Americans sit for an average of 9.3 hours a day. And a slew of studies have shown just how unhealthy that is, linking it to heart disease, obesity, and cancer. So next time you need to meet with a colleague, don’t book a conference room. Take a walk. Aside from the much-needed exercise, there are numerous benefits:

• Having a common

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To make it in any job, you need to be able to convey ideas clearly and effectively. There are three things the best communicators employ to deliver their message:

• Credibility. Prove your authority by demonstrating technical expertise in a specific area, which helps convince people that you know what you’re talking about. If you

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No one wants their writing to put readers to sleep. And yet, many managers write boring and repetitive e-mails, reports, and letters. To keep your readers engaged, try the following:

• Use personal pronouns skillfully. Don’t overuse I (try not to begin paragraphs or successive sentences with it), but do lean heavily on we, our, you,

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If want to communicate that your project’s goals are “right on target,” it’s tempting to present your colleagues with the all-too-familiar image of a bull’s-eye. But nothing gets an audience’s eyes a-glazing like a visual cliché. To make your presentation stand out, throw out the first visual concepts that come to mind. …

If you want to encourage people to take healthy risks, you need to make sure they’re not afraid to fail. The first step in doing that is defining what a smart failure — a thoughtful and well-planned project that for some reason didn’t work — looks like. Chances are that everyone in your organization knows what success is. Far fewer …

It’s challenging to work with someone you don’t chat with every day at the coffee station. But you can still build strong connections and work successfully together. Here’s how:

To succeed in today’s busy world, you need to decide what to excel at and what to do just adequately enough. Break down activities you do into three categories: invest, neutral, or optimize. “Investment” pursuits are areas where more time and a higher quality of work lead to an exponential payoff, such as strategic planning. Aim

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It’s natural to feel helpless or uncomfortable when someone cries in front of you in the office. But remember that tears are a normal human reaction, not a sign of weakness.

If you’re in the market for a job, you need to be able to communicate your value as a potential employee in 15 seconds or less. That may be all the time you have with a recruiter or hiring manager. Your message has to be crisp and tailored. Say specifically what value you bring — for instance, “My specialty is streamlining messy, …

How many times have you promised to exercise more, or start meditating, or spend less time at the office? To make changes that last, create rituals — highly specific behaviors that you do at the same time every day (or on specific days you select). Willpower is a limited resource, so use less of it by making challenging activities …

When deciding whether to give you their business, prospective customers trust one source of information above all others: their peers. To sell more, you need to get your current customers marketing and selling — advocating — for you.

When displaying data in a presentation, clarity matters above all else. Your audience has to get meaning from your numbers before you click away. This means you need to pick the right chart for the job. The most common charts in business are pies, bars, matrixes, and line graphs, which will serve different purposes depending on the …