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How they do it.

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What's the secret to building a successful university recruiting program and hiring diverse new grad talent? We've talked about Enterprise Holdings Inc. Can you tell us a little bit about Enterprise Holdings Inc.? regularly recruits thousands of new college grads (this year they're set to hire 8,500) and makes diversity a priority throughout the organization. We caught up with Marie Artim, What is your role like as Vice President of Talent Acquisition? Vice President, Talent Acquisition at Enterprise Holdings Inc How is your team structured? . to discuss the Enterprise approach to recruiting, hiring, and developing diverse talent. branding Other than the management training program, do you offer any other programs for new hires? , How many graduates do you tend to hire in a typical year? What type of recruiting schedule do you work on? building relationships on-campus You mentioned that not necessarily all of the 8,500 hires will be coming from on-campus events. Where will the rest of them be coming from? , and having a What types of recruiting activities do you participate in during a typical year? compelling careers page (to name just a few). But one of the keys to meeting your hiring goals and maintaining a diverse workforce is to make your company a place where candidates from a range of backgrounds feel supported, not just during the recruitment process, but throughout their entire career. Is this something you oversee in your role or leave to the local recruiters?
We are Enterprise Holdings, which is the Enterprise, National, and Alamo brand of transportation, car rental. Really the Enterprise brand is what we speak to because our Enterprise Management Training program and the internship program that mirror that are really what drives us.
What kind of attributes are you looking for in your candidates?
We promote entirely from within, so those are the positions that start people's careers. Typically when we talk about our management training program, those would be the folks you see at an Enterprise location. If you go to one of our locations to rent a car, some of the positions that we'd be recruiting for would be the folks you would see there.
How would you describe the Enterprise approach to diversity recruiting?
We are the leader in our industry and operate as a company in close to 70 countries. We've had a huge expansion both as a corporate entity and through franchisees.
What are some specific examples of how you work with the head of diversity?
We have about 80,000 employees and over $17 billion in revenue. We are a privately held company. The Taylor family started the business here in St. Louis and it's still headquartered here and it's still a family-owned business.
How are you involved with diversity student groups?
We're a leader in transportation and mobility, which includes car rental, car sales, leasing, and car sharing-it's a lot more diverse than people may expect. The Enterprise brand has grown over the years in the neighborhood market; we're doing business in the places where people live and work.

I oversee global talent acquisition, so my role is to help drive the strategy and direction of what we do in the recruitment world. We have about 200 recruiters across the company that I help to support by giving them tools, resources, training, and development with things like our brand and marketing and visibility.
Is there anything about diversity recruiting and working with student groups that we haven't covered yet that you'd like to add?
We are very much local and geographically based and our recruiters in the field are responsible for "full-cycle recruitment," so we don't have a special function that's just college, for example. They are geographically based, so if I am the recruiter in Seattle, my job is to help with any of the hiring and selection for that market. From the campus end, I'm going to represent the company at the campuses within my market and help us to recruit across the country. So if I meet a student at the University of Washington who's interested in Pittsburgh, I'm going to help facilitate that. But on a day-to-day basis I'm always recruiting talent for my market.

Because of our promote from within policy, the majority of hiring is for the management training program, so whether they're coming off campus or they're coming to us through the job market, or from an employee referral, they're part of that hiring.
Can you tell me more about the management training program?
Campus is a big part of overall strategy, and a big part of our role, but it is not specific to that.

The management training program is the vast majority, but we have a management internship program, which is for current students. And one thing that would be outside of the scope of that at a level of national appeal is our accounting positions. We have a similar promote from within development program for those that would come in as a staff accountant and go through a development program and could go on to become a controller, VP of finance, audit, all kinds of different directions.

We'll hire about 8,500 college grads this year, not necessarily all from campus, but all college graduates. From a campus schedule, we really are on campus both in the fall and the spring. We focus year-round on our hiring both on campus and off we have an ongoing approach.

They come from a variety of sources. We have an employee referral program, which is one of our largest sources of hires, and from different internet or web-based sources.

This is where we're a bit unique. We are built to really have the depth and breadth to be very involved on the campuses where we recruit, which is over 800 in a typical year.

We're doing the typical things like career fairs, on-campus interviews, and information sessions, but we're also involved in classroom work, student organizations, and athletics. We try to be diverse in the approach that we take across the campus and be very high touch.

The ultimate decision comes at the local level and they build their plans. We try to give them tools and resources, best practices, and idea sharing to help facilitate those decisions and plans. It's kind of a hybrid approach. We provide a lot of training, development, and tools to help them understand where the different aspects of recruitment come from, how to measure success, and whether it be partnerships or relationships that we can help to develop on a national level, but ultimately they'll work with their particular schools to build plans and decide what they'll participate in and how.

We focus more on the soft skills, so we're not specific to major, campus, or GPA as much as we are looking for someone with customer service and empathy, communication skills, work ethic, flexibility, that's a multi-tasker, has great teamwork. We really kind of have a broad brush as to being able to welcome students from all backgrounds and of all types of diversity, not just ethnic or gender-we really want to make sure it's a broad and inclusive group.

It's woven into our values and culture, so when we look at diversity as a company and diversity recruitment specifically, it's not a siloed piece, it's woven together. So I'll work with our head of diversity and our diversity teams nationally and locally to help support and drive efforts, and help us be better at them. We're also looking at it holistically and the idea that we are supporting the communities where we work and live. Our recruitment focus on diversity is woven into our overall focus on being an organization that's for diversity and inclusion.

He and I work together looking at everything from partnerships or programs that we work together internally to build. He's part of training and development of our recruitment team to make sure our story is being told in that way. He'll help to represent us in some of those organizations like the BEEP program which is part of the National Urban League. We'll work together in communications or efforts to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or Hispanic Serving Institutions; we basically work hand-in-hand in the aspects where our jobs overlap.

Overall we certainly work with different student groups. At a local level we really dig in and support and develop relationships and find ways to add value so we're not just looking for résumés. We don't necessarily do as much at the national level because of the way we're structured. For undergrad programs and organizations, which is where we do the majority of our recruitment, we do have a relationship with National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) which has allowed us at a national level to build a partnership and then allows our teams at a local level to work with them. For the accounting program, that's a unique one that we have.

Otherwise, we kind of bring it in at a holistic level, knowing that we want to be inclusive and seek diversity by opening our doors. When we look at the student populations and the student groups, the audiences we're in front of, we're very much aware that we're not limiting our scope to a certain small number of institutions or programs or even GPAs because we are giving all students the opportunity to at least participate in our process. We're very much relationship people so at the local level there's a lot happening in that depth and breadth area, but not so much at the national level. Some of our operations are very involved with the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality and at NSMH it makes sense, it's the type of student from a target perspective that we're looking for that's successful in our business but allows us to open up a new avenue.

One of the things that really helps us is our promote from within policy because the people in our business, whether they be in the management roles or in the recruitment roles, they were management trainees first. We really rely on our current employee base to help us continue to grow and develop our new one, so they're a great resource for us.

If I look at alum of a university or an organization or a program, they often are the ones helping us understand how to best approach that particular audience. We really look to our current employees and our people to help us continue to grow in our relationships with student organizations and diversity in general. This helps us allow the people who are passionate about it to get involved.

We really do bring everyone in under our management training program, it's where I started, it's where our CEO started, and everyone that you'll meet at the operational end of the business got their start there. There are a few exceptions, but that is the way into our company.

It's an 8-12 month program, it's the person's first position. It's very structured, very deep-you're really learning everything it takes to run a business. They're involved in the business itself, but also learning everything from the front-end, like customer service and sales to B2B marketing to back-end like financials, logistics, and operations.

That career path can go in a million different directions but it starts really with growing up within one of those branches where you go in and rent a car. The first opportunities for promotion come within a few months, so you can be an assistant manager, which involves taking on a significant amount of responsibility and part of running a branch within a year or a year and half.

You can be a branch manager, who's running one of those operations with millions in assets, its cars, a team of people, a book of business and all the things that go with that.

It's really a jumping off point where people can come in and really grow their careers anywhere so all of our HR functions, myself, our generalists, our training and development folks, sales and marketing, logistics, purchasing, inventory, you name it, risk management-all those functions the teams that have built there and the management and leadership of those teams have grown out of that training program.

Basically we look at it and say, you're promoting yourself up to a branch manager and then you can really open the door to go in a number of different directions and change careers without changing companies.

The training program is very hands-on with a lot of structure, but it's learning from the business. You certainly do get exposure and understanding to a lot of the different parts of the business and how they work, but it's not rotational. You're doing everything it takes on any given day. It's definitely very fast-paced and multi-tasking, throughout your career you're getting the opportunity to learn more about the different parts of our business, the different departments, the different divisions, how we work together, what we do.

As opportunities open, we have an internal career center which is like our own job board that really shares all the opportunities that are available and who's eligible for them. It's always very open and transparent and we really build a lot around developing the tools and resources to help people understand what's in that and develop our talent in those roles, so we don't have people come into human resources that have done human resources before. We have extensive training and development to help them get up to speed and become a valued member of that team.

The next step: Marie gives a few examples of how she collaborates with the Head of Diversity in her organization to make sure their team's efforts are aligned. Think of a few ways that you may be able to collaborate with the diversity team-or any other teams in your company that have similar goals to yours.

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How Enterprise Recruits And Develops Diverse New Grad Talent - AfterCollege Employer Blog

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What's the secret to building a successful university recruiting program and hiring diverse new grad talent? We've talked about Enterprise Holdings Inc. Can you tell us a little bit about Enterprise Holdings Inc.? regularly recruits thousands of new college grads (this year they're set to hire 8,500) and makes diversity a priority throughout the organization.

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Jobs

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Real jobs from real companies. Updated daily. Only verified, open positions at top companies. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Jobs

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L&M

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The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today's answer to the question: How do you keep your team motivate d? is written by Rod Drury, CEO at Xero.

Building software is part art, part science. To create beautiful art you need passion and ownership, and the same goes for building beautiful software. At Xero, we've grown to more than 1,300 people, spread across the world. As we've scaled, we've had to invest in our people and carefully think about their career progression to keep them motivated. One productive software developer is better than five unproductive developers combined. So keeping our people motivated and working toward a common goal makes good business sense. Here's how I rally the troops :

Purpose is everything
Clearly defining your purpose, communicating it effectively, and empowering your employees is one of the purest ways to motivate a team. At Xero, everything we do needs to help boost small business profitability. Here's why . If small businesses earn more in part because of our products then more jobs are created, ultimately, raising national GDP which means more money to build better schools and hospitals. Better healthcare and education systems promote a stronger labor force and the uplifting cycle continues. It's a powerful idea and one that is highly motivating.

By articulating your company's mission and ensuring your products boost that cause, you attract people who align with your purpose. Combining your employees passion with the tools they need to be successful will empower them to do their best work, and ultimately, help your business bottom line .
See also: This Is What Makes a Great Boss
Positive feedback
Empowerment is the key to motivation. For every negative criticism you give, ensure you provide five pieces of positive feedback. Using platforms like Yammer to give every employee a voice and the opportunity to participate in company-wide conversations, which helps instill a sense of ownership no matter whether you're the CEO or an intern. You can also use platforms like Yammer to keep an eye on what's happening in and around your organization. It allows you to reinforce great initiatives and correct behavior that 's inconsistent with your strategy or culture.

Being (visibly) wrong is good
If you're in an organization that is truly centered around learning -- filled with smart people -- it should be expected that people will either poke holes in your ideas or come up with better ones. It takes humility to admit you're wrong in such a public setting, but doing so promotes an environment where people aren't be afraid to fail and encouraged to innovate .

Do the opposite of convention and trust your instincts
It's easy for large companies to fall into rut and rarely stray from doing the same old thing. But maintaining convention is the quickest way to develop stale teams. In my favorite Seinfeld episode, George Costanza suggests that if every instinct you have is wrong, doing the exact opposite must be right. So don't be afraid to take risks.

Additionally, when it comes to inspiring your staff common motivators usually include a competitive salary, internal professional development programs, etc. While we do much of this at Xero, we also encourage our s taff to mentor employees at up-and-coming startups. Through mentoring t hey quickly discover they're already experts in their field and have the ability to make incredible contributions. By using their skills in a new situation, they gain perspective and develop confidence that is valuable for our business.

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How the Best Leaders Motivate Their Teams

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The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today's answer to the question : How do you keep your team motivate d? is written by Rod Drury, CEO at Xero.

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Good Stuff

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Calm and cool CEO

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Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos.com - Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose

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Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com and Best-Selling Author of Delivering Happiness discusses the importance of service and culture in an organization and how he has applied this successful model from Zappos to help build Downtown Las Vegas.

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Looks good

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apparel and more! get what you need at zappos!

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No results for about zappos culture - Search Zappos.com

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Free shipping BOTH ways, 365-day return policy, 24/7 customer service. Millions of men's shoes, women's shoes, girl's shoes, boy's shoes, handbags, men's clothing, women's clothing, Uggs, Nike shoes!

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What is HR

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Human resource management is the organizational function that manages all issues related to the people in an organization. That includes but is not limited to compensation, recruitment and hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, policy administration, and training.

Learn more about what human resource management is and how it works.

What Is Human Resource Management?

Human resource management is also a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing people and the workplace culture and environment. Done well, it enables employees to contribute effectively and productively to the overall company direction and the accomplishment of the organization's goals and objectives.

The department members provide the knowledge, necessary tools, training, administrative services, coaching, legal and management advice, and talent management oversight that the rest of the organization needs for successful operation.

Alternate name: Human capital management

Acronym: HRM

How Does Human Resource Management Work?

HRM staff members are partially responsible for ensuring that the organization has an overall mission, vision, and values that are shared and provide an overarching reason for employees to want to work for their organization. These elements can be inspirational and help employees feel as if they are part of something that is bigger than themselves.

Additional activities sponsored by HRM can include employee and community outreach. They are frequent mentors and members of employee teams that address philanthropic giving, employee engagement activities, and events that involve employee families.

HRM functions are also performed by line managers who are directly responsible for the engagement, contribution, and productivity of their reporting staff members. In a fully integrated talent management system, the managers play a significant role in and take ownership of responsibility for the recruitment process. They are also responsible for the ongoing development of and retention of superior employees.

HRM is moving away from traditional personnel, administration, and transactional roles, which are increasingly outsourced. The HRM function is now expected to add value to the strategic utilization of employees and to ensure that employee programs recommended and implemented impact the business in positive measurable ways.

Employees who work in HRM must also help keep their employer and company safe from lawsuits and the resulting workplace chaos. They must perform a balancing act to serve all of an organization's stakeholders: customers, executives, owners, managers, employees, and stockholders.

Requirements for Entering Human Resource Management

Those wishing to enter the field of HRM usually need at least a bachelor's degree in human resource management or a related field, such as business management. Some employers may also require candidates to a master's degree in business administration, human resources, or labor relations.

Special certification isn't always necessary to get a job in HRM, but it can help candidates stand out, and some employers may require it. Several professional associations offer these types of certifications:

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offers the SHRM Certified Professional and SHRM Senior Certified Professional programs.

The HR Certification Institute (HRCI) offers several certifications, including Associate Professional in Human Resources, Professional in Human Resources, Senior Professional in Human Resources, and Global Professional in Human Resources. HRCI also offers micro-credential programs on several topics.

WorldatWork also offers several certifications in the categories of Compensation, Executive Compensation, Sales Compensation, and Benefits.

International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans offers certificates in many areas as well, including benefits and health and welfare plans.

The amount of experience needed depends on the preference of the employer, but most manager-level HRM positions require several years in the field.

The soft skills employers usually require in HRM candidates include leadership, communication, decision-making, organizational, and interpersonal skills.﻿﻿

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Human resource management is the organizational function that manages all issues related to the people in an organization. That includes but is not limited to compensation, recruitment and hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, policy administration, and training. Learn more about what human resource management is and how it works.

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Reached for the top

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Rodney C. Adkins, IBM's Senior Vice President, Systems and Technology Group, has received the highest honor BLACK ENTERPRISE bestows upon a top-ranked exec: 2011 Corporate Executive of the Year. One of the nation's most powerful business leaders in the tech sector, Adkins manages a 50,000-employee division that generates $18 billion in revenues and serves global clients in automotive, telecommunications, healthcare and manufacturing.

He was presented the award by BLACK ENTERPRISE Chairman and Publisher Earl G. Graves, Sr. at the National Network of Black IBM Retirees and Alumni conference, a business development and leadership event that brought more than 200 to Atlanta this past weekend.Â "He's a born competitor...a driven, visionary leader...and an extraordinary manager of talent and resources,â€ Graves said of Adkins' attributes. "Moreover, this year's honoree-and the company he represents-stands at the vanguard of 21 st century corporate leadership, constantly resetting the bar for diversity and fairness in the workplace.â€Â Celebrating its centennial anniversary this year, IBM has been listed among the BLACK ENTERPRISE 40 Best Companies for Diversity since the roster's inception in 2005.

In gaining such recognition, Adkins, 53, is in good company. Past recipients include American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault, Aetna Chairman and CEO Ron Williams (retired), McDonald's Corp. President and COO Don Thompson, Whirlpool International President Michael Todman, Amway Chief Global Marketing Officer Candace Matthews and Symantec CEO John W. Thompson, an IBM alum.

He's deserving of the placement: His achievements and management prowess has placed him among the leading candidates to replace retiring IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano. Appointed to his position in 2009, the Miami native who holds a degree in physics from Rollins College and a master's in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology oversees all aspects of IBM's server, storage, systems software and retail store solutions business. The company's integrated supply chain, which includes global manufacturing, procurement and customer fulfillment also reports to him. The 30-year veteran who is an engineer by training was also responsible for oversight of the servers for Watson, the computer that won the Jeopardy! competition against two champions earlier this year.

True to form, Adkins spent his acceptance saying that "he was humbled by the honor... and I thank the magazine helping me have a great professional and personal yearâ€ before giving the audience a presentation on the 130-year history of technology and Black achievement. Excited by technology entering "the learning eraâ€ and IBM's Smarter Planet thrust, he foresees the computer power and analytical capabilities of Watson transforming healthcare, finance, transportation and media sectors, among others.

Beyond using technology to improveÂ quality of life and taking IBM to greater global influence and profitability,Â Adkins, a board member of National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, promotes educational and mentorship programs to develop the next generation of African American engineers and scientists.Â He told the audience: "We all have a responsibility to reach back and pull through.â€
For more on Adkins, read the September 2011 issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine currently on newsstands and view Executive Editor Caroline V. Clarke's Power Player interview on the award-winning, nationally syndicated television show, Black Enterprise Business Report on Saturday, Oct. 8 and Sunday, Oct. 9 (check times and listings in your area).

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IBM's $18 Billion Man Named BE Corporate Executive of the Year

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Rodney C. Adkins, IBM's Senior Vice President, Systems and Technology Group, has received the highest honor BLACK ENTERPRISE bestows upon a top-ranked exec: 2011 Corporate Executive of the Year. One of the nation's most powerful business leaders in the tech sector, Adkins manages a 50,000-employee division that generates $18 billion in revenues and serves global clients in automotive, telecommunications, healthcare and manufacturing.

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Giant of Industry

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CEO is a new Billionaire

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CBS

Thirty-five-year-old Lynsi Snyder just gained full control of one of the most popular burger chains in the US: In-N-Out.

Snyder inherited 50% of In-N-Out's shares when she turned 30, and on Friday - her 35th birthday - she acquired the chain's remaining shares.

The inheritance makes her one of the youngest female billionaires in the country.

In-N-Out, which has 324 restaurants in six states, was valued at $1.1 billion in 2013.

Snyder's grandparents opened the first In-N-Out in 1948 and she became president of the chain seven years ago.

Despite her public role as president, Snyder is famously reclusive and rarely talks to the press.

But in a video released in January, she offered some insight into her personal life.

She discussed her four marriages, the death of her father, and her past drug use in the 10-minute video, which was posted to the website Iamsecond.com.

After her grandfather died in 1976, Snyder's uncle, Rich Snyder, took over the company. He was at the helm until 1993, when he died in a plane crash.

I Am Second

Lynsi's father, Guy Snyder, then replaced his brother and remained in charge until 1999, when he died of a prescription-drug overdose. Lynsi was 17 at the time.

Seven years later, in 2006, Lynsi's grandmother died and Lynsi inherited control of the company. She became president four years later in 2010.

Since taking the position as president, Snyder has expanded In-N-Out to six states from four. She has changed almost nothing else about the brand, which prides itself on a simple menu of burgers and fries.

Snyder calls herself an "organized, careful leader," though she admits that she's also a thrill-seeker.

"I'm a lot like my dad, a little bit of a daredevil," she told Orange Coast Magazine last year. "I like an adrenaline rush. My dad took me to the racetrack for the first time when I was 2 or 3. ... Anything with a motor, that was in my blood."

She enjoys drag-racing and once pursued an amateur boxing career, according to the magazine.

Snyder's personal life

In the video released in January, Snyder talked about how her father, Guy Snyder, battled drug addiction and was in and out of rehab facilities from the time she was 5 years old. He later had an affair, and her parents divorced when she was 12.

"It was really hard for me to see him fail and be weak because I knew how bad he wanted to be a good husband and good father," she said.

Around the same time, in 1993, her father took control of In-N-Out from his brother.

Her father led the company until he died of the drug overdose in 1999.

"My world shattered," she said. "After my dad died there was no way I was going to be alone."

ABC News

After her father's death, Snyder married her first husband. She was 18 years old.

"It wasn't right," she said. "I paid the price with a divorce and jumped right into the arms of someone else."

Then she said she started smoking pot and abusing alcohol.

"At that point, I pretty much realized I'm the outcast in the family," she said. "I figured, 'I'm divorced - I might as well embrace this.'"

She said she worried she would "meet an early death" like her father, and she eventually married again, had two children, and later had an affair. The marriage dissolved within six years, she said.

"I couldn't feel like a bigger failure at that point," she said.

She married a third time and had another child with a man she said married her for money and cheated on her for nearly four years before they divorced.

"The first time he cheated on me I thought, 'Well I deserve it,'" she said. "It was terrible."

Now, at 34, she is remarried and says she has finally found peace through religion.

Attempted kidnappings

Snyder says she has also been a victim of two attempted kidnappings.

Flickr/Ray Yu

In her interview with Orange Coast, Snyder said the first kidnapping attempt happened when she was 17 and still in high school. The second time, she was 24 and working as a manager at In-N-Out.

"I ran across the highway," she told the magazine, adding that she knew her would-be kidnappers were suspicious because "they had a van with boarded-up windows."

When asked about her future plans for In-N-Out, Snyder told CBS she would "never" take the company public or franchise its restaurants.

"The only reason we would do that is for the money, and I wouldn't do it," Snyder said in the 2015 interview.

"M y heart is totally connected to this company because of my family, and the fact that they are not here - I have a strong tie to keep this the way they would want it."

SEE ALSO: In-N-Out president explains why the burger chain probably won't expand to the East Coast

NOW WATCH: We tried In-N-Out Burger's 'secret menu' - and there was only one thing that we really liked

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Meet the mysterious 35-year-old In-N-Out heiress who just became one of the youngest billionaires in America

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Thirty-five-year-old Lynsi Snyder just gained full control of one of the most popular burger chains in the US: In-N-Out. Snyder inherited 50% of In-N-Out's shares when she turned 30, and on Friday - her 35th birthday - she acquired the chain's remaining shares. The inheritance makes her one of the youngest female billionaires in the country.

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*The video above is syndicated from a third party. Therefore we accept no responsibility for its content. The views in the video above are not necessarily those of Leveraging Strategic Alliances Corp. or MarshaWright.com.

This video was brought to you by MarshaWright.com, and syndicated from Forbes on YouTube.com.

The ONE THING is an exclusive online series of interviews hosted by TV Business Expert, #1 Bestselling Author and renowned Strategic Alliances Expert Marsha Wright, and delivered to subscribers via email bi-monthly.

The series delivers unique and poignant insights that add tremendous value to our extensive global audience; and is now available to the public for the first time ever, and each interview is promoted to over 2 million people.

Hundreds of hours are spent finding the most interesting interviews from the eight who are annually interviewed. Then, with hundreds of hours of research, our team pours over interviews, articles and literally scores of prior interviews to discover what's already in the public domain.

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Marriott: From Root Beer Stand To Ritz-Carlton (success story) - (video)

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The video above is syndicated from a third party. Therefore we accept no responsibility for its content. The views in the video above are not necessarily those of Leveraging Strategic Alliances Corp. or MarshaWright.com. This video was brought to you by MarshaWright.com, and syndicated from Forbes on YouTube.com.

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Another one bites the dust

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Meg Whitman (left) will replace Leo Apotheker as Hewlett-Packard's CEO.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hewlett-Packard's board on Thursday ousted CEO Leo Apotheker after just 11 months on the job, replacing him with Meg Whitman.

"I am honored and excited to lead HP," Whitman said in a prepared statement. "I believe HP matters -- it matters to Silicon Valley, California, the country and the world."

HP's board said the company needed a change at the top. The company cut its financial outlook three times in Apotheker's tenure, and on Thursday, HP said it was not confident it would be able to meet its sales targets for the current quarter.

Shareholders sent the stock down more than 40% this year before Fortune and other outlets broke the news this week that the board was considering letting Apotheker go.

"We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead," said Ray Lane, who on Thursday was named executive chairman of HP's board.

Lane was formerly an independent, non-executive chair. The company said it will look for someone to fill that independent role on its board.

The chairman said on a conference call Thursday that the board considered many candidates and decided together that Whitman was the right fit.

"I can't think of a name out there I would select as CEO over Meg," said Lane.

As the former head of European software giant SAP (), Apotheker was a curious choice to lead HP (, Fortune 500) -- the largest U.S. technology company by sales -- since it is predominantly a hardware company. HP's software business makes up around 2% of the company's annual revenue, which hit $125 billion last year.

Apotheker stuck to what he knows best and decided to refocus HP on higher-margin businesses like cloud computing and software. He was particularly bullish on HP's acquisition of Palm, which was made prior to his arrival at the company. He planned to let Palm's webOS software permeate the company's various hardware lines, including PCs, phones and the much-publicized TouchPad tablet.

But the TouchPad was a failure, HP's phones weren't selling, and PC sales slumped globally. Last month, Apotheker announced yet another hard left turn: He opted to end the webOS experiment and said HP would get out of the PC business entirely -- a market that it leads both in the United States and globally.

The problem with Apotheker wasn't lack of vision as much as a lack of execution and communication, Lane said.

Whitman said Thursday that the company under her leadership would stay the course and continue to transition to an enterprise software business.

"The only thing we can do to regain investors' and customers' confidence is to execute, and that's what I intend to do," she said.

The ousting of its third straight CEO marks yet another dramatic crisis in a decade of turmoil for one of Silicon Valley's original pioneers. A year earlier, Mark Hurd was fired as HP's CEO after submitting false expense reports in what appeared to be an effort to conceal a relationship with a former employee.

In 2006, HP's chairwoman Pattie Dunn was shown the door after it was revealed that she had spearheaded a secret probe to spy on fellow board members and journalists, in an attempt to find the source of board-level media leaks.

A year before that, in 2005, then-CEO Carly Fiorina was booted out (she technically resigned, but, the move wasn't especially voluntary) after spearheading HP's the failed merger with Compaq. The company's stock price was cut in half during her tenure.

The CEO revolving door has cost the company more than $83 million in severance pay, including more than $25 million that will be owed to Apotheker.

Fending off criticism from analysts that the board is dysfunctional, Lane argued that the board is very different than the ones of the past, comprised of 8 new directors since the company ousted Hurd.

"I tell you this right from my heart," he said. "That's not this board. They work really well together."

Whitman, who is also an HP board member, was formerly the CEO of eBay (, Fortune 500). She headed the online auction site for 10 years, taking over the company in 1998 when it was in its infancy. By the time she left in 2008, the company had grown to an $8.5 billion e-commerce behemoth.

She was the Republican nominee in the 2010 California gubernatorial race, spending much of her fortune in her unsuccessful campaign. She then resurfaced several months later, when she was named to HP's board in January.

Lane, HP's chairman, praised Whitman, saying her experience gives her the right set of skills to steer HP back on course.

"Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution," he said. "She is a strong communicator who is customer focused with deep leadership capabilities. Furthermore, as a member of HP's board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets."

Still, many analysts were scratching their heads about the choice.

"I'm not really convinced she's the best fit -- HP needs to regain the confidence of its enterprise customers, and her expertise resides in the consumer retail market," said Ron Gruia, principal consultant at Frost & Sullivan.

"She's on the board, so she's a logical interim choice, but not a person who's going to be driver for HP as it transitions to a software and services kind of model," Gruia added.

Some believe that HP is making a fatal decision.

"As if HP didn't make a mistake on bringing in Leo Apotheker, now they are making an even bigger mistake by bringing in Meg Whitman, someone with very little experience in the core areas of HP," said Vanessa Alvarez, analyst at Forrester Research.

"This is plain carelessness by the board of directors, and quite frankly, hammering the last nail in the coffin for HP. Its leadership is in the gutter. I'm appalled," she added.

But other analysts believe Whitman is capable of doing the job, albeit a very difficult one.

"She's a great communicator; a great marketer; and, an excellent manager, but she'll need to put a strategic stamp on HP," said Joel Achramowicz, senior vice president of research at Blaylock Robert Van.

"There are even more questions and concerns regarding HP exigent from both the Street and from customers. She'll have to work expediently."

First Published: September 22, 2011: 4:08 PM ET

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HP CEO Apotheker fired, replaced by Meg Whitman

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Meg Whitman (left) will replace Leo Apotheker as Hewlett-Packard's CEO. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hewlett-Packard's board on Thursday ousted CEO Leo Apotheker after just 11 months on the job, replacing him with Meg Whitman. "I am honored and excited to lead HP," Whitman said in a prepared statement.

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CEO had to go

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Strengths-Weaknesses-Oppurtunities-Threats

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4 generations in the workplace

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This video discusses the four generations currently in the workforce and provides steps for a manager to use to successfully manage a multi-generational workplace. Made for PPD 545 Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, Summer 2014

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Diversity in the workplace

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As the cultural demographic shift continues to transform the face of America, business leaders are taking a closer look at their Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) efforts and asking, "What really should our D&I efforts be solving for?"

The reality is that D&I is no longer just a numbers game, nor just another politically correct workplace initiative; it's about bridging the opportunity gaps that will continue to widen if we continue to ignore the message the marketplace is clearly telling us: that it's becoming less about the business defining the individual and much more about the individual defining the business. As such, American enterprise must adopt D&I as a strategy for growth if they are to compete in the 21st century. For those corporations that do, I believe there are at least six things that D&I can solve for in our efforts to bridge the growing opportunity gaps that span all industries.

* Authentic engagement - to alleviate the tension we are unknowingly creating with our clients, employees and strategic partners when we don't embrace D&I as a strategy for growth.

* Embracing diversity of thought - to propel creativity, innovation and initiative, and with this strengthen our intellectual capital so that we don't lose competitive advantage.

* Strategic implications - whether in the workforce, amongst our clients, or through our strategic partnerships, we have to evolve our insight and cross cultural intelligence to meet the unique needs of those who represent the changing workplace and marketplace.

* Creating distinction - stop mimicking what others in the marketplace are doing - often unsuccessfully - and start creating something that is authentic to you and your business, activate your own best practices, and encourage individuals to be more courageous by supporting their uniqueness and diverse backgrounds.

* Sustainable growth - investing in and creating your own intellectual capital and know-how so that you can begin to operationalize the shift.

* Change management - thinking of D&I like any other business priority, so that we can support it within the evolution of our business models.

I recently spoke with one executive who not only agrees with this assessment, but is already leading the way in each of these areas as his organization continues to make D&I a linchpin in their strategy for growth. As a Tax Partner at Deloitte Tax, Jorge Caballero takes responsibility for - and has unleashed his passionate pursuits on - developing a more inclusive workforce and advancing more diverse leaders into senior leadership roles where they can have more of an impact and greater influence. As the needs of the marketplace rapidly evolve, he has long recognized that diversity of thought is crucial for business growth and evolution, and he works to cultivate authentic relationships built on collaboration and trust. Where many organizations remain fixated on playing a numbers game, Caballero is focused on finding the right talent and maximizing their full potential as the means to grow and compete and remain relevant.

According to Caballero, Diversity & Inclusion as a business strategy is driven by the needs of their clients and also the well-being of their own professionals and their opportunities to find success. That means you must foster an environment of authenticity and openness - a place where people feel comfortable having a dialogue not just about their similarities, but about their differences and the uniqueness they bring to the table.

"Diversity plays a critical role in everything that we do, including the diversity of thought that we bring to serve our clients," says Caballero. "The continued shift in the population means that more and more minorities must take on leadership roles and emerge as leaders within the organization. Two-thirds (66%) of our new hires last year were women and minorities, and I can't help comparing that to 36 years ago when I was but one of one minorities in my starting class. That's a huge demographic shift and you have to be prepared to retain those individuals by developing them, providing the right mentorship and sponsorship, and helping them advance into leadership roles. In our case, that ultimately means promoting them into the partner and director ranks."

Caballero continues by citing all of the evidence that shows how much more effective well-integrated diverse teams are than non-diverse teams. The ones that perform best are the ones that are open with one another - where each individual feels valued enough to bring their authentic and unique selves to the dynamics of the team. Developing this type of inclusive culture is important for any organization, but particularly for those whose business depends on selling the expertise and capabilities of their professionals.

How is this different from the past? Again, Caballero points to his own history.

"When I was starting out in the 1980s, there was very little value placed on my uniqueness," explains Caballero. "The conventional wisdom was that you needed to assimilate, you needed to be like everyone else, i.e., the majority. Fast forward to today and from the top of the organization on down there is real recognition of the value in being authentic, in leveraging what makes us unique, not only as it relates to the work of our client service teams but in terms of actually interacting with our clients - and ultimately to the continued growth and success of our business."

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As the cultural demographic shift continues to transform the face of America, business leaders are taking a closer look at their Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) efforts and asking, 'What really should our D&I efforts be solving for?

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Enterprise Alive

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With a graduate programme as outstanding as ours it's easy to start getting ahead of yourself

If you've big plans for the future, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the perfect place to begin making them come together. After all, we've big plans for your future too - plans that include teaching you everything you need to know about running your own section of our business in as little as two years.

Management Trainees

Branch management calls for a wide range of skills, from sales and marketing to leadership and cost control. Here's where you'll learn them all.

Internship Programme

A fascinating insight into a management career plus an invaluable chance to add to your CV. An internship with us offers all this and more.

Finance Controller
Management Trainee

If you're looking to learn everything there is to know about accounting and finance before becoming a financial controller in charge of your own operation, then this is the programme for you.

Business Support

Vehicle services, damage recovery, collections or customer services. Our business support development programme could take you in a number of directions.

Campus Brand Manager

Develop your management, creative and leadership skills by becoming a campus brand manager. Spread the word and actively promote all things Enterprise to staff and fellow students at your university, and get rewarded for your efforts.

Meet some of our people +

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If you've big plans for the future, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the perfect place to begin making them come together. After all, we've big plans for your future too - plans that include teaching you everything you need to know about running your own section of our business in as little as two years.

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Enterprise

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Diversity

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Multigenerational Work Force

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MOdern Management

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Toyota recalls 6.4 million cars

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Toyota said on Wednesday that it was not aware of any injuries or deaths related to either defect, nor was there any indication that American safety regulators had opened any investigations. Of the vehicles being recalled in the United States, Toyota said it would service 1.3 million to fix the air bag defect and 472,500 vehicles to fix their seats.

Toyota has stepped up the pace of recalls in 2014, recalling about 700,000 of its 2010-14 Prius hybrids as well as 260,000 trucks or sport utility vehicles in February. Last year, Toyota recalled 5.3 million vehicles in the United States, the most of any automaker.

In each case in Wednesday's announcement, Toyota is recalling cars for problems it had simply tracked, or for which it had issued only limited recalls.

In its report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on its latest recall, Toyota said it began tracking a problem with air bags in 2011 because of an increase in customer complaints. While the air bag wiring was used on many Toyota models, the company concluded in 2012 that certain characteristics of its Tacoma pickup - including a steering wheel more likely to vibrate - made failures more likely. It recalled about 481,000 Tacomas in the United States later that year.

Toyota initially "did not identify a trend" across other models because failure rates in other models were lower, according to the report to federal safety regulators. The automaker continued to track the issue, however, and this month concluded that a wider recall was necessary, according to its filing.

Its recall now includes the 2009-10 Corolla, 2009-10 Matrix, 2008-10 Highlander, 2009-10 Tacoma, 2006-8 RAV4 and 2006-10 Yaris vehicles. Toyota also told the safety agency that it needed to recall some additional Tacoma pickups, but was not yet certain of the number.

The defect, Toyota said, involves an electrical connection with a spiral cable assembly that "could become damaged when the steering wheel is turned." That would illuminate an air bag warning light and could disable the driver's air bag.

The safety agency's website lists at least 100 complaints from owners saying either that the warning light illuminated or that they were in accidents in which the air bags did not deploy. Typically, they complain that the dealer wanted about $600 for a repair if the warranty had expired.

"Air bag warning light came on at approximately 71,000 miles," one owner wrote in July 2011. "This is a safety issue and should be corrected by a recall."

Toyota's second recall fixes a problem with the seat rails for the driver's and some front-seat passenger's seats. The springs that help lock the seat into position after it is moved forward or back may break, preventing the seat from being locked, Toyota said.

In a report to the N.H.T.S.A., Toyota said it had reports of seat problems in Japan starting in 2008 and by 2010 had concluded that the springs might fail if the seat was moved forward and rearward "with higher frequency than the internal durability standard." It decided the consumer would quickly notice the problem, and that no recall was necessary.

However, it continued to monitor seat complaints and investigate. By early this month it had concluded that "in limited instances" it was possible that the seat might appear to be locked in place even if the springs were broken, so a recall was warranted.

Affected are about 158,000 2006-10 Yaris hatchbacks, about 250,000 2007-10 Yaris sedans and about 64,000 2008-10 Scion xDs.

Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles in 2009 and 2010 for problems related to unintended acceleration, and still faces many wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits. The safety agency's four-year investigation into Toyota's handling of the defects found that the automaker concealed information from consumers and government officials, putting lives at risk. Since then, Toyota say it has made fundamental changes in its corporate structure and internal safety controls.

For two years running, Toyota has called back more than five million vehicles annually in the United States, more than any other automaker, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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Toyota said on Wednesday that it was not aware of any injuries or deaths related to either defect, nor was there any indication that American safety regulators had opened any investigations. Of the vehicles being recalled in the United States, Toyota said it would service 1.3 million to fix the air bag defect and 472,500 vehicles to fix their seats.

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Coca Cola Going Green

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When talking about Coca-Cola, you're talking about 300 different companies in over 200 countries with over 1 million employees. You're talking about a balance sheet larger than most nations' GDPs. It is a massive organism, and when things start changing at a place like that, the ripple effects can be powerful and many.
From hokey ads in the 70's that promoted recycling and diversity to being one of the first CPG companies to introduce recycled content into packaging in the early 90's, Coke has always recognized their connection to consumers and the communities around them. Throughout the world.
However, these praiseworthy elements have for a long time been mired by scandal, with lawsuits like this one contributing to the conventional wisdom that large, multinational corporations destroy local economies, communities, and habitats. And with an increasing preponderance of the latter, up until recently, many said the company had lost its way.

In 2004, the CEO at the time, Neville Isdell, recognized that something needed to change. And fast. He wanted to "put the ugly baby on the table," according to Jeff Seabright, Coca-Cola's Director of Environment & Water Resources. Isdell wanted to expose all that was working wrong for the company and "reconnect" with the ethos of the company: Coke is a provider of refreshment (and he was referring to more than just selling cold sodas).
Isdell created the Manifesto for Growth, which included what the company's leaders termed the 5P's. They are guiding light principles for thinking about business, given that amongst other things, Coca-Cola's relationships with its customers, the environment, and local communities are integral to the company's success. The 5P's are:
1) People
2) Portfolio
3) Profit
4) Partnership
5) Planet
Very similar to triple bottom line thinking, all are immutable and interconnected. Leadership and improvement in terms of one P will bring about leadership and improvement with the others. Aligning business practices with these new principles meant, however, redefining the company's operations across the board, from working with its bottlers to where and how it sources water to how it gets it products to you, the customer. As Seabright reiterated many times in a recent interview, "Coca-Cola is not just the four walls of the plant."
How Coca-Cola Sources Water
"Water is a huge issue in terms of environmental and social challenges, as well as for operations," said Seabright. "It is a non-debatable requirement to be in business." It is an essential element to its products. Without water, there'd be no Coke or Fanta or Vitamin Water; however, sourcing water can have very large strains, especially in agricultural regions that have tendencies to be drought prone. To address and limit its impact, it has created a strong ethic of local engagement. The company has put systems in places in plants to clean and return gray and black water that is used in bottling operations to local habitats. It has also set goals and targets to offset its water impact from that which actually goes into its products, focusing beyond its particular plants to larger community levels.
As Seabright continued, "Big companies can afford to dedicate resources and expertise to address issues to create co-habitation at micro-levels."
Several initiatives have been put into place throughout the world to create that "co-habitation" Seabright talks about, from rainwater harvesting to subsidizing drip irrigation techniques and technologies to working with local municipalities and farmers. It seems that the company not only wants to become more efficient in their water usage, but to help bring best practices and innovation to those around them, because ultimately more efficient practices that benefit the community also benefit Coke.
Sustainable Packaging and Beefing Up Standards
If water is intrinsic to Coca-Cola products, so too is packaging and storage. The company has always recognized the importance of recycling and reclamation of the bottles (it was the first company in the CPG space to do perform a life-cycle analysis on packaging in 1969), but it also recently began addressing the bottles themselves. Last month, it released its "PlantBottle," which is comprised of 30% renewable materials from feed-stock resin. Initially piloted with the Dasani brand and soon Vitamin Water, a life-cycle analysis conducted by Imperial College of London indicates the "PlantBottle" reduces carbon emissions by up to 25 percent compared against petroleum-based PET bottles.
In addition to packaging, refrigeration has become a huge issue for Coca-Cola. Refrigeration is the largest contributor to the company's climate footprint. An initial target by Greenpeace for the use of refrigerants with HFCs, the company opened up to criticism instead of trying to fight it. It resultantly became an early adopter of the Montreal Protocol and his since dedicated over $40 million to research and development on new technologies to completely do away with HFCs and CFCs.
By the end of 2008, the company and its bottling partners deployed more than 30,000 units of HFC-free equipment that uses CO2 as a refrigerant-according to the Coke, a more eco-friendly alternative, with 1,400 times less potent GHG emissions than HFCs. It also intends to purchase and put into service 100,000 coolers that use CO2 refrigeration systems by end of 2010. This is the largest deployment of CO2 refrigeration by anyone in the commercial industry. Though CO2 equipment is currently considerably more expensive than alternatives, the company's leadership in this respect is driving other companies to follow suit, understanding that the industry must change in order to make a sizeable impact. It also teamed with Unilever and McDonald's to create "Refrigerants, Naturally!"-an industry-wide initiative "to move towards natural refrigerants, like butane and CO2," according to Seabright. Pepsi, Carlsberg, and Ikea have all since joined the initiative as well.
Green Teams at Coke
With so much sustainability being incorporated into the operations and business of Coca-Cola, how has the organizational culture changed? There has been a big attempt to communicate all of the company's sustainability initiatives, both to the public, but equally important, to its over 1 million employees. Coke wants to develop "employees that are aware, educated, and enabled," says Seabright. From water issues to packaging to philanthropy, at some point, the executives at Coca-Cola realized that communication is almost as important as becoming better environmental stewards, discussing not what they are doing but why they are doing it. It is the company's belief that one of the biggest tools they have for effective communication is their employee base and their ability to serve as global ambassadors.
From internal blogging throughout the company-wide intranet to Coca-Cola University, the company provides employees with opportunities for training and further education, so that active participation around sustainability can start at the top and strengthen its foundation as it trickles down to the lowest rung on the corporate ladder.
Keys to Sustainable Growth: Setting Targets and Creating Partnerships
One can look at something like the PlantBottle and be critical about the company's commitment to it. They claim to be working towards making the bottle, which is 30% comprised of renewable sources, completely renewable. But why only the Dasani and Vitamin Water lines and not across the entire portfolio? Granted, it is one of the largest corporations out there, and implementing change takes time. And a lot of logistics. Not to mention dealing with food/fuel issues and sourcing existing sugar cane rather than planting new stocks, which company officials say they are working to address.
No one can deny that Coca-Cola's existence inevitably means some sort of environmental impact-it's unfortunately a given that products will end up in landfills and garbage patches in oceans-but what's important to note about Coca-Cola's relationship to the environment and the world around it is its recognition. It recognizes its size, and more importantly, the potential for power and influence that size brings (both positive and negative). It recognizes its ability (and perhaps, necessity) to change. As Seabright mentioned above, one of the great things large multinationals have is resources. And when big companies start incorporating sustainability ethics into their practices-albeit economically motivated or from a more magnanimous place-they have the power to led the way and set the standard.
But where do you start? For Coca-Cola, that start came with forging partnerships. Coca-Cola first partnered with the WWF to attempt to address its environmental impact in places like India, Brazil, and Mexico. In examining the particular cases, they realized that much larger targets and goals needed to be created. "It was a good push," said Seabright. "A push that was welcomed."
For example, in terms of water, what started off as a commitment to become 20% more water efficient in 2012 than in 2004, quickly evolved into something much broader. WWF helped Coke realize it also needed to be "giving back drops." We needed to "give back to nature the amount of water we use," said Seabright. In 2007, Coca-Cola used 300 billion liters of water across the board. 120 billion liters went out as part of product, and 180 billion went into operations. By 2010, the company wants to clean and return all water that is used in operations. In addition, it wants to increase its support of drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and rainforest preservation, so that they are helping to save as much as water as what goes into their products.
Effectively, Coca-Cola wants to be a net-zero water consumer. It's an ambitious, but realistic goal.
"These aren't just bolt-ons for PR," added Seabright. Things like water stewardship and efficient packaging are "intrinsic to operations and sound business strategies." And partnering with third parties like the Nature Conservancy and the WWF not only validate the seriousness of their efforts, they also provide expertise and address challenges a company like Coca-Cola may not be able to on its own. Most importantly, they provide pushes. And those pushes will provide subsequent pushes to smaller companies who look to the Coca-Colas of the world to provide leadership.

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Coca-Cola: How a Large, Multinational Corporation Goes Green

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When talking about Coca-Cola, you're talking about 300 different companies in over 200 countries with over 1 million employees. You're talking about a balance sheet larger than most nations' GDPs. It is a massive organism, and when things start changing at a place like that, the ripple effects can be powerful and many.

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Company Culture

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Shoe selling shouldn't come to mind when you hear the name Zappos. While the company does sell shoes and other retail goods, it's not what it sells that makes Zappos successful. It's how it sells (that is, what it does for its employees and customers) that makes Zappos what it is today. The company has revenues in excess of $1 billion annually, and in 2009 Amazon acquired Zappos for around $1 billion.

The acquisition by Amazon wasn't your typical transaction where the founder and team got rich, retired, and you never heard from the company again. Today, nearly four years after the acquisition, Zappos still operates independently from Amazon. In fact, if you take a quick look at the Zappos website, you might think it's a competitor of Amazon.

To understand Zappos, you need to know CEO Tony Hsieh (pronounced shay). Once you understand him, you'll understand why Zappos operates the way it does. This blog post will be primarily about Hsieh, his philosophy of company culture, and his recommendations to other entrepreneurs.

A Quick Introduction to Tony Hsieh, CEO and Advocate of Company Culture

"Our number one priority is company culture. Our whole belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own."

-Tony Hsieh

When Hsieh graduated from college, he got a job at Oracle. But after five months, he found that he didn't care for the corporate culture. He left the company to start LinkExchange.

Hsieh enjoyed working with LinkExchange in the beginning because he would hire his friends or friends of friends, and everyone got along. But the company ran into a problem:

They needed more people, and they had run out of friends to hire.

They didn't have a lot of experience hiring, but because of business growth, they had to hire someone. Since they didn't have any friends left to hire, they needed to bring in someone from the outside.

Hsieh says that, while competent people with the right skill set were hired, they weren't a good culture fit. By the time LinkExchange grew to around 100 employees, the culture was lost. Hsieh says that it was difficult to get out of bed in the morning to go work at his own company.

Soon after hiring that 100 th employee, the company was acquired by Microsoft in late 1998. Hsieh left Microsoft before his stock was fully vested.

Next, Hsieh and his business partner co-founded an investment firm called Venture Frogs.

And in 1999, Hsieh invested in an online shoe retailer. Within a year of the investment, he found that he missed building something and decided to join Zappos full-time. Ultimately, he became the CEO.

In 2010, Hsieh's first book, Delivering Happiness, was published.

This blog post is not intended to be a replacement for Hsieh's book. It is intended to provide the advice that Hsieh has given publicly during interviews and talks.

Now let's look into why Zappos isn't about shoes or clothes but rather customer service.

It's Not about Shoes

"Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes."

-Tony Hsieh

If you hear anything about Zappos from a Zappos customer, chances are it will be positive. There are dozens of stories about their outstanding customer service, including delivering flowers to a customer whose mom passed away and talking to a customer for over 8 hours (a record that now has been broken).

It should come as no surprise that 75% of Zappos orders are from repeat customers.

Hsieh hopes that, down the road, people won't even realize that Zappos started by selling shoes. They want to be known and remembered as the best customer service and customer experience company. Hsieh envisions Zappos being something like Virgin (dozens of companies), but instead of being "hip and cool [like Virgin]... we just want to be about the very best customer service."

Hsieh says that he may expand to disrupt other industries, like the airline business, which traditionally has had poor customer service. Zappos doesn't compete on price. Instead, they focus on providing the best customer service. So if Zappos does expand into other industries, don't expect them to be the cheapest. Expect them to have the best customer service.

Zappos has been quite successful in providing the best customer service and consistently being one of the best places to work.

Let's get into what Hsieh recommends for other companies.

Establish Culture Early

In the early days of Zappos, Hsieh and Fred Mossler interviewed every job applicant. This was their way of protecting the culture and ensuring the right people were hired.

Hsieh warns that this won't scale well. He says that, when he got to about 40 or 50 people, he began to run into time issues.

In the interviews, a candidate would have to pass a normal interview (that is, their skills, experience, competency for the job, etc.), and they also would need to be a person that Hsieh would like to know personally. Hsieh says he would ask himself:

"Is this someone I would choose to hang out with or grab a drink with....if we weren't in business together? If the answer is no, then we wouldn't hire them."

When asked about keeping work and personal life separate, Hsieh says:

"There are companies that focus on work-life separation or work-life balance and at Zappos we really focus on work-life integration and at the end of the day it's just life.....and especially if you spend so much time at work you better enjoy the time that you're spending there and people that you're with...."

He expands on this in his talk at Stanford:

"We want the person to be the same person at home or in the office because what we've found is that's when the great ideas come out, that's when their creativity shines and that's when true friendships are formed - not just coworker relationships. When people are in that environment, that's when the passion comes out and that's really what's driven a lot of our growth over the years."

It's key that the people who are involved in establishing the culture (typically, the CEO) participate and vet each candidate that comes through, especially for those first few hires. The goal is that, once the company grows, it can build without needing the CEO involved in each hire. This can happen if the CEO hires people who are competent and a culture fit. The theory is that those people that were hired by the CEO will hire people who share the CEO's vision.

Here's a diagram:

The Importance of Company Values

When discussing culture, Hsieh frequently brings up the book Good to Great. One of the points in the book is that strong company culture is one of the factors that separates great companies from good, bad, or mediocre ones. On this point, Hsieh says:

"We formalize the definition of our culture into...10 core values at Zappos. And one of the really interesting things I found from the research is that it actually doesn't matter what your values are, what matters is that you have them and that you align the organization around them. And the power actually comes from the alignment not from the actual values....

"We're not out there telling people [that they should adopt the Zappos values] and culture because that would actually probably not work in most cases. Our message is more 'you should figure out what your values are and then align the entire organization around them.'"

It's important to get everyone on the same page. As the old management adage goes: you can't have deeply engaged customers without deeply engaged employees.

As Hsieh says, you shouldn't replicate the Zappos values for your company. Many other companies have their own values that align their employees. Some make their values public, some don't. Here are some companies that share their values:

Here are a few tips for developing company values. Hsieh makes it really simple to find your company values. He says:

"Just figure out what your personal values are then just make those the corporate values."

Company values also help with hiring, so let's examine the Zappos way of hiring.

On Hiring the Right People

Zappos's method of hiring doesn't appear to have changed much since Hsieh and Mossler were personally interviewing candidates.

They do two sets of interviews with each candidate. The hiring manager and their team do a round of interviews to make sure the person is skilled, and then HR does their interviews to ensure the person is a culture fit. The applicant must pass both interview rounds in order to be hired.

Zappos offers to pick up people up at the airport, drive them to Zappos for a tour, and then drive them to their hotel. Of course, this is only in Las Vegas where their headquarters are located.

And, incidentally, if you're a job applicant who flies in for an interview, it's important to be nice to the driver. Hsieh says that they'll ask the driver if the person was nice. So if an applicant wasn't nice to the driver who picked them up at the airport, they won't be hired.

Hsieh says that, no matter how talented an applicant is, if they don't fit the culture, then they won't hire them. They must fit into the company values and be talented; otherwise, they won't get a job at Zappos.

According to Hsieh, they'll ask at least one question for each value. For example, one of Zappos's values is "Create fun and a little weirdness." So they ask the candidate:

"On a scale of 1-10 how weird are you?"

Hsieh says that the number the applicant gives doesn't matter much. It's really more a matter of Zappos showing that they recognize and celebrate each person's individuality.

Fire Those that Don't Fit the Culture - No Matter How Talented

"We've actually passed on a lot of smart, talented people that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line but if they're not good for our culture then we won't hire them for that reason alone.

"The reverse is true too. Even if a person is great at their job, even if they're a superstar at their job if they're bad for our culture we'll fire them for that reason alone. And performance reviews are 50% based on whether you're living and inspiring the Zappos culture in others."

Clearly, values and culture are really important to Zappos. A great culture is so essential that they'll fire the best person if they aren't aligned with it.

Forget Advertising - Let Customers Spread the Word

As mentioned, around 75% of Zappos orders are from repeat customers.

So how much do they spend on advertising? Not much, according to Hsieh. They rely on customers spreading the word about their great service.

Hsieh says:

"Our whole philosophy became 'let's take most of the money we would've spent on paid advertising and paid marketing and instead of spending it on that invest it in the customer experience/customer service and then let our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth' and that became the whole business model."

This minimal marketing budget has clearly served them well. Zappos likes to slash their marketing budget and put that money into customer service. Amazon, on the other hand, slashes their marketing budget and works on keeping prices down. It would be optimal to focus on great customer service, low prices, and marketing the product, but not all companies have the money for it.

Marketing can get the word out about your product, but no opinion is formed until a customer places an order. If a person hears about a product from a friend (and it's good), that accomplishes more than marketing. There are plenty of brands that can advertise a lot, but if the customer experience is poor, they won't be coming back.

So while marketing gets the word out about your product, word of mouth gets the word out and shines a positive light on your company at the same time. This is one of the reasons word of mouth is much better than typical advertising.

Some Advice on Call Centers

As of December 2012, Zappos's longest call was 10 hours and 29 minutes long. Traditional call centers use a metric called average handle time to gauge their efficiency. Hsieh says that Zappos is more focused on creating great customer service.

He explains how Zappos operates differently from other call centers:

"I think the main thing is just trust [the customer service reps] and let them make their own decisions. Most call centers are set up by policies and so the actual person that's answering the phone doesn't really have the ability to do anything. If you...call most customer service places, if you ask for anything that's not normal they have to talk to a supervisor or just say 'oh our policy doesn't allow that' and whatever. So we generally try to stay away from policies, we just ask our reps to do whatever they feel is the right thing to do for the customer and the company. And that's actually really uncomfortable for a lot of reps that come from other call centers. We kind of have to untrain their bad habits.

"But I think [customer service reps] are generally not happy because they don't have control over the situation whereas Zappos...there's really nothing that a rep can't do so there's no reason to ever escalate."

Zappos likes to build customer service through the telephone. He explains:

"For us it's about trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer and doing it through the telephone...at a lot of marketing or advertising conferences there's discussions about consumers being bombarded with thousands of marketing messages every day. 'How to get your brand to stand out - how to get your messages to stand out'. And for us, like, forget the Super Bowl, forget whatever the latest social media fads are. Like telephone - undivided attention for 5-10 minutes and if you view that through a branding lens, like the longest - almost the equivalent of an infomercial that people are paying attention to."

If you want to provide great customer service, it's probably best to not go by the book. Hsieh says they didn't really know much about call centers and were more focused on providing great customer service. It's a good thing he didn't know, not that he would have implemented the industry standard policies.

Pay New Employees to Quit

Every new Zappos employee goes through the same four week training process. There, they learn the company strategy, the culture and why it's important, and the customer service philosophy. They also spend two weeks in the call center. During the four weeks, Zappos can see if they really care about the customers.

At some point during the training, Zappos offers $4,000 to the new employee to quit and walk away from the company. Hsieh says they don't want people who are there for a paycheck, and they don't want people who feel like they are trapped. He says that the percentage of people who take the check is 2-3%.

Hsieh says that when new employees turn down the money, they turn out to be much more passionate and engaged because they realize that it's a place they really want to be and contribute.

So, ask yourself: what do you do to ensure employees aren't just working at your company for a paycheck but actually like working there and believe in the mission and values?

Happiness

Zappos is all about happiness - happy employees and happy customers. Hsieh himself has studied a lot about what makes people happy. He says these four attributes are key:

Perceived Control - People don't want to feel like they've lost control

Perceived Progress - People need to feel like they're making progress

Connectedness - Having strong social ties

Vision/Meaning - Being part of something bigger than yourself

He also recommends the book Happiness Hypothesis.

Zappos Tidbits

If a customer calls for a product and Zappos does not have the product in stock, they recommend a competitor who has it. Hsieh says that, while Zappos will lose the sale, in the long run it's best for Zappos because the customer appreciates the help and tells their friends the story. It creates word of mouth.

Hsieh says: "If [the CEO] has to be the one making all the decisions, that just doesn't scale. That's how companies get more bureaucratic as they get bigger." Decisions need to come from the front lines - the people who are closest to the customers. Zappos lets customer service reps decide what's best for the customers instead of having specific policies for each case. That trust can go a long way with the customer service reps.

Don't let HR and Legal make the decisions. Tell them they're great for some things, but, ultimately, it's the manager's decision. Limit their power in an organization. They can make things more bureaucratic if they aren't contained.

Hsieh says it's important that managers and supervisors get to know their employees on a personal basis. He says they've tried this at Zappos, and the results have been better communication between employees, relationships are better, people are willing to do favors for each other, and higher levels of trust are established. He says the same applies to the vendor and company relationship.

A few more quotes from Hsieh:

On companies being themselves:
"We're not out there saying other companies should adapt the Zappos culture. We're just saying....if you want to build a company for the long-term you should have values and a strong culture and in most cases probably not the same values as Zappos. The research has shown that the power comes from the alignment, by having values and a point of view and beliefs and passion for whatever it is that you stand for."
On business karma:

"If you really just think about how to make customers happy and how to make employees happy, that actually in today's world ends up being good for business."

On managers:

"People don't leave companies they leave their managers."

On the relationship between branding and culture:

"Our belief is that a company's culture and a company's brand are just two sides of the same coin. The brand is just a lagging indicator of the culture."

On customer service:

"If we're serious about building our brand to be about the very best customer service and customer experience; then customer service shouldn't just be a department - it should be the entire company."

On what makes the best businesses:

"The best businesses are really ones that can combine passion, profits, and purpose."

When referring to board members and investors, Hsieh says:

"If they're not aligned with the vision and strategy of getting there...then that misalignment can cause issues."

Have anything to add about Zappos or Hsieh? Have you ordered from them? What was the service like?

I'd like to hear your feedback in the comments!

About the Author: Zach Bulygo is a blogger for KISSmetrics, you can find him on Twitter here. You can also follow him on Google+.

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Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Art of Great Company Culture

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Shoe selling shouldn't come to mind when you hear the name Zappos. While the company does sell shoes and other retail goods, it's not what it sells that makes Zappos successful. It's how it sells (that is, what it does for its employees and customers) that makes Zappos what it is today.

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Reward Points will Reciprocate

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CLOSE

Marriott International and Starwood Hotels and Resorts officially merged into one company on Friday, and the new Marriott has already made its first major decision: to give reciprocal benefits to members of each loyalty program.

Almost a year after first announcing the merger agreement, Marriott International has completed its $13 billion purchase of Starwood. With the addition of Starwood's portfolio, the new Marriott now has 30 brands with more than 5,700 hotels. That amounts to 1.1 million rooms in more than 110 countries, making Marriott the largest hotel company in the world.

Members of the Marriott Rewards program and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) were immediately able to link their accounts at Members.marriott.com to begin earning and redeeming points at all those hotels.

"We did want to deliver real benefits to our customers immediately," Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, who is leading the combined company, said during an interview with USA TODAY prior to the close. The two programs will remain separate while Marriott works on technology and product enhancements, Sorenson says.

The highly anticipated merger had a few starts and stops since the deal was reached in November 2015. A Chinese insurance consortium, Anbang, swooped in with a counter-offer that Starwood seriously considered for several weeks earlier this year. Anbang eventually dropped its bid. Then Chinese regulatory authorities, whose approval Marriott needed for the merger in order to operate properties in that coveted market, requested an extension of the review process.

Chinese authorities gave their final approval last week, clearing the way for the merger to be finalized.

Sorenson said the merger will more than double the company's presence in such lucrative regions as Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The alliance is the biggest hotel merger in years, but it is not the only one. InterContinental Hotels group acquired boutique chain Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants last year. AccorHotels purchased the Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissôtel brands this year. Destination Hotels and Commune Hotels have merged.

Many have likened the consolidation of the hotel industry to that of the airlines.

But Gray Shealy, executive director of the Master's of Hospitality Management Program at Georgetown University, says the Marriott-Starwood merger is likely to be less rocky.

"They've had tons and tons of time to prepare for it," he says. "If anyone is going to do it as smoothly as possible it would be Marriott. Airline operations are so wildly different than hotel operations."

David Loeb, senior hotel research analyst at Baird, says consumers will have a lot more options within the Marriott family, but perhaps not across the entire industry.

"It will be tougher and tougher for smaller companies to compete," he says. "Consumers do like choice."

With the merger, Marriott has acquired such luxury Starwood brands as St. Regis and W Hotels. Those will complement Marriott's The Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, and EDITION.

Marriott will also inherit lifestyle brands such as Aloft, which will operate in the same category as Moxy and AC Hotels. The Marriott Hotels brand will co-exist with Sheraton.

Sorenson says he will retain the existing brands, even if they appeal to similar customers.

"We think we're advantaged and our customers are advantaged by having more choice, not less," he said.

That doesn't mean Marriott won't look to improve any brands. Marriott plans to "provide as clear a distinction as we can between the brands in terms of product and service so that our customers can have a sense of what each brand stands for," Sorenson says.

For instance, he said, Starwood's Element, an eco-friendly lifestyle brand, now has just 22 properties worldwide. Sorenson would like to see more growth there.

Another Starwood brand that needs some attention is Sheraton, he said.

"I suspect over the course of the next few years, we will work on strengthening the position of that brand and hopefully driving better returns for owners for all those hotels," he said.

As for the loyalty program, Marriott has already made some decisions. The combined programs have 85 million members.

Members of both Marriott Rewards, which include The Ritz-Carlton frequent guests, and SPG will have their status matched. If they link their accounts, they will be able to transfer and redeem points at a three-to-one ratio. Three Marriott Rewards points will equal one SPG Starpoint. That will apply to redemption stays and the Marriott Rewards Experiences Marketplace and SPG's Moments platform. Those programs allow members to redeem points for exclusive experiences, such as sporting events.

Loyalty program experts praised the initial execution.

"Marriott nailed it with their 3:1 transfer ratio," says Gary Leff, a travel industry expert who studies rewards programs.

He says Starwood is also known for its better treatment of top guests, offering perks such as suite upgrades and fewer limits on complimentary breakfast.

"Until we know how Starwood's best elite benefits and lifetime status will work, and whether the unique partnerships Starwood has forged with airlines like Delta, Emirates, and China Eastern survive the merger, members will continue to be in wait and see mode," he says.

Loeb says he expects Marriott to "go out of its way to be very good to Starwood's elite guests."

"They will do all they can to engender loyalty across the family of brands," he says. "I think that's a very important strategic goal to them."

Brian Kelly, founder of ThePointsGuy.com, says that as an elite member of both programs, he's pleased so far with how Marriott is handling the merger of the programs.

"My biggest fear was that they were going to take benefits away or do a one-size-fits-all approach of Marriott is it," he says. "They haven't, at least not yet ....This merger is so big they don't have to follow in the lead of airline mergers. And in the hotel space, there's never been a hotel merger of this magnitude with these loyalty programs."

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2d1CwWm

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Marriott, Starwood merger is complete, loyalty programs will reciprocate

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CLOSE Marriott International and Starwood Hotels and Resorts officially merged into one company on Friday, and the new Marriott has already made its first major decision: to give reciprocal benefits to members of each loyalty program. Almost a year after first announcing the merger agreement, Marriott International has completed its $13 billion purchase of Starwood.

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Employee Satisfaction Survey

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[SURVEY PREVIEW MODE] Employee Satisfaction Survey

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This is a test version of Employee Satisfaction Survey, a survey I designed using SurveyMonkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Preview/?sm=MNxvDjlyQZJlZe1u9uuZe7AyxpGnJFMVv_2FyHI1My8TRln5xLoKSwnBP6Q6Q3X0YoRP_2F7HhY6T7hMns8wJMo_2BKg_3D_3D I've sent you this test version so you can preview the survey.

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In-N-OutFoundation

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IN-N-OUT BURGERS FOUNDATION - GuideStar Profile

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GuideStar connects donors and grantmakers to non-profit organizations.

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Pepsi Social Responsibility Campaign

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Pepsi lights up people's life - Case Studies

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs spearheaded the company's wild success and changed the lives of millions of people.

So it follows that he's somewhat of a legendary figure for leaders at all organizational levels who are looking to guide their teams to greatness.

But if you're a manager seeking a role model, you'd be wise to shift your focus from someone like Jobs to someone who's less often in the spotlight. That's because the majority of successful leaders aren't charismatic and attention-grabbing like Jobs was - they're actually somewhat "boring."

That's according to business psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D., who says that the reason Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs wasn't because he was charismatic. It was because he had a gift for predicting the markets and building creative teams.

Trying to emulate a personality like Steve Jobs's will backfire for most people, Chamorro-Premuzic says, because they don't have the talents to back it up.

All the media attention that's given to Jobs and his legacy, as well as political figures like Donald Trump and Barack Obama, leads us to believe that all successful leaders are charismatic. But if we broadened the spotlight to include every manager on earth, we'd see that charisma is generally a poor predictor of successful leadership.

In fact, charisma is sometimes merely a cover for "dark" personality traits like narcissism, because narcissists are especially skilled at managing the impression they make on other people. Chamorro-Premuzic estimates that between 20% and 30% of charismatic leaders are also narcissists.

"All the data indicates that, although some people may have these dark side characteristics and manage to create successful companies like Steve Jobs, in reality most of the people who display these characteristics are poor leaders," Chamorro-Premuzic says. "Most of the good leaders in the world are actually much more stable, well-adjusted, and humble."

Chamorro-Premuzic is referring to research suggesting that a moderate degree of narcissism can boost leaders' performance - but excessive narcissistic tendencies are detrimental.

Charisma "helps you seduce people so that they can't evaluate your actual talents," Chamorro-Premuzic says, adding that we often mistake charisma for confidence.

AP

It's not just laypeople who fall into the trap of thinking charisma signals leadership potential. Some organizations make the same mistake, Chamorro-Premuzic says.

While companies like Google and Amazon have gotten pretty good at measuring leadership potential and effectiveness, the average organization still rates managers based largely on subjective evaluations.

That means they inevitably rely on demonstrations of extroversion, political skills, and charisma - when they should really be looking for evidence of emotional stability, maturity, and altruism. In C-suite positions, the ability to think strategically, foresee problems, and demonstrate good judgment is key.

Of course, there are plenty of examples of leaders who are both charismatic and competent because they put their charisma to good use. In particular, Chamorro-Premuzic cites Pope Francis and Nelson Mandela.

Bottom line: While you can emulate the incredible drive of someone like Steve Jobs, don't try to copy their charisma. Instead, focus on demonstrating emotional stability, maturity and, most importantly, on developing the people who make up your team.

SEE ALSO: 3 surprising traits of highly effective leaders

NOW WATCH: This is how to tell if someone is cheating on you

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The surprising reason Steve Jobs is a terrible role model for most aspiring leaders

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Late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs spearheaded the company's wild success and changed the lives of millions of people. So it follows that he's somewhat of a legendary figure for leaders at all organizational levels who are looking to guide their teams to greatness.

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Political views can backfire

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( Starbucks' NASDAQ:SBUX) brand perception may have been dented by CEO Howard Schultz's promise to hire 10,000 refugees worldwide, according to a recent YouGov survey. The research firm claims that prior to the announcement in late January, 30% of respondents stated that they would consider visiting a Starbucks the next time they wanted coffee. After the announcement, that percentage dropped to 24%.

Schultz's decision was a direct response to the Trump administration's initial travel ban on citizens of several Muslim-majority countries. In an announcement to employees, Schultz stated that the company "will neither stand by, nor stand silent, as the uncertainty around the new administration's actions grows with each passing day."

Schultz declared that Starbucks would hire 10,000 employees in 75 countries over the next five years, and that the efforts would start in the U.S. with foreign nationals who served as interpreters and support personnel for U.S. troops. That statement sparked a firestorm of controversy, with critics claiming that Starbucks favored hiring foreigners instead of unemployed Americans.

Starbucks responded by noting that it launched a similar five-year program to hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses in 2013, but the YouGov survey indicates that the damage was already done. This raises a tough question -- are Schultz's political views becoming an issue for the coffee chain's investors?

Schultz's history of political controversies

Schultz frequently embraces political controversies. In 2012, Starbucks' support for the legalization of same-sex marriages sparked calls for a boycott. In 2013, Schultz declared Starbucks' U.S. stores gun-free zones -- which resulted in gun-rights activists intentionally bringing firearms to stores during a "Bring Your Gun to Starbucks Day" organized across social media.

In response to the Ferguson riots and deteriorating race relations in the U.S., Starbucks launched the "Race Together" campaign in 2015. The awkwardly conceived campaign gave baristas an option to write "Race Together" on the cups of customers of (presumably) another race to initiate conversations about race relations, but critics on both sides of the political aisle claimed that Starbucks was overstepping its bounds. Starbucks promoted the campaign with full-page ads in U.S. newspapers with the words "Shall We Overcome?" and built its first store in Ferguson, which opened last April.

Last year, Starbucks embraced even more controversy with full-page newspaper ads across the U.S. calling for unity in the midst of a divisive election season. The black-and-white ads, which juxtaposed numerous antonyms like "isolation" and "community," stoked less controversy than the Race Together ads, but critics still complained that the coffee giant was commercializing current events.

In 2015, Starbucks launched a red cup for the holidays that eliminated all Christmas-themed ornaments and decorations. That move irritated some Christian groups, but Starbucks doubled down last year with a green cup which replaced all holiday and winter decorations with illustrations of groups of people as a "symbol of unity."

These controversies matter less than you think

Those moves seem bold, but investors should note that these controversies are all centered in the U.S. -- and its home market now matters less than its rapidly growing business in China and the rest of Asia. The China/APAC region generated 14% of Starbucks' revenues last quarter, compared to 12% in the prior-year quarter and 6% in the first quarter of 2014.

Schultz has repeatedly stated that Starbucks' Chinese market will eventually become bigger than its U.S. market. Last December, Starbucks China CEO Belinda Wong declared that the company was "well positioned to double our scale to 5,000 in over 200 cities" over the next five years. While Schultz might like making big political statements in the U.S., it's doubtful that he'll take out full-page ads in China about Tiananmen Square or Taiwanese independence anytime soon.

Furthermore, most of Starbucks' U.S. stores are concentrated near major cities, which mostly supported Clinton in the election, and roughly half of its customer base is under the age of 40. These facts might indicate that Schultz's liberal views are likely shared by a large portion of the company's customer base, and could even boost customer loyalty within that demographic. Looking at Starbucks' revenue growth over the past five years, it's tough to see how all the aforementioned controversies affected its overall growth:

Do politics and business ever mix?

Starbucks isn't the only company to kick the political beehive. (( Under Armour NYSE:UA) NYSE:UAA) CEO Kevin Plank's recent praise of President Trump as a "real asset" to the country backfired badly, alienating customers and prompting sharp rebukes from key spokespeople like Steph Curry, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Misty Copeland. A humbled Plank later apologized in a full-page newspaper ad, but the comments likely hurt the struggling brand's perception in the U.S.

Liberals may love Schultz's bold political stances and conservatives probably loathe them, but investors should realize that they're also perhaps thoughtful moves, made with the company's target demographic in mind. Schultz is passionate about the things he believes in, but investors should be comforted by the fact that Schultz's previous political stances have not impeded the company's growth. With Schultz soon to be stepping down from his role as CEO, and with the business facing the realities of operating across the globe, we may see less of these political statements in the future.

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Are Starbucks' Political Statements Backfiring? -- The Motley Fool

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( Starbucks' NASDAQ:SBUX) brand perception may have been dented by CEO Howard Schultz's promise to hire 10,000 refugees worldwide, according to a recent YouGov survey. The research firm claims that prior to the announcement in late January, 30% of respondents stated that they would consider visiting a Starbucks the next time they wanted coffee.

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The stunning election of Donald Trump as president and the surprising Brexit decision demonstrates citizens can disrupt the elite political establishment when it fails to represent the needs of the people.

On a larger scale, it means politicians and governments can be held accountable for putting their self-serving goals before those that put them in power.

Shareholders also need to take note and rally to toss CEOs when they put their personal agenda before the interests of investors.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz put personal political views before shareholders when he aggressively challenged a number of policies promoted by President Trump in a letter to employees. The backlash from Trump supporters was swift and #boycottStarbucks became a top trending hashtag on Twitter.

The damage Schultz is causing by putting himself before shareholders pales in comparison to Unilever CEO Paul Polman.

Polman is a poster child of a CEO gone rogue.

Since leading the company in 2009, Unilever has suffered financial and public relations damage from Polman's disastrous leadership.

At the core of Polman's problem is his eagerness to put superficial feel good policies ahead of sound business decisions and he is not shy about touting his twisted priorities.

In Polman's world, "as CEO of Unilever, my personal mission is to galvanize our company to be an effective force for good."

While Polman seeks approval from global elites and basks in the glory of being called a "sustainability evangelist'" and a world saver for his roles in combating climate change and efforts to address social issues, Unilever has gone off the rails.

Despite Polman's efforts to make Unilever a good corporate citizen, Unilever was mired in environmental and sexual harassment controversies.

Last year, Unilever settled with almost 600 workers in India over mercury exposure from a now closed thermometer plant following a 2006 lawsuit over exposure to the toxic element. The issue reached global attention from an Indian rapper's song "Kodaikanal Won't" that modified Nicki Minaj tune "Amaconda," with lyrics addressing the mercury contamination problem.

A 2011 Irish Times story exposed sexual harassment claims from African workers that said they had to bribe supervisors to stop them from unwanted advances.

Polman's efforts to address the sexual harassment claims were not universally accepted by NGOs. A 2014 report by the Netherlands-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations "claimed the existing system of checks and balances has failed to stop abuses of workers on Unilever's Kenyan estate, including sexual harassment and poor housing conditions."

And just this month, Unilever's South African business was accused of collusion with a competitor by the country's Competition Commission: fines of up to 10 percent of annual turnover could be levied as a result. Rot starts at the top.

Polman's focus on social matters distracted him from addressing core business challenges. In a Fortune magazine interview last month, Polman expressed more interest in supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals than Unilever's 2016 financial results.

Unsurprisingly, Unilever's business is suffering. The company's 2016 fourth-quarter sales reported in January 2017 grew 2.2 percent which was lower than analysts' expectations of 2.8 percent. Sales for the entire 2016 year were 3.7 percent below Wall Street's estimates of 3.9 percent.

Bloomberg's Andrea Felsted highlighted growth problems in Unilever's personal care unit, "which has been one of its top divisions, expanded at its slowest rate for two years."

Polman's biggest blunder by far was the recent rejection of a $143 billion takeover effort from Kraft Heinz. Unilever's stock jumped about 15 percent after the bid became public but fell 8 percent following the company's rejection of the takeover offer.

Unilever's decision perplexed Wall Street since the offer of $50 per share represented an 18 percent boost from its share price before the takeover bid and it would have resulted in valuing the company at 24 times 2016 earnings.

Perhaps Polman rejected the takeover offer because it could prevent him from using Unilever to advance his personal political agenda.

It's time for Unilever shareholders to mimic the anti-establishment trend and oust Polman as CEO and let him play politics on his own dime.
Tom Borelli Ph.D. is a former shareholder activist and business executive, and a contributor to Conservative Review.

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Unilever And The Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility

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The stunning election of Donald Trump as president and the surprising Brexit decision demonstrates citizens can disrupt the elite political establishment when it fails to represent the needs of the people. On a larger scale, it means politicians and governments can be held accountable for putting their self-serving goals before those that put them in power.

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Social Responsibility

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Kellogg Company | The Official Corporate Home Page of Kellogg's

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Learn more about the Kellogg Company brands, nutrition, company values, investor relations at the official corporate website.

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Spring Break hopeful

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Greetings from Rick Ferguson

Hello again from beautiful pleasant and dry Florida. Nothing like a warm winter for Florida knowing that a real hot summer is on its way. Already in March, while working in the yard, you can almost start to ferment in your clothes, taking away one’s bubbly personality. Just the other day while at the races in Daytona, our friend Sherry, got blistered from the sun, turning her pale white skin a blistering red. We finally chilled her down so she got back to room temperature. Great time at the races, my 2nd favorite hobby these days. This may sound a little corny, but that may be another hobby.