Why do negative comments and conversations stick with us so much longer than positive ones? A critique from a boss, a disagreement with a colleague, a fight with a friend – the sting from any of these can make you forget a month’s worth of praise or accord. If you’ve been called lazy, careless, or a disappointment, you’re likely to remember and internalize it. It’s somehow easier to forget, or discount, all the times people have said you’re talented or conscientious or that you make them proud. (Harvard Business Review)
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No one likes getting criticism. But it can be a chance to show off a rare skill: taking negative feedback well. It is a skill that requires practice, humility and a sizable dose of self-awareness. But the ability to learn from criticism fuels creativity at work, studies show, and helps the free flow of valuable communication. (The Wall Street Journal)
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If you get decent value from making to-do lists, you'll get huge returns – in productivity, in improved relationships, and in your personal well-being – from adding these items to your not to-do list: Every day, make these commitments to yourself. I promise your day – and your life – will go a little better. (Inc.)
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Having spent the past two decades watching people rise and fall in the innovation economy, I’ve never been convinced that IQ has much clout. In fact, I think it’s a burden if you think it does. It’s not smarts, it’s not talent, it’s not even luck or chance that separates the risers from the fallers – it’s grit. (Fortune)
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You’re making your numbers. Your reviews are good. So what stands between you and your next promotion? The answer might be gravitas, according to economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s new book, Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success. "It’s the ability to signal to the world, and to telegraph to your colleagues and bosses that you have intellectual horsepower--that you have what it takes." (Fast Company)
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In today’s competitive job market, it is not enough to promise you’ll get the job done. You need to already have a track record of accomplishment. With smaller headcount, employers are gun-shy; they’re wary of making a hiring mistake when they do have the rare opportunity to fill a slot. So they try to hold out for the perfect candidate. (Money)
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Despite the emphasis on employee engagement on everything from innovation to customer service, people just don’t like their jobs. A 2013 Gallup report found that around 70% of workers are not engaged in their jobs. A November 2013 survey from Monster.com and research firm GfK found that 15% of U.S. workers dislike or hate their jobs. (Fast Company)
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Young tech workers fill office parks and corporate cafeterias across Silicon Valley with few if any grey-haired colleagues in sight. It’s a widely accepted reality within the technology industry that youth rules. But at least part of the extreme age imbalance can be traced back to advertisements for open positions that government regulators say may illegally discriminate against older applicants. (Fortune)
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According to a recent study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, incidental exposure to a Black person who is successful in a nonstereotypical setting (for example, former Brown University President Ruth Simmons or Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison) is enough to make people more likely to believe that systemic racism does not exist. (DiversityInc.)
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Many people probably thought the euro zone recession ended about a year ago when output began growing again. Not so, a group of leading economists argued this week. (The New York Times)
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"It’s a pre-emptive cringe in the face of American regulation," says a senior executive at a big bank. His firm, along with most of its peers, is rapidly culling banking relationships and retreating wholesale from markets, countries and lines of business that might attract the ire of regulators or prosecutors. So widespread is the practice that there is now an accepted term for it: "derisking". It is fraying the network of relationships that tie the global financial system together, driving up the costs of finance for poor countries and people. (The Economist)
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One of the most powerful business tools is not a spreadsheet. It’s neither Big Data nor innovation, despite all the business books and management gurus touting the disruptive potential of each. It’s the simple question, right there on the tip of your tongue. Two recent books demonstrate just how far an inquisitive mind can take you. (Businessweek)
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"Free" is a word with a powerful appeal. And right now it's being tossed around a lot, followed by another word: "college." A new nonprofit, , announced this week that it will seek federal support to make public colleges tuition-free. That effort is inspired by "Hope" and "Promise" programs like the one in Kalamazoo, Mich., which pays up to 100 percent of college tuition at state colleges and universities for graduates of the city's public high schools. (NPR)
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Every so often we find ourselves in all sorts of quandaries. It’s simply a part of life’s course. Join NBMBAA® as we provide practical steps to reset, refocus and recalibrate your reality and navigate the everyday compromises, sacrifices and adjustments across the eco-system of life.

The next NBMBAA Regional Symposium takes place July 17 at the Chicago Cultural Center. Tickets are $35 for students and $50 for members. Non-Members can attend at a special early bird rate of $75 until July 7. Tickets are limited, so register today!

 

Amazon on Wednesday announced a device that tries to fulfill the retailer’s dream of being integrated into consumers’ lives at every possible waking moment – whether they are deciding where to go eat, realizing they need more toilet paper or are intrigued by a snatch of overheard music. (The New York Times)
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Yes, it's a social network. Also: Just a third of high school seniors place a call each day, and more teens report using Pandora than Instagram or Snapchat. (The Atlantic)
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A wave of new startups is taking aim at corporate email, promising to disrupt the mode of communication that office dwellers love to hate. But the old inbox is putting up a fight. Slack, which lets employees keep track of projects or topics via open, searchable feeds, was released to the public in February and recently raised $42.75 million in fresh funding. It counts more than 96,000 active daily users, including some at companies like Airbnb Inc. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Chip Paucek, co-founder of the online education company 2U, on what it takes to set up your company for fast, sustainable growth. (Inc.)
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Got a business concept you know is a winner? NBMBAA's Innovation Whiteboard Challenge gives you the chance to put your pitch to the test by giving you a whiteboard and five minutes to sell your idea to a panel of experts. But to win big, you have to get in the game and that means uploading a 60-second video and your application by July 15.
Find Out More and Submit Your Video Today!

 

Last month, the unemployment rate for white Americans was 5.4 percent. For black Americans, it was more than twice that, at 11.5. Why? Writing in The Guardian, Jana Kasperkevic points to a compelling theory advanced by Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute. Black unemployment is high, Wilson suggests, not only because black joblessness is high (for reasons well documented in Ta-Nehisi Coates's recent Atlantic cover story), but because black people are more resilient when it comes to sticking to their job search. (The Atlantic)
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A year ago, the housing market looked like it was finally recovering. Sales and prices were picking up. But then home sales fizzled. Currently, they are down about 7 percent from last spring. A big part of why housing remains so stunted is that there are more than 2 million "missing households" in the U.S. That's how economists describe the fact that fewer people are striking out on their own to find places to live. (NPR)
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For adult children, the death of a parent is a fraught experience. Adding to the stress: the unwelcome surprise that Mom or Dad died with big debts. Who is on the hook to pay them? (CNN/Money)
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Consumers with good or excellent credit often play the game of switching their loyalty from one card to another to accumulate airline miles, hotel room vouchers, gift cards or cash back, so that they can enjoy maximum rewards. At least that's how it's supposed to work. (Daily Finance)
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Imagine media content, in all its forms, as a carnival shooting range, and the Internet as an air rifle filled with unlimited ammunition. Boom, pow! First the music business duckie falls over. Yaarsh! The movie duck is grazed, keeps moving. Wait! There’s the newspaper duck, down in one clean shot. (Bloomberg)
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How a world-famous alpinist and North Face representative stays fit – even when on business travel like the rest of us. (Fortune)
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The problem with smart people is that they are used to seeking and finding the right answer; unfortunately, in strategy there is no single right answer to find. Strategy requires making choices about an uncertain future. It is not possible, no matter how much of the ocean you boil, to discover the one right answer. There isn’t one. (Harvard Business Review)
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Over the last decade there has been a huge increase in evidence that emotional intelligence is an important factor in leadership. Numerous studies have shown a positive relationship between emotionally intelligent leadership and employee satisfaction, retention, and performance. (Fast Company)
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The math isn’t complicated, but the results are startling. Start with a company that has 20,000 salaried employees, many of them highly skilled. Then figure that their average total compensation per person is $100,000 annually. Let’s say each one spends a very conservative 15% of his or her time every year in unproductive meetings. Total annual cost to the company of the time lost: $300 million. (Fortune)
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A new generation of fathers with corporate jobs is joining the debate about balancing work and family, a conversation long driven by working women. As the number of dual-earner couples grows and more men make sacrifices to support their wives' careers, some fathers are asking employers for guidance and action or tapping flexible-workplace policies originally designed for working mothers. Others are curbing their career goals to spend more time at home. (The Wall Street Journal)
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It's 2014. The Millennials are nearly all grown-ups. And in terms of sheer numbers, they've been overtaken in America by kids born after 1995. Members of this new generation are almost all under 18, but they make up 25.9 percent of the population. They're called Generation Z, and mini-Millennials they are not. (Inc.)
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