Leaders accept and act on the paradox of power: you become more powerful when you give your own power away. Long before empowerment was written into the popular vocabulary, exemplary leaders understood how important it was for their constituents to feel strong, capable, and efficacious. Constituents who feel weak, incompetent, and insignificant will consistently underperform; they want to flee the organization and are ripe for disenchantment, even revolution. (Fast Company)
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Early bird registration discounts have been extended for the NBMBAA® 34th Annual Conference & Exposition, September 25-29 in Indianapolis! Visit the Conference website for our new Pre-Conference Planning Guide and get all the information on why Conference is for you, what you get for your registration, costs, hotels, programs and more! Register by August 31 to take advantage of early registration discounts – and for a chance to win an iPad 2, sponsored by FedEx.
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It was a huge red flag when the Congressional "super committee" failed to pass a bipartisan debt deal in 2011 – the deal was supposed to outline how to reduce the budget by at least $1.2 trillion over ten years. Since then, the debate in Congress over how to cut spending has become increasingly important and increasingly polarized. Businesses, to protect themselves from the potential effects of the cliff, are freezing up too. (Fortune)
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Thank you Germany, Italy, Spain and, especially, the European Central Bank (learn more). They all said enough to provide markets and investors with a tranquil August so far. The question now is whether they will be able and willing to pivot – from re-assuring words to the series of actions required to enable this tranquility to grow deep roots. (CNBC)
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They're often criticized as spoiled, impatient, and most of all, entitled. But as millennials enter the workforce, more companies are jumping through hoops to accommodate their demands for faster promotions, greater responsibilities and more flexible work schedules – much to the annoyance of older co-workers who feel they have spent years paying their dues to rise through the ranks. (Wall Street Journal)
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If you ask a group of managers who aspire to the C-suite what it takes to get there, they'll invariably mention executive presence, but they aren't always so clear about what it means. Not too long ago I conducted a series of off-the-record interviews with senior executives responsible for executive placement in their organizations. I asked them about the "make or break" factors they consider in making C-suite promotion decisions. (Harvard Business Review)
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"Many remote employees use ‘virtual’ face time to make up for their absence from the office," write Kimberly Elsbach and Daniel Cable in "Why Showing Your Face Matters," in the Summer 2012 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. Their article describes how "employees who work remotely may end up getting lower performance evaluations, smaller raises and fewer promotions than their colleagues in the office – even if they work just as hard and just as long." (MIT/Sloan Management Review)
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Visitors to Kenya’s capital are often horrified by the homicidal minibuses called matatu. They swerve around potholes, seldom signal and use their iffy brakes only at the last second. They are therefore an ideal subject for a video game, which is why Planet Rackus, a Nairobi start-up, released "Ma3Racer" last year. Each player uses his mobile phone to steer a matatu down the street. The (unrealistic) goal is to avoid pedestrians. Within a month, a quarter of a million people in 169 countries had downloaded the game. (The Economist)
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Deepening economic troubles have reached the soul of Southern Europe: the local café. Across the region, consumers are forsaking daily visits to local coffee bars – considered by many to be the cornerstone of social life – as unemployment, wage cuts and higher taxes slash household budgets. (Wall Street Journal)
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It’s already mid-August and most MBA programs are either in full swing or will begin shortly. For newly enrolled students, the start of the program is an overwhelming experience filled with high expectations as well as a bit of trepidation – How will I measure up? Will I fit in? Can I succeed? How did I ever get admitted? (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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As the class of 2014 prepares to start business school, incoming MBA students – who know what's involved in preparing for college – are surely aware that they will need to pack things such as socks, underwear, some basic eating utensils, computers, and cellphone chargers. But some of the other items that experts say are must-haves for b-school students may catch some new students by surprise. (U.S. News & World Report)
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From identifying a market to crafting an exit plan, the pillars of a successful business were highlighted Saturday during a panel discussion on preserving black businesses and community wealth through generations. (The Buffalo News)
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As China's economy continues to grow, albeit in fits and spurts, companies there are engaging in increasingly intense battles for the consumer. There's a new battleground, though: With around 300 million Chinese using social media platforms &ndsah; more than those in any other country – websites like QZone and Sina Weibo have now become critical to the marketing mix. (Harvard Business Review)
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Most entrepreneurs’ stories have a "refugee from Big Company" angle. As a venture capitalist, I often hear liberated entrepreneurs discuss their escapes from the treadmill of eye-rollingly lame meetings. In their start-ups, they marvel at the absence of meetings – they just have high-energy "huddles" before they "go get things done." (Inc.)
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Pretend that you are in an elevator at one of your industry's trade shows. You're heading down to the lobby when the doors open on the thirtieth floor. You instantly recognize the executive who walks in and quickly glance at his name badge to confirm he is the CEO of the most important account you would like to start working with. You have never met him before nor have you been able to generate any interest from his organization. You have forty-five seconds to introduce yourself, explain what your company does in a way the CEO would find interesting and applicable, and motivate him to take the action you suggest. Ready? Go! (Harvard Business Review)
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After a long summer of high-profile scandals – JPMorgan Chase trading, Barclays rate-fixing, HSBC money laundering and more – the debate about the financial sector is becoming livelier. Why has it become so excessively dominated by relatively few very large companies? What damage can it do to the rest of us? (The New York Times)
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The middle class is shrinking and is now barely a majority in the U.S., underscoring the challenge President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face as they argue over who can best protect the wealth of struggling Americans. (Bloomberg)
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Pop quiz, Washington. What's the biggest menace to the economy right now? Is it: (1) the budget deficit, (2) inflation, or (3) long-term unemployment? The presidential campaigns will tell you it's the deficit. The Federal Reserve might tell you it's inflation. But with our debt cheap and inflation low, it's clear that the right-now crisis is that people out of work can't find their way back in. (The Atlantic)
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When the Federal Reserve hinted Wednesday more stimulus could be on the way, the dollar sunk. While it remains unclear how or when the Fed might act, investing pros say it may still make sense to dial back on the greenback. (SmartMoney)
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The ongoing economic slump has slapped most industries and weakened, even wiped out, companies that weren't prepared to withstand unprecedented changes. But even the worst conditions can't rattle an enterprise that's constantly innovating, operating with maximum efficiency, and willing to abandon ideas that no longer pass muster in a dynamic marketplace. Many of the best ideas emerge from the worst conditions. There are practices all business leaders need to implement in order to overcome setbacks and rebound stronger than ever. (Fast Company)
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As Apple's stock rose to new high on Monday, the technology giant set another record: It became the most valuable public company in history. Apple's market value – the price of its stock multiplied by the number of outstanding shares – soared to $623.5 billion at the market's close. That eclipsed the previous record of $618.9 billion set by Microsoft on Dec. 30, 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble. (CNN/Money)
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As a candidate, Barack Obama said we needed to reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery. But as our first black president, he has avoided mention of race almost entirely. In having to be "twice as good" and "half as black," Obama reveals the false promise and double standard of integration. (The Atlantic)
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Bigtime marketing doesn't get much bigger than this: AT&T spends more money – some $2 billion last year, says Kantar Media – building a single brand than any other company in America. (Procter & Gamble wields a larger ad budget but divides it among scores of brands.) Commanding the branding is Cathy Coughlin, 55, AT&T's global marketing officer. She spoke recently with Fortune's Geoff Colvin about creating network TV commercials for the Olympics in 24 hours, the rise of nomophobia (fear of not having your cellphone), why your umbrella's handle may one day glow, and much else. (Fortune)
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Management by walking around, popularized back in the '80s, may be making a comeback. One reason: For building rapport among team members, it beats emailing from behind closed doors. (CNN/Money)
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When I return from the Serengeti, my brain feels new. It's as if the hot African sun sears away mental fog. You can replicate this – closer to home. (Inc.)
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The food world is buzzing today about the latest news on just how often we waste perfectly good food. And we admit, the statistics are pretty depressing. About 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. (NPR)
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