parts that had to be assembled and dropped into a chute when finished. The work was somewhat boring and monotonous, so Mayo decided to see what variables could be implemented to decrease fatigue and increase output.

Female employees were selected in groups of six to participate in the studies, during which time they would continue to work, but under frequently changing conditions. The original work week consisted of a nine-to-five, six days a week (Saturdays included) with no breaks and for a steady wage. During the course of Mayo's experiment, the girls were put on piece-work, given rest periods of varying lengths, allowed to go home earlier, and offered a free hot meal by the company, all of which appeared to show an increase in worker productivity. It appeared at this point that the variety added to an otherwise boring day helped decrease fatigue among the workers, thus leading to their overall increased productivity.

In 2009 I've slowed down a bit from 2008 and focused on iContact and Nourish International. I had to reduce some commitments to be able to do that and left three other non-profit Boards. After my mom hurt her arm and two of my friends were diagnosed with cancer in October I slowed down a bit at the end of the year and didn't hold any Entrepreneur or Social Entrepreneur meetups the last three months. They'll be back in January.

I still ended up racking up some good frequent flyer miles riding in 72 planes in 2009 (down from 74 in 2008) and spoke to about 5700 people this year (down from 8500 in 2008). I very much enjoy public speaking. Most recently I've been speaking about how to change the world through business and social entrepreneurship.

I've been hearing this one question a lot recently: "Fabienne, what did you actually DO to multiply your 1ncome so quickly? How did you get to a million and can I do it too?" Well, the answer is "Yes, you can do it too" and it's important to realize that it comes down to several different things: Authentic and compelling marketing, systems for everything, a team, different sources of income, leverage, etc.

But, believe it or not, those are actually the easy part, because you can be shown exactly how to do this (I show you how in my Workshop-in-a-box). The difficult part is actually a two step process, two steps that seem very simple on the outside, but that few people actually DO anything about. In fact, this is so deceptively simple that most people ignore its importance and look for something way more complex. But it comes down to:

1. Making a decision

2. Doing what it takes