Why you should always ask for a raise, Eric Schmidt’s advice for future leaders, and more top insights

What’s happening in the world of work: The Saturday edition of the Daily Rundown highlights the business trends, perspectives, and hot topics you need to know to work smarter. Read on and join the conversation.

When it comes to salaries, always ask for more: Just 39% of employees engage in salary negotiations when they receive a job offer, according to research from staffing firm Robert Half. Even though it may feel awkward to ask for more, do it anyway, advises Carnegie Mellon’s Linda Babcock. Why? A yes will lead to more money, and hearing yes repeatedly may even suggest you may not be asking for enough. Even getting a no is helpful, as it can lead to useful conversations about how to grow at your current job. Good luck. ? Here’s what people are saying.

We should all give ourselves a cheat day: We are more likely to push through ambitious challenges when we build in some room for slip-ups along the way, according to research from UCLA and Wharton. Allowing some room for minor setbacks helps alleviate the pressure to perform perfectly. Study participants who were given “emergency reserves” of second chances as they pursued their goals were more likely to press on and achieve their goals than those who didn’t have such wiggle room at all or those who set their aspirations too low. ? Here’s what people are saying.

You Asked: “How can today's workers prepare to be executives of tomorrow's Fortune 500 companies? What are some of the traits needed for the executives of the 21st century?” — Rebecca Mott, senior continuous improvement specialist at Tennessee Valley Authority

• “When I think about the next generation of leaders they're going to have to be much quicker than we were. Everything happens faster now. If you can build a team quickly around a problem, in the future, you can really succeed. The future is going to be about assembling the right experts quickly, getting the ideas quicker than anybody else and implementing them faster than anyone else, because global competition means the time frame you have is shorter and shorter. The key difference between when I was young and now is the amount of time that we have to discuss, to decide, to ship, to execute.” — Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman and CEO of Google and co-author of “Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell”

• “Leaders face a lot of uncertainty; the impact of technology, the shifting financial markets, disruptive ideas, the customer evolution, just to name a few. All this chaos can deeply impact those you lead. We need leaders who can lead through the fog. Visionary leadership means that you will set a beacon in the distance. A vision articulates a realistic, desirable and positive future state. The vision answers, indirectly, the question, ‘Where are you going?’” — Bonnie Timms Hagemann, CEO of Executive Development Associates

Looking for career advice from the pros? Submit your questions in the comments with #YouAsked and we’ll take care of the rest.

To cut gender bias in performance ratings, change the scale: Instead of evaluating employee performance on a 10-point scale, go for a 6-point scale. According to new research published in the American Sociological Review, the number 10 is associated with genius and brilliance, qualities that trigger gender bias that favors men. A 6-point scale, however, does not elicit such biased expectations, the researchers found. While point systems don’t eliminate the underlying gender biases, it creates an opportunity to evaluate men and women under more equal conditions. ? Here’s what people are saying.

Can money buy creativity? In some cases, yes. When we are asked to perform tasks with clear parameters — like using a specific group of words to tell a story — a bit of money can help boost creativity, according to researchers from Bocconi University and UC Santa Barbara. But if we’re asked to dream up something from scratch, cash doesn’t seem to sweeten the deal. What helps our creative juices, no matter the type of task? The knowledge that our peers will be scoring us on creativity, the researchers found. ? Here’s what people are saying.

One last idea:  In our quest to produce great work, many of us desperately search for the new and undiscovered. But NYU’s Adam Brandenburger suggests that instead of looking for what we haven’t found, we benefit by looking at what already know, but with fresh eyes.

“When we look at the world, we should not just examine, but examine with a deliberately different perspective. Not just name what is around us, but come up with new names. Not just consider the whole, but break things up (or down) into pieces.”

What's your take? Join the conversations on today's stories in the comments.

— Scott Olster, Ruiqi Chen, and Jasmine Teng