The phones started ringing at the Miami offices of law firm GrayRobinson even before President Barack Obama ended his speech Wednesday outlining measures to establish diplomatic ties and ease economic barriers with Cuba. "The business community here is starving for opportunities to be explored down in Cuba," said Milton Vescovacci, a Miami-based partner at the firm and head of its Cuba business unit. "You can hear in my voice the kind of energy that I have about this subject. That’s the same energy we’re seeing from clients." (Bloomberg)

Any worthwhile, let alone noteworthy, achievement is inherently tough. It takes considerable effort, energy, and sacrifice, usually over a significant period of time to make it happen – otherwise it’s not an achievement. In a word, it takes grit. Most of us want and need more grit, which begs the question, more of what, exactly? Four building blocks form and fuel your grit: Growth, Resilience, Instinct, and Tenacity. Here’s what you need to know about each to help you be more successful. (Fast Company)

Duke University recently published a study on social media that left many managers scratching their heads. Social media spending at companies, the report showed, currently represents 9% of marketing budgets, and that’s forecast to rise to nearly 25% within five years. But half of marketers interviewed said they couldn’t show what impact social media had on their business – at all. (Fortune)

Aggravations on the job are a fact of life. From the colleague who steals your chair to the colleague who steals your clients, there is enough potential for conflict to take up most of the work week. The trick is figuring out which issues are worth going to war over. Picking your battles is an art worth learning. (The Wall Street Journal)

Having a hands-off manager can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, these bosses give employees considerable initiative and empowerment. On the other hand, they can sometimes be so removed from the action that they’re unable to intervene when needed, making employees feel like they’re left to fend for themselves. A hands-on manager is similarly problematic. (Harvard Business Review)

It doesn’t matter how much work experience you have, or how many interviews you’ve knocked out of the park – job hunting is bound to make even the most confident candidates feel insecure. And since so many factors are out of your control – like whether you’ll hear back about that perfect fit opportunity – it’s no wonder many people find themselves attempting to regain a little power by obsessing over what they can control. But the truth is, not all job-search details are make-or-break. (Fast Company)

What were they thinking? When Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin were exchanging their now infamous emails, leaked in the Sony Pictures Entertainment hacking scandal, they clearly weren’t worried about what would happen to their careers if anyone else read their notes. You have to wonder why not. (Money)

Russia just saved its currency and its banks – or, more precisely, gave them a stay of execution. No, it didn’t throw a hatful of hard currency at them. No, it didn’t say it would inject more capital into them (at least not till next year). What it did was to suspend (or, for the cynics, abandon) pretty much all the prudential standards that define whether or not they’re solvent. In layman’s terms, it’s letting them pretend – for an unspecified period of time–that they’ll be repaid by the companies that have their money. (Fortune)

As one of 144 million Russian consumers that companies from Apple Inc. to Renault SA are trying to reach, university professor Elena Grekhnyova is feeling the pinch of a currency in crisis. She’s now spending 1,200 rubles every few days for eggs, dairy products, poultry and vegetables to feed her family, up 20 percent from just weeks ago. (Bloomberg)

Crystal Clear, a boutique consultancy, has clients flocking to its London base from sectors as diverse as Islamic finance and luxury goods. Amarjeet Hans, the MBA who joined the group to inject a dose of accounting expertise, is a big advocate of business schools as a tool for broadening horizons. He is one of a growing number of qualified management accountants turning to business school to stand out in a crowd. (Business Because)

It’s an alluring morning in New Haven, Conn. Under a brilliant sun, the air is crisp and cool. The leaves on the trees are beginning to transform into a kaleidoscope of colors. And Dean Edward "Ted" Snyder of Yale University’s School of Management is strolling the halls of the school’s brand new $243 million complex. (Fortune)

BlackBerry is returning to its roots with a new phone that features a traditional keyboard at a time when rival Apple and Android phones – and most smartphone customers – have embraced touch screens. With the Classic, BlackBerry is courting its core customer, the business user. The physical keyboard is something traditional BlackBerry users prefer because they find it easier than touch screens to type with. The company is also emphasizing battery life and security. (The Washington Post)

When considering the Sony Pictures mega-hack, try to focus not on movie producer Scott Rudin’s disdain for Angelina Jolie or studio head Amy Pascal’s racially offensive banter about President Barack Obama’s imagined taste in movies. Instead, focus on the uncanny prescience of George Clooney, who on Sept. 5, 2014, typed into the subject line of a message to Pascal: "Knowing this e-mail is being hacked." Sure enough, it was. (Businessweek)

Damaging revelations emerging from the computer assault on Sony Corp. are playing like a horror movie in America’s executive suites, prompting companies to review security measures and reconsider what is said in an email. Corporations long have dealt with hackers who went after their trade secrets and customers’ financial data. (The Wall Street Journal)

These four entrepreneurs from Africa are all worth billions of dollars. What they have in common is their commitment to succeed, determination, positive attitudes, and an impeccable work ethic. Whether you’re starting out in your career and need motivation or you’re a senior executive intrigued by these billionaires and how they made it big, we could all learn a few things from these business moguls. (Black Enterprise)

Whether you want to build a lean startup by bootstrapping or a fat startup with millions of dollars from VCs or institutional funding, you need some level of funding. While there are numerous arguments for why you should and shouldn’t raise capital for your business – that's a topic for a different time – irrespective of the path, every entrepreneur should know some fundamental realities of funding structure before accepting any funding whatsoever. (Fast Company)

The thing Deborah Jackson remembers from her first interviews at Goldman Sachs is the slogan. It was stamped on the glass doors of the offices in the investment bank’s headquarters just off Wall Street, the lure of the place in two words, eight syllables: "Uncommon capability." (The Washington Post)

Payday lenders are spending millions of dollars in Washington in an attempt to stop the government from cracking down on the industry. And it appears to be working. Since the beginning of 2013, high-cost loan providers and those with ties to the industry have spent more than $13 million on lobbying and campaign donations to at least 50 lawmakers, according to a new report from the nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform. (CNN/Money)

Almost one in five Americans in debt expects to die while still in debt, and more than a third of American consumers already are shouldering new loans during this holiday season, according to a new survey by CreditCards.com. The national survey, commissioned by CreditCards.com and conducted the first week of December as the frenzy of holiday shopping approached critical mass, found that for many Americans, debt will be a lifelong, inescapable companion. (CreditCards.com)

You've got a machine just sitting around your house. It's a money-printing machine, and it's perfectly legal. This machine is expected to print $75,000 this year before taxes. You'll use that cash to pay your household expenses. Each year, the machine will print 3 percent more than it did in the previous year, and it will continue doing so for the next 40. That means, over its lifetime the machine will print $5,655,094.48, easily making it your most valuable asset today. (CNBC)

Another digital disruptor is poised to push its way into business education – a market that is ripe for innovation with new software and mobile devices. London-based venture SmartUp is hoping to usher in a new wave of change in academia and to speed up business schools’ adoption of new technology to enhance learning. (Business Because)

Sony Pictures’ decision to let Seth Rogen make a comedy about a plot to kill a head of state will potentially cost the studio hundreds of millions of dollars after a devastating cyber-attack linked to North Korea. The Sony Corp. studio spent about $80 million to make and market the film, whose release was canceled Wednesday after threats of violence by hackers, according to Wade Holden, a researcher at SNL Kagan. On top of that, there’s the bill for rebuilding Sony’s computer network. (Bloomberg)

As technology advances, the way CFOs hire accounting and finance staff continues to evolve. I recently spoke with Miranda Nash, president of Jobscience, about the way the recruiting process has changed and how CFOs can ensure they are finding the best talent for their teams. (Forbes)

Let me give you a quick scenario: Imagine you’re the new CEO of ChocoBot Inc., the world’s largest maker of edible jewelry. (That’s right, edible jewelry, as in candy bracelets, chocolate watches and gummy brooches. And yes, this is a fictional company). Right now you’re in a sticky situation (bad pun alert). You’ve got to motivate your middle managers to support a new, and necessary, change initiative. (Forbes)

The other night I watched Raymond Reddington, fictional star of the TV series The Blacklist, pull off another impossible plotline without breaking a sweat, explaining calmly to one of his minions that the key to winning is to "value loyalty above all else." The notion of loyalty as a protective force that leads to great success is so much a part of how we think about leadership that it is very easy to accept, even when it is not espoused by someone as exceptionally interesting to watch as James Spader. (Harvard Business Review)

No matter how much sleep I got at night, getting up for school was always torture. As soon as I learned my ABCs, I was pleading for "five more minutes." Things got worse as I got older. I got into the habit of sleep procrastination – staying up late, reading, watching bad movies, writing in my journal – just to avoid going to bed and by logic, waking up the next day. Every morning, my mother had to shout at me that I had to 15 minutes to get dressed and be out the door but it was always worth it to get those extra five minutes of sleep. At least I thought it was. My morning bleariness and disorientation led to a lot of unsigned permission slips and overdue library books left at the door. (Fast Company)

Among my Type A, career-minded friends, I've heard two opposing types of personal mantras for the amount of sleep a person should get. The first: 8 hours of sleep will help you be more awake and aware, and then you can work harder. The second: Sleep is for losers. (The Atlantic)