Five years into the economic recovery, businesses still aren’t plowing much money into big-ticket investments for the future. Nonresidential fixed investment – what businesses spend on equipment, software, buildings and intellectual property – still hasn’t bounced back to its pre-crisis share of the economy, let alone made up for lost ground from the record lows of 2009. (The New York Times)
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Plenty of programs teach people to speak – but few train them to listen. Even before the age of digital distractions, people could remember only about 10% of what was said in a face-to-face conversation after a brief distraction, according to a 1987 study that remains a key gauge of conversational recall. Researchers believe listening skills have since fallen amid more multitasking and interruptions. Most people can think more than twice as fast as the average person talks, allowing the mind to wander. (The Wall Street Journal)
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In every success story, the longest chapter is the one about determination. While success demands many things from us, willpower and determination always come up at the top of the list. Many people believe that we are born with determination and those that succeed are simply the fortunate ones who are born with an abundant supply. But if you ask any successful person they will tell you they were not born with more determination; they always found a way to harness and use what they have more effectively. (Fast Company)
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Steve Walker, a veteran executive for Safeway Co., figured his long tenure offered protection from a layoff. He figured wrong. He lost his job as vice president of corporate retail services last November amid cost cuts at the supermarket operator. Mr. Walker now realizes there were warnings. For instance, he says, his usually friendly boss turned terse during his final months. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Have you ever felt like your boss is out to get you? Maybe you’re paranoid. But then again, maybe not. There are a lot of bad bosses out there, leaders who aren’t stupid but lack emotional intelligence. Their self-awareness is strikingly low, they’re clueless when it comes to reading people, they can’t control their emotions, and their values seem to be on a permanent leave of absence. (Harvard Business Review)
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Business school career centers have long prepared students for job interviews, but now they have a new platform to contend with. Enough companies now interview for jobs and internships over Skype (MSFT) that career offices have started to train business students in the art of conversing on video chat. (Businessweek)
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I don’t know anyone who doesn’t struggle with how to make the most of their time at work. How do you stay on top of an overflowing inbox? How do you get work done when your day is taken up by meetings? How can you get through a continually expanding to-do list? How do you even find time to make a list in the first place? To make matters worse, there are lots of misconceptions about what time management really comes down to and how to achieve it. Let’s look at some of the most common suggestions and assess whether they’re actually true. (Harvard Business Review)
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A slew of gender discrimination lawsuits coming out of big banks point to something we all already know: women in finance don’t have it easy. A male-dominated industry notorious for its long hours and inflexible work schedules, finance rarely leaves room for "work-life balance." Almost every major U.S. bank has been sued on grounds of gender discrimination. (Fortune)
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Recent studies show that we're backsliding when it comes to inclusiveness. But the reasons might be more complicated than discrimination. (Fast Company)
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Across sub-Saharan Africa, consumer demand is fueling the continent’s economies in new ways, driving hopes that Africa will emerge as a success story in the coming years comparable to the rise of the East Asian Tigers in the second half of the 20th century. After seeing years of uninterrupted economic expansion across Africa, governments, analysts and investors are focusing on this fast-growing continent’s shoppers and workers rather than just the usual upswing in commodity prices that have driven past cycles of boom and bust. (The New York Times)
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The UK economy has shaken off the European crisis with growth figures that outshine its G7 peers. It is expected to grow 3.1% this year, according to a forecast by the prestigious EY ITEM Club, above earlier expectations of 2.9%. The growth is well above that expected of Germany, Europe's biggest economy and one which dragged the bloc out of crisis, at 1.8%. (CNN International)
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Students from abroad who study at U.S. business schools often struggle when it’s time to land a job. Increasingly, B-schools set aside resources to help this group overcome a pair of career obstacles: the difficulty of getting legal permission to work in the U.S. and cultural differences that can make navigating the American job market difficult. (Businessweek)
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A few months ago, Richard Lyons stunned many when he boldly predicted that half of the business schools in the U.S. could be out of business in as little as five years or as many as ten. The dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business made the rather Draconian forecast based on the likely disruption of the higher education business by technology. (Poets & Quants)
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The Leadership Institute® (LI) offers a full day of executive-level education designed to take your career to the next level and to give you the training you need to succeed in today's dynamic, changing environment. Centered on this year's Conference theme, The Art of Leadership: Inspiration. Innovation. Collaboration, the LI tackles the importance of being a courageous leader and tools for having meaningful conversations when stakes are high, to finding your strengths and the importance of play. Featuring renowned faculty and innovative format, the LI is a unique, creative experience that will challenge, enrich and leave you stronger than before.

PLENARY: New this year, Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts headlines our closing session.

Space is limited, so register today! Make sure to select NBMBAA Leadership Institute® when registering.
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When mobile devices entered the world – first laptops, then early smartphones like the BlackBerry – the IT departments of large companies were the first to adopt them. Today, consumers drive adoption, purchasing cutting-edge technology on their own dime for their own use, forcing their companies to react to the reality that their employees often have better technology at their disposal at home than they do at work. (Fortune)
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Ancient peoples sent their dead to the grave with their prized possessions — precious stones, gilded weapons and terracotta armies. But unlike these treasures, our digital property won't get buried with us. Our archived Facebook messages, old email chains and even Tinder exchanges will hover untouched in the online cloud when we die. Or maybe not. Last week, the Uniform Law Commission drafted the , a model law that would let relatives access the social media accounts of the deceased. (NPR)
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As the economy continues to shakily recover, it's getting easier for small businesses to obtain loans. "It’s actually a really great time to access small-business capital," Keri Gohman, executive vice president and head of small-business banking for Capital One recently told The New York Times. "Rates are low and banks are also feeling the economic recovery. We really want to lend. Small-business owners can shop around and work with banks to find the best rates." (Entrepreneur)
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Most companies are really good at answering who, what, and where conversations, but fail to effectively help buyers understand why they exist. Infusing the "why" into every element of your company isn't just good for your brand, it's good for your business. (Inc.)
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The rapid success of crowdfunding has shortened the production cycle of amazing devices that would otherwise languish in the development phase. Risk associated with launching a new and untested product now can be transferred to project backers (pledgers), encouraging innovators to push the envelope. With so much to choose from, here’s my pick of top five outstanding up-and-coming gadgets. (MarketWatch)
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Seven years after the subprime mortgage crisis, U.S. economic growth remains subdued, despite significant ongoing help from the Federal Reserve. Now two economists have come up with new evidence about what's holding the economy back. In their book House of Debt, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi say consumers remain constrained by debt they took on when times were good. (NPR)
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Forget stocks. Millennials want their money in cold, hard cash. Americans between 18 and 29 years old are three times more likely to keep their long-term investments in the form of cash rather than in the stock market, according to a survey from Bankrate.com. (CNN/Money)
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We all know somebody like Mitch, your mass-commuting, brown-bagging coworker who has toiled in accounting for as long as you can remember. Did you know he owns a vacation house at the beach? Or the McGillicuddy family, who live down the street in a house just like yours. Would you believe they didn’t have to borrow a dime to send their kids to college? (Kiplinger Personal Finance)
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It's never a great idea, but in an emergency tapping funds earmarked for education beats sabotaging your retirement plans. (Money Magazine)
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Tech startups are racing to build hobby, crafts and fashion businesses catering to women. Therein lies what might be called an "instinct gap": Nearly all of the people heading these companies are men. When Ashish Arora became chief executive of crafting product maker Cricut more than two years ago, he didn't anticipate just how big that gap could be. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Knowing how much your colleagues make is one of the most radical forms of transparency a company can adopt, and while it has its proponents, it also has its downsides. A recent story on NPR’s business blog and podcast Planet Money explored what happens when employees know how much their colleagues are making. The results were mixed. (Fast Company)
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In recent weeks, President Obama and congressional Republicans have begun to offer the same simple-sounding solution for dealing with the flood of children crossing the U.S. border alone: Send the kids home. But with tens of thousands of them churning through the system, some just toddlers, the logistics are overwhelming. (Businessweek)
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The U.S. Treasury, which finances more than 90 percent of new student loans, is exploring ways to make repayment more affordable as defaults by almost 7 million Americans and other strapped borrowers restrain economic growth. (Bloomberg)
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Bernard J. Tyson runs Kaiser Permanente, a giant, integrated health care system that combines an insurance company, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and salaried doctors. That unusual structure looks a lot like an accountable-care organization as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act, and it has made KP a focus of intense interest as change roils the industry. Tyson, 55, talked recently with Fortune about the upside of industry consolidation, why he wears a fitness wristband, and much else. (Fortune)
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One of the most telling questions you can ask someone in any kind of leadership role is what motivates them to be a better leader. Some will say it’s to enhance their personal effectiveness, or that leading is an expected part of their professional development. Others may say that they lead because of a sense of leader identity, purpose, or personal obligation to serve their organization and the people with whom they work. Many will proffer a mix of instrumental, external motivations (like pay or career progression) and more intrinsic, internal rationales (like the obligation to serve). The group with a combination of motives has the most reasons to lead, and so it seems intuitively reasonable to assume that they would be the most committed, high performing leaders. Right? (Harvard Business Review)
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You're reaching the frayed ends of over-caffeinated overtime and if your inbox pings one more time, you might throw your laptop at a wall. If you had the time to read a whole self-help book on being overwhelmed, well, you wouldn't need it, would you? (Fast Company)
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Like many caregivers, I was in the workforce – while sandwiched between the needs of my kids and aging parents. Along with 65.7 million Americans, I was part of a large contingent of people who provide 80% of long-term care in this country. Most of us don’t even identify ourselves as caregivers; just good daughters, sons, mothers, and fathers trying to do our best, yet constantly feeling like we are falling short of doing an adequate job of anything. (Harvard Business Review)
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