The principle of keeping meetings small and made up of smart people is deeply woven into the religion of electronics behemoth Apple and is key to any organization that wants to nurture quality thinking. The idea is pretty basic: Everyone in the room should be there for a reason. There’s no such thing as a mercy invitation. Either you’re critical to the meeting or you’re not. It’s nothing personal, just business.

Apple co-founder, the late Steve Jobs, actively resisted any behavior he believed representative of the way big companies think — even though Apple had been a big company for many years. When he called a meeting or reported to a meeting, his expectation was that everyone in the room would be an essential participant. Spectators were not welcome.

This was based on the somewhat obvious idea that a smaller group would be more focused and motivated than a large group, and smarter people will do higher quality work.

For a principle that would seem to be common sense, it’s surprising how many organizations fail to observe it. How many overpopulated meetings do you sit through during the course of a year? How many of those meetings get sidetracked or lose focus in a way that would never occur if the group were half the size? The small-group rule requires enforcement, but it’s worth the cost.

One reason why large, unwieldy groups tend to be created in many companies is that the culture of a company is bigger than any one person. It’s hard to change “the way we do things here.”

At Apple, because quality is stressed over quantity, meetings are informal and visible progress is made on a weekly — if not daily — basis.

In one large technology company with which I worked, I found a framed sign in every conference room designed to nudge the employees toward greater productivity. The headline on the sign was how to have a successful meeting. The content read like it came right out of a corporate manual, which it likely did. It featured a bullet-pointed list of things like “State the agenda at the start of your meeting,” “Encourage participation by all attendees,” and “Conclude your meeting with agreement on next steps.”

If big companies really feel compelled to put something on their walls, a better sign might read:

How to Have a Great Meeting

1. Throw out the least necessary person at the table.
2. Walk out of this meeting if it lasts more than 30 minutes.
3. Do something productive today to make up for the time you spent here.

Whatever your motivation, what you’re really saying is that you don’t have the right people on the job. So fix that. When populated by the smartest people, small groups will give management more confidence, not less.

Apple’s advertising agency — Chiat/Day, before it merged with TBWA Worldwide — succeeded by the same philosophy. I was a creative director, and our small group matched up well with Apple’s small group. Limiting the size of our group helped us produce work quickly, get information fast and have the agility to react to unexpected events.

Related: Four Tools for Improving Office Collaboration

The agency’s founder, the late Jay Chiat, had set a similar tone decades earlier. Jay and Steve had a unique relationship in the days of the original Macintosh. I had the pleasure of being personally ejected from a meeting by Jay during one of my several stints at Chiat/Day. Surveying the room before the start of a meeting, Jay took one look at my art director partner and me and said, “What are you guys doing here?” “Beats me,” I said. “We’re just responding to the invitation.” Jay told us to get out and “go create something.”

The working styles of both Jay and Steve have stuck with me over the years. I can think of no better examples of leaders with a talent for keeping their teams focused on the mission and focused on producing great results. And both built spectacularly successful businesses. It’s not a coincidence.

This article is an edited excerpt from Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success (Portfolio/Penguin, 2012) by Ken Segall.

As raises go, this was a doozy. Andy Meadows, founder and CEO of custom software company Live Oak 360 in Austin, Texas, decided to increase his salary in the summer of 2010. He didn’t bump it up by 5 percent, or 10 percent, or even 25 percent. Instead, he doubled it — to what he calculated an outsider would charge to do his job. It was a stretch for his then eight-year-old company, but Meadows is now convinced it was the right thing to do.

“Raising my salary to a market level forced me to look at my company from an investor’s perspective,” Meadows says. “It helped me better understand the value of my own time.”

As he began looking at the hours he was devoting to different tasks, he explains, he began asking if they were really tasks he should be doing, based on what the company was paying him, or if they were better suited to one of his employees. Often, the latter was the case, and he learned to cede those tasks to others. “It allowed me to turn myself loose from a lot of digging and hunting for information, and spend more time finding new and better business,” he says now.

The case for market-based wages
Meadows’ epiphany resulted from his work with CPA and business consultant Greg Crabtree, founder of Crabtree, Rowe & Berger PC in Huntsville, Alabama, and author of “Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits!” (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2011). Meadows had hired him to help split Live Oak 360 into three distinct companies.

Crabtree helped with that restructuring, while also driving home his view that as many as 90 percent of entrepreneurs underpay themselves in what often proves to be a misguided attempt at thrift. It then skews their understanding of how well their companies are performing, and in some cases dilutes the incentive they need to make their companies more profitable. If their companies are structured as S corporations, it also can invite an audit from the Internal Revenue Service, which may see it as a ploy to avoid payroll taxes.

“If you’re not paying yourself a market-based wage, the net income on your books is irrelevant — it’s a lie,” Crabtree says. “Over time, you tend to forget that.”

While acknowledging that some entrepreneurs can’t afford to pay themselves a market-based wage, especially during their startup years, Crabtree recommends they at least maintain an extra set of pro forma books showing how their company would be performing if they did.

“If your market-based wage should be $100,000 and you’re only paying yourself $50,000, I want you to book that $100,000 in this extra set of records and show that loss of $50,000,” Crabtree says. “I want you to feel the pain. I want you to understand that until you’ve paid yourself a market-based wage and still turned a profit, you’re losing money.”

That brutally honest approach, Crabtree says, forces entrepreneurs to think about how long they’re willing to accept below-market wages before they fix what’s wrong or find something else to do for a living. “I can’t help them succeed unless I have them look at reality,” he says. He recalls working with one client, an engineer, who had switched careers and opened a bakery but simply wasn’t able to replace his old salary. After taking a hard look at the numbers, he closed his business.

An incentive to grow your business faster
For Meadows, the outcome was much better. Forced to justify the higher paychecks he was cashing, he says, he became more intently focused on growing his company’s business. Sales and profits rose. His employees began to grow, too, enhancing their career skills.

Small-business owners can arrive at a fairly good estimate of what their salary should be, Crabtree says, by visiting websites such as Salary.com or talking to their accountants, who probably do work for other small-business owners and can provide a general overview of what they’re seeing in the marketplace.

In addition to incentivizing them to improve their company’s operations, Crabtree says, taking a market-based wage can make it easier for entrepreneurs to appreciate what they must pay other key employees if they want to attract talented workers. After all, a business owner who cheats on his own salary is likely to find it hard to cough up a fair wage for those working under him.

“If you don’t pay market-based wages to your team, you set into motion things that force employee turnover, and the expense of that is well documented,” Crabtree says. “You also end up hiring people who are not that productive in the first place. If you pay a market-based wage, you can demand market-based performance.”

In short, Crabtree says, paying yourself a fair wage is a powerful engine for driving business growth and building wealth. If you’re not paying yourself what you’re worth, you may be hurting, not helping, your small business.

In this difficult economy, many of us are finding it harder than ever to cope with stress in the workplace. Regardless of occupation, seniority, or salary level, we’re spending more and more of our work days feeling frazzled and out of control, instead of alert and relaxed.

While some stress is a normal part of the workplace, excessive stress can interfere with your productivity and reduce your physical and emotional health. Finding ways to manage workplace stress is not about making huge changes to every aspect of your work life or rethinking career ambitions. Rather, stress management requires focus on the one thing that’s always within your control: you.

Coping with work stress in today’s uncertain climate

For workers everywhere, the troubled economy may feel like an emotional roller coaster. “Layoffs” and “budget cuts” have become bywords in the workplace, and the result is increased fear, uncertainty, and higher levels of stress. Since job and workplace stress increase in times of economic crisis, it’s important to learn new and better ways of coping with the pressure.

The ability to manage stress in the workplace can not only improve your physical and emotional health, it can also make the difference between success or failure on the job. Your emotions are contagious, and stress has an impact on the quality of your interactions with others. The better you are at managing your own stress, the more you’ll positively affect those around you, and the less other people’s stress will negatively affect you.

You can learn how to manage job stress

There are a variety of steps you can take to reduce both your overall stress levels and the stress you find on the job and in the workplace. These include:

• Taking responsibility for improving your physical and emotional well-being.
• Avoiding pitfalls by identifying knee jerk habits and negative attitudes that add to the stress you experience at work.
• Learning better communication skills to ease and improve your relationships with management and coworkers.

Tip 1: Recognize warning signs of excessive stress at work

When you feel overwhelmed at work, you lose confidence and may become irritable or withdrawn. This can make you less productive and less effective in your job, and make the work seem less rewarding. If you ignore the warning signs of work stress, they can lead to bigger problems. Beyond interfering with job performance and satisfaction, chronic or intense stress can also lead to physical and emotional health problems.

Signs and symptoms of excessive job and workplace stress

Tip 2: Reduce job stress by taking care of yourself

When stress at work interferes with your ability to perform in your job, manage your personal life, or adversely impacts your health, it’s time to take action. Start by paying attention to your physical and emotional health. When your own needs are taken care of, you’re stronger and more resilient to stress. The better you feel, the better equipped you’ll be to manage work stress without becoming overwhelmed.

Taking care of yourself doesn’t require a total lifestyle overhaul. Even small things can lift your mood, increase your energy, and make you feel like you’re back in the driver’s seat. Take things one step at a time, and as you make more positive lifestyle choices, you’ll soon notice a reduction in your stress levels, both at home and at work.

Get moving

Aerobic exercise—activity that raises your heart rate and makes you sweat—is a hugely effective way to lift your mood, increase energy, sharpen focus, and relax both the mind and body. For maximum stress relief, try to get at least 30 minutes of heart-pounding activity on most days. If it’s easier to fit into your schedule, break up the activity into two or three shorter segments.

Make food choices that keep you going

Low blood sugar can make you feel anxious and irritable, while eating too much can make you lethargic. By eating small but frequent meals throughout the day, you can help your body maintain an even level of blood sugar and avoid these swings in mood. Read: Healthy Eating.

Drink alcohol in moderation and avoid nicotine

Alcohol temporarily reduces anxiety and worry, but too much can cause anxiety as it wears off. Drinking to relieve job stress may also eventually lead to alcohol abuse and dependence. Similarly, smoking when you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed may seem calming, but nicotine is a powerful stimulant – leading to higher, not lower, levels of anxiety.

Get enough sleep

Not only can stress and worry can cause insomnia, but a lack of sleep can leave you vulnerable to even more stress. When you’re well-rested, it’s much easier to keep your emotional balance, a key factor in coping with job and workplace stress. Read: How to Sleep Better.

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