The House on Wednesday passed the "No Budget, No Pay Act," a Republican bill that would effectively defuse the debt ceiling threat for several months. The bill would let the Treasury Department borrow new money until mid-May. In exchange, the legislation would require lawmakers in both chambers of Congress to pass a budget resolution or have their pay withheld until they do. (CNN/Money)
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Davos has been through some violent mood swings these past five years. First there was denial. Then there was panic. Then there was hope that the worst was over. Now there is nagging concern that this downturn simply won't come to an end. (The Guardian, UK)
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Turns out a good night's rest is good for business. One-third of American workers aren't sleeping enough to function at peak levels, and that chronic exhaustion is costing billions of dollars in lost productivity, according to researchers from Harvard Medical School. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Some people are as solid as granite. Not only are those individuals rare, but all too often, their seemingly concrete constitution is just a façade. At some level, they've got the same sort of ups and downs the rest of us have. (Inc.)
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After fraud, theft, flood, and fire, the most dangerous word to use in the workplace today is short, sweet, and fraught with peril: try. Why try? (Fortune)
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Imagine your next performance review – they're booing. Management thinks you screwed up, big-time, so they're taking away half your pay. And they've got a report describing your mistakes – it's over 100 pages. That's what happened recently to JPMorgan Chase's star CEO, Jamie Dimon. (CNBC)
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All of us can be difficult to work with at times, in ways we’re usually blind to. Here's how to deal with others (and your own flaws) to defuse difficult work situations, from the authors of "Mean Girls at Work." (Fast Company)
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Germany and France have warned UK Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain cannot pick and choose EU membership terms after he pledged a referendum. (BBC News)
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The recession in Europe is entering its fifth year and unemployment doesn't look like it will be returning to normal levels anytime soon. In the countries with debt problems, especially Greece and Spain, unemployment skyrocketed in the last couple of years and is now at unprecedented levels. One in two young workers is out of a job. (CNN International)
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Confident that aspiring corporate leaders want to worship more than just the almighty dollar, Catholic University of America is creating a new business school. The Washington, D.C., university announced launch of its new School of Business and Economics on Tuesday, infusing an education in strategy, accounting and marketing with instruction in morals, character and religious values. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Commentary in the popular press and systematic empirical research both suggest that levels of narcissism are increasing among college students. James Westerman and Joseph Daly’s evidence shows that business school students are more narcissistic than others, such as psychology students. The millennial generation, raised by "helicopter parents" focused on their every success, comes in for particular criticism. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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The outrageous growth of university athletics budgets is costing schools – and taxpayers – millions of dollars every year. As researchers at The Delta Cost Project show in a new issue brief this month, among schools at the top-ranks of college sports, institutional spending per athlete swelled 61 percent between 2005 and 2010. And that may be the least worrisome part of the trend. (The Atlantic)
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NBMBAA Congratulates Partners Among Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For"
NBMBAA partners are proving that they offer some of the best work environments available. We congratulate the following partners for making Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list and invite you to click on each name to read more about what makes them such great places to be employed:
   1. Google
14. Robert W. Baird
36. Genentech
40. USAA
47. Deloitte
48. Novo Nordisk
51. American Express
57. Ernst & Young
60. Teach for America
64. Marriott
65. Darden Restaurants
66. Intel
75. Microsoft
89. Roche
91. Accenture
93. Goldman Sachs
95. Mars, Inc. – Bonus Article: Inside Mars
98. FedEx
99. Grainger

 

When Microsoft introduced Windows 8, its goals were ambitious: a single operating system for both computer and tablet. When it unveiled the Surface, it upped the stakes: One single device promised both laptop and tablet experiences. No compromises. That didn't work. It won't ever work. (CNN/Money)
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To understand how Samsung – yes, Samsung – became America's No. 1 mobile phonemaker and thorn in Apple's side, it's helpful to rewind to last fall. On a mid-September morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook stepped onto a stage in San Francisco to unveil the iPhone 5. Several hundred miles away, in a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Los Angeles, a group of marketing executives from Samsung Electronics followed real-time reactions to Cook's remarks. (Fortune)
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Even Disney agrees, NFC is one of the closest technologies we have to actual magic. It’s an extremely low-power radio signal that allows data to hop from a poster or sticker to a system like a smartphone. And it can enable all sorts of new user experiences that can connect the digital world to our analog environment. Imagine not just unlocking your car with a wave of your phone but having it launch Bluetooth, stream your favorite Pandora station, launch GPS, and text your spouse that you’re on your way home. (Fast Company)
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Your freewheeling workflow could blow up in your face when you start hiring more engineers. Automated testing and checking, or Continuous Integration, is the antidote to having too many cooks in the kitchen. (Fast Company)
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If you ask venture capitalists in Silicon Valley how they measure the success of business entrepreneurs, they would no doubt list off metrics having to do with fast growth: funding raised, people hired, customers acquired, revenue produced. The assumption is that company growth is good. But when it comes to social ventures, where the primary focus is impact (not profits), bigger isn't necessarily better. (Harvard Business Review)
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There's a funny thing about the estimated $1.7 trillion that American companies say they have indefinitely invested overseas: A lot of it is actually sitting right here at home. Some companies, including Internet giant Google Inc., software maker Microsoft Corp. and data-storage specialist EMC Corp., keep more than three-quarters of the cash owned by their foreign subsidiaries at U.S. banks, held in U.S. dollars or parked in U.S. government and corporate securities, according to people familiar with the companies' cash positions. (The Wall Street Journal)
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When compared with its neighbors Coney Island and the Rockaways, Manhattan seemed hardly touched by the waters and winds of Superstorm Sandy in late October. But almost three months later, areas of lower Manhattan are still laboring to recover. (NPR)
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One in four 401(k) participants has, at some point, raided his or her 401(k) savings to cover non-retirement expenses, including mortgages, college tuition, and credit card bills, according to a study released this week. (MarketWatch)
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It's so tempting. You turn 62, and Uncle Sam is willing to start handing over Social Security benefits – every month for the rest of your life. Before you take the money and run, consider the potential pleasures of deferred gratification. Whether you're single or married, waiting to claim your benefits – even by a year or two – is likely to pay off in higher benefits over your lifetime. (Kiplinger's)
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On March 16, 2007, Morgan Stanley employees working on one of the toxic assets that helped blow up the world economy discussed what to name it. Among the team members’ suggestions: "Subprime Meltdown," "Hitman," "Nuclear Holocaust" and "Mike Tyson’s Punchout," as well a simple yet direct reference to a bag of excrement. Ha ha. Those hilarious investment bankers. Then they gave it its real name and sold it to a Chinese bank. (The New York Times)
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There are times when you just have to sit back and marvel at all the things IBM (IBM) does right. IBM, for example, has mastered the art of the CEO transition. It’s had three CEOs in the past 20 years, vs. Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) four CEOs in the last 30 months. IBM sold off low-margin businesses like PCs and hard drives ages ago and headed upmarket to services and software. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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The shakeup of Delta Air Lines' highly profitable frequent flyer mileage program is a bold move – one that could lead to a volley of disastrous unintended consequences. Requiring a minimum spend to achieve elite status on the airline would alienate Delta's fiercely-loyal lower-margin customers, all while providing no real incremental benefit to the airline's current high rollers, (Fortune)
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Congress and the Obama Administration will need to strike a new deal in late March to avoid chopping billions from defense budgets. The major contractors are preparing now. (Fortune)
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There are a couple of fundamental questions at the bottom of Washington's ongoing battles over deficits and debt: (1) How big should the U.S. government to be? and (2) How should we pay for it? The answers to both will ultimately have to be political ones — messy calculations based on who pays, who benefits, who votes, and who makes the campaign contributions. But it would be nice to know what the economics are, wouldn't it? (Harvard Business Review)
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As more time passes since the financial crisis, executives with financial expertise are finding the CEO position more elusive. Large U.S. companies last year hired the lowest percentage of chief executives with a finance background since before the crisis, according to the forthcoming 2012 Volatility Report from executive recruiter Crist|Kolder Associates.(The Wall Street Journal)
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Disengaged workers cost the U.S. economy $350 billion a year in lost productivity. Here's how the happiest companies boost morale and the bottom line. (Fast Company)
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Let's cut the crap. Life is short, you have less time than you think, and there are no baby unicorns coming to save you. So rather than doling out craptastic advice to you about Making!! It!! To!! The!! Top!!™, let me humbly ask: do you want to have a year that matters – or do you want to spend another year starring-slash-wallowing in the lowest-common-denominator reality show-slash-whiny soap opera of your own inescapable mediocrity-slash-self-imposed tragedy? (Harvard Business Review)
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On a slow day over the holidays, I added up how many frequent flier miles I had in various accounts – more than 250,000 – and realized I should start cashing in those miles for free trips. (The New York Times)
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