Getting to this point was a long process; we first talked about this year's Dell/NFIB Small Business Excellence Awards way back in February.  However, for one business, the wait has proven worth it, as the overall U.S. winner has finally been announced.

BusinesSuites, which provides executive suites and virtual office services, came out on top.  The company's about 20 years old, has 15 locations, employees 55 people, and manages more than 1,400 clients.  Which is an impressive collection of stats, all in all.

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The message behind JPMorgan Chase's headline-grabbing executive shakeup this week is that CEO Jamie Dimon is trying to de-mythologize himself. That's good news for the investment bank, its employees, and its shareholders.

Over the past 18 months, JPMorgan Chase has made a habit of captivating the financial community. This time, though, it wasn't a last minute acquisition of another investment bank like Bear Stearns. Nor was it the purchase of the assets of a bank like Washington Mutual out of receivership. It was merely a personnel change. But it was a big one.

Jes Staley, former head of the company's asset management division, was named head of the company's much larger investment bank.

Bill Winters, former co-head of the investment bank, announced his departure from the firm, having achieved a remarkable performance for JPMorgan at a time when even mediocre performances have been in short supply.

Steve Black, Winters's co-head, was promoted to vice chairman of the investment bank, with an announced plan to step down at the end of 2010.

The move shows maturity on Dimon's part. It's a challenge for any CEO to keep his or her ego in check, but with the amount of media adulation Dimon has received, you'd think the man's head would be in danger of exploding. Dimon surely has a high opinion of his own talents — and rightly so — but he is also well aware that the mythology of Jamie Dimon is fast approaching dangerous levels. What would happen to the stock if he suddenly retired or got hit by a bus?

The shakeup shows he will take action to make the world aware that JPMorgan Chase is not Jamie Dimon alone. This is helpful for both employees and investors. Staley was recently the subject of a cover story in Institutional Investor, a move that wouldn't have happened without Dimon's blessing.

As for Winters, the details of his departure will surely come out over time. But it's a pretty good bet that Dimon didn't push him out in some fit of pique; rather, he decided it was time to make some tough decisions, and he chose Staley. Winters was always a potential candidate as Dimon's successor. With this week's news, the odds fell precipitously. And so he left the firm. In making the call, Dimon showed that he had learned from his experiences working with Sandy Weill, whose inability to accept the realities of succession meant Citigroup would convulse every few years in a spasm of uncertainty. Dimon clearly intends to avoid making the same mistake.

Again, this is good for employee morale, especially at the highest levels.

What of Dimon's own future? As he told me during the writing of my book, Last Man Standing, he doesn't have any intention of stepping down any time soon. He wants to leave the bank in great shape, and he doesn't think it's there yet. My bet is that he'll stick around for at least another three years, if not more. But if you're betting on who's next in line, Staley's position is looking as good as it gets.

Duff McDonald is a contributing editor for New York magazine and the author of Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase, which comes out October 6 from Simon & Schuster.

The Obama administration is right to aim its new executive-pay limits not just at bank CEOs but at what I call the front-office risk takers — the traders who have caused an uproar by garnering multimillion-dollar paydays at financial services companies. In fact, the public debate about executive compensation has been too narrowly focused on just the CEO; reforms need to apply to risk takers at all levels.

Following the lead of the G-20, the new rules on bank executives' pay are expected from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury within the next few weeks. By restricting compensation plans that reward short-term gains, the regulations will be designed to limit excessive risk-taking by chief executives, loan officers, and traders, according to press reports.

The details of the new rules aren't yet known, but reform is clearly needed. Research earlier this year by the Institute of International Finance, the global association of financial institutions, reveals several historical flaws in the compensation practices at financial services firms.

One of these is an insufficient connection between the size of individual performance bonuses and the riskiness of particular businesses. Fully half of the firms surveyed by the IIF use no such "risk adjustments" when creating and allocating bonus pools. As a result, many of the risk takers are paid out of proportion to their contributions to the firms' economic value.

Another flaw is a lack of linkage between the pay of the front-office risk takers and their firms' overall results. Over half of the firms surveyed by the IIF have only modest links between bonuses and overall company performance (as opposed to individual or business unit performance); that means there's limited downside for employees if other areas of the firm perform poorly. And only 40% of the firms tie bonus payouts to the future performance of the firm, meaning that a minority have historically tried to assess how the bets pay off before rewarding the gamblers.

Compensation reform alone isn't going to protect the financial services industry from future booms and busts; true protection is going to require better risk governance and risk management. But the current financial crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity for the industry to fix the problems in executive pay and to create compensation packages that will protect firms from out-of-control risk-taking while creating stickiness for the best talent, as the old partnership models used to do. When all is said and done, retaining and motivating top performers is — or ought to be — the primary goal of compensation.

Nick Studer is a London-based partner and head of the European Finance and Risk practice at Oliver Wyman, the international management consulting firm.

You're thinking about leaving the for-profit world and entering the not-for-profit arena. That's a great idea. Business skills are both needed and valued by the nonprofit sector. Before you make this particular leap, however, remember: Functional expertise and cultural "fit" with a target organization are the make-or-breaks in such a transition. Succeed at one but fail at the other, and your move isn't likely to stick.

Dennis Kelly, formerly a senior marketing executive at The Coca-Cola Company and the president and CEO of Green Mountain Energy in Texas, was able to successfully make the transition—precisely because he paid attention to both sides of the equation. He became CEO of Zoo Atlanta in June 2003, bringing marketing, operational, general management, and project management skills to the table. But the key to sealing the deal on his new career was his passion for working in an environmentally important enterprise that focused on both education and sustainability.

Clearly, Kelly had to have the functional expertise in the first place to arrive at a place that mirrored his personal passions. Many social sector organizations are looking to professionalize operations as they become more complex, tackle bigger problems, and face increasing demand from funders for measurable results. In some fields, such as child and family services, for instance, mergers and alliances have become important tools for growth. Getting at the true promise of such collaborations, however, calls for functional expertise in legal partnerships and contract negotiations.

But even when your skills clearly match the needs of an organization, as Kelly's did, there's still the question of cultural fit. It means asking yourself: Do you demonstrate active listening skills? Do you show empathy with and understanding of the populations being served? Are you able to naturally share and vividly display a genuine sense of mission? Can you make sound decisions in a collaborative environment, influenced by shared values and a passionate purpose?

Recognize that you'll also need to make the most of often-times limited resources when you move to a nonprofit setting. In our work matching executive talent to nonprofit needs, we've seen that the best fits are "stone soup" entrepreneurs: They quickly adapt to operating with fewer resources, less infrastructure, and more fluid processes. They embrace doing the most they can, where they are, with what they've got — inspiring others to do the same.

As nonprofit organizations grow, they will need people who bring functional depth and rigor to the table. Much of that talent will be homegrown, but our research shows that more than 20% of it now comes in from the private sector. If you see yourself in that statistic, be sure to take the time to objectively evaluate your motivations, your professional skills, and the aspects of fit you can offer. Then prepare yourself for a big transition; one that is worth every ounce of effort you'll need to exert.

Wayne Luke is a partner with The Bridgespan Group and head of the firm's talent matching services.

"The layoffs happened on the sixteenth," recalls Tom (not his real name), a survivor of a massive blood-letting at a major financial services firm. Employees learned they were being let go in a glass-walled conference room at the back of the trading floor. "It was like a goldfish bowl. And to make matters worse, when people left the conference room, they had to walk across the trading floor — hundreds of feet — and everyone could see that telltale blue folder with the severance information tucked under their arm and would understand that person had been fired.

"Everyone was treated this way, from associates all the way up to managing directors," Tom goes on. "Employees on other floors found out who had gotten laid off before the names were officially announced, because the traders spread the word. People in other banks also knew, because traders talk to each other all the time. And what they were saying was, 'I can't believe that's how they're laying people off! That company is a mess.'"

Tom concludes, "That decision — to conduct layoffs in such a humiliating way — cost the firm a great deal of loyalty and respect, not just within the organization but all across Wall Street."

Let's face it, "terms of disengagement" matter. Poorly handled reductions in force (RIFs) leave a bad taste in the mouths both of those employees shown the door and those picked to stay. Surveys conducted for my forthcoming book, Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business Is Down, quantified the impact of layoffs on survivors' morale: 73 percent felt demoralized, 64 percent felt demotivated, and 74 percent said they shut down and turned off. In other words, just when a company needs its top performers to charge the hill, they retreat to the bunkers.

Badly handled downsizings reverberate for years. The talented employees tossed on the scrap heap will be back in the marketplace — as customers, clients and, when business picks up, competitors, eager to lure their former colleagues to their new teams. And if those A-team players are still scarred by a callous layoff, they won't think twice about leaving.

If RIFs are unavoidable, how can companies protect and reassure their stars? How can they ensure their best and brightest stay fully engaged even as their colleagues are being let go?

Here are two examples of organizations that RIF-ed the right way:

In early 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downsized its workforce for the first time since the organization's inception in 1944. The IMF understood that the unprecedented staff cuts would be traumatic for its 2,600 employees, so it created a variety of tools to facilitate a fair restructuring process.

Communications were key. The IMF's comprehensive approach included: a dedicated committee to act as an employee ombudsman; an internal website to provide one-stop information, updated daily; and an open channel to the Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, via e-mail, townhall meetings and regular coffee talks and brown-bag lunches.

Like many organizations, the IMF tried to minimize mandatory layoffs by offering voluntary separations. To help employees assess their alternatives, the IMF created what became an award-winning interactive internal website as well as in-person, on-site workshops. It also amended existing policies for people who volunteered to leave. For example, pension benefits, which usually kicked in at age 65, were extended to early retirees who were at least 50.

Lastly, Dominique Strauss-Kahn personally reached out to sister organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank to request that ex-IMF-ers be treated as "internal staff" and given preference in applying for jobs at those and similar organizations.

Ultimately, more than 600 employees volunteered to go — nearly 20 percent more than the IMF needed. At the same time, the IMF's thoughtful approach helped support morale for the people who stayed and preserved the organization's reputation with clients around the world.

While the extraordinary efforts of the IMF aren't always possible, other concrete compassionate gestures construct a solid foundation of goodwill at the cost of only a few hours' work. When Time Warner laid off employees in its corporate office in February, Maggie Rubey Lynch, senior vice president of worldwide recruitment and executive search, ensured that the exit booklet contained more than the usual cut-and-dried severance information. Instead, if offered optimism — and options.

Call it re-employment through re-deployment. Rubey Lynch and her staff searched thousands of job postings within the company to create lists of open positions, customized for each person being let go. Exiting employees were offered preferential "current employee" status if they chose to apply. In addition, Rubey Lynch's staff contacted divisional heads of human resources to let them know which employees from the corporate office were newly available for employment.

In tough times, knowing that management cares enough to offer more than a cursory "goodbye and good luck" builds the kind of loyalty that won't be forgotten when things get better.

For more information on IMF's fair restructuring and Time Warner's customized exit booklet, download these success stories.